Chapter 8: Discovered

"Hans, calling Hans."

"I'm here, what's going on?"

"Rick and Max have been eliminated. I found their bodies on the 22nd floor. Their equipment and radios have been taken."

The sudden conversation on the radio caused Owen and McClane to stop their pacing. They looked at each other, and it was clear that the two bodies had been discovered.

This they had already anticipated. They knew that when the search was over, and they noticed the absence of two people, they would send someone to investigate. Exposure was only a matter of time.

There was a brief silence on the radio, then Hans continued, "Okay, I understand. Attention everyone, there are others inside the building. Switch the communication frequency to the backup frequency."

After Hans spoke, there was no more sound on the radio. Now, if the others were not fools, they would send someone to find them.

The only option now was to get help as quickly as possible. The sooner the police intervened, the better their chances of survival. With that in mind, they both quickened their pace.

...

40th Floor

Originally, Owen thought they would lose the advantage of the radios, but reality proved that they had surprisingly good luck.

Perhaps they thought they would go down, so they didn't pay much attention to the top of the building. Anyway, Owen and McClane made it to the 40th floor without incident.

In the fire exit hallway, McClane stuck his ear to the metal door and listened for a moment. After a long time, he carefully opened the door, allowing Owen to enter. Then they closed the door softly.

As McClane had mentioned, this floor was full of rooms, side by side.

All the way in, neither spoke. McClane led, Owen followed, keeping his wits about him. Following the signs on the wall, they quickly reached the door to the suite mentioned by McClane.

4008, yes, this was the place.

Owen stepped forward to try it. The door was locked.

He looked at the keypad at the entrance, took two steps away and made room. McClane approached, thought a moment, then deftly entered a few numbers on the keypad before turning the handle.

"Di-di-di-di," the door didn't open.

Sensing Owen's look of contempt, McClane smiled uncomfortably, re-entered the code.

"Di-di-di-di," the door still didn't open.

"Maybe he has his own ideas," McClane joked, trying to ease his own discomfort. Then he entered the code again, but the door was still locked.

This time, Owen was not pleased. "Are you sure this is it?"

"No mistake, 4008. I remember clearly."

"You remember?"

"Well, last year, when I came, it was like this. Maybe they changed the code this year."

Owen was frustrated. "So what do we do now?"

"Don't worry, these doors are easy to open. Back up, I've got a way to open it, sort of."

With a muffled sound, McClane kicked the lock on the door, which opened. Seeing the look on Owen's face, McClane tried to bluff, shrugging. "See, I said it, very easy to open."

Owen frowned, followed McClane into the room. They weren't worried that the earlier noise would alert anyone; they'd already searched the area and there was no one on this floor.

"Look, I said there'd be a satellite phone in here, see what this is?"

Searching the room, McClane found a satellite phone in a drawer and showed it to Owen. The latter, who had been fooled earlier, looked askance.

Honestly, Owen had seen this type of phone in movies, but this was the first time he had seen one in person.

"How do you use this?"

He fiddled with it a couple of times and then tossed it back to McClane. He had no idea how to use it. Although it looked like a phone, it was completely different. McClane, this time, didn't try to trick Owen. He entered the PIN code, then the country code and handed the phone to Owen.

"Then just dial the number."

Owen nodded, but instead of dialing 911, he called McClane's father directly.

The call connected quickly, and the garbled voice on the other end was heard, "This is George Chrysler, who is this?"

"It's me, George's father."

"Steve?"

"It's me, Dad. Listen, I'm in the Zhongchen Building now. The Zhongchen Building, which is under our jurisdiction. It's been taken over by armed people. All the guests are hostages..."

"Boy, are you serious? Don't play games with me, this is not a joke that should be played..."

"It's absolutely true, Dad. I'm inside the building, I just killed two hostage takers with my bare hands..."

After explaining the situation to George, Owen handed the phone back to McClane. George told him he would get back to him soon.

Taking advantage of this time, Owen checked the room inside and out. This was what they called the presidential suite.

It wasn't as luxurious as he imagined, just an ordinary suite. Also, the quality wasn't that great.

Owen knew some carpentry, and he knew how expensive labor costs were in the United States. He used to repair his house himself when something was damaged.

Sometimes, when he saw the walls and such, he couldn't help but knock on them to see how they looked. A simple personal habit. However, this time, knocking on the wall, he heard a "dong dong" sound. This was an office building, not a cottage in the country. The soundproofing quality of these walls was surely poor. Also, this was the main wall between two suites. The quality was pitiful. Owen didn't really care. At most, he would mutter a couple of times about how the capitalists were ruthless in saving costs.

When he returned after a walk around, George still hadn't answered.

48th floor, control room.

The room was full of screens large and small, but they were all off. In front of the desk, two hijackers dressed in camouflage uniforms frantically pressed buttons.

With their movements, success beeps echoed, and in one corner of the room, the two original employees lay shapeless, turned corpses.

"Okay," seeing the progress bar finally reach 100%, one of the hijackers snapped his fingers.

The two who were in charge of monitoring the cameras actually tried to play a trick in front of them, jamming the system, so they killed them. That caused them some trouble, but fortunately, they were able to reboot the system via commands and regain full control.

Seeing the screens light up again, the hijacker took the microphone and said, "Hans, we have successfully assumed control of the monitoring."

"Roger that."

Suddenly, one of the screens emitted an alarm sound, and the screen began to flicker with red markings and information.

"What's going on?" asked one of the hijackers.

The other looked at the screen and asked in disbelief, "Hans, is anyone else on the 40th floor?"

"No, why do you ask?"

"It shows here that the door to suite 4008 on the 40th floor was violently pried open."

There was a moment of silence on the other end, and then Hans said, "Well, keep watching. I'll send someone over right away."

"Okay, continue to monitor. I'll immediately send someone."