Manic Monday: (Dane Monday 1)

by Dennis Liggio

  Abby and Dane didn't waste time here and broke into an awkward run. Their unspoken agreement was that this would be a terrible place for the candle to exhaust itself. Magically appearing in the no man's land between police and the hotel that contained a possible terrorist would get them tackled or shot - possibly from both sides of the conflict.

  She only had a quick moment to look up at the Terminus Hotel. The building soared upward, the restored façade of the building shimmering with Avalon Brass in the sunlight. Terminus was written in an almost art deco font which hung over the doors.

  As they ran up the stairs, they realized the doors were their next problem. The newly renovated Terminus had mostly glass doors and just two revolving doors. Two guards peered out behind two of the glass doors, taking a long look at the police barrier outside. Dane realized they weren't going to be able to tailgate someone inside. Nobody was coming out and clearly nobody was coming in. Maybe in a few hours when the deadline was imminent there might be a huge police raid that rushed into the hotel, but not now. The government agencies were being careful. The last thing they wanted was a massive televised raid that ended up to be answering only the baseless threats of a crazy old man.

  There was no other option, they had to risk their invisibility. Dane banked on the revolving door. He dragged Abby into the revolving door and they scrunched together as they quickly pushed through it before spilling out on the other side. Dane had reasoned that the revolving door would be less suspicious than a regular door opening and closing. Maybe the wind could move a revolving door. That was plausible, he thought, right? Probably. Possibly.

  Probably not. As they exited the revolving door, Dane had to yank Abby to the side to stop from colliding into the massive bulk of a dark suited security professional cut from the same cloth as Kripp and Douglas. As Dane and Abby stood off to the side, trying to breathe as quietly as possible, the guard suspiciously watched the revolving door. He poked in the space between the doors, turned it, and then repeated it until he had confirmed that revolving door was truly empty. Then he watched it for a long moment as the door came to a rest. With a shrug, he returned to his post, allowing Dane and Abby to breathe again.

  The lobby of the hotel was clearly opulent as its reputation. Marble floors, Brass fixtures and stair railings, cushy chairs, and elaborate flower arrangements. A gentle symphony played out of cleverly hidden speakers. Abby had never been in the hotel as a guest or visitor (only as a hostage) and so was in awe of the inner chamber. The lobby was empty of all but security. Likely all occupants of the hotel had either fled or been turned out by Carmichael's people. There were quite a few large men in dark suits with ear pieces in the lobby. A few pieces of furniture were overturned as basic cover, but for the most part they weren't yet dug in for a SWAT or government assault. They were all clearly armed, however.

  Abby began to say something, either to ask where to go next or comment on the hotel, but Dane grabbed her wrist with his other hand, then put a finger over his mouth. They were getting too comfortable in their invisibility and thinking they were also inaudible would be their downfall. He gestured to the candle on the Hand of Glory, which had burned down to a tiny nub but was not yet sputtering out.

  They travelled up some fancy stairs to the elevator landing. They needed to get upstairs quickly, but had no idea where the floor-to-floor stairs were. Dane reached out a hand to press the elevator call button, but then tensed and let his hand fall uselessly. He and Abby shared a look. They both knew that if they pressed the button, all the guards would hear it. There would be no way to actually get in and use the elevator.

  "Think, think," whispered Dane to himself, which received a harsh look from Abby.

  She looked around and was comforted that nobody heard his whisper over the music. The guards were mostly having their own whispered conversations or staring nervously at the hotel doors. Abby noticed that they all straightened up just as she heard the sound of heels across the marble floor. A familiar figure walked across the lobby and now began climbing the stairs to the elevator. Abby began frantically tapping Dane's arm.

  "What?" he said in a raspy whisper, forgetting himself. Both their eyes went wide, but they had bigger concerns. Behind them, the heels were coming up the stairs. Dane finally turned to see a familiar face. The blonde woman who had escorted them through the hotel last time was coming up the stairs. She was dressed in a similar but different business suit than she wore yesterday.

