Chapter One
Xander
Just like a shadow, I slipped in the crevice between the narrow path that snaked across the hallway without anyone noticing.
I scanned my perimeters doing the standard sweep of my surroundings. There were a lot of passageways in Pablo’s secret hideaway.
Secret and unkempt is what I would call it for the dust and dirt on the walls of the alcoves and passageways, old pipes and dangling wires.
Water dripped down the wall across from me and dampness hung in the air.
Still, there I loomed in the background, doing what I did best. Staying hidden…
Could I call it that?
I thought even I could give myself a little more credit than simply calling it ‘staying hidden’.
But that was my life in general.
It was more a case of being off-grid.
In reality I was supposed to be dead. Dead for the last five years now.
I preferred calling it off grid. It was less morbid to think of it that way.
So mostly I was off-grid to the world.
This little heist though… not so much. Maybe just the first part.
Getting into the facility that Pablo Fernandez had set up here would have given anyone a solid run for their money. Me not so much.
Getting what I came in for was different from getting out.
That was where I had to give the man credit and fair dues.
I slipped in like a shadow, located the object of my mission, and took about five minutes to deduce that I wouldn’t be able to simply take the object I’d been hired to steal—a.k.a a computer chip—without going unseen.
There were too many guards milling around. Too many I hadn’t seen prior to entry for the simple reason that good old Pablo had a device that screwed with anything that attempted to hack his internal CCTV.
Screwed with in the sense that if you were a small time hacker you wouldn’t have been able to do shit. However, guys like me and mine could still get in but we could not see everything we wanted to see.
The important thing for me was, I saw what I needed to see in terms of the object. Everything else was just details I’d have to work around.
Wesley, who was my eyes and my partner in crime, cautioned me on this little problem. He said I might run into a few unsavory people. I just didn’t know at the time of cautioning that a few meant a lot.
No problem.
It was just my personal preference to have some element of shock when I went on these little excursions.
All thieves had something. Something they wanted to be renowned for. Some left a calling card, others left some kind of mark.
I liked to get my shit done before anyone realized what had actually happened and leave no trace.
In and out, like it never occurred.
Like a flicker of a shadow.
That was what they used to call me when I was an agent. Really though… I was a thief.
Thief… yes. I accepted a long time ago that that was what I was.
I’d been called many things in my thirty-six years.
Orphan, hacker, manipulator, marine, black operative, agent, killer…
Thief.
That was the word that kept coming back. It was the crux that explained all that I did. Whether my intent was good or bad. No matter what it was I stole.
Thief.
I scanned my perimeters, deciding it was time to make a move. This part had already taken too long. I’d allocated five minutes and that had long since passed.
There were two guys to the left guarding the entrance to the metal stairs. I could get past them easy. It was the guys by the door guarding the chip that were the problem. As in they were right outside the door and the room the chip was in was situated at the end of the corridor. That, and there was nowhere to go after I’d taken the chip except back the way I came.
So, that was it then. The way. The plan.
The rogue plan.
On to it then…
I slipped down the side of the staircase, blending in with the shadows of night. The music that boomed from the streets surrounding the area assisted in swallowing up the sounds around the building. It was like that everywhere in Brazil at this time of year. Carnival season, and the carnival in Rio attracted everybody from all over the world.
The music from carnival could be heard all around. It was perfect for situations like this.
I slinked in the crevice between the stairwell and the corridor, moving past the guards on the other side. Next were the guards I’d already seen. The goal was to get past them, head to the room with the chip and take out the guards securing the room.
Once that was done, I knew the noise would alert the attention of the others.
I could handle that. It was all about timing. Do it the other way around and I’d have more guys on my ass than I cared for. Then that would piss me right the fuck off.
They’d have time to call for backup. More help could mean things could go wrong and I couldn’t afford that.
I needed this gig. It was the money.
Of course it was.
When you lived the way I did and on your own mission of vengeance you needed a lot of money.
Some jobs paid more than others and helped me advance further in my pursuit.
This was like that. Bernard Perabo, my latest client had offered up five hundred G’s to get a chip that contained the passwords to a safe that held two million dollars’ worth of gold bars.
Truth be told, I could steal the chip and keep it for myself, and get the said two million if I could find out the location of the safe. But that wasn’t my style. I had some honor. It was what kept me in business with those I allowed to find me.
I stopped and pressed further into the wall when one of the guards moved closer.
“I’m raising my bet. You won’t be able to resist her. Too hot to handle.” The guy said to his meathead friend who’d been screwing around with Pablo’s wife.
Wes and I had seen it all during our surveillance over the last few days. That was when we were trying to establish where the chip was being held. At the time my client thought Pablo was keeping it at his house. What we did find was an adulterous wife who cheated on her husband with every guard he’d set up to watch her.
“No, I will totally say no,” came the meathead’s response. “I promised Father Perez I would be good this week.”
I rolled my eyes under the balaclava I wore. These people were such idiots. They worked for a guy like Pablo, screwed his wife on a daily basis, and believed they could redeem themselves with one Our Father and a few Hail Marys.
Fucking ridiculous.
And I’d heard enough.
In my trademark way, I stepped out as he shuffled again and I acted just like a shadow, moving with him in the casting his own shadow made on the floor. If they looked a little closer, or paid a little more attention, they would have possibly been able to see me right there in plain sight, switching past them in the optical illusion.
But no… they didn’t see me.
Good for me, shit for them. Neither of them might make it through the next five minutes.
I got to the corridor I’d had my eye on.
The guards that would draw attention to my presence were ten feet away from where I hid.
The minute I stepped out the guards at the door would see me.
I was dressed in full black so they wouldn’t have been able to recognize me but that wasn’t the problem. The problem was I’d have no way of knowing their reaction and responses. And, this was a damn corridor. Bullets would fly and this might be one time that they hit me where it counted.