As we looked around, however, the biggest problem presented itself before us. All we could see in our view were several rows of aisles containing endless vaults.
Instantly, I had the same feeling I experienced when I first saw Hangar 51 in Raiders of the Lost Ark. The military installation was a repository for secret items held by the government. There must have been a million crates and containers in there containing all manner of shit.
I remembered looking at it and feeling doom because you knew that once something ended up there it would never be found. That was how I felt now. Instead of the crates though, these were vaults.
All looked the same.
Each and every one of them.
“Well, this sucks,” Wes stated, seeing the problem. “How the hell are we supposed to know which one it’s in? Looks like there’s a million vaults down here.” He frowned.
Fuck.
He wasn’t kidding.
Thinking back to the space I’d seen on the map Wes got of the place, there was easily space for a few hundred vaults so Wes wasn’t wrong in his exaggeration.
“There’s no way we can look through all of them.” I sighed, looking down the aisles before us. The place actually looked like a damn maze.
“What else can we do? I can set up cameras, but what if no one comes down here?”
Damn, there was never a dull moment. There was always something to make each step of the way harder and harder.
Right from the fucking start of this mission there’d always been something to piss me off. Right from the point where I realized I’d actually have to go searching for the blueprints. We all thought the knights would be guarding it in some encasement and I’d be told where it was. Nothing like that happened. hence why we were here.
Now this fucked up shit.
How were we supposed to look through all the fucking vaults?
But… if we didn’t what else would we do?
“Fine… yeah we’ll have to do that.” I bit the inside of my lip. “Set the cameras up and hope for a lucky break. Maybe he’ll come down here. If not we’ll use them as surveillance.”
“Maybe we should just spend the rest of tonight setting up the cameras and motion sensors. That way we can see if Giovanni or anybody else comes down here,” Wes suggested.
If we happened to see Giovanni on camera down here going into a vault then that would obviously work to our advantage. But, since it looked like he might not come down here often we couldn’t just wait for that. Waiting could mean that he actually came to pick the blueprints up to move them or hand them over to The Chameleon. I couldn’t let that happen.
We’d gotten this far. Whatever we did, no matter what we did, or what happened, we had to keep moving.
“Yes. Let’s do that,” I agreed. “Then we can come back tomorrow night to start looking through the vaults.”
He nodded and looked on ahead. “Bro, I think we’re gonna need help. It’s going to take forever to look through this many vaults.”
We’d absolutely needed help. There was no way the two of us could look by ourselves.
“Ethan’s guys will have to chip in. More hands less work.” Ethan had six guys with him. The eight of us working together, putting our brains together, could make this go much quicker than just me and Wes looking.
“Agreed.”
I looked at the nearest vault, walked up to it and saw it had one of those high tech fingerprint recognition security panels.
I had an idea that would totally help us. I took out my kit and dusted for prints. Wes chuckled when he saw what I was doing.
“And hello hacker number one,” he said with admiration.
Nah, this wasn’t hacking. It went back to my grandiose skills in theft. I got the prints and lifted them with a sheet of cellophane.
I planned to make a mold of Giovanni’s fingerprints, then make something that replicated skin so we could use it to open the vaults.
“It’s mad skills.” I smiled.
Wes grinned back. “I love it. I’m gonna start putting the cameras up. Let’s do this bro.”
Yes, let’s.
I had my fingers crossed that we’d gotten as far as I’d hoped.
If the blueprints were here, I just had to find them.
Somehow, someway…
“I’m very surprised at the resilience you’re showing,” Giovanni commented.
He’d called me to his office, he wanted to speak to me, to catch up. That was what he called it.
I was scheduled a night off tonight but I could see the prick working overtime in thought.
I saw Jia earlier. We’d looked at each other. That was it, but I must have been really slipping up because I hadn’t seen Giovanni watching me, watching her.
“What sort of resilience?” I asked, pretending I didn’t know what he meant.
“Jia. I’m amazed you’re staying away.”
“Isn’t that what I was told to do?”
He steepled his fingers and stared at me.
“Yes, indeed… I have a job for you. Means you’ll be doing a late tonight.”
I had to try my utmost best not to protest.
Tonight was supposed to be my night off and I planned to go into the chamber with Wes and the team.
Giovanni’s stupid request couldn’t have come at a worst time. And, it was so obvious it only came because he thought me looking at his daughter earlier might mean I’d try to go to her house.
Mother fucker.
Biting back my fury I plastered a smile on my face and nodded, deciding to play nice. “Sure thing boss.”
The last thing I needed to do was allow the stress to get to me and beat the shit out of him for annoying the fuck out of me.
“It’s another shipment. I need you to accompany Frankie tonight to the warehouses.”
That meant Armand would probably be with Jia tonight. I took comfort in knowing when Frankie was watching her. This whole watching business had happened after the shootout at the casino. Giovanni basically had someone watching her all the time.
I hated knowing Armand would try to put his moves on her.
“No problem boss,” I told him. “Anything else boss?” This whole thing was growing tired to me, he could tell big time.
“Nothing,” he replied.
I stood and left him. He was watching me the whole time and continued as I went outside.
I gritted my teeth and made my way up to the coffeehouse. It was the one place in this joint where I could actually relax. It wasn’t as busy as everywhere else because people headed for the bar the same as they headed to the money.
The coffeehouse just had people like me who needed a break.
I grabbed a cappuccino and stood by the balcony looking over the city below. The coffeehouse was on the roof. It was a good thinking spot.
Last night when we got out of the chamber we decided that Ethan, Wes and the team would get started on looking through the vaults while I was here working my shifts.
They’d have to start tonight without me. Wes could take charge.
I’d set the mold for the print from last night so it would be ready for tonight.
Fuck. I wanted to be down there with them. Not working for Giovanni.
It was all shit, and not the only thing on my mind.
Jia was leaving for Europe with Armand in a handful of days.