Victor Hart Volume #2

Victor Hart: Case #6 Chapter 11

The building was no less imposing on the second time they saw it. In fact it was possibly larger and had less windows than it was in Victor's memory. The Nord Industrial headquarters' main doors were unguarded, so Victor and Caughlin just walked up the steps and through them.

About half an hour earlier they had been looking at a crate in Harland Seaton's house. He was fast becoming their best suspect, largely due to the fact that the crate was printed with the Nord Industrial logo. It was a stencilled “NI” with interlocking cogs; wheels within wheels.

“What does it mean?” Caughlin had asked Victor as they saw the familiar logo on the crate.

“It means, we need to visit Strickland,” Victor explained.

That's why they walked past the gold plaque, and into the building's vast and hushed main hall. It was, as before, lit with flickering flames, and there was a reverent hush to the place.

As they crossed the lobby to the main desk, Caughlin felt as though he should whisper.

“Shouldn't we have contacted Strickland first?” he hissed to Victor.

“What would be the purpose?” Victor shrugged without looking back.

“Well,” Caughlin caught up, or perhaps Victor slowed down, “it seems to me they are most likely just to throw us out.”

They walked past the vast three dimensional rendering of the corporate logo.

“I very much doubt that,” Victor shot Caughlin a conspiratorial glance, “besides, why wait for us to send a message and then receive one back and so on.”

“Do you have some sort of plan?” Caughlin worried, “Or are you just making it up as you go along?”

“Planning leads to failure,” Victor stated matter of factly.

“How on earth can you think that?” Caughlin shook his head in disbelief. Sometimes he thought Victor just liked to say outrageous things like that for shock value.

They arrived at the desk.

“Don't you want to stop the killer before he strikes again?” Victor asked with a slight smile before turning to the desk clerk.

“Of course I do, but...” Caughlin was interrupted by Victor speaking to the clerk.

“Hello there,” Victor said seriously. “My name's Victor Hart and I demand to speak to the CEO immediately!”

“Immediately?” the clerk seemed surprised. “Can I ask what this is about?”

“Of course,” Victor stated loudly. “He is about to be implicated in a series of crimes that threaten the very fabric of the Empire.”

The desk clerk goggled at them, unsure whether he was a lunatic or not.

“I... see...” the clerk looked around himself for a moment as if unsure what to do, “I'll just...”

Company workers passing through the hall whispered to each other; a hill of ants who had found a discarded sandwich. They passed messages between them and scuffled about through doors.

Victor smiled as he watched the chaos he had caused around him.

“Hit the beehive with a stick...” he said to himself under his breath.

Caughlin couldn't believe that Victor was about to accuse the CEO of Nord Industrial of something so serious without even talking it over with him first. It could put the Freemasons in an extremely difficult position.