Surveillance Cameras

Surveillance cameras help me to do my job properly and I cannot imagine a world without them though the world was probably a safer place back then before most places had surveillance cameras installed.

You see I am a security guard at a large museum and we have millions of dollars in works of art both stored and displayed. Myself and three other guards staff the control room at night and through the surveillance cameras we can watch the whole place easily to monitor if anything that shouldn't be happening is.

Of course we also manually patrol the rooms as well to check that there has been no tampering with the surveillance cameras and we even have hidden back up surveillance cameras that very few people know about in case somebody tampers with the regular surveillance cameras.

These back up surveillance cameras proved there worth recently when a couple of guys intent on stealing a special display broke in one night, they were clever but we still caught them. It happened when we had a special collection from Egypt on display with some exquisite gold jewellery embedded with precious stones.

The display had been open for a month and this happened on the last night it was due to be packed up and shipped back to Egypt the very next day. Anyway, we had been open till 9pm with a reception for the museum board and major supporters. They had cocktails and some other refreshments and then there were some speeches.

This meant there were a few more people than usual hanging around in the area of the display which made us feel nervous so we were more diligent in watching the surveillance cameras and felt more comfortable knowing that we had the back up surveillance cameras as well.

So at 9 we were confident that everyone had gone home. We did the usual checked all of the rooms, though we already had some closed off for the evening to make it easier, and checked the toilets and other areas to make sure there were no stragglers. When were comfortable that everyone was gone we locked the doors turned on the alarm system and retired to the control room to keep an eye on everything through the surveillance cameras from there.

Everything seemed normal, we even had some food sent to us that was left over from the evenings get together. I didn't have any because it was seafood and I am not partial to seafood but the other three enjoyed it and soon there was nothing left.

It was about two hours later that things started to happen, just little things mind you and they seemed unrelated to the display and everything was fine through the surveillance cameras. First Johnny had a problem. He started clutching his stomach and moaning in pain and then ran out to the men’s room.

We didn't start to worry till he had failed to return ten minutes later. We knew that he had gone into the men’s room because we had seen him on the surveillance cameras and hadn't seen him exit. He had to be still in there so Charlie went down there to have a look while I stayed in the control room with Harry and we watched the pictures from the surveillance cameras together.

Charlie went into the men’s room and came out again and returned to the control room, he said that Johnny wasn't there. We were very puzzled and while I stayed in the control room and watched the surveillance cameras the other two went and checked out all of the rooms to see if they could find Johnny before we raised a general alarm.

We were in constant radio contact and I could see them on the monitors till we suddenly lost all power to the museum went out and the same time I lost radio contact with the guys. The backup generator took about five minutes to kick in and when the surveillance cameras kicked in I couldn't see the other guards at all.

But on the back up surveillance cameras I could see three guys in the display room with the pieces on loan from Egypt. They must have somehow bypassed the regular surveillance cameras while the power had been out and they were not aware of the back up surveillance cameras that I was now watching them on.

I called in a silent alarm and stayed in the control room as per our procedure and quietly locked the doors of the room that they were in so that they would not be able to leave until we let them. They were too occupied with what they were doing to notice.

When the police arrived I escorted them to the thieves and they arrested them and took them away. But that didn't explain my missing colleagues so with some other police we scoured the museum looking for them.

We didn't have to look far they were all tied up in one of the utility rooms. We found out later that the food had been spiked by the thieves and we were all meant to get sick but because Johnny was the only one that liked seafood that hadn't worked. The thieves had been a part of the catering company and had hidden in the men’s room till the time was right.
So our surveillance cameras saved a lot of embarrassing questions and us having to explain to the Egyptian government what had happened to their precious artifacts.