Story 04 – Part 2 – Broken Elevator

“Space case genius strikes again,” Agent Driver bragged.

“A parking garage elevator,” Vire said for the tenth time. “I don’t even want to know how you came up with this idea Dev, but it’s ingenious.”

Everyone was crowded around, watching the monitor. Tech had hacked into the elevator security camera of a nine level parking garage. There were several elevators running, but with Tech in control, their target was going to get on the same elevator as Jordan. Jordan and Carmine had actually spent an hour running around downtown before Tech was able to figure out that the target used a particular parking garage after Dev had suggested breaking down an elevator.

The target preferred to park on the eighth floor, so Jordan was sitting in an elevator on the ninth floor. Carmine was waiting near the fifth floor for the elevator. The target parked his car, and soon joined Jordan in the elevator. The two men ignored each other and went to opposite corners of the elevator. When it reached the fifth floor, Carmine rushed in and anxiously jammed the button.

“Wow,” Dev said as he watched Carmine drum his fingers on wall. “If I didn’t know any better I’d say he was in a hurry. What is he pretending to be again?”

“My boyfriend,” Vire said with a straight face. Then she started laughing as everyone looked at her. “He’s pretending to be in a rush to meet his girlfriend and if he actually makes a phone call, it will be to me.”

The conversation paused as Tech jammed the elevator. The three men in the elevator waited, possibly for the door to open. When nothing happened, Carmine started jamming the buttons. After a while, all three were trying to figure out why the elevator was not moving when Jordan finally pushed the emergency button. Tech quickly rerouted the call and Owens picked it up.

“Security.”

“The elevator isn’t working,” Jordan said in a monotonic voice.

“I’ll contact maintenance for you sir.”

“I’m in it,” Jordan said. “How long will it take?”

“It shouldn’t be long, sir,” Owens drawled. “Twenty to thirty minutes ‘cause it’s looking like the system is fried. I’ll let you know if it’ll take any longer.”

“Longer?” Carmine squeaked as Owens hung up. “Hey wait, come back. I need to be out of here in five minutes. I’m not joking. I’m supposed to be there in twenty minutes. My girlfriend will kill me.”

Carmine started dialing on his cell phone, all the while babbling about his psycho girlfriend. It was probably the most Agent Driver had ever heard Carmine say at one time. He had this great story of being a timid guy who was ruled by his girlfriend. In fact, his pretend girlfriend was an absolute loony with a crazy father. The amazing thing was that Carmine pulled it off as being completely believable. Dev was so entertained that he found his mind was hardly wandering.

“She’s not answering,” Carmine stammered while Vire just let her phone ring. “I’m supposed to meet her and her dad for dinner and I am so dead. Her dad loves ice fishing and she told him that I do too. I know nothing about ice fishing. She didn’t give me any warning. I’m going to look like an idiot and she’ll kill me.”

“What’s there to know about ice fishing?” Jordan asked. “You stick a fishing pole into a hole.”

“It’s a more difficult sport than you think,” the target said. “I was actually ice fishing a few days ago.”

“You have got to be kidding me,” Dev said loudly. “Ice fishing?”

The target started giving Carmine some tips as to what he could do to sound like an ice fisher. Jordan started joining the conversation as a skeptic. Agent Driver kept staring at the security camera feed. He knew Regg would be taking notes on what was actually being said. Dev found himself trying to pull out small details from the elevator that would have clued Carmine into ice fishing.

“How did your brother know to talk about ice fishing of all things?” Dev demanded.

Vire opened her mouth and then paused. Finally she shrugged. “He’s been able to do that for as long as I’ve known him.”