Ken and DJ entered the squat cement building and walked down the long central hall. Music was playing somewhere ahead. As they passed a doorway DJ stuck his head in to see who was there. On the right side of the room he could see Big Ben sitting at a workbench polishing his grenade launcher. On the left he saw Danny who waved him in.

“I've got something to show you.” Danny said, waving them over while taking a long drag on the cigarette in his mouth. He was wearing a leather apron and on his head, contrasting his short sandy blonde hair was a welding mask which he took off as DJ and Ken approached.

“This.” He picked something up and handed it to DJ. It was a metal ring about two feet in diameter. The ring was hollow and almost closed leaving about a half inch of an opening on one side. There were also thick metal spokes that ran through the middle.

“What is it?” DJ asked as he handed it to Ken for him to look over.

Danny spoke with the end of the cigarette just barely perched on the tip of his lips. “I designed it to shape a charge. It's solid aluminum see.” He took it back from Ken and banged it loudly against a random piece of nearby equipment. Walking past the two he took them to the corner of the room which had a large vault built into the wall. He reached down with his free hand and picked up a brick of C4 sitting there.

“Uh, should you be smoking around that stuff?” Ken asked nervously

“Sure man” Danny said, taking a long drag to finish the cigarette before putting it out directly on the C4. “Won't blow without a precharge. That's why we use detonators. Take a look.” He ripped the brick in half and shaped part of it into a circle against a large slab of concrete in a dolly. He then rolled it into the vault, stuck some wires into it and shut the door. “Fire in the hole.” He said as all 4 men in the room covered their ears.

Danny pressed a button, there was a loud boom and they could clearly see the explosion through the window in the door. Danny opened the door and wheeled out the slab. They could clearly see the scorch marks from the blast but the slab had little actual damage to it. He pulled another cigarette from his pocket and put it behind his ear as he talked. “See, the reason why it didn't do much damage is because it exploded in every direction so only a portion of the blast was actually aimed at the stone.

“That's what this is for.” He said, picking up the ring. He then proceeded to pack the remainder of the C4 into the ring and attach it to the slab so that the opening in the ring faced the stone. There were two small holes on top where he inserted wires into before he said “fire in the hole”. Ben covered his ears but the other two, expecting Danny to roll it back into the vault, never got the chance.

The two men winced at the loud boom and belatedly covered their ears. “Danny! What the hell?” DJ exclaimed, waving thick dust away from his face.

“Damn it Danny. How many times I gotta tell you. Don't blow up anything outside the vault? I was almost done too.” Ben complained while trying to get the dust off of the weapon he was working on.

Danny never looked over at DJ or Ben. His attention was fixed on the stone slab. “Sorry Ben. Cool though huh?” He asked DJ. “Check this out.” The ring had fallen to the floor next to the slab and Danny put his hand against the stone and pushed. A cylinder of the slab a foot long and as round as the ring popped out the back and fell to the floor.

“Wow” Ken said

“Yeah, notice we didn't take any of the blast. It all went into the stone. So I can make close quarters shaped charges for breaching or whatever you need.” Danny said before pulling the cigarette from behind his ear, putting it in his mouth and lighting it.

“Good job Danny.” DJ said as he and Ken made for the door. “Just try not to blow us all up.”

Danny followed them as far as the door and placed his hand on his chest saying “Not to worry gentlemen; for I am a professional.”

They could hear Ben inside respond to him. “Hey Mr. Professional. Get your ass back in here and clean up all this dust.”

After a few moments of walking Ken confided in DJ saying “I sometimes wonder if those things he smokes are just regular cigarettes or if they have stuff in them.”

“Danny's okay. He's just a bit eccentric.” DJ replied as they entered the office at the end of the hall. We need to find out what Neros is up to.”

“And what he's going to do next.” Ken completed for him. “You should call Rosa, let her play on the computer like she loves.

“I let all three of the girls go on vacation for a week or two.” DJ said

“This can't wait, we're on a deadline.”

