In Icarus' Shadow

by Matthew Jones

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Nadia stepped inside, careful not to trip over the unconscious man's body as she closed the door behind herself. A stereo pounded out some kind of bass-heavy rap music from the rear of the room; it wasn't to her taste, but it was helpful in masking the sound of their intrusion. Slipping the can of air freshener back into her purse, she grinned at Thomas, who had climbed in the back window to assist after confirming there was only one man inside. Looking down at the inert form of the unfortunate man, she smirked slightly as she recognized Pasta-Jacket.

  "You'll never believe who it is."

  Thomas smirked as well, even chuckling a little, but she had the feeling that it wasn't because of who was on the floor.

  She raised an eyebrow. "What?"

  Thomas cleared his throat, speaking in a falsetto voice. "You'll never believe who it is, Thomas, oh no, you'll just never guess."

  She blushed fiercely even as she slugged him gently in the arm; she had not realized she had still been speaking in her fake, breathy tone. Coughing once or twice to shake the unwanted accent, she gestured at the floor. "I'm being serious here, look."

  Thomas moved to stand beside her, studying the man on the floor with a shade of recognition. "Huh. You wouldn't think Burgess would leave this guy in charge of anything important, much less his office."

  "No kidding. It does sort of make me feel better about you having to knock him out, though, since we know he sort of deserved it. Still, it doesn't change anything. We've only got until he wakes up to search this place, so we had better get to it. I don't think he recognized either of us before you got him with the door and it's probably best nobody be able to prove it was us in here."

  "Agreed. So we're looking for anything to incriminate Burgess' employer, yeah?"

  "Or, failing that, something to get us into the I.D.I. building."

  "I was afraid you were going to say that," he groaned.

  They split up, Nadia going to Burgess' desk to start on the drawers, pulling an old pair of gloves on as she did. She didn't know if it would actually help with fingerprints or not, but she wasn't taking any chances. Thomas had had to make do with plastic wrap they had picked up from a local grocery store. Pulling the first drawer out, she began rifling through the contents as quickly as she could. She was honestly surprised by how neat Burgess had kept his things and she took special care to put things back just as she found them. Reaching the bottom drawer, she discovered it was locked.

  Frowning, she moved over to Pasta-Jacket's body and quickly rifled through his pockets. Her search turned up a few useless odds and ends, but otherwise only served to convince her that the man had personal hygiene issues to resolve. She stood with a sigh and moved to check on Thomas' progress in the adjoining bedroom. She saw he had made a quick check through the dresser, not getting too thorough so as not to disturb the clothes from their original configuration, and was now thumbing through the closet.

  He glanced toward her as she entered. "Any luck?"

  Nadia shook her head. "No. The bottom drawer of his desk is locked, I'm almost certain it's what we're after, but we're going to have to find the key if we want to get in without damaging something."

  "Swell. It could be anywhere. Heck, it might not be here at all, considering who was left to guard the place."

  "Trust me, I've thought of that. But wouldn't it make more sense for Burgess to keep a spare here? Everyone forgets something sometime and I bet someone with his temperament just wouldn't have the patience for that."

  Thomas thought that over for a moment. "You have a point. All right, so where would this spare key be?"

  She glanced around the room, her eyes coming to rest on the dresser. She felt a hunch coming on and moved to investigate. Checking the drawers one at a time, she found that the top drawer's contents were piled slightly lower than the others. Smiling to herself, she reached her hand inside, finding she had more than enough clearance for her hand and forearm. Sliding her hand along the top's underside, her fingers came into contact with something flat and slightly coarse. Picking at it as best she could with her gloved fingernail, she was able to loosen a corner of it. Pulling it away, she heard the sound of something unsticking from a flat surface and withdrew her hand; a key stuck to a strip of masking tape dangling from her gloved fingers.

  Holding up her trophy, she grinned triumphantly. "I believe we have a winner."

  Thomas gave her a soft round of applause, punctuated by the crinkling of his plastic wrap encased hands, smiling in spite of his best attempts at a straight face. "Bravo madame, bravo. A fine performance." He gave a slight bow, motioning for her to precede him back to the desk. "After you, Holmes."

  His own performance caused her to roll her eyes, but she grinned nevertheless. "It's elementary, my dear Watson."

