Many thanks, Bee and Zeilfanaat! Hugs and appreciation, winging your way. Oops! Major homonym spelling error alert! If anyone's spotted it before this, my apologies...
14: Hard Time
Many years earlier-
One thing about prison, it surely distilled and clarified hate. Also gave a man the chance to meet skilled and talented, like-minded others. Drake Pleasance was a crook, pure and simple; handsome, charming and intelligent, with an air of sophistication about him that had quickly led to illicit affaires, expensive world travel and at least three bogus identities.
Once, he'd literally walked into a vacant office at Omega Petrochemical, slapped a few falsified documents on the wall and some photo-shopped images on the desk, and then lied his way into a $250 000 a year executive slot. They never caught him. Drake had simply grown bored and walked out. There was only one thing he'd valued enough to take from the firm (besides a whole lot of embezzled money) and that was his secretary, a brilliant and beautiful woman who liked the good things in life as much as Drake did. Later, she'd change her name to Marie. A bit later still, she married him.
2.5 million dollars he'd embezzled with Marie's help, and it was gone in less than a year. Well, a guy has to eat, right? And keep his wife entertained, go places and dress in the height of style. More money was needed, the fast and easy way.
Work, in Drake's opinion, was for those too stupid and lunkish to take what they wanted from the sea of check-drawing cattle around them. He regarded himself as a predator; swift, sure and ruthless… but not yet a killer. That would come later.
Certainly, the 6'2'', blonde, green-eyed looker could have conned his way into another corporation. Tracy Aerospace, say, though the old man had been quite friendly with Omega P's CEO, and might've remembered Drake from any number of corporate shindigs. That wasn't what kept Drake from trying the infiltration angle, though. Rather, it was just that he'd done it before, succeeded brilliantly, and didn't see any need to repeat himself. Been there, as the saying went, done that.
He decided, instead, to try something new. Having met another clever young grifter by the name of Doyle Carter, Drake caught the whim to try his hand at high-stakes burglary. Art, at first. Then safety deposit boxes and smallish bank vaults.
Doyle Carter was an engineer with a mischievous streak, loads of IQ and no work ethic, at all. Like Drake, he preferred to steal what others had earned. Better yet, he looked the part of the deep-thinking, serious scientist. Put the lanky brunet in a white lab coat and print up a falsified company badge, and you could stroll through just about any skunk works or R&D setup, anywhere, taking whatever you liked.
Just the way Marie… once Autumn Drew… hacked, Doyle could plan, construct and deploy. Not a bad team, when combined with Drake's gift for getting close to important people and earning their trust. Then Eldon Price joined up, adding muscle and lock-picking skills to their arsenal.
The group pulled a number of lightning-fast jobs, getting away with stupid money, making the Feds look like idiots. Drake was on top of the world with a big, fat cigar in his mouth, and everything he wanted on call.
Okay… so Eldon had a chemical habit, and Marie was moody, slamming the TV off whenever a certain astronaut came on. So Doyle skimmed a little off the top, now and then, setting up private accounts all over the world. Like he'd expected his pack of wolves to be stable and honest? So long as they got the job done and remained profitable, Drake Pleasance was willing to overlook a few flaws.
Then he caught wind of the Ozymandias Hoard; the largest single treasure find in history. Gold, gems, statues and tapestries. Rock crystal vases of such beauty and elegance that some called them hoaxes; too graceful and well-made to have been produced by mere 6th century humans. Gold-worked scrolls of ancient wisdom and crumbling books of lore. Shimmering armor for princes, delicate jewelry wrought for ladies steeped in roses and conquest.
The hoard was valued at over four billion dollars. Even better, its finders had agreed to send it abroad. The hoard was now touring the world, so that everyone might have a chance to witness the splendor of Ozymandias, king of kings. 'Look on My Works,' the tour had been subtitled... and brother, Drake planned to do just that.
Naturally, he could not simply sit on his hands and allow such a trove to slip past him unmolested. He had to nip in and steal something, even if only a coin or a two-handled cup. Even so little a piece as a gem from the royal breastplate. Just to say that he'd done it. More would be better, of course… but Pleasance was willing to settle for fame and bragging rights.
Carefully, Drake began thinking and planning. He consulted the hoard's touring schedule, looking for the optimal time and location to strike. San Francisco's Starlight Tower looked good, because the building was within do-able distance of another, less secure facility. He couldn't do it alone, though.
Drake talked it up, got his crew excited about the prospect of ancient, maybe-cursed gold. Still made him smile to recall how Marie had hacked the blueprints of both buildings, and how Doyle had slipped into a Tracy Aerospace testing facility and then walked off with an experimental laser drill. Eldon had acquired a maintenance uniform of the type used by mechanics in the Raymond Building. And Drake…?
Several months before the Ozymandias Hoard was due to arrive, he'd gotten a job at one of the Raymond Building's most prestigious law firms. Day in, day out, just like a good little corporate cog. It was boring as sin, but he had a goal, and this kept him going; kept him smiling at all the dumb sheep he was fixing to fleece.
