Checkmate: Games of War » [Cherik]

Chapter Four

The NYPD headquarters was a valuable place to start scouring for information on residents in state - they'd have records on perpetrators and residents of all variety.

The building wasn't dissimilar to a cathedral, with its domed turret, weathered clockface and the Romanesque Parthenon. Within the fortress of grey stone with it's dimly lit arched windows and battered old doors, was the sprawling offices that made up the New York Police Department. It was a building like a vault: crammed with files and buzzing with officers.

It was a dark evening with brooding clouds and a harsh nipping breeze: Erik flipped up his collar and nudged down his hat, trying to shelter from the winds and from identification. He paced quickly across the damp road, dodging cars as he went, headlights illuminating his shady figure. Once faced with the rickety rain-beaten door, he slipped in silently as a spectre.

He reached a reception, with mucky boot prints that lead over to a desk, behind which lounged a man staring disinterestedly at security monitors and twiddling a pen. Beyond that there was a metal security gate.

Erik moved hurriedly towards it and waved his gloved hand over the lock. There was a green light that flicked on and accompanying buzz - which elicited a grunt from the officer behind the desk, and an irked furrow of the brow. But Erik slipped in undisturbed, leaving the officer gawping at the flapping of his long coat.

Concealed by shadows in the dimly lit facility, Erik swept through the dingy halls quietly, following signs and making for the stairwell. He crashed in and read through the list of departments and corresponding floors.

A lone police officer munching a doughnut and sporting a coffee came to join him.

"You new here?" The uniformed man asked, turning to Erik.

"Visiting my brother..." Erik lied compulsively, feeling a flicker of panic.

"Ah! Who's your brother? I might know 'm," he garbled, munching up another bite.

Panic flared. But he saw that the statistics and information department was on the fourth floor.

"I really should be going..." Erik grumbled, making a U turn for the stairs up.

"Don't be like that, man! Who's your brother?" The man hounded him, stilling him with a hand on his shoulder.

Erik spun and batted it away. "Leave me alone," he gritted, glaring from under his hat.

"No need to be rude, man..." The officer stopped and cocked his head at Erik. He blinked twice. And again. "You don't sound like you're from 'round here..." And he peered closer. "Don't I know you?"

Erik swallowed thickly. His face had only been on national television when he'd pulled that Whitehouse stunt. "I really wish you hadn't asked..." A grit of his jaw and a roll of his eyes alluded to his irritation.

Erik flexed his fingers, then crushed them into a fist. A rung from the banister in the stairwell tore free, and with a flap of the wrist, Erik coshed him over the head with the blunt metal rod. He let the pole drop to the floor with a prang and padded up the stairs in a hurry; it would only be so long until the officer was discovered.

He skulked carefully after, not making eye contact with the sparse number of officers. He felt entirely conspicuous, the only man not in uniform; yet somehow he was let to slip by. He assumed they all had faith in the half wit and the front desk and the easily conquered security gate that lay beyond him. The ignorance of human beings - Erik nearly snorted to himself; so certain that every piece of technology was foolproof.

He finally reached a door marked 'filing rooms' and tried the door. It was with a quick wiggle of the multiple locks and the key card electric circuit that he buzzed himself into the room.