I didn’t want to give Shoshana too much credit, but I wanted her ability to see things. Not that I’d ever tell her I believed in that crap. But I did. And so I’d left Aaron and Knuckles on the outside as a reserve to get us out of trouble if things went bad.
Knuckles thought it was crazy, telling me that he should go in, and in any other situation I would have agreed. This time I didn’t, and Aaron, knowing Shoshana’s capabilities, understood why.
I said, “Hey, Carrie, I need your mental skill here, not your physical. Don’t let me down.”
She looked at me in surprise, saying, “Seriously? You finally believe?”
She looked at me with her wolf eyes and smiled, knowing I was lying. Not wanting to give her too much credit, I said, “No, I don’t. But I might after tonight. Just don’t kill anyone.”
Brett came on, saying, “Creed’s got the cameras. It’s all you guys now.”
“Can he see us even as he freezes the feeds to the guard shack?”
“Yeah, we can see it all.”
I said, “Okay, we’re on the way. Tell us when we spike on the feeds.”
The palace itself took up damn near a complete block, with the ground floor housing multiple retail outlets. We needed to get inside and get down to the basement to search for anything involving the “Ninja Turtles.” The easiest way would be through the courtyard, which, of course, would mean taking out the front guards. While I would have loved to do that, we needed to accomplish the entire thing covertly, which is why I’d decided to use my own personal spider monkey.
Our biggest problem was the retail stores on the ground floor. They were very expensive outlets, Jimmy Choo and Hermès and others, all literally built into the outside walls of the palace. They would have their own surveillance and alarm systems above and beyond the palace, so we had to defeat that. I went with the old-school way: just get above it and in.
We exited the van, then raced down an alley until we were underneath a small outside balcony with French doors three floors up, the balcony itself looking like a place someone would only use to step out and start singing. I crouched below it, waiting on an alert from a nosy neighbor. The light from the street was muted, but still bright enough to highlight us if someone in the building next door happened to glance out the window.
I took a knee underneath it, handed Jennifer a roll of knotted rope, and said, “Koko, get going. The longer we wait here, the more the opportunity for compromise.”
She slung it over her shoulder, tested a piece of stone from the building, and then began climbing the old structure like she was scrambling up a climbing wall at a gym. Shoshana watched her go up and said, “That never fails to amaze me.”
I chuckled and said, “Me, either.”
In short order, she was on the balcony, and the rope slapped down to us. I said, “Up you go.”
Shoshana looked at me and said, “I promise I won’t kill anyone.”
She was dead serious, like she thought I didn’t trust her. She still didn’t get sarcasm. I didn’t have the time now to correct her. I said, “Okay, thanks. Get your ass up the rope.”
She said, “I want you to trust me. Like you do Jennifer.”
Exasperated, I hissed, “I trust you, damn it. I trust you. Get up the rope!”
She started climbing, and I waited until Jennifer said, “Secure.”
I scrambled up after her, pulled up the rope, and we all sat on the balcony, listening for any alert. We knew there were guards inside from Knuckles’s earlier reconnaissance but had no idea how many.
I heard nothing and clicked into the net, saying, “Blood, Blood, we’re about to penetrate.”
He came back, saying, “I have you. West balcony. You’re good.”
I looked around and said, “How? I don’t see a camera.”
He said, “I don’t know, but we’re looking at you right now.”
Which told me these guys had more than just overt systems. If he could see me, they’d invested in covert systems. Not a good sign.
I said, “Can you see guards inside? Is there anyone moving around?”
I was now worried that they’d just seeded the building with motion detectors and heat sensors. If that was the case, we were headed back down.
“Not in the basement where you’re going, but we’ve seen them moving about on the other levels.”
If they could move about, so could we. I said, “Anyone inside of our breach point?”
“Not that I can see.”
“Okay, Knuckles. Knuckles, we’re breaching.”
I heard, “Roger that.”
And I flicked my head to Jennifer. She spent about forty-five seconds on the lock, then swung it open. We entered one at a time, dropping like cats into the room. I whispered, “Find a stairwell. Need to get to the bottom.”
Chapter 57
We moved through an ostentatious office, entered a hallway, and found a stairwell leading down. We went down it like a pack of panthers, moving slowly, waiting for any sign that someone was ahead of us. We passed one floor, then saw a flashlight. We crouched down, and it went beyond us, not taking the stairs. We kept going and then reached the bottom floor, the stairwell spilling out and widening like it was trying to impress anyone who saw it.
I grabbed Jennifer’s shoulder, telling her to wait for a moment. She did, and when I thought it was safe, I whispered, “Find the secretary’s desk. Lia said the basement was behind that.”
She nodded and we began wandering about. We went one way, bumping into offices and rooms full of archives, then went the other. My earpiece came alive with Knuckles saying, “I’m watching you. You’re in the lobby. Keep going left.”
Other than vague illumination, I couldn’t see shit-all of what he was talking about, but I said, “Roger.”
We reached an ornate desk with a small hallway behind it and Knuckles said, “That’s it. You’re there.”
I flicked my head at Shoshana and she began walking down it, reaching a utilitarian door, something that looked like it was hiding a storage space. She opened it, and we saw a staircase leading down, black as sackcloth. I said, “Get inside and I’ll close the door. Don’t turn on the lights until I do so.”
Both of them nodded and entered the black hole of the stairwell. When they were in, I followed, gently closed the door, then turned on my headlamp, saying, “Light it up.”
They did the same and we raced down to the bottom, finding a closet-like space with the ceiling so close you wanted to duck.
There was a lone desk with a computer on top, the rest of the room full of cleaning supplies and other detritus. I looked at Shoshana and said, “Is this it?”
She glanced around the room, closed her eyes, then said, “Yes. This is it.”
I grinned and moved to the computer, saying on the net, “Blood, Blood, I have a computer. I need to crack it.”
He said, “Stand by.”
I said, “Start searching this room. See what you can find.”
They began looking and I flipped over the keyboard for the computer, seeing a yellow sticky note that read, “Jennys#”.
I couldn’t believe it. This asshole is using the same damn password as the guy in Zurich? What a dumb-ass.