  She felt just a little giddy as she moved to fit the key into the lock, almost giggling with excitement. Hearing it click open, she held her breath and pulled the drawer open with near-reverence. The contents, however, did not exactly meet her expectations; she had to admit, though, that anything short of a priceless work of art bearing incriminating notes on its theft would have done the same. Inside were a stack of fifty dollar bills held together by an elastic band, a handgun so polished it had to be new and a pile of neatly stacked papers.

  Being as careful as she could, Nadia lifted the corners of a few pages and scanned their contents. An involuntary sigh escaped her as she saw they were virtually all to do with Burgess' gang-related business; the few sheets that weren't seemed to be minutes taken during various meetings. But they had been printed from a computer and had not been signed, effectively denying them of any solid proof as to Burgess' involvement. She checked the more incriminating documents next, finding under the table shipping receipts, records of paychecks given out to Burgess' underlings and similar documents. She smiled wistfully at the big man's signature whenever she saw it, wishing the evidence would actually do her some good. It was dirt on Burgess, sure, but with I.D.I.'s lawyers behind him it would be a lengthy process to put him away; if they could win the court battle at all. Even if they did, without the millions of dollars in backing a corporation could provide she doubted very much they would be able to land Burgess in prison for any significant length of time. Worse, they had no legally justifiable reason for being in Burgess' office in the first place; it was unlikely they would even be allowed to use this information against him at all, short of blackmailing him with it. Considering Burgess' temperament, mounting a personal attack against him in such a manner seemed exceedingly unwise.

  She slumped onto the floor in frustration, but bumped her knee against the open drawer as she did; the hollow thud that resulted from the impact drew her attention better than the sharp pain it caused. Getting back onto her knees, she felt around inside carefully and found a shallow depression in the wood. Digging her fingers in, she pried the bottom of the drawer loose and revealed a small, but well-hidden compartment beneath it. Grinning up at Thomas, who gave her a speechless thumbs up, she pulled a folder from the tiny space and out into the open. Replacing the false bottom, she closed the drawer and brought the folder up onto the table so Thomas could see it as well.

  It was an unimpressive thing, with brown, faded paper and simple black lettering. Opening it, however, revealed far more interesting contents. Carefully printed documents were neatly stacked within. Photographs of what looked like the I.D.I. building were placed in a separate bundle, with notes written on their reverse side in a measured script. Handing Thomas the stack of note-ridden photographs to peruse, Nadia set to reading through the documents. A short silence followed as they each studied their materials, before Thomas grinned in apparent triumph.

  "Jackpot," he announced quietly.

  Nadia glanced to him, a hopeful smile spreading over her face. "What did you find? And don't you tease me, this is too important."

  He chuckled. "Business before pleasure, got it. What I have here are instructions detailing how one Mr. Tyr
one Burgess can exit and enter the Icarus Development Incorporated building without appearing on the security cameras."

  Nadia felt herself positively beaming. "So no one can prove he wasn't there and he can always have an alibi from the company. That's actually pretty clever. Well, what does it say?"

  He traced a plastic-wrapped finger along the words as he read. "Seems the camera at the back door pans back and forth, but there's a switch of some kind hidden out of its sight, both on the inside and outside. Just press it, and presto, it stays panned to one side for about thirty seconds."

  "Allowing Burgess to get inside without ever being noticed," she finished, slightly awestruck at the simplicity of it. "You would think someone would notice the camera stopping for an unusually long time, though, wouldn't you?"

  "Well, they're probably pretty careful about it, so I doubt anyone has had a reason to check the security tapes. Even if they did, they could probably pass it off as a glitch or mechanical failure."

  She nodded slowly. It made sense to her, anyway. Especially when you factored in the amount of money a large business could throw around to protect itself. Shaking herself out of analyzing the situation, she felt her excitement returning and gave her friend a quick hug before pulling away to resume grinning.

  "Either way, we've found what we needed to know with this."

  Thomas nodded. "That's certainly true. Do you think the police will be able to act on it, though? I mean... we're not really supposed to be here and I don't think they're allowed to sneak into corporate buildings just because they know where the blind spot is."

  She laughed quietly. "Oh silly, we're not turning this over to the police."

  He blinked, feeling an ominous suspicion beginning to form in the back of his mind. "We're not?"

  "Of course not! At best they would send us home because they can't use information like this. No Sir, we need to take care of this ourselves. We'll just make use of Mr. Burgess' back door."

  Thomas sighed, smiling weakly in resignation. "Somehow I knew you were going to say that."