Catharsis (Book 2): Catalyst (16 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

            My headset is vibrating with Ren's voice by the time I hit the main road outside our warehouse and turn north.  "Are we in a bit of a hurry tonight, dear?"  His attitude is light despite his sarcastic tone.  We're both excited for what the night holds for us.  Me for the chance to get out and prove to myself that I'm not beaten yet, and for Ren it's a chance to get to play with some really nice high-tech toys.  Oh, and we're making a difference in the world, too.  There's also that.

            I smile at his remark, but I don't say anything out loud.  He doesn't need me to.  He knows the answer already.  "Well don't let that enthusiasm get the better of you once you're on location.  I don't want you forcing any encounters that we can avoid."

            "Ren," I say warningly.  His mothering can be refreshing at times to a girl who is missing her parents, but like any human just a little bit of it can go a long way.

            "Sorry, Cat," he says quickly.  "I'm just nervous. 

            "Not about you, though," he quickly adds after a moment's hesitation.  "Just this whole situation.  I have some high hopes for what we're doing, and it's been a long time since I've felt this way."  There's a contemplative pause as we both think about those words.       

            "Me too, buddy," I tell him quietly.  "Me, too."  And then to get us on to a more productive topic before I commit my first home invasion of the evening I say, "Why don't you run through the specs of the first house again?  Maybe it'll help keep me calm."

            I have no actual worry about my own emotional state, but I didn't want to have to listen to Ren's worried chatter any longer.  And talking like this will keep him distracted until I get there. 

            We had decided to start with the furthest house and then work our way backwards throughout the night which makes my initial drive a long one.  It's annoying to start the evening with such a delay, but at least at the end of the night it should be a short jaunt back to base.  (Base?  What am I, a rebel soldier camped out on Hoth?  Geez.  I've already been doing this too long.).  It takes a solid thirty minutes of travel through the city's late evening traffic before I get to my first stop.  I wanted to wait until dusk and the street lights had kicked on to minimize the light out here (Even though the helmet Ren found for me does an amazing job of darkening my view of the world, I figure there's no point pushing my luck in case I run into trouble.  Without eye protection, I'm nearly blind in the daylight.), but even with the later hour there are still a number of commuters out on the roads clogging the thoroughfares.

            Approaching the neighborhood where the first house is located, I let Ren know I'm almost ready to park and begin the operation (I'm sure the GPS he has on my bike told him the same thing, but it couldn't hurt to speak up.).

            "I'm slowing down now and trying to find that empty house we had picked out.  House numbers are a little tough to read."  It only takes me another few moments of checking the brick and siding-covered buildings before I find the one I want (a large “For Sale” sign helps me locate it): a well-kept but empty two-story house on a darkened side street.  Even though I've been checking the maps online of this area and have it all memorized, there's still an adjustment period to seeing it in real life.

            Stowing the Zero behind the house's detached garage (We figured this way it could sit undisturbed
and
be close enough to allow me a quick getaway if needed.), I dismount and open the first saddlebag to get my supplies.  Looking inside it, I get an idea.

            "Uh Ren," I say in my best worried voice.  "I thought you said you packed these bags with supplies."

            "I did," he says hurriedly.  "Why?  What's wrong?"

            "Nothing much," I tell him in a forcibly relaxed tone.  "It's just that the first one I opened is empty.  There's nothing in it.  Is it supposed to be that way?"

            "What?" he nearly hollers through the speaker.  "That can't be right.  Are you sure?  Maybe they fell out?  Abort, Cat.  Get out of there.  Let me-"

            For the second time tonight, I cut him off mid-rant.  "Just kidding Ren.  It's all there.  I already have a pack on, and I'm moving across the yard towards the house."  I wait and listen to him breathe heavily into his microphone without saying anything.  That was fun.  "Sorry, Ren.  It's ok.  I just wanted to break the tension and lighten the mood.  Now that you've gotten your pre-emptive heart attack out of the way, we can relax and enjoy ourselves."

            He still doesn't say anything for the length of time it takes me to get to the target house's back fence and crouch down.  Finally he just says a quick "You’re a horrible person, Catarina Perez.  But good luck."  And with that declaration I hear his microphone click off, and I know he has gone into silent mode for the rest of the time I'm here.  That means it's time to begin.

            Although my heightened abilities make combat considerably easier, we realized it doesn't necessarily facilitate a covert surveillance operation.  At least not the type we have planned.  My goal is to not break windows or doors (something I have become quite skilled at doing), but I have no background in disabling alarms.  That means I have to approach these places while they are still occupied with people.  I can avoid humans prowling the place much more easily than I can disarm keypads and security systems.

            This first house isn't even a major drug storehouse of any kind.  Ren suspects there won't be much money or even drugs inside, but it does belong to a man that he suspects of being on the payroll.  A lawyer who keeps bailing out the thugs I either send to the hospital or leave for the police to pick up.  Ren is pretty sure he'll lead us to somebody further up the proverbial food chain.  The biggest problem here is that the lawyer has a family, they'll most likely all be home, he lives in a nice, modern home and I'm going to have to get into his personal office on the second floor.

            "But how do you know which one is his office?" I had asked Ren when he was describing the place and what I had to do.  Knowing the exact room I had to get to was nice, but I was suspicious as to how he had figured it out.

            "Well, I don't know for sure," he told me.  "But I counted the number of bedrooms and then his number of children.  There's one extra room.  So then I looked for which room would be the furthest from the others and pegged that as his office."

            "Furthest?"

            "Yup.  A dad like that with children around and he needs to take care of shady business?  He wants to be interrupted as little as possible, so he would pick the room that is the furthest from the others."

