The Extractors

CHAPTER ONE

Malcolm Cavanaugh Bleekston hung upside down. He was suspended by three thin steel cables connected to a belt rigging buckled around his waist. Like a mutant bat, Bleekston hovered before a heavy floor model safe, a Mosler, circa the 1920s. It was five feet tall and more than two feet wide. The safe was case hardened, and its box was made of five-inch thick forged iron walls. Slowly, methodically, his fingers manipulated the dial of the combination lock. Magnetically attached to the face of the safe near the dial was a flat, rectangular device that on first glance might be mistaken for an iPhone. A wire led from the object and split into inserted ear buds.

The gadget attached to the safe was a kind of sonar instrument. Like an electronic stethoscope, the device amplified metallic clicks from within the iron box. Bleekston listened for contact points, as when he reached a notch in the series of wheels in the lock mechanism. He listened for a certain set of sounds as he worked the dial in practiced increments. Being upside down didn’t enhance the experience and was, in fact, a challenge to concentration given the blood flowing to his head. That was the point of the exercise, to see if he could ignore the distraction of being in an awkward position yet crack the safe.

On a nearby end table, his actual iPhone vibrated, and he was pretty certain he knew who it was. He’d return Bunny’s call when he was done — if he got done. Shutting his eyes, fighting a sensation of lightheadedness, he moved the dial back then forward again by a millimeter. There. A wheel notched into place. That was number three of the seven-wheeled lock. He opened his eyes and removed the pencil he’d clamped between his teeth. He made a notation on a piece of cardboard taped to his wrist of which number he’d stopped the dial on then continued. The fourth notch was easy to locate, but five seemed to elude him for interminable minutes. In his practice lab, that didn’t matter so much, if you overlooked the hanging upside down part, but in a practical environment, time was the enemy.

Bleekston re-focused, shutting down discomfort and any other sensation save for being in this moment and applying his knowledge. To untrained ears, the sounds from within the safe could easily be heard to be the same, with only slight variations in pitch and intensity. But to a safecracker worth the moniker, each sound was distinct, one from the other. A pin dropping into place versus that pin merely scraping along metal, the turning of gears at the further end of the spindle, each had its own sound characteristic sound and from experience, Bleekston knew them intimately. He derived the fifth alignment. After making a note of the dial position, he continued.

While his capillaries continued to expand inside his head from hanging upside down, Bleekston commanded himself to tune in, embodying the analogy that his receiver was drifting, becoming static-filled. He must have clarity. It took another eight minutes, but he got the next number. Then the next and swaying slightly, metering his breathing to compensate for the blackness edging his brain, he blew a stream of warm air from his lungs as he heard the tumbler notch again. One left. But he was feeling too woozy, more inclined to simply keep his eyes closed and go to sleep, let the peace that only the envelope of darkness could grant take him away. Breathe in and breathe out. His arms went slack, and as if drained of blood and fluids, he remained unmoving, swaying only slightly on his tether. How inviting it was to remain like this forever.

Damn that, he muttered, rousing. He took in lungfuls of air to momentarily loosen the bands tightening around the perimeter of his skull. Shaking his head briefly, Bleekston bore down, gritting his teeth and forcing his eyes to focus. At first, he missed, it but something told him he should reverse the dial. He did so and heard the sound, or at least he hoped he did. Was he getting too loopy? Did he imagine the wheel dropping into its notch because he was running out of time to remain conscious? He smiled thinly.

Don’t over-think and therefore defeat yourself, son. Any lock inherently has its flaws as, by definition, it’s meant to be opened by key or by combination, had been one among several admonishments from an old box man he’s trained with in the past. His observation was true for mechanical and electronic locks — though his specialty, given the time period he operated in, was mostly the former and not the latter.

Bleekston held his breath and stilled his body inside and out. He turned the dial in micro movements of its diameter. There it was. It hadn’t been wishful projecting or hallucinating. He tried the combination he’d derived and heard the click of the lock being released. He then raised himself on the cable, doing a sit up in mid-air. He paused for several moments, his torso in an upright position while his head cleared. He then unhooked and put his feet on the floor. Bleekson turned the latch on the safe and opened the heavy door on sufficiently oiled hinges. A satisfied smile creased his face.

