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“Com check?” Juan said into the voice-activated throat mike.
He received the ready signal from Linc and Hali Kasim. Julia merely placed a hand on his shoulder, since she wouldn’t leave his side for the next twelve hours. The night was dark and moonless because of cloud cover. Dew shone silvery white on the lawn surrounding the three-story brick house. The upscale suburban neighborhood had been quiet since an elderly man had returned to his own minimansion after walking what had to be the most constipated dachshund in history.
Cabrillo knew after watching her for three days that Kara Isphording lived alone. She had a maid during the day, but at night she was her home’s sole occupant. He also knew she had an alarm system. The doors and windows were all wired, and he’d once spied the maid deactivating the system when she’d shown up for work in the morning. He guessed it would have been installed after her husband had been arrested, so it wouldn’t be too deeply integrated into the grounds, no motion detectors or IR cameras, but then again, all it took was Isphording’s wife to push a panic button, and all hell would break loose.
“Okay, Hali, you’re up. Once Linc pops the door, you have sixty seconds to deactivate.” This was an estimate on Juan’s part but a calculated one. Kara Isphording was in her late fifties and would doubtlessly have little experience with electronics. Whoever installed the alarm would make sure a client had ample time to shut the system down so as to avoid false alarms.
Once the ex-SEAL and the Corporation’s communications specialist did their job, they were to return to the Mercedes. Juan was approaching Frau Isphording as a member of the Russian mafia here to save her husband from Palestinian terrorists. It would be a little hard explaining the presence of a Lebanese and an African-American.
“Think of it as affirmative inaction,” he’d joked as they finalized the plan.
Frank Lincoln towered over Hali Kasim as they dashed from cover behind a thick hedgerow bordering the Isphording property. Both wore black. Hali carried a small duffel for his tools. Linc had his lockpicks in a slim billfold jammed into his back pocket.
They reached the heavy oak door. Curtains were drawn over the flanking sidelights. The house was completely dark. Kara Isphording’s bedroom light had gone out three hours earlier, long enough to enter deep REM but not so long as to need to use the bathroom.
Hali hung back as Linc readied his picks. He’d practiced on an identical lock that he’d bought from a building supply store on the other side of the city. His fingers were large, but they moved with the delicacy of a surgeon’s as he eased in the tension pick, then began to set the pins with another smaller tool. It took him eight seconds to snick back the dead bolt and a further fifteen to turn the main handle.
He shot Hali a glance. The smaller man had his bag open and wore a tiny light mounted on a headband. He nodded. Linc eased open the door. An electronic tone sounded and would continue at five-second intervals until the alarm was shut down or went active.
The entry floor was polished wood. A dark Oriental rug covered the space between the door and a massive staircase that rose to the second floor. To right and left were other rooms, a living room and a dining room large enough to seat ten. Hali saw all this in a fleeting glimpse. The alarm panel was to the right of the door. A red light on its cover blinked accusingly.
He pried off the face with a screwdriver. Within were bundles of wires. He ignored them all. The circuit had already been cut. He needed the numerical key that would deactivate the system. He spotted two computer chips embedded on a small motherboard. He popped them both, then clamped a tiny wire to the broken leads as a bypass. The light and chime continued. Linc posted himself at the foot of the stairs, straining to hear if Kara Isphording had been disturbed.
With such a system, the owner had three tries to enter the right code in order to prevent the alarm from sounding. After the third attempt the system would automatically trip. By removing the logic circuits from the panel, the security system had no way of knowing how many attempts Hali was about to make.
Kasim dusted the alarm’s touchpad with fingerprint powder. Actually, it was finely ground pencil lead and worked just as well. He let out a relieved breath when only four of the keys showed they’d ever been pressed. The fingerprints were smudged, but that wasn’t the point. With just four numbers to reset the alarm, there were thirty-six possible combinations and not nearly enough time to run them all. Except that the four keys used by Frau Isphording were one, two, three, and four. It was the most common alarm code in the world, a convenience for homeowners and thieves alike. Hali pressed them in sequence. The little red light continued to wink at him and the chime sounded that another five seconds had passed.
He hit the keys in reverse order and still the alarm remained active.
“Time,” Hali hissed into his microphone.
“Twenty-three seconds,” Juan answered from outside.
Hali had no choice but to punch in the progression. 1243 Enter, 1324 Enter, 1342 Enter, 1423 Enter, 1432 Enter.
“What’s happening?” Juan asked.
“Random number. I haven’t hit it yet.”
“You’ve got ten seconds.”
2134 Enter, 2143 Enter, 2314 Enter, 2341 Enter.
“Hali,” Linc whispered, “Try 3142.”
“Five seconds.”
Kasim didn’t question Linc’s guess. He hit the numbers and stabbed the Enter key.
The chime sounded again and the light began to blink at double speed.
“We gotta go,” Hali said, his voice strained with the tension.
“Reverse ’em,” Linc ordered. “Try 4231!”
“One second.”
Linc’s suggestion wasn’t a reversal of the numbers, but Hali punched them in anyway: 4231 Enter.
