So I'm still working on this book, though I have high hopes for it, and believe that it will be great for all those who love my work.
So here it is. Unedited, of course, so you get it raw.
Enjoy:
The woman stepped out of the taxi. She was to walk the last two blocks to the target. As she turned the corner she took off her high heels. She didn’t need the loud clacking.
She had already placed the explosive near the breaker for the street. When she saw the house she could feel her insides tighten. Her backpack hugged her back and felt slightly heavier than needed. She pulled out her cellphone. Outside the house she saw a head move inside a car. Her heart stopped and she slowed down her pace. Was it a guard? She’d staked out the house and hadn’t seen any outside guards. What was this?
On her cellphone was a downloaded app that was meant to send a signal to the explosive on the breaker. It would darken the street some. But with a guard right outside the house, that might not help. She walked by a brownstone with some rich twenty-somethings outside. Next she walked by what seemed to be a new metallic apartment building.
She didn’t much care for New York’s architecture. She very much preferred Barcelona. But she didn’t get those kinds of choices. Not with her line of work.
Five seconds later and she saw the headlights on the car come on. Someone from inside the building came out and left.
Who was that? She wasn’t certain. The building was supposed to be empty starting half an hour ago, and ending in an hour. She stopped. If her intel was wrong, should she carry on? She walked on to the staircase of the house. The house was an entire building that had been added to a brownstone. It was a mixture of new and old and only seemed like a rejected mutant to her.
She looked up and down the street once more and decided that she might as well get it done today. She signed the cross on her chest and pressed a button on her cell phone. The explosives were silent. She thought she heard a slight thump, but it was nothing that someone would notice. A chorus of dismay arose from the twenty-somethings.
She was very aware with what she had to do next. She took a deep breath, and her thoughts grew calm while her heart raced.
She put on her night-vision contacts. They were uncomfortable, but now she could see. Slipping on her mask, she stepped up the stairs. She had ten minutes. Ten minutes before someone responded to the alarms in the house. At the front door she jammed her vibrating key into the keyhole. After a few seconds the door opened. The seconds door was electronic. She stuffed a fitting card into the slot. The card was tied to her phone, which in turn was hooked up by server to a hacker in another country.
A green light lit and she went through that door. Inside, the house was baroque with all that she hated with such decorations. Cameras stared at her, but through some security flaw they weren’t backed with batteries. Which meant she was good. She ran up a flight of stairs and down a hallway. At the end was another door. She stuck in the card and waited as the hacker did his magic.
This door took longer, and she could feel her hand sweating as the minute mark passed.
And that’s when she saw the flashlight on the first floor.
“Hello? Is someone here?” a voice said.
Damn, she was certain the house should have been empty. She could hear the old man trying his light switches. Her throat tightened. If he was here that meant a guard was here too. She tried to see if any of the doors were open on the second floor, but they all seemed to be closed.
“Mark? You there?” the old man said. The light was rising up the stairs now.
The woman glanced at the card. It was still working. She knew that there were eighteen steps to the second floor. Once he was in the hallway there would be no place to hide. And she didn’t like dealing with people face-to-face. That was one of the things she liked about this job. She could truly work alone.
“Hello?”
And she saw the light turn green. There were only two more steps. She opened the door and slid in. She reminded herself that next time she needed to bring something to help neutralize such situations. In the end it was her skin that mattered.
Placing her ear to the door, she listened. The old man was opening doors up and down the hallway. It didn’t sound like he’d heard her. She turned to survey the room. It was filled with cases and on top of that vases and sculptures. She took a moment to guess what each one was.
There was an ivory comb with an amazing scene from the Resurrection from 13th century France. And there was a piece of vase from the Byzantine Empire. But she stopped when she saw what she wanted. There in front of her was the vase she’d heard about in stories. It was a piece from Babylon. Stolen from the Museum of Baghdad less than a decade ago and considered destroyed. Her heart stopped as she examined the pictures on the side. This was it. She knew it. The damn thing was priceless. And the price that less cooth people would put on it would be insanely high. A few million at least. It was the only piece of pottery from a hundred year period. Of course she wasn’t concerned with price. This wasn’t her reason for stealing this.
