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Blake walked back to 201 Poplar. He needed to clear out his desk but wasn’t looking forward to facing Lenders. Blake knew how he himself would react if a member of his team jumped ship, and he was sure Lenders felt the same way.
The room Blake walked into went silent the second he was spotted. No one would make eye contact with him as he walked to his desk. Lenders’ door was closed and Blake could feel the icy vibrations coming from inside his former boss’s office.
He made short work of clearing what little he had from his desk, and with a box under his arm he headed out for the last time. At the door, Blake stopped and turned around. He wasn’t going to leave like that. He had spent most of his life in that room. “I just want to say,” he started, and paused a moment for their attention, “what a pleasure it has been to work here with such a great bunch of people. I hope nothing but the best for you all.”
As he turned to leave, one person started clapping, and then another, and soon the entire room was clapping and hollering, “Good luck, Cap!”
Blake left, planning to go home and get a start on his new job first thing the next morning. He took Union Avenue back to I-240 and headed south. Approaching the I-55/I-240 junction, he was thinking he could go straight onto 55, which would take him home, or he could follow I-240 around to the left and get off at Airways Boulevard. What to do? Go straight and home or go left to Airways? His hands turned the wheel, following I-240, and within a short distance, he took a right off the freeway onto Airways. Blake knew he’d never get to sleep that night if he didn’t see what he’d got himself mixed up in.
At the A.P.S. gate he drove up to, he handed the guard the card from June and showed him his new I.D. The guard had him pull to the curb inside the gate while he made a phone call for an escort.
Six minutes later a car stopped at the gate, drove out, and then came right back in. The driver waved at Blake to follow him. They drove toward a group of closely bunched buildings five or six stories high. The setting sun shone on the all-glass sides, making them look like beacons of light. The car Blake was following turned to the left toward some woods, forsaking the buildings ahead. They stopped in a parking lot with maybe 20 other cars. The lot was surrounded by grass, trees, and hedges.
A hundred feet up a slight rise was a single building, circular and smaller than the rectangular ones he had just seen – it looked to be three stories tall – but also made of glass and steel. The bottom and top levels were wrapped with mirrored windows – people could look out, but no one could look in. The middle section, however, was solid brick, which Blake thought was strange for an office building.
Blake stepped out of his Jeep as the driver of the other vehicle, a tall man wearing a polo shirt and jeans, came toward him. “Mr. Harris, I’m Chuck Ward. I’ll be your guide until you find your way around.”
“Thank you, Chuck, but it’s Captain Harris.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but there are no ranks in here. And I’m afraid I don’t work for you. You have yet to put together a team of your own, so I was asked to help you get settled in. But that’s all.”
Blake didn’t like it, but what the hell? He wasn’t really the captain of anything anymore. “Well, in that case, Chuck, how about you show me my new home.”
“I would be happy to, Mr. Harris – right this way.” Chuck led Blake along a curving path to the building’s main entrance, where a guard stood at his station.
Inside the door was a small holding area, about 6' by 6', which trapped them between the closed door, which had locked behind them, and three walls of very thick-looking glass, undoubtedly bulletproof. In the middle of the glass wall in front of them was a door through which first Chuck, and then Blake, stepped into a metal detector with a full-body scanner. From the scanner, each exited to the right, one at a time, into another enclosed area, this one with sensors to detect explosives.
After that, another door opened and Blake saw his first human beings other than Chuck since coming inside: a guard sitting at a chair behind a desk and two guards standing to either side. Behind them was one-way glass with gun ports. The seated guard asked Blake for his badge.
“You people take security to heart, don’t you?” Blake quipped.
Ignoring the quip, the guard handed the badge back to him. “Thank you, Mr. Harris. Have a nice day.”
Blake waited by the guard’s desk for Chuck to finish his checkpoint. He had never been inside a place as secure as the one he now found himself in. The ground floor of the building seemed to be devoted to nothing but building security.
Blake turned to look out through the building’s one-way exterior glass at a car that happened to be visible from where he stood. The thick glass muted and softened the light.
Inside, not far to his left, just beyond a waiting area with four chairs and a coffee station, stood two more guards posted at what looked like two elevators, beyond which the space curved out of sight to the left. It did feel safe, but scary at the same time.
“Sorry about that,” said Chuck, “but you’ll get used to it.”
They walked to the elevators, exchanged greetings with the guards, and stood with their backs close to a wall that must have backed onto the center of the building.
“Each of these two elevators has its own key card,” said Chuck, and he handed Blake a key card. “The elevator on the left is the one your key card operates. It goes only to the second floor, so only you and your people will be using it. To use this other elevator, you will need an escort. It goes only to the main offices on the third floor and to the basement.” Blake nodded.
“The building also has stairs, for emergencies,” Chuck said, gesturing to the left. “Around there. They’re supervised by guards, of course, and in an emergency, a guard would escort anyone on your floor down the stairs.”
Chuck indicated for Blake to insert his key card into the reader for the elevator on the left. Its door opened and they walked in and ascended one floor. When Blake stepped out on the second floor, he verified that, indeed, the shaft for the other elevator was just a bare wall.
From the elevator’s landing pad, they stepped onto a railed walkway about 5 feet wide, which Blake saw circled a well-lit, open column of space, which looked to him to be about 30 feet across. Above was a vertically paneled, domed skylight – maybe 16 panels – it was kind of awesome.
