Frail heart

Espionage

Chapter five

"Alright! Alright, easy! Do you know how precious this thing is?" The man on the receiving end of the question steps back, holding his hands up in surrender as he's nudged to the side by the taller man in front of him, "Sorry, boss."

The man heaves a sigh, waving the younger boy off, "Yeah alright, don't sweat it." The rumble of the nearby machines come to a gradual still, the only sound being the crunch of boots on gravel as the group of workers form a circle around the prized object they'd been working tirelessly to find for the past gruelling 3 months. It was a covert operation, so only the men on site knew about it for safety purposes. It had never been explicitly outlined what exactly they could expect to find, but not many of the men involved really cared as they were only in it for the money, and they'd been promised quite a large sum.

It was common knowledge that they'd show up on radar at least a few times, the secrecy of it all tended to create a certain level of scepticism, but they had the paperwork and they weren't doing anything wrong, so they were essentially untouchable.

"Feast your eyes, boys. This...this is what we've been pulling our backs out for, and you better believe that it'll be worth it once you see what's inside." There was an air of impatience floating in the air, each pair of eyes drawn to the jagged object in the lead operator's hands. The rock was as bland as any you'd find on the side of the road, easily mistakeable as something insignificant, but the advanced technology surrounding the tent that had been set up in the middle of the mining ground said otherwise.

The man's hands shook subtly as he balanced the rock in the middle of the table, grabbing a hammer and chisel from a toolbox before aligning them with the grey stone. His arm stretched back as he went to swing the hammer into the chisel, only for the rock to not even budge, which elicited a few mocking laughs from his team as they irked him on. He squared his shoulders before gripping the hammer tighter in his right hand and swinging again. Nothing.

The process repeated like this for the next hour or so, each man taking their respective turns with the rock, and it was only when they were all slumped on the floor around the thing that they deduced that they weren't getting it open, at least not like this. The next move was to try the big machines, but to everyone's surprise, the equipment stood no chance against the unbreakable force, which was becoming an issue. The sun was quickly setting and the disruption caused by the machinery was likely to piss off the neighbouring houses, so an overnight mission was off the table.

"It's getting late, boss. Why don't we just come back to it tomorrow?"

"And where do you propose we keep it in the meantime? You know, a lot of people would kill to get their hands on this," the man spins the rock in his hand as he talks, pacing the room with a certain unease to him, "No, it has to stay here. I need you to round up the men willing to stay here tonight."

"I'm sure one of us could take it home, sir. I have this top of the level security sys-"

"You can't! You can't take it; you'll die if you take it!" Unbeknownst to the man, the growing volume of his voice had drawn in a small crowd outside his office door, the men now peering in with looks of shock on their faces.

"What do you mean he'll die? Are we in danger?" A man asks, voice laced with worry as his fellow workers all hum in agreement, waiting for a response from their superior.

The man in question looks around at all the expectant faces in the room briefly before pinching the bridge of his nose as he tries to think of an answer, "Not...explicitly, we just can't risk losing sight of this. The foundations of this operation is shaky as it is, I mean, do we even know who's giving us these orders?"