She heard a door nearby open and shut. Then the handle on the door to her room started to move. She froze. Where was she going to hide? None of the museum pieces were big enough to hide behind. And besides, once the the lights were on she would have even less of a place to hide. She could feel sweat forming in her armpits.
The click of the electronic bolt unlocking sprung her into action. She couldn’t risk a confrontation. The ceiling of the room was pre-war height. Which mean she couldn’t jump up there. In the corner behind the door she wedged herself up, trying not to slip and make a noise. She could feel her beating heart against her chest. She could hear it push blood past her ears. She took a deep breath. The light from the flashlight now highlighted the Babylonian vase as she edged up. Now her back was against the ceiling, and she tried to hold her position. The tendons in her feet, each on one wall, were already strained. She wasn’t certain how long she was going to be able to stay up here.
The flashlight scanned the room.
The old man shuffled into view. He had a hunched back and a cane. She could see the hairs on the back of his neck. And she could see that his skin was black. She could see the back of his ears as well. There was an earpiece in the left one. So he had comms with someone. This wasn’t good.
The old man’s head swiveled as he took in the room.
She held her breath. And she could hear the man’s slow and labored breathing. She was surprised that they would leave someone so old to guard such important pieces of art? She could hear her own heart slowing down. She willed it to stop. But it kept pounded against her ribcage. Kept trying to get out.
The man looked again and backed out of the room. The door shut. She counted a few seconds. Just incase he was planning to come back.
But she didn’t have time. She lowered herself back down and walked back to the vase. It was surrounded by a glass cube, that had a security system embedded. Fine wires ran across the glass in a web. One attempt to move it and an alarm would go off. The room would seal itself and whoever tried to steal would be trapped.
She pulled out her cutting tool. Underneath the glass, where it was attached to the case it stood upon, was a plastic casing. She cut that and exposed two wires. She cut them ever so slightly, making sure only to cut the rubber encasing and not the conduit inside. These wires were attached to, underneath the case, an ultra sensitive computer which would check to see if anything was being tampered with.
Out of her pocket, she pulled a small circuit board with two wires and a LCD display. She turned it on and attached the two wires to the ones on the case. With her other hand she pulled out a pen. A multipurpose tool. She twisted it ever so slightly and pressed a button, welding the two wires together.
The LCD display had a readout of volts. She pressed a few buttons and it flashed red. The circuit board was programmed to keep the electrons in the system at a certain level. It would slowly replace whatever was being run through the glass case wires.
The front door slammed. She heard a handful of masculine voices speak in gruff tones. She heard the old man speak. Would he have given them the all clear? Surely they would want to know what was wrong with the lights. She heard more talking, like terse orders. This wasn’t good. She needed to hurry.
The circuit board flashed green. She pulled out some double-sided tape and stuck it to the side. Her hands freed, she took the welding pen and twisted it. She pressed a button and, starting on the top corner, started to cut the top face of the glass.
She wanted to get out as soon as possible. She could still hear voices downstairs. A few doors opened and closed. Sweat dripped down her forehead and she dabbed it with her forearm.
With one side left to cut, she pulled out a suction handle and placed it on the top of the case. Then she cut the remaining side. Pulling off the cut glass face, she pulled out the vase and from her backpack a case. Carefully, she placed the vase inside and put it in her backpack. The packing material would protect the vase some. But not from major trauma, such as a confrontation.
Footsteps thumped downstairs and more doors were slammed. Some curt yells jolted her heart into racing again.
She pulled out a small cardboard piece and unfolded it, placing it inside the glass cube case. It was a replica of the real vase. Nothing that could pass a discerning eye, but something that might buy her a little extra time. She placed the glass back and pulled off the circuit board.