Blake noted that the third floor had no visible walkway – a solid circular wall of mirrored glass hid the floor from view.
The first floor, he saw, was similarly protected from view. In the center of the basement, at the base of the column of space, was a well-kept garden with tables and chairs.
Chuck seemed to be reading Blake’s mind, for he said, “Yes, that’s the break area. And the basement space around it houses A.P.S.’s mainframe security computers and information network.”
Blake nodded. “And this,” Blake said, sweeping a hand around at the doors he saw coming off the walkway, “is—”
“Yes,” Chuck said, “this is your team’s domain. Follow me.”
They walked to the second door to the left. “June said this should be your office; it’s the biggest one and has a private bathroom, although the office we just passed also has a private bathroom. They both have nice office furniture and filing cabinets.” He opened the door to Blake’s office and they walked in.
Blake smiled. June was all right, he was thinking. The office was about 15 feet deep, from the curved entry wall to the curved outer wall, with side walls radiating out, he guessed, from the geometrical center of the column of space. The only window, though – he was remembering the brick he had seen as they drove in – was the 6"-wide vertical one in his door. He looked into the bathroom.
“I like it,” Blake said.
Chuck gestured for Blake to follow him and they continued around the walkway to the left. “We’re actually passing another office right now, but its door is off the conference room, whose first door – there are two – we’re coming to now.” They entered.
A big electronic screen hung on the outside wall opposite the entrance, with a long table parallel to it and six or eight chairs arranged around the table so that everyone would have a view of the screen. On the table at one of the chairs was a computer monitor, keyboard, and mouse. A laser printer stood against the back wall to the right of the big screen.
Chuck’s eyes followed Blake’s as he looked through the door into the office to the left and around the big conference room. “There’s a small kitchen in the far corner,” said Chuck. “You can stock it with anything you want. A few things are already in there to get you started.” Blake nodded.
“And that door there?” Blake said, gesturing to the wall far right, by the kitchen.
“That’s the second office connected to the conference room. It’s specially equipped with computers and monitors for your IT guy. A.P.S. housed a division on this floor that has since moved overseas. We never moved their stuff out. But if you find you need anything or want to get rid of stuff, holler.”
They exited the conference room by its second entrance from the walkway and continued to the left. “The emergency stairs I mentioned are back there,” Chuck said, gesturing down a corridor on their left.
Chuck led on a few more steps to the next glass-paneled door. “Here’s another office, a bit smaller than the others, and no private bathroom, but it’s nice. And the unisex restroom is behind the elevator.” Chuck pointed. “You see that corridor to the left of where we got off?”
Blake nodded. “What’s this ahead, before you get to the corridor – the glass paneling just after the next door?”
“That’s another fairly large room, with a few small desks and chairs. You might or might not find a use for it. But it’s there.”
“It’s sure a lot more than what I’m used to,” said Blake. “The police captain had the only office at my last place.”
Chuck escorted Blake past the elevator, back to his office. “If you’ll wait here, Mrs. Warner will be joining you shortly. She wanted to be notified when you arrived.”
“Sure thing, Chuck, and thanks for the tour.”
Blake’s large desk sat in the middle of his office. He plopped down in the oversized chair behind it and kicked back with his feet on the corner of the desk enjoying the new-car feel of the furniture.
He was in that position when June walked in.
“Good, I see you’ve made yourself at home.”
“Oh! Hi, Mrs. Warner— Sorry, June. I was just thinking that this chair probably cost a month’s pay and it’s all mine.”
“It’s yours for a time anyway.” She walked to one of the chairs across from his desk. “Do you mind?”
“God no, please sit down.”
She smiled at him. “I figured you’d feel the need to come this afternoon instead of waiting until tomorrow.”
“This whole place is mind-blowing. I have no idea where to even start.”
She smiled some more and took on a motherly tone. “First, you need a hard-nosed second-in-command, someone who doesn’t take no for an answer. Then you’ll need someone who knows computers. I guess a profiler would come in handy also. And then you need an expert on the bodies of murder victims. If you need help finding these people, let Chuck know and he’ll get you a list.”
“You have this pretty planned out for coming up with it so quickly.”
“You’ll see that that’s the way I work.”
Blake leaned over his desk toward June. “I have to ask you, how are you holding up?”
“I’m doing okay. I catch myself crying at times, but now that I’m back at work that keeps me going. Being here, helping you, I feel like I’m doing something to catch my son’s killer.”
He leaned back in his chair. “Can I have anyone I want, or am I limited to a list you give me?”
“You name the person and, unless the person is a danger to our security system, they’ll be hired. You have someone in mind?”
“I busted a kid three months ago for hacking into our police system and deleting three tickets his girlfriend had gotten. I thought he would get a slap on the hand, but the Feds took over the case and threw the book at him – he got five years! They have him doing hard time in Huntsville. Can you get him out?”
June couldn’t help smiling again. She stood up and put out her hand. “I’m glad you’re here. We are going to do great things.” They shook hands. “Tell Chuck the information on the kid – we’ll have him here by the middle of September.”
Blake watched her walk back to the elevator and wondered where her office was. As nice as his office was, he could only guess at the office she was heading back to.
There was an intercom on his desk. It had four slots for names, but the only one registered now was Chuck’s. He pressed the button next to it.
“Yes sir, Mr. Harris. What can I do for you?”
| Copyright © 2019, 2020 by Ed Rogers |
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