Page 69 of The B-Team

“We’ll still have a window to get in and out before the cavalry arrives.” Ryan sounded sure, and it gave Katrina confidence too.

“Okay then, let’s get this show on the road,” Katrina said as she brought up the building’s back up system controls.

“Welcome to another edition of Thunderdome,” Ryan muttered, making her grin.

She pressed a button, and every phone in the building ran twice. On the screens, the police got to their feet and reached for the nearest phone. But there was nobody on the other end of the line. Two rings was a security signal Elle had set up to alert the team to an intruder’s presence.

“What are they doing?” Ryan asked.

“Talking, looking a bit shaken, but they’ve shrugged it off.” She watched as the cops at the reception desk sat back down.

“Hit them again,” Ryan ordered.

The phones rang again. And again, they tried to answer, but there was still no one on the line.

“There’s something weird going on,” one of the cops in the attic said to the other. “We’d better head downstairs.”

To Katrina’s dismay, everyone in the building who wasn’t already in reception headed there—exactly where they didn’t want them to be.

“This isn’t good; they’re all gathering in reception,” she told the men.

“Do the phones again,” Ryan said.

She did as he instructed and watched as the cops hurried down the stairs. “That just made them move faster.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “Set off the intruder alarm.”

Katrina hit the button, and a computerized voice announced over the PA system, “This is an intruder alert. You are not permitted to be here. The police have been called.” The message was set to repeat on a loop.

“The cops are already here,” one of them shouted as they entered the reception area.

“There’s a glitch in the system,” said the female cop, who’d come up from the basement. “There has to be some way to reset it. Or a wire we can cut or something. I can’t listen to this on repeat all night.”

One of the cops in reception spoke into his shoulder-mounted radio. “We’ve got a problem here; the security system at the Benson building is going haywire.”

The radio crackled, and a voice replied: “We received an alert to send officers your way.”

“Cancel that. We’re fine. It’s a system problem.” He sighed. “Can you send someone to wake Elle Roberts-Knight and ask her how to shut this off?”

The female cop looked shocked. “Why would she tell us? We kicked her out of her building and put her in holding.”

The cop shrugged. “I’ve always found the Benson Security team easy to deal with. They’re good people.”

“Good people who’re in jail,” the female officer muttered.

Katrina hit a button, and the phones rang again.

“Are they all in reception?” Ryan said.

“Yep, they’ve called off police support and requested that they wake Elle to ask her how to disarm the system.”

Ryan burst out laughing. “Cut the lights.”

Katrina plunged the building into darkness.

From the sounds of it, the cops were freaked, but light from the street lights meant they weren’t in total blackness.

“I don’t like this,” one of the male officers said. “Maybe we should get out of the building.”