“I know.” DJ breathed a sigh before pulling out his phone. He hit a speed dial and put the phone to his ear.

“Hello?” She asked. “Hey hey hey, shut up, it's DJ. ”

“Rosa I hate to do this, I know I let you girls go for vacation but I need you. Neros got off on a technicality and we have a month to get something more, something better.”

“I understand, we'll head down there tomorrow. Right now we're making tacos.” she said

“I only need you Rosa. For now, let the others relax.” DJ said

“Okay I'll see you tomorrow.”

“That was DJ.” Rosa said again

“What did he want?” Julia asked

“He wants me to head back in the morning. Apparently they need a bit more evidence to take down Neros and DJ wants me to help him find something. But, he said for you two to stay here and enjoy your vacation. He'll call if he needs you. Now give me that Sangria.” She said, pouring herself another glass.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Dela opened her mouth to say something right as Julia's phone began to ring.

“It's Aunt Gwen” she said before answering. “Hello?” She listened, said “ok” and hung up. “No Aunt Gwen tonight, her mystery man is headed for Pittsburgh and she's following, so I guess it's just the three of us.”

“Means more tacos to go round.” Rosa said, reaching for another tortilla.

****************

“The bitch has to die.” Neros said to the other three men in the small poorly lit room.

“Boss, don’t you think that's a little extreme? I mean, I know what they did, but were talking about killing a cop.” The largest in the room said

Neros calmly lit a cigar and took a deep pull on it before replying. “She’s not a cop, none of em were. they’re some kind of mercenary group. She is the only one of em that could testify against me. Even if they can’t get me for the warehouse the bitch could tag me for attempted rape, that would be enough to put me away. I can't take the risk, it just means we need to hit them fast and hard and get away without leaving a trail.”

Neros leaned to the side and faced the small man with the round glasses sitting there. “Andrew, her name is Julia. Find out everything you can, and quickly. Georgie.” he said turning to the big man “get a couple men and all the big guns we’ve got. He turned to the last man and said “Clive, I need you to boost some black SUVs, with a fully opening sunroof. do it cleanly, no prints, no gps, no tracing them, period. We’ll need three.” he waved his arms at the three saying “now go on get outta here and keep this quiet.”

**************************************************

The grappling hook thudded solidly into the concrete lip of the next roof over. The sound of its impact barely audible above the din of the traffic below. James gave it an experimental tug and found it stuck fast. He tied off the closer end and hooked his harness to the line. Taking a moment to savor the cool night air he paused for a moment before pulling down his mask and climbing up on the edge of the roof, swinging his legs over and dropping. He allowed the harness to take his weight. Hand over hand James propelled himself across the eighty feet to the next building, below him, a two hundred foot drop.

After reaching the building he grabbed the lip but before he could pull himself up a face appeared over the edge.

"Hey there. That's a cool rig but I'm afraid I am going to have to take it." Bobby Shoemaker said as he reached a hand down to help the hanging man up.

James's eye shot wide at the sight of the other man. He hesitated then raised his hand up; changing its direction at the last moment, he grabbed the release pin of the grappling hook and yanked.

Bobby saw it coming and grabbed James's wrist just as the man began to fall. Unfortunately for Bobby, he forgot to also grab the ledge. As James fell his weight caught the agent by surprise and pulled him over.

The two men fell, James attached to the line by his harness and Bobby clinging to James's arm for dear life. Reaching down, James caught Bobby's wrist and pulled him up into a more secure hug and wrapped his legs around the agent, freeing his own right arm in the process. The taught line swung them down straight towards the building James had originally started from. Ignoring Bobby's "Oh shit!" And thinking fast he grabbed Bobby's gun from its holster, flicked off the safety, estimated the window they would hit and began to fire.

He'd started firing before Bobby had even reacted to the theft of his weapon. James nearly unloaded the entire clip into the window. It didn't shatter but it had over a dozen holes in it. James gripped Bobby to him as tight as possible just before the impact. Bobby hit 1st, taking the brunt of the impact, their combined inertia blowing the window in. James let him go and Bobby slipped to the floor of the office, barely conscious. Grabbing a knife from his boot, James cut the line and fell to the floor before he would be dragged back out the window.