When the time came at last, Drake, Marie, Doyle and Eldon had waited with heart-clutching thrill as the hoard arrived from Los Angeles on a specially armored plane, and then was transported to its pre-show holding facility. Five hours later, their plan swung into action.
Every operation has its hundreds of small, vital details; people who must be got out of the way or bought off… comm frequencies that had to be jammed and guards distracted. The drill needed to be packed in a large, innocuous-seeming crate and then brought to the Raymond Building's cellar by Eldon, dressed in his olive-green maintenance uniform. Drake had arranged to work late that evening, apparently sweating over a major corporate law case. And lovely Marie had hacked communications for both buildings, preventing any unwanted police calls.
The perfect plan… until, bit by bit, it began to go wrong. Whether he got cold feet or was planning a double-cross, Doyle rushed into the Raymond Building's musty cellar late. So late, in fact, that Eldon drew a gun on the man when he finally showed up, breathless and nervy.
"Put it away, Eldon," Drake had snapped, still dressed in his tailored executive garb. "I'm sure Doyle has a perfectly good explanation for nearly trashing six months of hard work!"
The engineer gulped and stammered, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.
"It's n- not what you think, Drake," he'd protested. "There were Tracy Aerospace auditors sniffing around! They somehow traced the drill to me…and I had to do some pretty fast dodging to get away from them, much less show up here in time. They had some blonde English shrew with them, and they tore up my second-best lab! All that equipment and money, gone!"
That news had rocked Pleasance to the heels. For a moment or two, anyhow. Then his natural confidence came flooding back. Looking around himself at grim, lovely Marie, muscular Eldon and fidgety Doyle… at the humming generators and computer screens of the basement machine room… Drake hooked his thumbs in his belt and grinned placidly.
"No worries," he'd assured them. "This job'll be done in less than two shakes, and we'll all be stinking, crazy rich. Rich enough to buy brand new identities that not even Jeff Tracy's best bloodhound can crack. Let's go, people. We've got a date with Ozymandias."
"I'd rather date you," someone murmured. Marie.
She rose on tiptoe to kiss him; lithe and lean as a cat, her dark hair brushing his cheek. Drake would never forget that kiss. It was the last he'd ever gotten from his wife. The last she would ever give.
Not that he'd known it, then. At that point, all he'd done was carelessly slap her rump and kiss back, saying,
"Eldon, get the drill ready. Doyle, it's your show. Find your spot, and start firing."
The drill was a big, sleek-looking thing, intended for use on Mars or the Moon. Drawing very little power, producing almost nothing in the way of fumes, the Mark-7 prototype was mounted upon a rolling base, making it mobile.
Drake had had to hand it to the brain-trust at TA… they knew how to deliver the goods and make it look space-age impressive. He'd definitely victimize that bunch, again.
"Thanks a million, Jeff!" he commented mockingly, bowing in the direction of the nearest Tracy Aerospace branch office. "You're a real pal."
Eldon had taken maybe three minutes to lever the drill out of its Styrofoam packing. He was a rock-hard gorilla of a man with flecked, swarthy skin and a solid dark bar of eyebrow crowding his mean, shifty eyes. Smelled a lot like the chemicals he depended on, too. Sort of sharpish and nose-wrinkling.
Doyle slipped past the big man once the drill was set up, and showed him where to place it according to Marie's downloaded blueprint.
"Right there, Behemoth," he smirked, pointing at a spot by the Raymond Building's massive old air compressor. "If we start blasting there, we'll arrive at the Hoard's security vault in thirty minutes."
Drake rubbed his manicured hands together and smiled at them all.
"I like it. I like the way this feels. I can smell money, folks; and a whole lot of furious cops. Let's do this!"
Eldon hooked up a power feed to the drill, using juice Marie re-routed for him from three buildings over. Then, handing masks out to Drake, Eldon and Marie, Doyle Carter donned his own set and started to drill. Brilliant blue light flashed forth, not just touching the wall, but destroying it.
At first, things seemed to go pretty smoothly. The cement, metal and stone separating the Raymond Building from Starlight Tower wasn't just shattered or melted; it was utterly vaporized, leaving only a slick grey tunnel and gritty fog as reminders. Slowly, a few feet at a time, they began to chew their way through.
The drill crackled and hissed like bacon on a very hot pan. It smelt like moist spackling compound, and trembled slightly beneath Doyle's hands. Drake followed, smiling slightly and breathing deep. He wanted to savor it all.
The only light in that tunnel of rock and sheared piping came from the drill itself; a bluish glow in which Doyle Carter's hunched form was silhouetted. Drake Pleasance kept walking, leaving Eldon and Marie behind to keep the drill's power flowing and to prevent any outside comm from disrupting their plans. Anyway, he still had the scent of Marie's perfume in his nostrils, and the feel of her warm, curvy body pressed against his. Those were enough to keep anyone going.
