Troubleshooter

Chapter 50 - Up and Down (Part 1)

RICHARDS CROSSED the street, dialing frantically for Paul.

"Hi, Lieutenant, everything okay with Amy?" asked Paul when he finally picked up.

"Where the fuck do you think you are going?" Richards shouted into the phone while she jogged across the street toward the Strom building. Businessmen stopped, turning their heads at the swearing, petite powerhouse.

"Home. My job is done, and my bosses iced me regarding the drone stuff. I was supposed to find—"

"Forget about the money, Trouble. Strom Defense's know-how is more important, national security, la-di-da, and all that. Consider yourself deputized. You are working for Father again."

"Richards, listen to me—"

"Amy is in the process of finding the real guy any second now. When she does, we will take him down here and now. The drone console plans are not allowed to leave the premises."

"I am not even armed."

"Kill him with your stapler or stab him with a pencil, you paper-pusher. Empty hands never stopped you before!"

"Such confidence!" Paul muttered.

"Where are you now?" Richards commanded.

"Thirtieth floor, packing my stuff after my futile attempts to talk some sense into my bosses."

"Find Tom. He has Amy in his ear and can guide you."

"Yes, Sir, Madam!" Paul said sarcastically.

Tom almost ran past Paul's meeting room, noticed something from the corner of his eye, and came back.

"Here you are! Amy, I have Paul with me now."

"Ask Amy who to look for?"

"She can hear you all right through my microphone." Tom listened for a second. "She is not there yet. She is following your theory that it was not Mr. Kendall but someone else. A few more minutes."

"To the elevator then." Both men ran to the bank of elevators. After ten seconds, a cage arrived, already filled with some early lunch-goers.

"We have to seal the building. Lieutenant Richards should be there as well, but we need to support her."

The elevator stopped some floors below, causing Tom to groan. "Not now, delay!"

His coworker David entered. "Hey, Tom, you look stressed. Anything wrong?"

"Hi, David. No, sorry, just in the middle of something urgent. Need to go down as quick as possible."

Paul was glancing at his watch and whispered to Tom, "Lunch rush starts any minute now and will flood the hall and elevator banks with people. It will be close to impossible to control."

"What can we do?" Tom asked, impatiently looking at the elevator floor numbers counting down.

"Position security on every exit. Stop people from leaving a long as we can," Paul whispered back to avoid alerting the other people in the cage.

The Asian Man couldn't believe what he was seeing. He cursed inwardly. First, Tom the intern and Paul the troublemaker were riding with him on the very same elevator in which he was making his getaway. Wasn't that the final ironic blast of coincidence? On top of that, he could overhear that both were in the process of sewing up the building. The Asian Man just had to hope he could use one of the secondary building exits in time. The garage or one of the delivery doors? He considered his options in the few seconds that he had available until the elevator reached the ground floor. Heads or tails? He did a mental flip of coin: delivery area exit!