The Riddle

Chapter 11

Maria stood gaping at the intruder and the intruder gaped right back.

A shift in the HVAC system knocked both members out of their self-inflicted trance.

One step forward by the intruder and Maria hurled her coffee, ceramic mug and all, the green mud mask and fled.

“Ah! My eye!” she heard from behind as she careered back to the stairs. Up she went and around to her office door, which was left ajar. Maria often left her door that way, but right now she was not about to take any chances.

Slam!

The door ricochet off the inner office wall in response to the punt.

Maria leapt away from the door.

There was no other sound.

Still tense, she peered into her office and then behind the office door. No visitors. Good. The tough boss closed and locked the door before dialing security.

Briiiing! Briiiing!

The other end continued to ring…and ring. And she gave up.

Leaning over her desk, she mentally reviewed who else to call. With the building being shut down, options were limited and, with the lack of response from security, unverified.

Unverified, save for one.

She dialed again. It took two tries, but someone finally answered.

“Spec lab,” a voice answered.

“Hi. It’s Maria Hernandez again.”

“Who?”

“The person who was just down in your lab earlier … The fiasco lady.”

“Oh! That lady. Ma’am, I only just started to get those samples analyzed. They’re nowhere near done yet.”

“That’s not why I’m calling. There’s an intruder.”

“There’s a what?”

“An intruder.” It took several tries to communicate the events near the burnt mailroom.

“Uh, I heard ‘green mud mask.’ What did you actually say?”

“Exactly that. You heard right. Now I can’t seem to get a hold of security, so I will have to call the police. If you can, please call anyone else who might be in the building.”

“I don’t know who else is in the building!”

“Neither do I.” She thought for a moment. “Just try internal numbers and see what you get. Stick with heads if you can.”

“I’m never going to get to that backlog, am I?”

“Think of it this way. Your job is very secure.”

No response.

“Right, well, see you later.”

Ten minutes later, the police arrived, for the third time in less than a week. During that time only one other head had managed to be contacted about the situation. As a result, one uninformed head answered what he first mistook as a prank call.

“Police?”

“Yes, we got a call about an intruder.”

“Intruder? Shouldn’t you be talking to security?”

“Security is not responding.”

“They’re not?”

“You told us that security wasn’t answering!”

“Sir, I don’t know who told you that, but we do have security here.”

“Then where are they?!”

“Huh?”

“There’s no one at the entrance!”

“Uh, please hold.”

The officer grunted an assent, allowing this particular head an opening to call security.

No response.

The head dialed back. “I will meet you at the entrance.” The poor sap made his way down to the lobby and towards the parking garage.

Several police stood waiting outside the glass doors. One had his arms folded, foot tapping in impatience. The head waved nervously, but just as he was about to approach the doors, he felt a great pressure from behind. This pressure knocked him forward and flat on his face.

Bang! Bang!

Muffled, pounding sounds drifted to his ears. One such sound was eerily similar to the phrase, “Open the door!”

And then the head realized that noise was actually a voice and that the voice belonged to a police officer, who was trying to get in with good reason.

He scrambled to his feet, charging towards the door, which he subsequently ran into. Backing off slightly, he pressed two thumbs on the handle, releasing the latch. The police immediately pulled the door open and flooded into the building.

“After him!”

“Sir, are you alright?”

More voices could be heard tumbling back and forth. The police had spotted the intruder and gave pursuit, but all was a blur to the head.

Meanwhile, Maria was twiddling her thumbs, wondering when either she or the spec lab would get a call from the police about their arrival. She had given them both numbers after all.

Twenty minutes later, the spec lab called Maria’s office. Apparently, the police called the wrong head, but spotted the intruder. Said intruder was yet to be caught, so the police were searching the entire building.

“Who did they call?” Maria wondered.

“Dunno. They didn’t say,” the lab responded.

“Well, will they be calling me now?”

“Uh…”

Groan. “Tell them to call me.”

Another tense twenty minutes passed before Maria’s phone rang again. The phone didn’t even finish the first ring.

“Hello? Yes, I’m the one who reported the intruder… What do you mean I gave you the wrong number?! I gave you … two …” She listened to the number that was used to call the other head. It was a mix of hers and the spec lab’s. She face-palmed.

Yet another twenty minutes later, Maria was standing outside of security. One of the officers had finally come knocking and offered to escort her down to security and to the officer in charge. They exchanged pleasantries, but then turned to the security office door. Both stared at the door, one scratching his head and the other pinching the bridge of her nose.

The officer broke the uncomfortable silence. “Do you have a key to this office?”

“No,” was the curt reply.

“Well, maybe we can discuss –”

“Why are you all standing outside of my office?”

They turned around to find one of the security guards, jacket still on, key in hand and very, very confused.

Maria sank into one of the security office chairs, hands cupping a new mug of coffee. She closed her eyes, deeply inhaling the aroma of dark roasted beans. Opening her eyes again, the scene before her shuffled into order with the security guard seated before a wall of monitors and two officers standing behind him, eyes glued to the screens.

“The nearest working camera to the mailroom is A3,” the guard stated. Some typing the clicking later and the screens flashed to new scenes.

