A Second Chance

by Edward Kendrick

  “Okay, let’s take a break,” Zach said. Getting up he went to the galley at the front of the cabin, returning with a tray holding wrapped sandwiches, a pot of coffee, and cups. “Not exactly Michelin four-star.”

  “No peanuts?” Hayley quipped.

  “Seems to me I saw some in there, if you’re really desperate,” Zach replied straight-faced as he set the tray down on one of the tables and then poured coffee for those who wanted it.

  “Naw, I’ll pass,” she said, taking one of the sandwiches.

  As they ate, Ben wondered if it would always be like this when he was sent off on a job. Maybe, when it’s all of us, and time is a factor. Otherwise, if it’s me and maybe one of the others, we probably take commercial flights, or drive. Not that he had a problem with that. He definitely hadn’t expected such luxury the first time out. But then, I didn’t expect to be thrown into a job so quickly, either. I hope to hell I can hold up my end.

  “Worried,” Ez asked, looking at Ben in question.

  “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t. I don’t want to screw up.”

  “You’ll be fine,” Zach assured him. “As soon as we know what we’re dealing with we’ll decide what each of us needs to do to rescue him and, with luck, deal with his kidnappers.”

  “How many?” Ben asked.

  “Two that we know of for certain. They grabbed him on his way to school. He managed to text his father about what was happening before they took his phone and used it to let the father know what he had to do to get his son back.”

  “Shit, he’s a kid? And why aren’t the police involved?”

  “He’s a senior at the local college, and I think you know why no police. It was the usual ‘Call the cops and he dies’ threat, which his father took very seriously. He’s not stupid, however. His company uses Vanguard when he or another of the executives needs a bodyguard. He called, told his contact the situation, and here we are.”

  “And we are ‘here,’” Hayley echoed, though meaning it differently than Zach, because the pilot’s voice had come over the intercom to tell them to fasten their seatbelts in preparation for landing.

  * * * *

  After loading all their gear into the rear of the SUV they’d be using for the duration, they got in and with Zach at the wheel drove into the city. He slowed down when they came to the block housing the storage facility. Ez used his phone to take shots of the building and the parking garage next door, as well as the other businesses on the street. Then Zach took them down the side street to the one behind the building, which took up half of the block.

  “The only way in, other than through the front, are by the doors from the loading dock at the side,” Ez commented when they’d returned to where they’d started they’re exterior recon.

  “You can bet they’re kept locked except when an employee opens them so a customer can bring in something big,” Ben said.

  “No doubt, unless there’s a security code that people renting units can use after hours.”

  “All right,” Zach said as they drove away, “I’ll drop you and Ben at the hotel, Ez, and then Hayley and I will see about renting a storage unit for…” He glanced at her.

  “The furniture my grandmother willed me. We don’t have anywhere to keep it at home, even if we wanted to, which we don’t. It’s butt-ugly.”

  Zach snorted. “That works.”

  When they got to the hotel, Ez went inside to book rooms for them. Then he returned to the SUV and he and Ben took the luggage and the two weapons cases from the rear, piling them onto one of the hotel’s luggage carts.

  As they wheeled it inside, Zach heard Ez ask Ben, “How are you doing?” and Ben’s terse reply, “If you mean my knee, it’s fine.” Zach hoped he was telling the truth.

  When he and Hayley were back at the storage facility, he drove into the parking garage next door, going up to the rooftop level.

  “You better hope it doesn’t hail,” Hayley said as she got out.

  “Look at the sky. Not one cloud. I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

  “Sez you.”

  Zach rolled his eyes as he walked to the edge overlooking the storage facility. “We’re not getting in there from up here,” he commented after studying it.

  “Not terribly surprising. People undoubtedly store items there that cost a fortune.”

  Zach brought up their website on his phone while they walked to the garage’s elevator. “It says here, the units are climate controlled for artwork, instruments, and wine, among other things, so I’d say that’s a yes.”