He turned away and on the end table, retrieved his phone, and after twisting off the cap of the Double Six vitamin water bottle, he took a healthy gulp. Tapping the phone’s screen, he checked the text message from Charles Bunny Sawyer. It read: McBleak, Lady M invited me to tea this afternoon to discuss the re-do of her living room and study. Will take plenty of pics. Out.

Bleekston, sometimes called M.C. Bleak but mostly now referred to as McBleak by his friends and those not so inclined to like him, disposed of the message. He, Bunny, and less than a handful of others of a rigidly proscribed cadre used encrypted phones and switched them out regularly, but they left as little as possible to chance or discovery. Some within the grouping only knew one or two others in the circle while McBleak was the only one to know them all. He realized this was both a strength and a weakness. But there was no getting around the need for someone to have an understanding of the totality, of who was what. For it was certainly the case that in the past, and no doubt in the future, he’d have to be able to coordinate one or more of these people in the execution of a specific strategy.

The shower he took invigorated the sinewy-built, over six foot man. He then toweled off in the compact, unadorned living quarters portion of the two-story building. Constructed in the early 1920s like the safe, the red-brick structure had several incarnations from the Anapos hydrant and sewer pipe factory to its last use as the headquarters of a high tech start-up in the mid part of this century. That company of tatted and pierced twenty-something vegetarians had touted the next big thing in apps. The enterprise’s two principals, one of them barely past thirty, were already veterans of past successful trendy ventures.

For months, the effort attracted a lot of favorable tweets and postings, garnering heady anticipation. Given the internet has seemingly induced mass attention deficit disorder among the populace, when the start-up faltered, when the app quickly earned the rep among those who are followed on social media of being liked but not loved, the company’s days were numbered. It was then on to the next trendy thing for all concerned.

Through one of his shell corporations, McBleak had purchased the vacant building for less than what the owner had wanted. At that point though, there were little prospects for renting out the space again and the owner, an older woman who’d inherited the property, was tired of the hassles being a landlady. Housed in the facility were a variety of specialized tools for overcoming security measures, monitoring equipment to various mechanical and electronic locks. There were also a number of old-fashioned safes that McBleak had restored. For his practice session, the combination of the Mosler had been reset by his friend and cohort, Bunny Sawyer.

Dressed in stylish casual clothes, McBleak exited the unmarked building via a steel side door. His iPhone, the other one for his straight transactions, sounded. He answered the call from Vionetta Vickers.

What up, Big V? She was ten years his senior.

I’m reminding you about your lunch at the Strathmore’s Lanceford Grill with Garner Woodward.

You think I’d blow that off? He walked toward his car, beeping off the alarm.

It’s important, and there are times that what you consider a priority can be, shall we say, unconventional when it comes to business and the intricacies therein.

What would my world be without you?

I often ask myself that.

He chuckled. Did the report come in about Daystar?

On your desk.

Excellent. See you a little later.

Of course.

McBleak was behind the wheel of his late model Cadillac, an old man’s choice for a luxury car, his current girlfriend Nita Van Gundy had remarked.

I’m an old-fashioned sort, he’d answered.

She’d regarded him for a moment, pausing before she said, Yes, you are.

Traffic wasn’t bad getting from the red-bricked building in the industrial section to the Strathmore, a hotel located in the gentrified Queen’s Landing area near the water. After leaving his car at the valet, he entered and made his way to the elevator. Before he reached the bank of them, he was intercepted.

Before you see Garner, let me have a quick word with you, Malcolm. The middle-aged man talking was beefy. Though his suit was expensive, it looked ruffled and misshapen on his heavy, hunched over frame.

We’ve been over this, Roger, McBleak said.

The other man put up his hands, signaling stop or surrender. Just hear me out.

Roger, you know full well this is not my doing. Every day these kinds of maneuvers happen. And it’s not like you won’t benefit.

That’s not the point, and you know it. People will lose their jobs when this shakes out.

People were already losing their jobs there. This measure salvages what’s left.

Roger Meredith stuck a finger at the other man. "Shit, McBleak, you were an early investor. You believed in me and the company, then. Why not let me see if I can turn this