One of the officers chimed in. “And you’re sure that –”

“I told you! My shift hasn’t even started yet!” he snapped. The guard clicked away. “There. There’s a figure entering the mailroom more than an hour ago.”

“Can you zoom in at all? Looks like you might be able to get a face there.”

The guard did so. The frozen figure outside of the mailroom grew in size. The entire group cocked their heads to the side.

“Green mud mask,” Maria clarified.

The officer’s face twitched. “Say what now?”

“The intruder was wearing a thick green mud mask. That’s why the face looks so distorted and weird.”

The guard nodded. “That, plus the black hood and lack of light, would make identification impossible.” He paused for a moment. “Hey, Maria.”

“Hm?”

“Do you think the cybersecurity department would be able to make heads or tails of this?”

She shrugged. “Don’t know. But I think they might be more interested in that scheduling hiccup.”

“Right.” The guard silently backtracked the path of the intruder. The figure moved backwards up the hall and out of sight of the camera. Several of the screens flickered to other cameras and times until the figure reappeared, but this time at another stairwell. The backtracking continued, going into the stairwell and up the stairs. More screens flickered and the slow rewind traced the intruder up the next floor and along the length of the building before going back down to the lobby.

Then to the parking garage. Then back into the building. Then to the bathroom. Then nothing. No figure came back out of the bathroom.

The officer in charge sent the other one to that bathroom. That done, the guard switched to following the intruder’s path forward, starting again at the mailroom. The figure went in. Soon, another figure appeared in the top, right corner of the screen.

“Is that you?” the office asked.

Maria replied, “If it shows me throwing coffee at him, then yes.”

The second figure slowly approached the open doorway and reached for the light. As the illumination flooded into the darkened hallway, Maria’s face became clearly visible. The Maria in the screen jumped away from the door and back into the cover of darkness. The intruder bumbled out of the mailroom, arms full of paper, and froze, back to the camera. The intruder stayed frozen for a good ten seconds before making a move. Just as he did, an object came flying out of the darkness and hit him in the face, papers flying all the way up to the camera. The intruder doubled-over in pain, his gloved hands up to his face.

“Nice shot!” the guard complimented.

“Thank you,” she responded while thinking, My husband is going to kill me when he finds out about this.

The intruder then ran off in the opposite direction of Maria. Up the stairs he went. And then up another flight of stairs and into an open office. Some minutes passed. The figure emerged from the office. Even with the dim light, mud mixed with coffee could be seen dripping onto the hoodie on one side. After first checking the periphery, the intruder then sprinted down the length of the building, skidding to a stop in front of the stairwell on that end. Bouncing on his toes, the figure turned this way and that before deciding to use the elevator. The figure made a concerted effort to appear calm and face away from the camera there. Once on the ground floor, he dashed out, rammed down the head, who happened to be in the way, and into the cafeteria.

And then nothing. The figure could no longer be found.

“Looks like we have a few places to check,” the office remarked.

“Let me call my boss, too,” the guard added, “and see if I can get more people here. We know the building better.”

The officer nodded in agreement.

Various forms of hustle and bustle filled the rest of the day. The police traced the path of the intruder back and forth while more security was gathered. Once the additional security personnel arrived, the whole group traced the path again.

Here’s what they found:

1) Traces of the green mud mask were found one sink in the bathroom near the lobby, on the phone in the open office and on the carpet leading into the cafeteria. Signs of coffee were also found in the office and cafeteria.

2) The papers dropped in outside the mailroom contained burnt pieces of magazines. Two of the magazines were identified and current issues of a fashion magazine and a gardening magazine.

3) There were no signs of exit from either the cafeteria or the bathroom, the places where the intruder first appeared and was last seen.

4) There was evidence that the phone in the open office was used to call an unlisted number.

That aside, the cybersecurity department was extremely interested in both the security film and in the communication system used for scheduling the guards. It would take some time to analyze, however. Hopefully less than a week. The film was also sent to the police for their records.

Through all of this, Maria still had a productive day despite being holed up in the security office. She dove into and completed the current pile of paperwork, check in with most of her reports, and even wrote up the presentation for her own dreaded committee meeting after Zach’s. Anything to not think about what happened by that mailroom.

As everyone was wrapping things up for the day, one of the security guards approached Maria. “Mrs. Hernandez?”

“Hm, yes?” she was deep into polishing her presentation.

“Would you like a ride home? Finding an intruder like that can be … disconcerting.”

Maria blinked. “Oh, crap.”

“Ma’am?”

“Nothing. Let me call my husband. He’ll probably want to drive me home.”

“Sir.” Another guard appeared by the door. “There’s an update from the cybersecurity department. Apparently, the film was tampered with.”

“Really?”

“Yes. The tampering was found before and after the parts with the intruder.”

“So, the tampering is spotty?” Maria interjected.

“Yes. But it’s also not sloppy. There are signs that a pro did it, but why the tampering still allowed the intruder to be seen is not obvious.” Maria pursed her lips, thinking. The guards kept chatting. After a minute or so, she pulled out her phone and called the last of her reports.

“Hello!” came a familiar voice.

“Zach, I will need you to look into in a … security snafu the day after tomorrow.”

“Huh?”

“Your first committee meeting is tomorrow.” His groan was audible even to the guards.