  “Probably a good thing for the poor kid the kidnappers are hiding in one of the units.”

  “We’ll find out,” Zach replied.

  “Ritzy,” Hayley murmured a few minutes later when they entered the building. The front room was carpeted, with comfortable looking chairs in the waiting area to their left, pictures on the walls, and a long counter to their right. One of the men seated behind it looked up from his computer, smiled, and asked, “May I help you?”

  “I hope so,” Zach replied. “My wife inherited a houseful of furniture from her grandmother. It’s, well to be honest, not at all our style, but it is valuable according to an antiques’ appraiser. Personally, I’d like to sell it but she—” he smiled ruefully at the man, “—said she’d kill me if I tried.”

  “It was my grandmother’s,” Hayley said. “It’s been in our family forever. I won’t see it sold to some stranger who doesn’t appreciate what they’re buying.”

  “I know, sweetheart.” He gave her a hug. “Anyway, what we need is a unit, or perhaps two, that are large enough to hold everything.”

  “I’m certain we can accommodate you.” The man tapped a few keys and then turned the monitor so that Zach could see it. “I would suggest something in the ten by twenty to ten by thirty range. Because people who want to store large items don’t want to access them on a regular basis, all the large units are on the fourth floor.”

  “Understandable,” Zach replied. “May we see one or two of them?”

  “Of course.” After the man told his companions he was going to show Zach and Hayley around, he came out from behind the counter. Crossing to a double-door at the back of the room, he punched in a code for the security box and held one door open. “When you rent a unit, you’ll be given the code. It’s the only one in the building that everyone has, other than for the exterior doors. As you’ll see when we get upstairs, each unit uses a fingerprint reader for access.”

  “Can it be keyed, I guess you could call it, for both me and my wife?” Zach asked.

  “If that’s what you want.”

  “What if there’s an emergency? Can your people override it?”

  “Each unit is not only climate controlled but fireproof as well. If the power were to go out we have back-up generators.”

  “That didn’t answer his question,” Hayley said tartly.

  “True. Yes, if there is a major emergency we have to ability to enter any of the units.”

  As they talked, the man led them to an elevator which took them to the fourth floor. From there, they went down a hallway with large roll-up doors on either side. When he came to one, he used the fingerprint reader to open it, saying, “Obviously once you rent an available unit my fingerprint will be deleted and yours added.”

  “I would hope so,” Hayley said under her breath, getting a brief grin from Zach in response.

  “What do you think, honey?” Zach asked when the door was up.

  “Maybe? It doesn’t look all that big but I’m not the best judge of space.”

  “Says the woman who manages to fit one more book onto a shelf.”

  “Well, yes, but…” She smiled, shrugged, then asked the man if there were ones that were larger. He closed the door and then took them down to another one situated two down from the corner, where the hallway met a shorter one to its left.

  “What about this one?” he asked after raising the door.

  “Wow. We
could hold a dinner party in here,” Hayley exclaimed.

  Zach looked at the man over the top of her head, mouthing, “She’s right. No concept of space.” Aloud, he said, “This one will probably do.”

  “If you don’t mind my asking,” Hayley said, “what happens if, God forbid, the door came down while we’re inside and locks us in?”

  The man pointed to a pad by the door. “This is a fail-safe. Press the button and the door will open.”

  “Whew. I’m sort of claustrophobic so that’s good to know.”

  Zach gave her a hug while asking, “How much to rent this?”

  “By the month or for a year?” the man replied. “It’s less expensive if you sign a contract for the year.”

  “I think, let’s start with one month. We want to know we can fit everything in, before committing for longer, or adding a second unit.”

  They returned to the front office where Zach filled out the forms needed for them to rent number 426. After paying, using a credit card in the name of Thomas Young, and showing the man the matching ID, they returned to the unit. There, his and Hayley’s fingerprints were programmed into the reader after the ones for the people who worked for the business were removed. Downstairs again, the man told them the security codes for the door from the office into the rest of the building, and the one for the front door and side door, for after-hours entrance.