Footsteps started to run up the stairs. The shouts were louder now. She walked to the window. It too was electronically wired to trip when opened. She scanned the room one more time. There was a shout just outside the door. She froze.
That was stupid, why did she freeze? She pinched herself and placed two wires, using the welding pen to fuse them to the metal trigger halfway up the window.
This was a simpler security system to defeat. She could taste her heart now and her skin glowing with heat. Making certain the wires were fused and nothing could trip the circuit off, she opened the window.
A shout right outside the door flinched her hand. She opened the window another inch and slid out.
Outside, a cool breeze hit her skin and she felt calm. She slid the window back down, knowing that the wires would be found, but only if someone cared to look.
She looked down. Below was a small alley. And across was a brick wall only a few meters from her. She looked back at the room and saw the door cracking open. No time. She grabbed the ledge she was perched on and let herself down. She made sure her legs were at an angle because there was another window directly below. And with a swing she jumped to the ground.
She landed crouched, the pain in her knees traveled up to her femur and ribcage. She bit her tongue and looked up. There was no movement from the window she’d just leapt from. Here in this alley, she could smell urine and garbage. She found a hole in the fence and crawled out to a side road and, taking off her mask, she walked in a brisk but unhurried pace.
She didn’t hear any sudden alarms and by the time she had hailed a taxi it had been a minute since she had jumped. Her heart was calm, but though she was giddy with endorphins, she tried to make sure to stay alert and keep an eye out for any following cars. Exfil was always the hardest part of any mission.
She switched two more taxis before she walked through the park and made it to her safe house. When she was inside she made sure that the door was locked before she pulled out and examined the vase. She placed it in a crate, a more assured way to protect it.
With a 9mm pistol she lay in her sleeping bag. In the morning the courier would pick up the case and take it to a boat on the Hudson. From there it would be smuggled out of the country. Until then…
The warmth of her sleeping bag and the drained adrenaline pushed her to sleep before she could switch off her light.
So here it is. Unedited, of course, so you get it raw.
Enjoy:
The woman stepped out of the taxi. She was to walk the last two blocks to the target. As she turned the corner she took off her high heels. She didn’t need the loud clacking.
She had already placed the explosive near the breaker for the street. When she saw the house she could feel her insides tighten. Her backpack hugged her back and felt slightly heavier than needed. She pulled out her cellphone. Outside the house she saw a head move inside a car. Her heart stopped and she slowed down her pace. Was it a guard? She’d staked out the house and hadn’t seen any outside guards. What was this?
On her cellphone was a downloaded app that was meant to send a signal to the explosive on the breaker. It would darken the street some. But with a guard right outside the house, that might not help. She walked by a brownstone with some rich twenty-somethings outside. Next she walked by what seemed to be a new metallic apartment building.
She didn’t much care for New York’s architecture. She very much preferred Barcelona. But she didn’t get those kinds of choices. Not with her line of work.
Five seconds later and she saw the headlights on the car come on. Someone from inside the building came out and left.
Who was that? She wasn’t certain. The building was supposed to be empty starting half an hour ago, and ending in an hour. She stopped. If her intel was wrong, should she carry on? She walked on to the staircase of the house. The house was an entire building that had been added to a brownstone. It was a mixture of new and old and only seemed like a rejected mutant to her.
She looked up and down the street once more and decided that she might as well get it done today. She signed the cross on her chest and pressed a button on her cell phone. The explosives were silent. She thought she heard a slight thump, but it was nothing that someone would notice. A chorus of dismay arose from the twenty-somethings.
She was very aware with what she had to do next. She took a deep breath, and her thoughts grew calm while her heart raced.
She put on her night-vision contacts. They were uncomfortable, but now she could see. Slipping on her mask, she stepped up the stairs. She had ten minutes. Ten minutes before someone responded to the alarms in the house. At the front door she jammed her vibrating key into the keyhole. After a few seconds the door opened. The seconds door was electronic. She stuffed a fitting card into the slot. The card was tied to her phone, which in turn was hooked up by server to a hacker in another country.
