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Old 03-04-2015, 09:25 PM   #192
Johnny1A.2
 
Join Date: Feb 2007
Default Re: The First Interbellum (1918-1939)

LATER.

The city was called Harrystown, so named after a local notable in the Seventeenth
Century. Harrystown had a population of 14,853 in the Census of 1920, and was
the site of some local industry and a market town for the surrounding farmlands of
upstate New York. On the northern side of the city, facing a small river, were some
warehouses and other storage facilities, originally placed to serve the docks and now
conveniently located with regard to the rail line that ran through the town as well.

It was near sunset at the time we take a closer look at one of these buildings, and the
employees of the business district have mostly headed for home. A closer look at
one building, though, past the locked outside doors, would revealed the lights were
on inside, and several men were unloading a truck that had been brought inside the
warehouse during business hours.

“Careful," a tall, heavily built man said, as he directed a group
of men in lifting a panel out of what appeared to be the bed of the
truck. “We don’t need to damage that lid, it has to fit back inside.”

The truck itself sat in a back chamber of the warehouse, behind a
concealed garage-style door inside the building. The truck had
carried a public cargo into the building earlier in the day, but
that had merely been a cover, the real cargo lay in the compact
hidden compartment in the floor of the truck bed.

“It’s open, sir!”

“Good,” the leader said. “There should be ropes under it holding
it in place.”

“Check,” another of the men said.

“Then lift it out using the ropes,” their chief directed, “and put
it on the pallet, and need I emphasize do it very carefully? It
would be a shame to blow our payment after this thing has
come so far and by such a roundabout route.”

The four men in the truck bed untied the ropes that had held the
cargo secure, and lifted the ropes, bringing the cargo to visibility.
A two meter long, glittering glassine ovoid, with a web of heavy
ropes around it. It was clearly somewhat heavy for its size,
because the four men had to strain to lift it and move it from the
truck to the wheeled pallet.

The leader contemplated the object once they had it on the pallet
and the ropes secured. It was a peculiar thing, apparently made
of what looked like lemon-yellow faceted glass. Even in the dim
artificial light of the windowless chamber, it shimmered. It was
beautiful in its own way, he had to admit.

They pushed the pallet across the room to one wall, and there it
went onto a metal plate in the concrete floor. This metal plate
proved to be a platform elevator, which lowered the group and
the pallet into a basement chamber below the warehouse.

This chamber was easily as large in area as the warehouse over
it, though the ceiling was no more than three meters above the
floor. The chamber contained many boxes, shelves, and some
platforms on which various objects rested. On one wall was a
small but heavily-constructed wooden bookcase, housing only a
few books behind a locked glass front. Beside it was a sealed
container that held a volume of nitrogen and some further books.

The men rolled the pallet off the elevator and across the floor to
a free-standing vault structure, the door open and waiting. Into
the vault they slid the pallet, then locked the door and set the
complex combination locks.

“Well done, Mr. Davis,” a voice said from across the room, as a
man emerged from a door on the southern wall.

“Thank you, Mr. McCord,” the leader of the work team said, in
a respectful but hardly obsequious tone. “It took quite a bit of
effort to get it here quietly.”

“I’m sure,” Henry Sheridan McCord said. “Did you manage to
lose those private cops that’ve been shadowing our people?”

“We manage to give them the slip,” the leader replied. “But I
have to admit we haven’t been able to find out much about who
hired them or why.”

“I’m not surprised,” McCord, a heavy-set, cold-eyed man said
in reply. “I did a little checking on my own, and those men
work for an outfit called the Bingham-Jones Group. Very high
end, expensive, and known for being effective and careful and
knowing how to keep quiet when need be.”

“Somebody had to hire them,” Davis replied. “Maybe we should
ask a few questions of one of their men, instead of just dodging
them.”

“Not yet,” McCord replied. “It’s too soon for that and I’d just
as soon not add to our opponents just now. But we’ll keep the
option in mind if things change.”


There was a reason we were privileged to observe the above scene, though just why
can not yet be revealed. The reason will be revealed in due time, though.

MORE LATER.

Last edited by Johnny1A.2; 01-22-2016 at 09:44 PM.
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