  “They will unlock the doors, as well as turn off the security on them, he explained.” He handed Zach the plan for the fourth floor, marking his unit with a red X. “It might seem childish,” he admitted wryly, “but after the tenth time of a customer forgetting where their unit was, despite them being laid out in numerical order, we’ve made it a policy to do this.”

  “People,” Zach replied with a laugh as he folded the map and put it in his pocket.

  With everything completed, Zach and Hayley went on to the hotel after he called Ez to find out their room numbers.

  * * * *

  While Zach and Hayley were at the storage facility, Ben unpacked, which meant putting away the few things he’d brought with him. Then he went down to Ez’s room as Ez had said he wanted to show him the weapons the team had brought with them.

  “That’s quite a selection,” Ben commented as he checked out what was in one of the two cases that had been part of the team’s luggage.

  “We try to cover every contingency. We do have our own, as well as these, of course. The ones we favor. Do you have a preferred rifle or pistol?”

  “I do.” Ben took out a rifle, which was broken down in its carrying case, and a semi-automatic pistol, setting them on the desk.

  “That’s it?”

  “Yes,” Ben replied shortly.

  “Interesting choices, but to each their own.”

  “You have to realize it’s been a while since I shot anything, other than when Zach took me out to the shooting range. I figure I should go with what I’m most familiar with.”

  Ez nodded. “Which brings up the next point. You were very close-mouthed when I asked you to tell us something about yourself. I gather it has something to do with why you’re lame. You wouldn’t have been on the police force if that had happened prior to you wanting to join.”

  “True.” Ban crossed to the window, pressing his hands against it to stare up at the cloudless sky.

  “Don’t close down on me,” Ez said. “If we’re going to work together I need to find out if what happened was because you did something stupid so I’ll know what to watch out for.”

  “Yeah, something very stupid,” Ben replied quietly. “I found out my partner was working for a drug dealer and tried to arrest both of them, without waiting for my back-up to show up. My partner didn’t take kindly to the idea, killed the dealer, and tried to kill me. Instead, he hit my knee which took me out of the picture.”

  “Kneecapped. That shit hurts, or so they say.”

  “Beyond hurts,” Ben said, turning to look at him. “Why didn’t he take another shot to finish the job you ask? He would have if my back-up hadn’t arrived right then. Problem was, he didn’t see the whole thing. By the time I was in any shape to answer questions my fucking partner had told his version of the story. It was my word against his and the fucking IA investigators believed him.”

  “A little bitter?” Ez asked, leaning back against the desk, his arms crossed.

  “What the hell do you think?”

  “First off, before you ask, I’m sure you were telling the truth, otherwise Durand wouldn’t have recruited you. Second, you must be hell on wheels with guns or he wouldn’t have put you with us. Third and this is a question, why did you end up homeless?”

  “I started drinking heavily, my wife, ex now, objected, walked out and divorced me, leaving me with nothing but the shirt on my back and my car. I think you can figure out the rest.”

  “I can. Women…” Ez shook his head.

  “You’re divorced, too?”

  “Nope. Saw it happen to my father, although he didn’t run and hide.”

  Ben glared at him. “That’s not what I did, damn it.”

  “I’ll take your word for it. Are you going to be able to hold up your end if things get hairy?”

  “If you mean will my knee impact what I’ll have to do, in all honesty I don’t think so unless it involves running or climbing. It’s been over a year and I’ve learned what to do, how to move, to minimize the pain. I already let Durand and Zach know. If running is necessary, I can handle it, but—” Ben grinned for a second, “—I might end up with a hole in my lip from biting down on it while I do.”

  “Before that happens, let us know. We’re a team, one of us will help.”

  “I know. I’ll try. I can be damned stubborn about asking for help.”

