Resurrection Express by Stephen Romano

Concepts building isn’t located among Houston’s downtown business high-rises. It’s not even a high-rise at all. It’s a tech/administration annex located in a rural area off the main road, just on the outside of the city, one of those small five-stories where the execs mingle with the rank-and-file computer geeks, and certain percentages of the important work and research get done. It figures a vault like this would be located dead center. David must’ve bought the place right out from under them. They probably don’t even do real TDC work there anymore. A perfect cover for his trafficking hub. And whatever else he’s got going on. He’s been a real busy guy since I went away—and a lot smarterabout covering his ass. That’s so crazy, the more I turn it over. David Hartman getting smarter seems like the dumbest idea anyone ever came up with in three years’ worth of dumb ideas.
    Jenison was right—people do change.
    But we’re always that same dumb bastard, deep down.
    I keep that in the back of my mind, as Dad talks to the men on the practice range. They’re lined up like a proper army platoon, all at attention. He walks casually up and down the line, like some kind of lieutenant. The first thing he tells them is that a building like this TDC place is a little easier than a high-rise because everything’s flat, spread out. They don’t have as much muscle on the perimeter itself because they never expect anyone to come at them hard from the outside. Usually, it doesn’t make any sense to hit a place this well-fortified electronically. Unless you happen to be us. We’ve gone into skyscrapers in Chicago and LA before and it was always a bitch. You need a helicopter. At least two men on each floor with heavy weapons, sometimes artillery, depending on the location of the building. On grounds like this, you go in using stealth. Ninja tactics. Nobody even knows we’re there. We tie up security guards and stick them in closets. If we’re lucky, we won’t have to kill anyone. That’s what Dad always says before we go in. He’s killed twenty-nine men in his life. All on jobs. You do what you have to do.
    He’s working with the Sarge, who has direct command over his men during the run. We go in armed for bear, all of us. Dad is not just intel—he’s on the team, using his left hand. No way he’s sitting this one out. He says he owes me.
    I watch him on the range as he instructs the men, tells them how to shoot.
    He never uses a gun, and that fills me with sadness.
    They run through maneuvers for the rest of the day. I don’t work the drills with them, but I watch their movements carefully,going over specs on the Texas Data Concepts facility inside my head. I’ve memorized most of them already.
    The outer security on the building itself is cheese. Laser sensors, silent alarm, the usual bells and whistles. There’s nothing much on the grounds surrounding the place, either. A wire fence, electrified, and a guard post at the main gate. They’ll be armed with handguns, no automatic weapons. We’ll be through the fence and inside the building in under five minutes, no casualties. When they run it on a stopwatch, full gear, the Sarge is impressed with how fast his boys move. He huffs the word “outstanding” a lot. Says we might have a chance if the tech kids don’t fuck it up. Every now and then he pulls out that evil-looking Rambo knife and slices the air with it to underscore a point. Tough guy or something.
    This complex of theirs where they’ve been prepping the job is the most fortified and expensive I’ve ever seen, all privately owned by Jayne Jenison. There’s an armory in an underground bunker that looks like something out of Operation Desert Storm. Turns out the concrete slab that looks like a basketball court is really a helipad. Guess I get to ride in a chopper, after all. We go in at midnight by truck, just when the night watch starts. We have to hit the safe at exactly 2 A.M. —it’s