James looked over at Bobby and noticed blood on the floor. He crawled over a few feet to the man and began to look him over. There was a large shard of glass sticking out of the back of the man's thigh. Looking around the office he saw a green sweater hanging on the back of a desk chair, retrieving it, he tied it around Bobby's upper leg very tightly. Looking into the wounded man's face he said "If I pull out that shard you could bleed to death before help could arrive. Just hang on, you'll be fine."

"Why are you doing this?" Bobby gasped

"Doing what? Helping you? I'm saving your life, that's all. Or do you mean 'why am I here'?" James looked down, then away. "I'm no thief."

Bobby managed to bark a laugh and said "could have fooled me".

"Some things just happen a certain way sometimes. Whether we want them too or not." He looked back at Bobby and said "I'm not the one you should be investigating. Look at who owns these companies, that is the real prize."

Bobby was shocked at the anger in the man's eyes. Even with the mask, Bobby could see enough to know, enough to believe the man's conviction of the statement.

Before Bobby could ask him any more questions James's head snapped up and they both heard the elevator open. James reached out and grabbed the rope, pulled it in and tied it to his harness. He leaped out to the side of the broken window and climbed rapidly out of sight, a moment later the building security burst into the room.

Two floors up James hung by the rope and considered his options. He'd seen the earpiece in Bobby's ear and knew that everything that had happened would already be known to the rest of the FBI team. They would expect him to run, to try and get away. The last place they would think to look for him would be inside the vault of the place he came to steal from; and besides, the tech inside was tremendously important to his plans.

Settling on a decision he quickly climbed the five floors to the top of the building, reset the grappling hook and fired another shot. He was just as accurate as the first time, the hook slamming into the concrete lip only three inches to the side of the claw still embedded in the wall. He looped the new and old ropes together to create a belay. As he crossed they would both keep tight. It wouldn't be as fast but the 2nd rope wouldn't need to be tied off so it wouldn't give away his position.

He crossed as quickly as he could, but it felt like an eternity. Once across he pulled himself up, reached over the lip and grabbed the excess of the new rope, pulling it up onto the roof with him. He then leaned out and pulled the release to take the rest up. The new rope was secured and he released the old one. It fell and slapped into the other building. He quickly crouched as he saw a security guard lean out of the broken window, grab the rope and look up towards the roof then down towards the ground before disappearing back inside.

"Brave fellow that one." James said to himself as he made his way to the building's roof access. He used his knife to pry up the latch on the security panel. Once open, he put the knife away and reached into a pouch on his right thigh. From it he pulled a small circuit board with a jumper wire. He set the board into the security box and used the jumper wire to connect it to the panel inside. He pressed a button on the board and waited as multiple colored lights flashed intermittently.

The Iridal AI was hacking into the building's network and establishing a link with its mainframe using the panel as a backdoor into the system. The flashing stopped and three solid green lights told James that Iridal had done its work. He quickly closed the box and replaced the circuit board in its pouch. He opened the door and smiled when no alarm sounded. He went down several flights of stairs before leaving the stairwell. He made his way through several linked offices, the doors unlocking as he approached and locking again behind him as Iridal tracked his progress through the security cameras. Any guard watching them would see nothing as the feed they saw was now on a short loop.

He finally reached the vault. As he approached the door slid open. Inside was a single desk holding a computer. It overlooked a glass enclosure. This terminal was isolated from the network. He produced the circuit board again but plunged the jumper into a different spot. He pulled out a small portable storage drive and plugged both into the terminal's USB slots at the same time. Breathing a sigh of relief that no alarm went off he crossed over to the windowed enclosure.

Inside was a metal hoop with bundles of wires attached to it in several places, equally spaced out around the ring. James thought back to his discussion with Nick earlier that day in this very room.