There were no lights burning in the room beyond, but the darkness was partially alleviated by illumination from the distinctive fan-shaped panels of the Chrysler Building, visible through the enormous picture window dominating the far end of the office. The décor of the enclosure was Spartan; an uncluttered desk stood at the center of the room along with a few nondescript chairs. The arrangement suggested that the space’s tenants had not yet moved in.
The burglar paid no attention to the furniture, but instead moved directly to the right. The wall like everything else in the room was featureless, painted a flat white but lacking any portraits or bookshelves to break up the austere monotony. The intruder however wasn’t fooled for a second. A single gloved fingertip touched a cleverly concealed button and a section of the wall abruptly swung away to reveal a hidden room on the other side.
It had taken a small fortune in bribes to learn the name of the construction contractor that had done the finish work in this particular office and almost as much again to secure a glimpse of the blueprints for the secret enclosure and the ingenious device that limited access to it. In the grand scheme of things, however, it was a small price to pay, for the value of the item protected by these elaborate security measures was almost beyond estimation.
The secret door was not the end of the matter by any means, but here at least, no effort was made to hide the snares and pitfalls guarding the burglar’s goal. The room looked exactly like what it was: a scientific laboratory dedicated to the study of a single item that was kept in plain view behind the thick glass of a display case.
The burglar’s eyes lit on the artifact, a simple rod of silvery metal perhaps three feet in length. Only a few steps now separated the intruder from a successful night’s work, but instead of hastening to seize the relic, the dark-clothed thief took a moment to study a schematic of the countermeasures. There were pressure plates under the floor, a series of invisible ultra-violet photocells crisscrossing the air around the case like a spider web and lastly an electronic combination lock on the glass box housing the object, which would trigger an immediate response if the wrong sequence of numbers was entered. Not only would a claxon alert building security, but a heavy steel gate would seal the room, trapping anyone foolish enough to attempt such a heist.
A smile dawned behind the dark swatch of fabric that concealed the burglar’s face. Sometimes the challenge of outwitting the designers of such an elaborate security system was more rewarding than the sale of the goods.
The ultra-violet light beams were the most expensive and technologically advanced piece of protection in place and ironically, the easiest to defeat provided one knew of their presence. The burglar produced a small handheld flashlight equipped with a special bulb that emitted only a soft purple glow. Although providing no visible illumination, the lamp nonetheless cast its beam upon the photoelectric cells implanted in the floor, substituting its rays for those issuing from the emitters in the ceiling.
The pressure plates were an altogether different matter, but once again, prior knowledge of the obstacle had forearmed the burglar with the correct tool for the job. A single hardened steel dart propelled by a small gunpowder charge pierced through the ceiling plaster and deployed spring-loaded barbs to lock it in place directly above the glass case. The intruder fired a second dart, linked to the first by a thin but sturdy metal cable, directly overhead and then utilized the telescoping stepladder once more in order to hook into a pulley rig descending from the line. With seeming effortlessness, the thief began traversing the room high above the sensitive floor tiles.
The sealed display case remained the greatest impediment to success. Without advanced warning, the thief might have foolishly attempted to dial the combination by listening to the click of the tumblers within the lock or simply smashed the glass and snatched the prize, but to do so would have spelled certain failure, for the relatively fragile-looking transparent receptacle was in fact a vacuum chamber. If the internal barometer detected even the slightest rise in air pressure, it would trigger the fail-safe and seal the room. The burglar had never faced a device quite so advanced; that made the challenge all the more interesting and the eventual triumph that much sweeter.
The case itself did not rest on a pressure sensitive plate, allowing the intruder to unhook from the pulley and crouch on the glass surface. A device like this could not be defeated with on-the-spot ingenuity alone; special equipment was required, equipment that had not been thoroughly tested. This was the burglar's defining moment, the ultimate test of skill and luck.
The tool that the thief now brought out looked like something a surgeon might use in the operating room: a large rubber bladder with a circular wax seal at the open end. The burglar rolled the bladder back over one gloved hand, as though turning a sock inside out and then grasped a short metal tool through the rubber. With the seal placed firmly against the case, the thief began repeatedly scoring the glass with the diamond stylus that tipped the strange tool. After a few minutes of weakening a small area of the case covered by the seal, the intruder reversed the tool and pressed it against the scratched area. A spring-loaded bolt slammed into the damaged surface and smashed out a perfectly circular hole.
The thief sucked in a breath and held it, waiting for the clangor of alarms and the thunderous crash of the steel security gate, but nothing happened. The seal held as the vacuum inside the display sucked in the miniscule amount of atmosphere trapped in the rubber bladder.
The burglar exhaled and went to work. A black-gloved hand reached down through the inverted rubber sheath to grasp the object within. The metal staff was drawn up through the hole, carefully so as not to cut the airtight barrier on the sharp glass edge. With the relic finally removed from the vacuum chamber, all that remained was to get it out of the bladder. This feat was accomplished with yet another tool, this time a surgical clamp that pinched the sheath off like the end of a balloon. There was another tense moment as the thief sliced through the rubber with a small scalpel, but once more the elaborate preparations had paid off; the alarms remained silent.
The thief held the relic up for inspection. It was surprisingly lightweight but otherwise featureless; a rod of metal three feet long and an inch in diameter. The burglar did not speculate concerning its intrinsic value; that was for the man that had commissioned the theft to worry about. The thief's only concern was finishing the job.
A quick Tyrolean-traverse on the hanging wire brought the intruder back to the starting point, outside the perimeter of the pressure plates. The opening back to the bleak office space loomed ahead and beyond that, escape. It was all but accomplished; nothing could stop…
"I'm afraid I can't let you leave with that."
The intruder froze as a thin silhouette materialized in the doorway. The newcomer's posture was surprisingly relaxed, as was his voice; he might simply have been commenting on the weather for all the intensity in his tone. In the backlighting from the Chrysler Building, it was plainly evident that the man held no weapon, but the thief was nevertheless warier than if this man were a security guard gripping a service revolver with trembling hands.