A green light lit and she went through that door. Inside, the house was baroque with all that she hated with such decorations. Cameras stared at her, but through some security flaw they weren’t backed with batteries. Which meant she was good. She ran up a flight of stairs and down a hallway. At the end was another door. She stuck in the card and waited as the hacker did his magic.
This door took longer, and she could feel her hand sweating as the minute mark passed.
And that’s when she saw the flashlight on the first floor.
“Hello? Is someone here?” a voice said.
Damn, she was certain the house should have been empty. She could hear the old man trying his light switches. Her throat tightened. If he was here that meant a guard was here too. She tried to see if any of the doors were open on the second floor, but they all seemed to be closed.
“Mark? You there?” the old man said. The light was rising up the stairs now.
The woman glanced at the card. It was still working. She knew that there were eighteen steps to the second floor. Once he was in the hallway there would be no place to hide. And she didn’t like dealing with people face-to-face. That was one of the things she liked about this job. She could truly work alone.
“Hello?”
And she saw the light turn green. There were only two more steps. She opened the door and slid in. She reminded herself that next time she needed to bring something to help neutralize such situations. In the end it was her skin that mattered.
Placing her ear to the door, she listened. The old man was opening doors up and down the hallway. It didn’t sound like he’d heard her. She turned to survey the room. It was filled with cases and on top of that vases and sculptures. She took a moment to guess what each one was.
There was an ivory comb with an amazing scene from the Resurrection from 13th century France. And there was a piece of vase from the Byzantine Empire. But she stopped when she saw what she wanted. There in front of her was the vase she’d heard about in stories. It was a piece from Babylon. Stolen from the Museum of Baghdad less than a decade ago and considered destroyed. Her heart stopped as she examined the pictures on the side. This was it. She knew it. The damn thing was priceless. And the price that less cooth people would put on it would be insanely high. A few million at least. It was the only piece of pottery from a hundred year period. Of course she wasn’t concerned with price. This wasn’t her reason for stealing this.
She heard a door nearby open and shut. Then the handle on the door to her room started to move. She froze. Where was she going to hide? None of the museum pieces were big enough to hide behind. And besides, once the the lights were on she would have even less of a place to hide. She could feel sweat forming in her armpits.
The click of the electronic bolt unlocking sprung her into action. She couldn’t risk a confrontation. The ceiling of the room was pre-war height. Which mean she couldn’t jump up there. In the corner behind the door she wedged herself up, trying not to slip and make a noise. She could feel her beating heart against her chest. She could hear it push blood past her ears. She took a deep breath. The light from the flashlight now highlighted the Babylonian vase as she edged up. Now her back was against the ceiling, and she tried to hold her position. The tendons in her feet, each on one wall, were already strained. She wasn’t certain how long she was going to be able to stay up here.
The flashlight scanned the room.
The old man shuffled into view. He had a hunched back and a cane. She could see the hairs on the back of his neck. And she could see that his skin was black. She could see the back of his ears as well. There was an earpiece in the left one. So he had comms with someone. This wasn’t good.
The old man’s head swiveled as he took in the room.
She held her breath. And she could hear the man’s slow and labored breathing. She was surprised that they would leave someone so old to guard such important pieces of art? She could hear her own heart slowing down. She willed it to stop. But it kept pounded against her ribcage. Kept trying to get out.
The man looked again and backed out of the room. The door shut. She counted a few seconds. Just incase he was planning to come back.
But she didn’t have time. She lowered herself back down and walked back to the vase. It was surrounded by a glass cube, that had a security system embedded. Fine wires ran across the glass in a web. One attempt to move it and an alarm would go off. The room would seal itself and whoever tried to steal would be trapped.
