“Don’t get too excited.”
“Ignore her, she’s loaded with negativity today,” shouts Amy from somewhere further away. “We’ll give you something. The model works fine.”
“It does not work fine,” says Jane. “You are an occluded optimist who forgets procedure and rules of science.”
I laugh, because Amy and Jane are the most perfect couple I have ever met. I mean, I know Jane, and I know how she was without Amy, and now, those two are just epic.
“I’ll let you two sort that out,” I say. “Give me a call when you know more.”
With that, we hang up, and I grin at my phone. I’d like to have a relationship like theirs, too. Unfortunately, I always attract the uncommitted, like Rachel; the highly volatile, like my last relationship, Anna, who I couldn’t leave alone and needed constant reassurance of love and attention; and the therapy-needing projects, like my first two relationships in my life, where I fell in love with a romanticized idea of them—at least that’s my $300 an hour my shrink tells me, who I saw exactly four times and then decided therapy is not my thing at all.
I don’t need therapy; what I need is to catch criminals who disobey rules and laws, which is why I dive into my work with all I have.
Suddenly, everything turns pitch black.
It takes just a second of darkness before the alarm blares and the emergency system runs on the generator. The entire floor looks down. I immediately draw my gun.
The line to the security front desk is dead.
I call the guard’s personal number with the phone in my hand.
“What’s happening?” I ask Mike when he answers. Mike is always on the night shift and has become a friend over the years.
“Blackout, followed by an elevator shaft breach,” says Mike.
“What floor?” I say.
“Can’t tell; vibrational alarm went off in E6. It is stuck between yours and the 24th. Everything else is dead, but the vibrational alarm systems run on a different circuit, together with the lockdown and emergency evacuation.”
My heart beats faster as I glance around. The elevators are a long way from our unit and, therefore, my office.
“I’m investigating,” I say.
“Wait for backup,” Mike says.
“I’m here now,” I say. “Backup will take ages with the building on lockdown. I am armed. Do you have any visuals?”
“Nothing, all breached.”
“So we’re talking professionals.”
“I believe so,” he says. I have eight men on their way. One is guarding the evidence hold.”
Evidence hold.
“Going there now,” I say and hang up. I don’t turn on my gun light. The exit signs and the light on the floor are enough for me to see what I need to see the moment my eyes have adjusted to the darkness. I walk slowly and silently towards the main corridor, listening closely.
But I hear nothing except my own heartbeat.
I move forward, pointing into every aisle and every box, but nothing. I am pretty sure whoever breached has one goal. The evidence holding storage. Why else would someone break into the FBI headquarters?
I pass the elevator. The doors are open, and a rope lies on the floor. The elevator is half-visible, stuck between the levels. I risk a glance into the shaft, with my gun light this time. The rope is attached to the elevator. So that’s how they got in and risked setting off the alarm. They had to get onto this floor before everything went into lockdown.
My breathing flattens as I walk past the elevator towards the holding storage.
Suddenly, I hear a commotion behind the door leading to the storage, and I retreat into an aisle.
A male scream.
