Chapter 6 - Into the Deep
The descent into the guts of Howerin Tower felt like traveling backward through time.
The plush executive carpets gave way to linoleum, then linoleum yielded to painted gray concrete, and finally, beyond the B3 boiler room, to raw, unpolished bedrock.
Grant followed us, his jaw clenched so tightly the muscles bulged in his cheeks, accompanied by two of his private security guards. Vivian walked in the middle, her designer high heels clicking unsteadily on the damp, uneven floor. The heat from the giant commercial boilers hummed around us, filling the air with the smell of steam, grease, and ozone.
“There’s nothing back here but drainage pumps, Tom,” Vivian said, coughing slightly as the air grew thicker, cooler, and damp. “I remember coming down here once when I was ten. It was just dark and terrifying.”
“Your father never let you see what was behind the utility bulkheads,” I told her, using my flashlight to guide her around a maze of high-pressure steam pipes.
We reached the far southern corner of the B3 level, where the building’s foundation met the natural shale bedrock of downtown Pittsburgh. A massive, obsolete pneumatic tube sorting station—a relic from the early 2000s—sat rusted against the stone wall. Behind it was a narrow crawl space, barely three feet wide, choked with cobwebs and forgotten copper piping.
“This is ridiculous!” Grant barked from ten feet behind us. “Vivian, look at yourself! You’re ruining your clothes! There is no door here! Brennan is stalling!”
I didn't answer. I reached behind the rusted iron housing of the pneumatic tube system, found the release lever Patrick had welded into the frame twenty years ago, and pulled it hard toward the floor.
With a grinding screech of ungreased metal on iron tracks, the entire four-ton pneumatic housing swung outward by two feet, revealing a low, heavy steel bulkhead door set directly into a reinforced concrete wall.
Vivian gasped, stepping back.
In the center of the steel door was a single, heavy brass deadbolt.
Stamped above the keyhole was the emblem of Howerin Building Group: an eagle perched on an iron I-beam.
“He really built it,” Vivian whispered, staring at the door as if looking at a ghost.
“He poured the surrounding wall with eight-thousand-PSI bunker concrete,” I told her, stepping aside. “Waterproof, fireproof, bombproof. He told me that when the wolves finally came to strip his company, the only thing that would survive was what was inside this room. Give me the key, Miss Howerin. Or better yet... turn it yourself.”
Vivian stepped forward, her hand trembling. She raised the brass key and slid it into the lock.
It slipped in smoothly, coated in graphite that Patrick had maintained until his final months.
She turned it clockwise.
A sharp, heavy CLACK echoed through the subterranean chamber as four hardened steel locking pins retracted inside the frame.
“Stop!” Grant yelled, lunging forward. He grabbed Vivian’s shoulder, trying to pull her away from the heavy door. “Vivian, don't open that! There are company trade secrets in there that you don't have clearance to view without board approval!”
“She owns seventy percent of the shares, you idiot!” I roared, stepping between Grant and Vivian, shoving his chest with both hands. Grant stumbled backward onto the wet concrete, his expensive suit catching against a rusty steam valve.
“Open it, Vivian!” I shouted.
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Vivian grabbed the heavy steel wheel on the face of the bulkhead, planted her heels, and pulled with all her strength.
The heavy steel door groaned open, releasing a burst of dry, climate-controlled air that smelled of paper, cedarwood, and old pipe tobacco—the undeniable, haunting scent of Patrick Howerin.
