The concrete windowless hallway was damp to the touch, cold and foreboding. Detective Jenkins’ soft soled wingtips splashed through an inch of stagnant slime as he made his way into the chilly underground air. He wore a grey pinstriped suit, white shirt and paisley tie that could not have been more out of place here, forty feet below the vault of Pacific Investors Bank.
Dim incandescent bulbs radiated a yellow glow every twenty feet or so along the corridor, providing just enough light to make the shadows in between frighteningly dark. Dark enough to conceal anything or anyone who might be lurking there.
Waiting and watching at the entrance fifty feet away officer Janice Winston stood as backup, her petite form barely filling the narrow entry way. The sleeves of her neatly pressed blue uniform were now stained with residue from the rusty door frame.
She could only hear the receding footfalls of detective Jenkins as he splashed his way carefully down the hall only appearing briefly from time to time in the glow of an occasional light.
“Detective!” She suddenly screamed out. “Get back here now! Now!” A shot rang out and echoed down the corridor. Then silence.
Jenkins turned back towards the entrance just to see the silhouette of officer Winston buckle, and then sink to the floor. Gun in hand he sprinted back towards her position in the doorway through the light, then the dark, then the light and darkness again as he rapidly closed the distance.
She lay staring up at him, barely visible in the dim light, but breathing. He noticed the shredded edges of a hole in her uniform just above the nameplate on the left side of her chest. He felt for blood, but there was none. Digging into the hole with his fingers he retracted what looked like a 9mm bullet that had mushroomed against her kevlar vest. He smiled. “You survived that one, but I think you’re going to have a bruise.”