Kansas City, Four Years Ago (Part 2)


A Story By Kirk Howard Hazen
Based on characters created by John Carpenter and Nick Castle

Kirk Howard Hazen would love comments and criticism for this story.
Please mail him at: oldvanhalenfan@yahoo.com

They started down the corridor and Hellman went back to the car. The going was a bit rough at first: they had to get through the opening in the laser grid, and then in the corridor they had to duck-walk for a couple hundred yards because the ceiling was so low. Snake was going need a heating pad applied firmly to his back when this was all over.

Finally, the tunnel got bigger. They stood and stretched, readjusting the flack jackets they wore around their chests. The jackets were Bob's idea. Snake had never liked them, and he liked them even less with the frigging heat. He felt that if you relied on vests too much, sooner or later you would wind up catching a bullet in the face. Flack jackets had a way of making you fearless. They wouldn't be much protection against the Sentry units, but Bob had insisted, so Snake was now sweating his ass off in one of the finest bulletproof vests a criminal's money could buy.

He hefted the weapons satchel to his shoulder and they moved on.

Bob was huffing and puffing, his lungs wheezing.

They were getting close to the in-point. It would be time to call Hellman soon.

When Snake planned a job, he tried to do all the work up front, and that included the briefings and all the details and loose ends, every decision made weeks in advance. Get them down up front so they didn't come up and bite you in the ass. His military background had taught him that. Too much chit-chat on the day of the heist was bad. It led to confusion. What did so-and-so say? I thought he said this? Well, let's do it this way and see what happens.

Bullshit.

Despite the batteries not being charged , things were going as planned. They all knew the details: once Snake and Bob got into the basement and penetrated the bank, they would have a ten minute window to get in and get out before the computer discovered the virus. If they were lucky, they would get back down to the service corridor in time to pull out the virus before the system even knew they were there. And all this was Hellman's brainchild.

An island of light loomed up ahead in the dark corridor, and Snake turned on the com headset.

"Harold?" He whispered.

The response came back instantly. "Right here." Hellman's voice sounded tinny.

"We're at the entrance." It was all Snake needed to say.

He could hear a clicking sound at the other end. Bob looked at Snake, making a jacking off motion with his fist. Bob certainly was an amusing fellow.

Finally Hellman came back."Okay guys, your on."

They came upon the entrance, an unassuming, plain looking doorway. To the right of the door was a small computer panel with a slot for an access card. Bob set the satchel down and took out a dark green plastic box that had a jumbled mess of wires attached to it.

Snake moved over to the panel and pulled a can of silicone spray from the satchel. He sprayed the slot once and then stood back, waiting for Bob.

Bob was attaching what looked like an access card to the wires. It wasn't. It was another one of Hellman's little toys. Bob positioned himself on the other side of the panel and Snake took the silicone and lightly sprayed the fake card. It glistened and gleamed in the neon light.

Plissken reached down and powered up the green plastic box. It hummed.

Since after hour access to the bank was prohibited, the card wouldn't be scanned in and analyzed by the employee database. It would do something much simpler: send a silent digital virus into the core of the system putting it to sleep for exactly ten minutes. The virus was designed by Hellman to last that long because once the system reached the ten minute mark it would switch to auxiliary. Then the show would be over.

"We're ready," Snake whispered.

Silence. Then Hellman replied. "Insert the card. And remember to tell me as soon as you see green."

Snake nodded and Bob gently slid the card in to the slot. A drop of sweat fell from Bob's balding forehead.

As soon as the card slid home, the panel lit up and Snake pressed a small clear button on the side of the green box. He held his breath and looked intently at the button.

Finally it lit up.

"It's green." Snake said, exhaling.

"Okay!" Hellman shot back. "You have nine minutes and fifty-seven seconds... fifty-six... fifty-five..."

Snake and Bob set their watches. They read 9:54.

"We're goin' in." Snake said and he pressed a glowing keypad marked ENTER on the panel and the door slid quietly open.

The inside of the bank was cold. The sweat seemed to evaporate instantly as they hit the icy air. Like the corridor they had just come through, the building was dark, illuminated only by the blue lighting grids that ran low along the walls. Plissken felt like he was at the bottom of the ocean.

