Highway to the Danger Zone -- Chapter Fourteen
Diamond Relieved
Squall waited nervously, the girl on the desk was still talking, luckily she seemed to be one of those people that found talking easy, and liked filling the silence. Squall nodded along with her words, agreeing whenever she paused, but his attention was all on the earpiece, and it's worrying silence.
"Would you excuse me for a moment," Squall said thinking fast. "I need to use the bathroom."
The girl stopped talking and switched back into helpdesk mode. She pointed him in the right direction and then returned to her work.
Meanwhile Quistis' computer was freezing on her, the combination decoder was spinning the same numbers over and over. Desperately she tried all sorts of key combinations until she seriously considered pulling the plug out the socket, and starting again.
Her phone was ringing on the desk beside her, reminding her with every shrill bleep that her friends were depending upon her. Quistis didn't answer them, she had nothing to tell them, nothing that they wouldn't have already guessed. It wasn't until Squall's name flashed up on the front of the phone screen that she answered.
Once she saw his name she knew their plans were all failing, he was supposed to be at the desk now, he shouldn't have time to call her.
"What the hell is going on?" Squall asked over the loud speaker, he could hear Quistis tapping away on the keyboard.
"Squall, I'll sort it OK, the computer froze, it's never happened before, but I'll sort it."
Squall paced the floor, thinking hard.
"Just restart it, begin again!"
"I can't, it'll take ages…" Qusitis said, but knowing that if something didn't happen soon she would have to restart, or call the whole thing off.
Nothing happened, the numbers kept spinning the same, holding her breath, Quistis hit restart. Suddenly everything went blank, then the program came back to life.
"What's going on?" Squall asked again. "I can't stall any longer."
Qusitis shook her head, she had no idea, it should have gone back to the beginning, and yet the computer had remembered all the previous entries.
Quistis smiled.
"Someone up there must like us Squall, because the code is 07835."
"Contact everyone, tell them I'm continuing," Squall said before hanging up.
He checked his watch, they could still make it, if they hurried. He walked down the corridor with purpose, past the woman on the desk who gave him a bright smile, and punched the number into the door keypad.
Squall shut the door behind him and heard Quistis speaking in his ear again.
"Selphie, execute plan," Quistis said, and Squall heard a scratching noise above him, as Selphie started moving. "Squall the next combination is 7724, that will open the safe."
With Selphie up in the ceiling, they had decided that that was the fastest way of getting into the room holding the diamond, rather than Squall being in the building all by himself. There was more chance of causing distractions and getting away with two, if it all happened to go wrong.
Before Squall knew it, Quistis was speaking again, telling them all in an excited voice that Selphie had the diamond, and that they needed to get out as quick as possible. Squall didn't know how Selphie had managed to climb down out of the ceiling, and then back again in such a quick time, but he couldn't stay to wonder. Back out into the corridor, he handed a form to the woman on the desk.
"Yes, everything is working fine, thank you for your time."
The woman smiled, looked at the form and then nodded. Squall didn't stay to be polite, but walked to the lift with his heart hammering. Was it possible that they had actually pulled off this plan? It seemed that they had been thinking about it forever, it had always been a dream, until now.
As the lift doors closed, and Squall began the journey back down the many floors, the hatch on the top of the lift opened and Selphie climbed down to meet him.
"Hey there, how's it going?" Selphie asked grinning, her face was glowing with excitement, and she was hopping from foot to foot, unable to keep still.
They stopped at floor five, it wasn't chosen at random, they knew the meeting in room four wouldn't begin for another hour, and that it would be empty. Leaving the safety of the lift, they hurried to the room and waited.
Zell was watching with his binoculars, as soon as he saw Squall and Selphie, he dropped them to the floor and reached for one of Selphie's inventions. Pointing the gun towards room four, he shot a wire towards them.
The wire shot through the open window and lodged itself in the wooden desk at the back of the room. Tying the wire tight, Selphie attached the diamond to the wire, and sent it zooming out of the Karter building and towards Zell.
"Well, I was the richest woman here for a while, not anymore," Selphie said watching the precious item sliding down the zip-wire.
"As soon as Cid sees it, you'll be richer than ever," Squall said.
They were in no hurry now, they had given away the evidence, there was little that could be pinned upon them if they were caught now.
Quistis had scrambled the cameras, so that when the police replayed their tapes, all they would see would be blank screens. The only person who had seen them properly was the girl on the desk upstairs, but Squall was prepared to take the chance of being caught, he already had a story to tell the police if that happened.
They saw a silver car pull up outside the opposite building, and watched Zell climb in. The diamond was on it's way to Cid, Quistis would take Zell back to the plane, Irvine would be there already, that left just Squall and Selphie.
"Well, nothing to see here anymore," Selphie said putting her hands in her pockets and shrugging. "I guess we should go."
Squall nodded, following Selphie out of the room, and then out of the building, where the biggest robbery in history had just taken place.
They began their walk to where the motorbike was stationed, knowing that in ten minutes the security would start making their checks, and the robbery would be discovered.
"Selphie, wait," Squall said. "I want you to take the bike, I've got somewhere I need to be."
"What? I thought we were leaving?"
"You take the bike," Squall said again.
"No, you take it, I'll get a taxi to the station, I'll take a train," Selphie insisted, she began walking before Squall could protest.
She waved to him through the window of the taxi, and before Squall could return it, she was gone.
They were all heading in different directions, and they didn't know whether they would ever see each other again. The manhunt for them would be huge at first, but as the years went by, their lives might become normal again.
He hadn't told anyone what was on his mind. If he had, he would have said his reasons were to keep her from telling the police too much, or discovering what she had already told them, but he knew that wasn't completely true.
The truth was he wanted to apologise, and it felt strange. He knew he owed her nothing, and yet he felt he couldn't disappear into his new life without…
He didn't really know, but he hoped that he would, by the time he found her.