            "Makes sense," I told him in agreement.  "And what about our little bonus device I'm installing?  Set that up, too?"

            He had stopped and considered this for some time before answering.  "Yes.  It may come in handy.  We just won't activate it if there's any chance of the family being home.  It's not worth that."

            "Are you sure?"

            "About installing it or the family not being home when I flick the switch?"

            My glare at him answered his question.

            "Yes, Cat," he had told me.  "I'm positive.  This is a war.  There will be some collateral damage."

            Studying the outside of the house, I see that I was right about not being able to climb the building's framework.  No brick.  Just a nice wood siding with no openings wide enough for me to wedge my fingers into.  That's what I thought I had picked up from the internet views we had located of the house.  That means I have to find another way in.  And thanks to my having had to deal with Chadwick's defenses previously, the idea quickly comes to me: jumping from a neighboring roof.

            It's not quite as silent an entry method as I would have liked, but it should be effective.  Checking the houses on either side and not liking the distance between them (Stupid affluent neighborhood with their several acre lots.), I settle on a house two doors away as the closest one with climbable bricks.  I'll just have to do a double jump to get back here.  Not ideal, but beggars can't be all choosey.

            Double checking my backpack for a length of rope for later, I relay my plans to Ren and which houses I have chosen.  He clicks his assent, and then goes back to quietly waiting for my updates. 

            This has to be completed as quickly as possible as I don't want to be seen lurking in this neighborhood.  It's too nice of an area to be forgiving to a person running around behind houses while dressed in black.  Exhaling through my nose a few times to center my thinking, I take one final pull into my lungs and then jet away from my hiding spot and down the grassy plain between the backs of the gently-lit homes.

            Luckily for me there are no people out grilling in the backyards this late into the evening on a cool autumn day.  That would have thrown an unnecessary wrench into our plans.  Making it to the brick-covered house in mere seconds, I launch myself into the air as I approach.  I hit the wall near a second floor window and only slide for a fraction of an inch before I find a useable handhold (This is where the practice has paid off.  I'm much better at leaping from a run and finding purchase on rough surfaces on the fly.  Sometimes Ren does know what he's doing.).  Scaling the house like a tiny chameleon trying to avoid a child's grasping hand on a hot Florida afternoon, I slither the dozen or so feet to the roof in a matter of seconds.  Carefully moving up to the apex of the building, I try to both minimize the sound that trickles down below me and give myself the maximum altitude from which to jump.

            Letting out the breath I took while in the backyard, I inhale a few more times to prepare myself for what comes next.  I plan to sprint the length of the house I'm on, leap through the air and land on the roof of the neighboring house.  Then I hope to continue that momentum as I leap from that second building and onto the lawyer's house.  All while staying completely silent and without falling off. 

            Holding that final breath and saying a small prayer for the forces of good, I pull in my energy so that I can accelerate across the roof at my highest possible speed.  As the far edge of the roof quickly becomes the
near
edge, I wait until the last second and then propel myself up and over the vast chasm of open air and fencing that separates the two homes.  This is as close to flying as I could ever get.  And it's exhilarating!  The wind tears through my hair as I pull my arms and legs in close to my body in an attempt to negate as much wind resistance as I can. 

            My speed works to my advantage and I clear the approaching edge of the house with several feet to spare.  Releasing my legs as soon as they are over the house's roof, I hit it with them churning like a sprinter heading into the final turn of a race.  I exhale my breath as I climb the steep roof towards the top and do my best to increase my speed while traveling up the incline.  Popping up onto the pointed crest, I pull up even more energy and race towards the final jump. 

            One more time as I see the end of the building approach, I prepare my body for its brief visit to the world of flight.  For the second time in less than a minute, I leap up and fly through the air and feel the freedom that comes with being a member of the avian species.  There's a moment of jealousy, and then it quickly passes as I see where I want to land loom up in front of me.  Focusing on not making any noise upon impact, I land on the shingles of the lawyer's roof, roll twice to dissipate some of the momentum and then launch myself up into the air to land gently on his brick chimney (Of course it's only brick here at the top, he opted for fancy, "unscalable" wood siding down below.).

            Looking back across the two dark shadowed roofs and what I just accomplished, I shake my head in awe of my own abilities.  That was impressive even for me. 

            Silently lowering myself down the chimney's brickwork, I activate my mic to let Ren know I made it.  "Mama Bird is on the nest," I whisper just loud enough for it to pick up for him.  A moment later my pocket clicks twice to let me know he heard me.  I'm sure he's cursing his inability to berate me for my ridiculous code phrase right now being as that he is limited to only simple speaker clicks.  Of course that only makes it more enjoyable for me.

            "Looking to drop the first egg," I say while suppressing a giggle at the thought of his reaction to my word choice.  Wrapping the rope around the chimney and securing it tightly, I bring it over to the edge of the house so that I can climb down to the window.  I keep the excess rope tucked into my backpack so that it doesn't dangle down past me.  The last thing I need right now is someone looking out a window and seeing a black snake of corded nylon wiggling past them. 

            With the rope secure, I lower myself over the lip of the house and walk the few feet down to the suspected office window.  It was awkward learning to hold the rope so that it wrapped my body once to support my weight and then leading with my head while traveling downward.  The natural instinct is to hang from the rope and lead with one's backside.  Although it may very well be
instinctive
, it isn't exactly
useful
when trying to peek into a room without being seen first.  There's a reason SWAT teams are trained this way.  And if it’s possible for them, then my abilities can certainly allow me to do it.