Free Lights Out by W.J. Stopforth

needed to draw
upon it. Now he had more pressing things to focus on.
    The sound of his phone ringing quickly
brought Ghost Face back to the present moment. He reached across to his bedside,
swiftly scooping up the phone and pressed the answer button. Holding the
handset against his ear he simultaneously looked at his wristwatch whilst he
listened to the caller. A few moments later, without emotion or
acknowledgement, he simply ended the call, stood up and quickly started to
dress.
     

Chapter
10
    AUGUST 8: LIGHTS OUT
     
    Ryan sat at his desk unable to concentrate. He had read and re read
the same email several times, but he couldn’t stand the noise. The renovations
at the Bank had been going on for weeks now. Early every morning the
contractors would clear out the rubble and rubbish from the previous days work.
Then throughout the morning, he would have to endure the scraping and banging.
It felt to Ryan like it was his head being pounded, not the walls. It was pulling
his concentration far away from his work.
    Ryan looked at his calendar and sighed with despair. They had at
least another 10 days to go before all of the demolition work would be
complete.
    Coupled with the distraction of the building work, Ryan’s morning had
been continually interrupted by his colleagues dropping by to see how he was
doing and to find out more details of Friday’s shooting incident. Finally, and
thankfully John called him into his office rescuing him from the constant flow
of people at his desk.
    As Ryan entered John’s office he was pleased to see him sitting back
in his chair relaxed and smiling.
    “Ryan, you seem to have a gained a bit of notoriety in this office’,
he spoke with a broad smile on his face. Ryan simply smiled back, not sure
whether it was meant as a jibe against his apparent lack of work or just a
friendly comment. He decided to lean towards friendly comment, preferring that
to any negativity generated from the event.
    “I do have a bit more information for you with regards to Friday, but
didn’t want to bother you over the weekend, so I thought I’d wait until now.
Obviously there’s no question that there was a major mess-up with the security
cameras that morning. I’m not blaming you Ryan, but of course it’s Sod’s Law
that the only morning that the camera’s are not
rolling, is the very same morning that someone tries to get in. It is a smudge
on our faultless record. But, arguably, he didn’t get in, and that’s primarily
because your guys did what they were supposed to do.” He paused.
    “So all in all it’s a bit of a back handed compliment.” He finished,
taking a look at Ryan to see his response. Ryan looked subdued and guilt
ridden.
    “Are you OK? Are you up for being back at work so soon?” John’s face
suddenly looked concerned, it reminded Ryan of a look his Father gave to him
from time to time.
    ‘John, really I’m fine. Really. In fact Rob’s been baby-sitting me
pretty much all weekend. I’m actually fine. I was a little shaken up on Friday,
but OK now.” Ryan still wasn’t sure if that was true. However, he didn’t want
John to think that he wasn’t man enough to deal with it.
    “OK, good. On Friday the Police were all over the Bank. They think
the old man could be from the mainland. Working for someone else, but they
don’t know who yet and definitely not an inside job. Which is always a relief.”
He smiled a half smile, taking small consolation in that fact.
    “The Police think that it was just a bad attempt at a bank robbery.”
John said, his smile shifting into something more serious.
    “You do know it’s impossible to break into this bank. With the new
camera’s and our security measures. Anyone would be a fool to try.” He said to
himself more than to Ryan.
    “Busy day with this Lights Out thing tonight, Bloody protesters got
their way.” John sighed and looked at his watch, notifying Ryan that he had more
important things to be getting on with.
    “Thanks