They moved quickly, out into the basement level and up to the elevator doors. The sign on the doors read:

SECURITY ZONE - BANK EMPLOYEES ONLY!

Bob pulled out an employee access card that Hellman had procured for them and placed it into the drive slot. The elevator was silent for a moment; then the quiet hum as the lift came to life.

"We have time?" Bob said.

"Time for what?" Snake asked.

Bob gestured over to the other side of the hallway. Two water fountains stood out from the wall.

"Sure could use a drink." Bob glanced at the elevator.

"Can't hurt." Plissken shrugged, and they ran over, their footsteps slapping off of the basement floor. They leaned over the water fountains. Snake took in what seemed like a gallon. The heat had really drained him. He heard the elevator doors open and he quickly splashed icy water on his face, soaking his patch. The cold felt good on his eye.

Snake glanced around, surveying the basement as he went back to the elevator. Off to the right was a series of escalators. They were silent, the light from the upstairs lobby filtering down, gleaming across the metal.

As soon as they entered the elevator, the doors slid shut. It was silent inside. Bob turned off his headset and whispered.

"I've gotta hand it to that pretentious prick." Bob whispered. "This is gonna be a cake walk."

"We ain't done yet." Snake pressed on the emergency stop button and the elevator shut down. The floor panel indicated that they were right below the first floor level.

"SNAKE."

Hellman's voice cut sharply into Plissken's head, making him jump. Bob smiled and Snake shot him an icy look.

"Turn your volume down, Harold!" Snake growled.

A pause on the line. "Sorry Snake." The voice came back softer this time. "Where are you guys?"

"The elevator." Snake started pulling out the motorized winch and the nylon ropes from his duffel bag.

"It's 8:07." Hellman muttered testily.

"We know." Plissken replied.

Hellman fell silent. The line went back to its static drone.

Bob lifted him by the boot up to the elevator ceiling. Snake turned the emergency hatch lock on the roof and with a heave, pushed up on it. The hatch flapped back with a clang and he pulled himself up, scraping his head on the side of the metal frame. He winced. Just add that to the rest of the abuses that he put his body through. Bob handed up the winch, rope, and the other equipment, and then Snake pulled him to the top.

They chose to utilize the elevator because it would provide direct access to the vault floor and minimize their exposure to the Sentry units. Plissken hated them. Not as much as the Blackbellies, but close. There was something about being killed by a machine that bothered Snake. It seemed so impersonal.

He attached the winch to the elevator cable. It would pull them both up the elevator shaft at the same time and then they would attach the nylon ropes at the top for the trip back down. A ten minute window wasn't shit to work with and they needed all the shortcuts they could get.

Snake pulled out a tension release clamp and locked it on the waist harness they both had on. Bob did the same. They both grabbed the cable tight.

"Ready?" Bob asked.

Snake nodded and Bob turned on the winch and they started rising. The first floor passed. Then the second. The shaft wall rushed by dizzyingly. It was difficult to tell what floor they were at, so they slowed the winch down. Letting go of the cable with his right hand, Plissken grabbed his flashlight, shining it onto the outer bay doors of the floor above them. A yellow reflector on the lower lip of the door read FLOOR 7.

"One more." Snake said and he yanked the lever on the winch. It made an unpleasant grinding sound. The winch shuddered and the cable thrummed, lifting them up through the darkness to the eighth floor of the bank


Harold Hellman was tense. He was high strung, no doubt about it. He felt like he was at F sharp and going higher. His hands shook when they were still so he tapped on the dashboard of the Omega. He drummed out a series of off-kilter rhythms to keep those nervous hands busy until it was time to put his twitching fingers to use on the laptop computer. Only then did his hands have control.

Hellman hated pulling bank jobs. Hated them. He felt much more at home with mail fraud or embezzlement through the computer. No real physical risk, unless you counted back pain from sitting all day, and the rewards were many for the skilled computer con artist. And Hellman certainly was skilled. The problem was, he had a habit of getting himself in jams. His most recent resulted in a former business partner holding him at gun point and taking by force virtually every piece of hardware and software Hellman owned. He had skimmed a little more off the top of his cut than he was apparently entitled to and the wrong people got pissed off. And Harold Hellman was put out of business.