His first warning that something was wrong was a deep thumping noise, followed by the drill's sudden failure.
"What's going on?" he asked his engineer, who merely shrugged and looked irritated.
"I couldn't say, Drake. Not my department, except for this wretched bit of equipment. Why don't you…"
Then he'd heard and felt a series of long, shuddering explosions, like thunder underfoot. Startled, Drake Pleasance pivoted, meaning to dart back the way he'd come and check on Marie.
Next… Well, at that point, memory became very painful. Before shorting out (or being sabotaged by Tracy Aerospace), the drill had severed a critical power line, causing feedback that led to explosion and fire in the transformer rooms of both buildings.
Electrical power went down completely. Yet, no alarms rang and not one sprinkler cut on. They couldn't, for they'd been rendered incapable by the hacking activity of Marie Pleasance. Fire raged, weakening both buildings' concrete support pylons. Rumbling, dusty cave-ins sealed the drill tunnel and blocked escape from the cellar, trapping all four conspirators.
It took almost ten minutes for someone to realize that fire was rampaging in the lower stories of the Raymond Building and Starlight Tower. When they finally smelled smoke, about a dozen people used their cell phones to call the police. One, a cleaning lady, thought to call International Rescue.
Too late for Eldon and Marie. Drake could hear them, for several minutes after the cave-in, and that was another thing he'd never forget or forgive. Nearly too late for Drake Pleasance and Doyle Carter, who were smothered in smoke and half-roasted.
International Rescue evacuated the buildings, first, not hearing (or pretending not to hear) Drake's pleas for assistance. It had taken them fifteen minutes to reach the tunnel in that massive drilling machine of theirs!
Drake cursed them a thousand times over, knowing that Marie was beyond help, but hating the Thunderbirds, anyhow. Rather than blame himself, he pinned all that had happened on them.
Eventually, the laser-drilled tunnel began to grumble and shake, sending runnels of grit cascading onto Drake Pleasance and the unconscious Doyle. Then a huge metal corkscrew tore through the tunnel wall, dripping mud-flecked lubricant, steaming red-hot. The noise of its engine was incredibly loud in that tiny space. Smoke billowed, and an amplified voice called out,
"Attention! This is International Rescue. We're going to get you out of here in the Mole, but we've got to work quick, before the ceiling collapses. Try to move as far out of the way as you can, and stand by to be evacuated!"
Drake had a gun, of course, and a reason to use it. Figured in his heat-addled condition that he could shoot the emerging IR bastards, steal their drilling machine, and then break on through to the waiting Ozymandias Hoard.
He was still making plans when the Mole's drill broke further through, sending big chunks of concrete and rebar crunching onto the tunnel floor. Moments later, someone began to climb out. A tall, strong, helmeted figure, wearing some sort of blue spacesuit-thing. Calling mock-encouragement, the man started down.
"Hang on, mister! We're coming!"
Panting wildly, Drake hauled Doyle away from the falling detritus. Then he drew the pistol out of his once-fancy suit, using hands that shook with wrath and haste. Two shots split the grainy, unsettled air, but both missed their target, leaving the helmeted man still alive.
"What the hell…?" the IR man called out; losing his grip on the Mole's access ladder.
He dropped to the tunnel floor like a sack of stale turnips, and lay there, stunned windless by the impact. Drake could've finished the man, then. Meant too, in fact. Only the wretch had a partner, and this one was armed.
The second man slipped up on him, quiet as shadow and shade. Drake had the gun shot out of his hand before he'd hobbled more than a few yards toward the stunned rescuer. It had hurt… but not so badly as utter defeat. Not so much as the death of his trapped wife and the collapse of his wealth-dreams. As did hearing the blue-suited man say, while inspecting that shorted-out drill,
"What do you know about that? Looks like the 'item' didn't get very far. Interesting place to find it, though. Think they were after that treasure?"
His recovered companion paused in scooping up Drake, saying,
"Sure hope not… According to Chief Taylor, the Starlight Tower site's a decoy. The real Hoard's in safe keeping, until the show opens up. There's another victim over here, kiddo. Load him up, and let's go."
There was nowhere to run and no further harm he could do. Yet.
Choking on hate and bitterness, made a complete fool of, Drake had been "rescued", treated and then arrested. But jail gives a man time to think. It provides him ample leisure to nurse and revisit his woes, and to meet people like the hacker Fielding, who preferred to be known as Shr3ddr. It also put him in touch with an eerie, yellow-eyed man who claimed to belong to the Cell. But the real break came when a former mid-level Tracy Aerospace employee was locked up for manslaughter. That made all the difference, providing the edge he needed to hunt down and destroy an extremely dangerous foe.
Before he was through, Drake vowed, he'd have International Rescue burning and shattered like he'd been shattered. He'd take the people who mattered to them, as Marie and Eldon had been taken from him. He'd see them in hell, one at a time. All that he needed to do was get out