Behind closed doors (first attempt)

Hey all, i would imagine you've seen me posting here and there on the forums, so don't take what i say to heart when you're reading my short story.

This is my first attempt at writing a short story orientated in the setting it's in, so any pointers would be sweet.

Word count; 1,339.

“Gentlemen, if you would take your seats we can get started” The chairman declared, the occupants of the room eyed one another warily before going ahead and taking seats, however one occupant other than the chairman did not sit.

“Mr. Anders, is there a problem?” The chairman asked, smooth undertones working to ease tension.

“I must declare that before we start, I am currently awaiting news as to an important business matter, and therefore my priorities lie elsewhere than on the matter we are discussing” Anders responded, and took a seat after a general affirmation from the board members, he got the impression that they were somewhat jealous of his boldness in the face of the top men in the business, judging from their coy smiles.

“Gentlemen, as you know over the past few years we have had something of a problem when it comes to corporate security – protestors have scaled our buildings, people have been showing up where they shouldn’t be.” The chairman opened, and all fell silent as he carried on outlining the discussion.

“This meeting is for the purposes of finding methods to stop this from happening – For god’s sake we’re lucky they weren’t terrorists looking for our weapon schematics” the chairman said, and noted the tension begin to thicken again.

“Those schematics are locked away in a safe on the top floor, it would take some serious hardware to even crack the thing open, nevertheless get away with it” a man sitting to the left of the chairman said, the Chairman nodded to him.

“It is true that conventionally, breaking into a safe is something that takes a pro – but people are getting more and more adventurous when it comes to these escapades, if you’ll turn your eyes to the projection you’ll see what I mean” the chairman said, stepping on a button embedded into the floor.
The assembled men turned in their seats to face the window, as a sheet of tinted glass slid down and a projection box appeared from the ceiling.
“Will this take long?” Anders asked, the Chairman shook his head.

“Only a few minutes Mr Anders” he said, and the projection was fired onto a sheet of material as it too slid down from the ceiling.

The projection showed a security tape of a man – Asian, muscular and carrying a large bag, entering a building via the main lobby, the man showed an ID badge to a security officer and he was passed through, the screen then flickered to show the man standing in an elevator.

“This fellow is one Ahmir Johnson, a man with some standing in the international community as an odd-job fellow” The Chairman said, the man who had bemoaned about the ridiculousness of attempting to crack a safe sneered at that, Anders noticed.

“Mr Johnson was recently found on the border of Pakistan and India, with data concerning nuclear materials” said the chairman.

“I thought Pakistan already had nukes?” Anders asked, puzzled.

“It does, but it also shares its borders with both Iran and Afghanistan, so you can imagine the hubbub that was created when an Indian Sergeant decided to look through Mr Johnson’s belongings.” The chairman explained, Anders made an ‘Ah’ expression.

“Mr Johnson’s method of stealing the schematics was adventurous, just like I was saying” the chairman continued, and the projection showed a picture of the main office of the CEO, as Ahmir Johnson walked into the room he walked over to the camera and literally yanked it from it’s place.

“Not very subtle, is he?” Commented a woman sitting next to Anders, drawing a grin from him.

“Not in the slightest – footage follows of what the room looked like after he left” the chairman said, and the projection came alive again with security footage of the room – the safe which had been hidden behind an archaic painting of some old ship was gone.

Gone, ripped out the wall – all that remained was a hole.

“That’s some serious hardware right there” The man who had commented on safe security said, the Chairman smiled.

“Sir, we have discovered that all it took to do this was a modified blow-torch, you can see where the plaster has been melted” The chairman motioned to parts of the hole.

“Even so, that thing must have weighed a ton, how on earth did he get it out of the building?” Anders asked, the Chairman tutted.

“With genius, sheer bloody genius, Mr Anders” He said, and kicked the button on the floor again, allowing sunlight to flood into the room.

“Did anyone spot it?” He asked.

“Yep” The woman said, and the assembled men turned to face her.

“Please explain, Ms” The chairman said, motioning for her to do so.

“The room was completely empty, and the glass was broken.” She said, and the others made ‘Ah’ expressions.

“You are correct, he used the materials available at the time to deal with the problem – we later discovered he used every single item of furniture in the room to literally drag the safe out of it’s position by attaching wire between the safe and the furniture, and throwing the furniture out the window, he proceeded to then attached a parachute to the safe.” The chairman explained, and Anders swore.

“Mr Anders, profanity is not welcome within the confines of this building” a man sitting directly opposite from the chairman said.

“My apologies, sir – I’m just amazed at the pluck this guy has” He replied, and several of the grins he had seen before on his arrival returned.

“Quite so, he himself then threw himself from the window, with two wires attached to the safe, and opened up his parachute” the chairman finished.

“We later figured out that he must’ve had people waiting for him, because it would have taken quite some horsepower to drag the safe at that distance, but once they had taken it from the building, Mr Johnson must have activated the parachute on the safe, allowing it to drift down gently onto the back of the pick-up truck the men used as an escape vehicle.” The man who had chastised Anders said, the assembly turned to face him.

“Didn’t our security get there in time?” a man asked.
“Mr Yushef, the man had disabled the elevator, so their men had to run up 50 flights of stairs to get to the office, Mr Yushef also must’ve done something with the gate security, because they couldn’t get the gate open in order to pursue them.” He replied, clearly irritated just by thinking about it.

“In short, this is as close to a perfect corporate theft as it comes, gentlemen – and this is what we have to defend ourselves against.” The chairman said.

“Well we could start by not having safes next to windows that are easily broken” the woman said, drawing smiles – everyone smiled when she talked, Anders noticed, perhaps her voice had some sort of effect on men.

“If not by air, by tunnel. They will find a way sooner or later, Ms Rosemary” the man who had explained the escape plan to them all said.

“Says you, the ex-thief” Ms Rosemary replied, and he laughed.

“You don’t get to be head of security for nothing, Ms.” He told her, and she smiled at him.

“Regardless, as of this moment we will no longer be operating as if our documents are safe – the vault we use for our weapon prototypes will be the temporary solution until we can afford a better method of security” the chairman said, and the assembled congregation confirmed their willingness for this to go ahead.

“Oh, It would seem Mr Anders’ business is calling” The chairman said as Anders’ pager went off, he nodded to the chairman.

“If you’ll excuse me” He said, leaving the room and heading for the elevator, and then he pulled out his phone.

“Hello? Yeah, they’ve got their heads in the sand, they’re just as stunned as we were” Anders said, and hung up.

Then he went to business.




edited: to make it readable.

[edit on 7-4-2008 by Throbber]