He was desperate, so he decided to pull a bank job. His mother and his sister, Hannah, were all the family he had left, and with no steady income, they had fallen on hard times. Mom was sick from the nerve gas and they all needed to eat, so one morning, two months ago, Hellman set out to find the man who was the most successful bank robber in United States history: Snake Plissken.

Hellman had learned long ago that the key to success (and survival) was to ally yourself with winners. A known loser was a poor pony to bet on. He still hadn't made up his mind if Plissken was a loser or not. He just knew he didn't like the son of a bitch.

Hellman checked the time. 7:10.

The parking garage was silent as a tomb. He was parked a few hundred yards from the basement/service tunnel entrance. Besides a few abandoned junkers, the Omega was the only car in sight. He rolled down the window to let some air in. It was hot, and it smelled faintly of exhaust fumes.

The bank job was Hellman's operation. He set it up, crafted it. It was his show and Plissken had taken it over. Plissken and Fresno Bob. Those guys were not team players. Hellman could hold his own with almost anyone. Even if he was nervous, he could still bullshit his way into or out of anything. It was his gift. But there was no bullshitting Snake Plissken. Sure, you could lay a line on him and for a while it would stick, but sooner or later he would come back at you. Hellman could see it in Plissken's eye: I don't trust you.

Good. I don't trust you either, Hellman thought.

As he waited for them to reach the vault floor, he poked around the Omega.

The car was devoid of the detritus that you would think an outlaw like Plissken would have. No Soldier Of Fortune or Penthouse magazines lying around. Besides a few odds and ends, the Omega was clean. Hellman leaned over and opened the glove compartment. Inside was an old crushed pack of generic smokes (obviously for emergency nicotine fits only), four or five worn road maps and a couple of music cassettes. Nothing to write home about.

He leaned back in the seat, his sweat soaked shirt re-adhering to the car upholstery. He glanced down at the MP5 auto lying in the passenger seat. It looked for all the world like it was alive somehow, its sleek, gleaming form radiating death. He hated guns. They were necessary these days, but Hellman refused to carry one. If he couldn't use his wits to protect himself, then by god, it was time to hang it all up. Everything was a damn wild west show these days, and he prided himself on non-violence. Let the thugs and lowlifes kill themselves off. Besides, he just plain didn't have the guts for it. He supposed he could kill another human being, but it would have to mean something. Hellman would have to really dislike the person.

He picked the water bottle up off the floor and splashed his face with it. The water felt bathtub warm. He took a drink, readjusted his headset, and wished he was somewhere, anywhere but Kansas City.

"We're on the eighth floor." Snake whispered into the head set. He didn't expect any reply from Hellman. Radio communication had to be kept to a minimum on the vault floor. Everything had to be kept to a minimum. The possibility of a run-in with a Sentry unit was real good if they went storming around making a racket. Stealth was the key here, and Snake Plissken and Fresno Bob were damn good at keeping quiet.

They moved quickly but cautiously, checking every corner, every dark hallway. They had the entire floor committed to memory: hallways, access grids, ventilation ducts. But everything was damn near pitch black, a maze of shifting shadows. It was like walking through a carnival funhouse.

A distant whirring sound echoed from somewhere.

Plissken stopped and waved his hand, pointing his finger down. In the dark, he could see Bob's eyes widen. They both crouched down at the corner of a long hallway. Snake pulled his hair back from his face, feeling sweat on his finger tips. The whirring sound was getting closer. He heard Bob shift behind him and he held up his hand.

Quiet!

The Sentry entered the hallway. It turned slightly, servo and hydraulics sliding and hissing. Then it stopped cold.

Snake felt the hair on the back of his arms stand up.

It sat there for what seemed like an eternity. The Sentry was silent, its gleaming black form a malevolent shadow. Snake and Bob were silent too. They didn't even breathe. Plissken slowly placed his hand on one of the Rollermines. He was sure the Sentry could hear his heart beat, sure that it was homing in on its rhythmic pounding.

A ray of light flashed out of the Sentry. It was an infra-red targeting beam, and if it found them, the rest of their life would be measured out in milliseconds.