  Dane was actually surprised that the woman was walking around alone. He expected she would have an entourage of two beefy linebacker guards. But perhaps since they considered the whole inside of the hotel safe, she didn't need guards. There were definitely not any invisible invaders in the hotel. Nothing to worry about.

  Since they were standing in front of the elevators, Dane pulled Abby to one side in a quick movement. Not expecting this, Abby lost her footing and began to fall. Dane grabbed her with his free hand, keeping her from falling to the ground and allowing her to stumble over to him, slightly hitting the wall.

  The woman seemed to narrow her eyes for a moment at the bare whisper of a sound, but after a moment of nothing else, she shrugged it off, much to Dane and Abby's relief. The woman pressed the elevator call button. There was a long pause as she waited for the elevator. Dane watched the display of what floor it was descending from. It appeared to be coming from floor 42.

  The elevator dinged, the doors opened, and the woman walked inside. She pressed a button and stood near the console. Abby began to sigh in relief that the woman would soon be out of the way. She had a sharp intake of breath as Dane yanked her into the elevator behind him. She narrowly avoided brushing past the woman as the doors closed behind her. Dane's foot stomped down slightly loudly as his shoes stopped him at the back to the elevator. Abby wanted to say, "Are you mad?" but it was Dane, so of course he was, and of course saying something would give them away.

  The woman turned to look at the back of the elevator. She had clearly heard something, but she saw nothing. Abby could confirm the woman didn't see anything, as the mirrored walls of the elevator showed only the woman standing alone, her head nervously turned.

  Despite that, the woman was nervous and kept turning her heard throughout the entire elevator ride. She had felt something when the others entered the elevator. Something was triggering her sense that she wasn't alone. Maybe it was pure intuition. Maybe Dane and Abby were giving off too much body heat for the cramped space and the woman could feel it. Maybe the Hand of Glory was giving off a scent that Dane and Abby did not smell.

  Abby tapped on Dane's shoulder insistently. When she had his attention, she pointed to the Hand of Glory. The candle was almost gone. The flame still burned, but it was beginning to sputter. The woman was now tense and looking around to know where the faint popping noise was coming from. Dane nodded but shrugged to indicate there wasn't anything they could do while in the elevator. Abby wondered if they would need to do something like take the woman hostage. She didn't think Dane was the hostage-taking type, but what were their options?

  The elevator slowed and stopped on the 42nd floor. There was a ding again and the door opened. With a sigh of relief, the woman stepped out of the elevator. But there was a quickness and tenseness in her step that Dane knew was trouble. This was further confirmed by the fact that she took off in a run down the hall. Dane heard her shout something sounded a lot like, "There's someone in the elevator!"

  "Not good," said Dane.

  "What do we do?" said Abby.

  The elevator had opened on a 3 way intersection. From the corridor directly facing the door, two dark suited guards appeared. They began running at the elevator.

  "Let's not get off at this floor," said Dane.

  "Agreed!"

  Dane pressed the button for floor 36. The button lit up, but the door had not started closing. The guards were running at full speed. Forced to wait, Dane could see the spit flung from one guard's open mouth as they ran toward the ele
vator, their breathing labored.

  "Press the door close button!" said Abby.

  Dane pressed the door close button, jamming the button hard and then pressing it continuously.

  "It's not doing anything!" said Dane.

  "Press it harder!"

  "I am!" said Dane.

  Finally the doors of the elevator began to close... slowly. The guards were still running down the hall at them, now dismayed to see the door closing. Dane didn't think the guards could see them yet, but they had been alerted to a possible intruder in the elevator, so they weren't letting it get away.

  Dane judged the speed of the doors closing vs the speed of the guards. "I think we just might get away!" he said. The doors were closing, slowly blocking off the hall and the running guards.

  "We've done it!" said Abby, when the door was only open two feet wide and the guards were still not at the door.

  Their hopes fell apart when a dark figure stepped from the side of the doors, having coming from the side corridor. A large arm shot forward into the elevator. Dane and Abby both stepped back to not be grabbed by the arm. But the elevator doors closed on the arm, then sensed an obstruction. They then slowly slid open again.