She pulled out her cutting tool. Underneath the glass, where it was attached to the case it stood upon, was a plastic casing. She cut that and exposed two wires. She cut them ever so slightly, making sure only to cut the rubber encasing and not the conduit inside. These wires were attached to, underneath the case, an ultra sensitive computer which would check to see if anything was being tampered with.
Out of her pocket, she pulled a small circuit board with two wires and a LCD display. She turned it on and attached the two wires to the ones on the case. With her other hand she pulled out a pen. A multipurpose tool. She twisted it ever so slightly and pressed a button, welding the two wires together.
The LCD display had a readout of volts. She pressed a few buttons and it flashed red. The circuit board was programmed to keep the electrons in the system at a certain level. It would slowly replace whatever was being run through the glass case wires.
The front door slammed. She heard a handful of masculine voices speak in gruff tones. She heard the old man speak. Would he have given them the all clear? Surely they would want to know what was wrong with the lights. She heard more talking, like terse orders. This wasn’t good. She needed to hurry.
The circuit board flashed green. She pulled out some double-sided tape and stuck it to the side. Her hands freed, she took the welding pen and twisted it. She pressed a button and, starting on the top corner, started to cut the top face of the glass.
She wanted to get out as soon as possible. She could still hear voices downstairs. A few doors opened and closed. Sweat dripped down her forehead and she dabbed it with her forearm.
With one side left to cut, she pulled out a suction handle and placed it on the top of the case. Then she cut the remaining side. Pulling off the cut glass face, she pulled out the vase and from her backpack a case. Carefully, she placed the vase inside and put it in her backpack. The packing material would protect the vase some. But not from major trauma, such as a confrontation.
Footsteps thumped downstairs and more doors were slammed. Some curt yells jolted her heart into racing again.
She pulled out a small cardboard piece and unfolded it, placing it inside the glass cube case. It was a replica of the real vase. Nothing that could pass a discerning eye, but something that might buy her a little extra time. She placed the glass back and pulled off the circuit board.
Footsteps started to run up the stairs. The shouts were louder now. She walked to the window. It too was electronically wired to trip when opened. She scanned the room one more time. There was a shout just outside the door. She froze.
That was stupid, why did she freeze? She pinched herself and placed two wires, using the welding pen to fuse them to the metal trigger halfway up the window.
This was a simpler security system to defeat. She could taste her heart now and her skin glowing with heat. Making certain the wires were fused and nothing could trip the circuit off, she opened the window.
A shout right outside the door flinched her hand. She opened the window another inch and slid out.
Outside, a cool breeze hit her skin and she felt calm. She slid the window back down, knowing that the wires would be found, but only if someone cared to look.
She looked down. Below was a small alley. And across was a brick wall only a few meters from her. She looked back at the room and saw the door cracking open. No time. She grabbed the ledge she was perched on and let herself down. She made sure her legs were at an angle because there was another window directly below. And with a swing she jumped to the ground.
She landed crouched, the pain in her knees traveled up to her femur and ribcage. She bit her tongue and looked up. There was no movement from the window she’d just leapt from. Here in this alley, she could smell urine and garbage. She found a hole in the fence and crawled out to a side road and, taking off her mask, she walked in a brisk but unhurried pace.
She didn’t hear any sudden alarms and by the time she had hailed a taxi it had been a minute since she had jumped. Her heart was calm, but though she was giddy with endorphins, she tried to make sure to stay alert and keep an eye out for any following cars. Exfil was always the hardest part of any mission.
She switched two more taxis before she walked through the park and made it to her safe house. When she was inside she made sure that the door was locked before she pulled out and examined the vase. She placed it in a crate, a more assured way to protect it.
With a 9mm pistol she lay in her sleeping bag. In the morning the courier would pick up the case and take it to a boat on the Hudson. From there it would be smuggled out of the country. Until then…
The warmth of her sleeping bag and the drained adrenaline pushed her to sleep before she could switch off her light.
No comments:
Post a Comment