The red beam made a quick pass over the hallway in a zigzag pattern, covering every angle. It was a real pretty light show. The beam skirted the corner, coming within inches of Snake's face.

Then suddenly, it shut off and the Sentry moved down the hallway. The whirring noise receded off into the darkness. It was gone.

In an instant they were up and moving. Snake checked his watch, lighting up the LED readout.

6:01. They had to get moving.

He tapped his wrist at Bob and they took off toward the vault.

Plissken was amazed at how easy this was going to be. Armed Sentries aside, this phase of the job was simple: with the alarm system out, all they had to do was crack two vault doors and snag the discs. And since they already had the password and nine digit code for the first vault, the final step would be to burn through the second vault with a high powered laser torch.

They reached the door to the vault room. Bob pulled out the laser torch and went to work on the lock. Snake pulled up his MP-5 and trained it on the hallway. The torch was silent except for the sizzling of the metal as it burned through. It emitted a glow that lit the corridor a cobalt blue.

With his other hand, Plissken reached into his satchel and pulled out a Rollermine. It was a dark sphere the size of a softball, military green, covered with a thin coating of rubber. He opened the side of the sphere, exposing a tiny panel. The panel had three buttons: arm, 10 second timer, and abort. He pressed the arm button. The rest was easy: you just gave it a twist, locking it in arm mode, and then you threw it or rolled it in the general direction of whatever it was that you wanted to completely destroy. His bowling technique was a bit rusty, but he felt he could still pitch a minor league fastball, maybe even one with a little english on it.

Snake whispered into his headset. "We're at the vault."

No response. The line was silent.

Bob shut the torch off and darkness descended over the hallway again.

"Got it." Bob whispered.

Bob carefully pulled the door open. The room beyond was pitch black. They went in, closing the door behind them.

It was 5:11 and Harold Hellman was getting pissed off.

"Snake? Bob?" He repeated. There was no reply. He had lost contact with them. His only guess was that they had run into a Sentry and had to shut down their headsets to avoid being tracked. Or maybe they had just been blown to pieces.

Either way, they better have made it to the vault by now. Time was running out.

Fresno Bob had set up a small ultraviolet portalight by the first vault door, just enough to see what the hell they were doing. It was more relaxed in the vault room. They were safe from the Sentries, and they could talk. Or at least Bob could talk.

"Man, do I hate them damn things." Bob muttered. "My cousin Dwayne got smoked back in '90 by one of those motherfuckers. He was doing a bank in Erie and..."

"You told me already." Snake said sharply. He was typing in the password and code. He didn't need distractions right now.

"Right." Bob clammed up.

Snake was becoming acutely aware of the time factor. They should still make it in time to pull the bypass, but it was going to be close. Real close.

The first door opened with a hiss. They didn't waste any time: Bob ran over and started in on the second vault door, cutting through the metal in an oval pattern.

Snake set the satchel down on the floor. It was time to get some feedback from Hellman. He was being unusually quiet and non-intrusive.

"Harold?" Plissken tapped on the mic. "We're at the second safe."

Silence.

"Harold, what the fuck are you doing?" He listened for a beat. Still nothing, not even static. He pulled his headset off and looked at the battery light.

It was dead. Thank you Harold fucking Hellman.

"Shit." Snake reached over and pulled Bob's headset off and looked at it. Bob glanced up. Snake stared back, dangling the headsets in the air.

"They're dead."

Bob's brow creased. "Both of 'em?"

"Yep." Snake answered, flinging them into the corner. "Don't worry about it. He knows where we're at."

Bob continued cutting. The second door was a little thicker but not by much.

There were banks back in the Old West that had better vaults than this. Banks these days relied too much on their security systems. That was their weakness, and Snake exploited it every chance he got.

Bob was grimacing with concentration, the laser searing away at the metal.

Snake looked at his watch. 4:26.

It was time to speed things up.

"Almost there..." Bob said, just as Snake kicked the vault door with a heavy combat boot, sending the huge piece of metal crashing to the inside floor.

Bob jerked back, dropping the torch. "Holy shit!"

Plissken moved in, placing a heat resistant aluminum lined blanket over the hot metal on the openings lower half. He turned to Bob and gestured to the vault.

"Come on," Snake growled. "The clock's ticking."

Part 3