  Before the elevator doors stood a familiar figure. A massive man in a dark suit, it was the chief of security, Mr. Kripp. His chest heaved and he was unhappy. The two running guards slowed to a gasping stop behind him. Kripp scanned the empty elevator, looking for the problem and the source of the voices.

  The candle finally sputtered out, its popping a quiet death knell that sounded loud in the silence. Kripp cocked his head, looking for the source of the popping. In a moment, a strange tingling washed over Abby and Dane. They could now clearly see themselves in the elevator mirrors, and more importantly, Kripp and his men could see them. Kripp's face went from curious to angry.

  Dane simply smiled nervously and stretched his hand out to Kripp. Mustering as much of his typically manic confidence as he could, he said, "Hello, Mr. Kripp, if you recall, my name is Dane Monday! I believe Roger Carmichael is expecting me."

  Control Room

  Roger Carmichael was not expecting Dane.

  "He's persistent," said Carmichael as he sat in his massive throne-like chair. "He reminds me of Victor Sargosso. I hated Victor Sargosso."

  "We weren't sure if you wanted to question him," said Colette, the blonde woman Dane and Abby had followed into the elevator. Colette Prince was chairman of the Friends of the Terminus Hotel group and now Roger Carmichael's right hand woman. She looked over to where Kripp and another guard held Dane and Abby at the entrance to the room, out of earshot.

  "Again?" said Carmichael, his nose wrinkling. "I wanted him dead after the first time. I wasn't sure what he knew, but it seemed like he knew too much. Now I'm sure he knows too much about us."

  "I'll have Kripp's men take them downstairs and finish the job," said Colette.

  "We can't take them anywhere because of the police perimeter," said Gustav. He was the other person who carried the bandaged Carmichael from Avalon's Hope. Vice President of the friends group, he was third in power after Colette. He was dressed in a red silk shirt, Italian cut slacks, and loafers. "A gunshot anywhere near ground level is going to force their hand and make them raid us. Maybe any gunshot that they can hear at all." He looked at the expensive watch on his arm. "We're too close to Go Time to force their hand unintentionally, not when we have plenty to do first."

  "I guess we could take them down to one of the other floors and have them discreetly taken care of," said Colette. "I'll notify special housekeeping."

  "No!" said Carmichael forcefully, his eyes so wide they were threatening to pop out of their sockets. "Fools! Don't defile the hotel with blood! Everything must be perfect! A preemptive sacrifice could distort the energies!"

  Colette and Gustav rolled their eyes and then simply stared at Carmichael, waiting for him to calm down and tell them what he wanted. After years of idolizing Carmichael, having him back in the flesh was not what they expected. He was extremely willful, even when he didn't understand how things worked. He kept much of his plans to himself. Colette had wondered if the man had always been this way and what they had learned was skewed.

  In a few moments, Carmichael's mood calmed, his eyes relaxing, his jaw unclenching. He waved his hand dismissively. "Just put them with the other one. They shall be witnesses to the destruction of Avalon until we have time to deal with them directly."

  "Couldn't we lock them in a room somewhere?" said Gustav. "I don't like them being out here, especially with Kripp and his men seeming to be less effective than thought."

  Kripp gave Gustav a glare that made the shorter man take a step back. Kripp was the head of the contracted security for this strange operation, and he would be damned if one of the clients would insult him. But it was Colette who actually signed the check, so he held his tongue.

  "No, if they must be here, I want witnesses," said Carmichael. "I want to savor my success in the eyes of the unworthy. Who knows? Perhaps they will come around to our side when presented with an example of greatness."

  Gustav rolled his eyes but nodded. As he and Colette walked away, Gustav said quietly, "His recklessness and gloating are going to be the end of us, mark my words."

  "Great men are often known to be eccentric," said Colette, but she wasn't full convinced of her own words.

  "If I knew he was this eccentric, I wouldn't have voted for the plan."