  “Don’t be. You’re no good to us if you’re dead.”

  “No shit.” Ben crossed the room to sit on the sofa across from the desk. “I have a question. If it’s none of my business say so. You and Hayley worked for her father, and quit to join Vanguard at the same time, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Are the two of you…together as more than that?”

  “No. Not that I haven’t tried, but so far she’s resisted. She says it wouldn’t be a good idea. Why do you want to know? Don’t tell me you’re interested in her already.”

  “Nope. Not my thing. I just wanted to know which way the wind blew. I guess that means she’s not with Zach, either.”

  Ez snorted out a laugh. “If I’m reading things right from what you said, you’re not into women. That’s weird since you were married.”

  “One of convenience for both of us.” He told Ez why.

  “Okay, makes a strange kind of sense. Anyway, the reason I laughed is because, to paraphrase you, women aren’t Zach’s thing, either.”

  “Fuck, are you kidding?”

  “Nope. Don’t get any ideas, though. As far as I know, and I’ve worked with him for a while so I think I would, he doesn’t act on it.”

  “That will make two of us,” Ben replied dryly. “I presume Durand knows.”

  “Oh yeah. Does he know about you?”

  “Yep.” Ben chuckled. “I doubt there’s anything about me he doesn’t know at this point.”

  “The same for all of us. He wouldn’t run Vanguard as well as he does if he didn’t. Him and Noreen. Have you met her?”

  “No. From what he said, she’s his, and I quote, good right arm.”

  “Definitely. He’d be lost without her, which he tells her on a daily basis from what I’ve heard. But then, she feels the same about him.”

  There was a rap on the door, which had Ben instinctively reaching for the gun he wasn’t carrying.

  “Undercover training kicking in?” Ez asked as he peered through the peephole to see who was there.

  “Yeah, I guess,” Ben admitted.

  Ez unlocked and opened the door to let Zach and Hayley in, asking, “How did it go.”

  “Geesh, give us a minute,” Hayley
replied, going to the icebox under the counter to see if there was anything to drink. She took out a bottle of juice, cocking her head in question to the others. Zach asked for water while the others shook their heads. She tossed him a bottle, opened hers, and took a long drink.

  Zack settled on the other end of the sofa from Ben, and Hayley sat on one of the beds. “The security is primo,” Zach said. “Fingerprint readers on every unit, security boxes that need codes to let anyone into the building and past the reception area. I’ve got them, and we’re now proud renters of a unit on the same floor where the kidnappers are supposedly holding their victim.”

  “How do we find out which unit it is?” Ez asked.

  “Parabolic microphone,” Ben said at the same time that Zach replied “This,” taking a small box from the second gun case, which Ez hadn’t opened when he was showing Ben the available weaponry.

  “Shit, I’m dumb,” Ez muttered.

  Hayley grinned. “No comment.”

  The box held a listening sensor that would allow the user to hear through walls, doors, or windows. “It’s sensitive enough to pick up anything, words, movements, even breathing,” Zach said, handing it to Ben. “And a hell of a lot smaller than any parabolic.”

  “Nice,” Ben remarked after examining it. “I’ve heard about these but never had the chance to use one.”

  “Beats the hell out of a glass against the door,” Hayley said, winking.

  “Okay, so we locate him. How do we get him out if it takes a fingerprint to open the door?” Ben asked. “I’m sure we can’t break in without setting off all sorts of alarms. Besides which, I’d bet my bottom dollar one of the kidnappers is in there with him.”

  “Let’s hope so,” Zach replied. “That would make it a whole lot easier. We cause a diversion, the kidnapper opens the door to see what’s going on, and we take him out.”

  “It will have to happen late tonight,” Ez said. “After the employees have left and hopefully when no one’s in the building accessing their unit.”

  “We’ll start surveillance at nine,” Zach replied. “You and Hayley on the front of the building, me and Ben at the side with the loading dock.”