This story is largely based on real facts, the names and places have been changed to ensure the anonymity of the characters and entities involved. It was originally published on my previous blog

Codename 23:00

A mysterious package

One beautiful fall morning, Agent John Durden and I received a mysterious package at the “Beautiful Winter Day” office… No, our mission does not start with a tape recorder whose tapes burn out at the end of the message.

It starts with a mission order from the Bureau that Agent Effix left on our email inboxes:

“Good morning, Agent Durden and Agent Granville, your mission, if you agree, will be to enter the offices of Sansnom. We must act urgently, Sansnom would like to know if their security system is ready before the unfixable happens. You will have to visit four strategic locations:

The electrical room, the server room, the production room and finally the hardest place to reach the management offices.

If you have no question, this message will self-destruct in a few seconds… or not.”

Excited about our new mission, Agent Durden and I took the first train.

The fortress

When we arrived at the location, we thought we were in front of a fortress… This imposing building was surrounded by high, sharply pointed gates, its walls were adorned with surveillance cameras, and guards made sure that everyone who entered had a badge to prove their presence.

Also, to make things more difficult for us, any outside person who wanted to enter was escorted to his or her appointment.

This deployment of deterrent security forced us to make our scenarios more complex, but in no way diminished our determination.

In short, only one question occupied our thoughts: How to get in?

We then observed the habits of the local workers. How did they use their badges? Did they sneak into the glass gates in single or multiple groups?

That’s when agent Durden noticed that the glass door reserved for people with reduced mobility had a bottom door large enough to fit through.

We also noted that by a certain time the main security towers were empty, only the scanning cameras were ensuring the security of the building.

Were they operational? We didn’t know.

These small discoveries, our many reconnaissance phases and our multiple scenarios, led us to make an abrupt decision, our eyes concluded: “It will be tonight”…

23-00, dark night, like our camouflages, we were in front of the targeted door waiting for silence around us.

Excitement and apprehension took hold of us, but our determination would guide our entire mission.

Swept away by this mixture of emotions, I suddenly slipped under the narrow doorway.

Joined by my sidekick, we looked at each other for a moment without daring to breathe too deeply, as if we were waiting for something to happen. Nothing happened. In front of us were large staircases.

We went up the first steps and arrived at another staircase, but protected this time.

Undeterred, we went around and found an open door next to it.

So we began our ascent to the various offices in the building.

Our exploration on each floor allowed us to make beautiful discoveries such as blank badges to circulate in the building, precise plans of each room, unlocked mobile phones …

As our research progressed, we were able to find our way around this well-guarded lair which still seemed to selfishly hide some of its mysteries.

In one of the rooms on the third floor, we found temporary access badges, as well as a machine that seemed to be used to print new badges.

Our searches and finds were interrupted by our startle at every sound we thought we heard.

To optimize time, but more importantly to complete our mission, we eventually parted ways.

There, on one of the desks, I found a large booklet containing access codes and instructions for the building’s security systems.

Agent Durden had also made some interesting discoveries, including plans of the building.

Both of us, armed with our valuable information, decided to reach our first target, the management offices. Prior to our mission, I had been able to create a precise profile with information from the management.

Reaching our first target

When we arrived upstairs, we found that the door security system was much more elaborate than the others, listening only to his courage, Agent Durden began to try to hook the door.

Indeed, agent Durden, always very skilled with his hands, had taken care to forge for us a door-picking equipment that would have made even the greatest locksmiths blush.

While he was testing his new tools, I concentrated on searching for any additional information from the surrounding offices.

Some of the drawers were locked, so the search for their keys intuitively led me to a box containing almost magically the keys to the drawers.

I made interesting discoveries about the schedules of the various members of the management. I made notes and took pictures of everything in case we had to improvise another scenario the next day if we didn’t reach our targets that night.

Officer Durden, who was dealing with a particularly tough door, suggested that I go back down to the third floor offices to pick up a blank badge from the machine we had spotted beforehand, which he hoped would help him with this tedious task.

He didn’t count on a bunch of master keys that he found in a drawer. With these discoveries made, and the master keys tested on a few doors, we took the opportunity of opening the electrical room which we had located, but which we could not open for lack of keys.

Then we went back upstairs to the floor and the offices we had been looking for.

Suddenly as we walked down a corridor we heard the sound of a door slamming very near us, and Officer Durden rushed down a small perpendicular passage which ran along the side of the fully glazed offices and found a dark corner where he crashed against the wall.

Surprised by the urgency of the situation and dazzled by a shower of light on me, I had no choice but to stick to the wall of the passage.

Officer Durden glanced at me, his look distorted by anguish, and then we passed a security guard from behind who miraculously did not turn around and pay no attention to our cleverly concealed presence.

Once the silence came back, which seemed hours later but was only a few seconds, we moved away as quietly and quickly as possible. We resumed our mission at the refractory door to test the passes we had found earlier.

Eureka, it opened, we had reached our first target, which we took pictures of.

We decided to do all the floors we hadn’t done yet in search of our last targets. That’s how we found the server room, however, our master keys didn’t work and the place was even more full of cameras than the rest of the offices.

We spotted a slab in a false floor and discovered that we could lift it to get into the room. We took a picture of it as evidence of a possible bypass of the security system and continued our descent and visit of the top floors.

We paused to study the plans we had found previously and especially the basement plan that intrigued us.

We spotted an area where nothing was indicated and concluded that it was probably another of our most important targets: the production room, which was also our last target, the one that would end our perilous mission.

So we headed there, joyful and carefree of our previous successes, but still discreet. As we descended to the basement we heard a radio noise and finished our descent on velvet steps despite my poor choice of shoes, which had an annoying tendency to squeak on the smooth floor. Once in front of the door of the ultimate room, I opened it carefully while agent Durden took a picture of me saying “the backlight suits you! “which triggered my hilarity and prevented me from immediately seeing the person who was working in this room, which seemed to be a production room indeed.

“What’s going on here? “asked the individual, Agent Durden stammered, “We’re lost”.

Still mixed between the stress of our previous frights and exhilarated by the fact that this room was the end of our mission, I said to our interlocutor:

“My colleague was kind enough to accompany me to retrieve important documents. “ I showed the official envelope that I had retrieved during our visit to the third floor and in which was just some letterhead paper that I had taken in case we had to build future scenarios.

“I had left them in the office, but now we can’t find the exit, where is it please? »

The individual, even more embarrassed than we were, pointed to the security post for the night exit, while a security guard came down and asked us what we were doing here in the middle of the night. We had been in the building for more than five hours. We explained our shameless lies to him again and showed him the temporary badges previously recovered to justify our presence, while joining his colleague.

He asked us more questions and we were forced to give the name of our contact to justify the absence of an escort. The second officer was disconcertingly kind and explained that he was surprised to see us arrive in the basement.

They took our names and our identification papers, and then showed us the gate where we had to badge our way out. So we tried to get through with the temporary badges, which obviously did not allow us to open the glass doors.

So they opened the gates themselves and we were able to leave, relieved and happy about the success of this mission.

After walking a few meters outside, the second officer joined us to collect our temporary badges. “We will provide you with other badges tomorrow,” he apologized, “but we must first clear up this incident which should not have happened.”

We gave him back our badges and were able to leave for the comfort of our homes, with the satisfaction of a mission accomplished and as many emotions as memories in our eyes and hearts.