  "Relax," said Colette. "We need him to activate the hotel. From there we can see how necessary he is."

  Gustav nodded and walked off to confirm the plans were continuing as necessary. Colette signaled Kripp with a head nod toward the wall with the other prisoner.

  "We've got our marching orders, let's go," said Kripp, as he and his other guard gave Dane and Abby a push. Kripp walked them to a side of the room. There was already a man in a light gray suit sitting on the floor. The man's eyes were alert and looked them up and down, but he was clearly a prisoner as well.

  "Sit," said Kripp. As Abby and Dane hunkered down, Kripp looked down at Dane's satchel, which Kripp wore over his own shoulder. He rolled his eyes and pulled off the satchel. "Take your useless crap. I'm sick of carrying it around." He tossed the satchel into Dane's lap. Then he and his fellow guard moved a safe distance away so they could keep an eye on the prisoners and still watch the main event.

  "That was lucky," said Abby, looking at the satchel.

  "Useless crap?" said Dane, his voice hurt. "Does he not know how useful this all - oh hello, who do we have here?" Dane's face burst into surprise as he turned to look at the man in the gray suit.

  Abby looked at the man as well and thought he looked familiar - premature gray hair, light blue eyes, and a squarish jaw. He had a look that said authority.

  "Special Agent Jameson!" said Dane with delight. He stuck out his hand. "I'm a huge, huge fan!"

  Jameson cocked his head and weakly returned the handshake. "Do I know you from somewhere?"

  "Oh, no. No. No no," said Dane. While Jameson knew the footprints of Dane's work from all the destruction, he did not yet suspect Dane or even know of Dane's existence. There was no reason for Dane to get on his radar.

  "We saw you on television yesterday," said Abby. It was technically true, but not why Dane knew Jameson.

  "Complete strangers," added Dane, but that just made Jameson's eyes narrow.

  "Why are you here, Agent Jameson?" asked Abby.

  "That man threatened to destroy the city," said Jameson, gesturing to Carmichael. "I'm a federal agent. Why wouldn't I be trying to stop him? Why are you here?"

  "I meant, why are you in here while all the other police and government agents are outside the hotel?" asked Abby, purposely ignoring Jameson's question.

  Jameson gave a wan smile. "Maybe it wasn't my best thought out idea. I didn't have a specific role in any of the other agency's plans and I thought they were being too cautious. So I decided I was going to infiltrate the
building. Maybe I could stop the bomb or whatever's in here before it goes off."

  "There's a bomb?" said Dane.

  "Maybe it's just a gas leak," said Abby under her breath.

  "I don't know if there is one for sure," said Jameson. "But what else could they be planning that could destroy the city? Either there's a nuclear device in this building or Carmichael is working with terrorist cells across the city in a coordinated attack. But we've found no evidence of any coordination between his group and anyone else."

  "Is it possible that they were so hidden that your agency just didn't know about the links between Carmichael and his allies around town?" asked Abby.

  Jameson shook his head. "Our intel is solid. The Friends of the Terminus Hotel are well-funded due to their richer members, but they have no criminal links besides an under-the-books security firm. We've known that they've been employing more armed security lately, which is why we've been paying attention to them. If we hadn't been already monitoring them, maybe they could have other links. But we've been looking too closely at them. They've only been stockpiling here at the hotel and the only movement of goods was to Avalon's Hope, and we all know how that went. Whatever is happening is happening here."

  "I'm rather impressed by your intel," said Dane.

  "I wouldn't have guessed a historic site's friends group would be planning an act of terrorism," said Abby.

  "Excuse me, but who are you two again?" said Jameson.

  "Dane Monday, pleased to meet you," said Dane, putting out his hand again. "This is Abby."

  "And you are...? Why are you here? You never answered my question," said Jameson.

  "I'm here because... Well, it's what I do," said Dane. "I fix stuff."

  "You're a handyman?"

  "No, I... uh. I fix problems," said Dane. "Ones like this." He waved his hand at Carmichael.