Perfect Killer (38 page)

Gabriel crouched on the top of the barrel racks farthest from the door. "Over by the door." Harper smiled as he followed the directions.
The barrel stack wobbled drunkenly as Gabriel pushed it away from the wall, rocking it back and forth, unbalancing it more with each shove until it tipped. Gabriel clambered to the next stack as the first barrels of extravagantly expensive cabernet sauvignon detonated like bombs against the floor. Wine and barrel staves flew like shrapnel.
The next layer of barrels burst too, but not as violently. A few, instead of breaking open, rolled against the far wall. Neither of the men thought it odd at the time that the barrels made distinctly different sounds when they struck the wall. The head of one of the barrels cracked when it hit the wall and sent more wine cascading over the floor.
"Okay, that's more like it," Gabriel
said
as he rocked the next stack of barrels.

The stale air had begun to choke me by the time the truck stopped. I struggled not to cough as the cargo door rumbled open.
"Okay, the undercarriage and engine compartment are clear" I heard a voice, not Rex's.
"This looks like more wine than the order specifies," said a second unidentified voice.
"I've got another delivery after this one," Rex said without missing a beat.
The footsteps grew close, then stopped. The box above my head shifted; daylight filtered through a growing crack. I grabbed for the HK.

Parked under one of the few trees in the middle of a large vineyard slightly northwest of Castello Da Vinci, Jasmine sat in the pickup and listened anxiously for some word on the walkie-talkie. But nothing came through.

In her mind she checked off her action list: All four of the radio-controlled aircraft sat in the pickup's bed, under the camper shell, fueled, loaded with their half sticks of dynamite. She needed only to connect the detonator wires to be ready to fly at a moment's notice. The vineyard access road they had parked on was actually a little better than the one she had tested all four planes on.

In the distance, she caught glimpses of a steady procession of limousines and the occasional motorcade as they headed for Braxton's event. Behind her, sprawled across the truck's backseat, Tyrone clacked at the keyboard of the new laptop.

"Yes!" Tyrone startled her.
"What?" She was irritated at having her thoughts interrupted. "I'm in!" "In where?'
"Braxton's network"
Into the WiFi?"
Tyrone shook his head. "All the way in."
"You're kidding!"
"Nope."
"How?"
"Cool new update of some crackware called airpwn," Tyrone said. "Uses raw

frame injection. One of my network cards listens on one channel, and the other card injects custom frames with perfect replies. If you tickle the size of the replies just right, it works so perfectly that the connection functions so well nobody on the other end can detect the intrusion unless they're watching a packet sniffer real-time."

"I don't understand a thing you're saying."
"That's okay," Tyrone said. "The important thing is that they can't block me without blocking legitimate traffic. So I get in through the wireless and look for a machine

that's connected to both the wireless and the hardwired network. Happens all the time. Anyway, I have some custom modifications to the Ethereal packet sniffer along with a MAC spoofer and a custom password cracker I wrote a while back that let me grab all the data I needed to get into the primary system."

"You told Kilgore you were rusty at this."
"I lied. He knew that. Like I said, its a new technology and really hard for even a talented user to close off all the holes. This one also didn't even bother to change the default password on the router."

"And what does that get us?"
"Eyes and ears."
"Say what?"
"Look at the screen here."
"Oh my God!"

Despite his age, his Parkinson's, and his having had little rest and nothing to eat or drink in more than twenty-four hours, Frank Harper startled Dan Gabriel with a whoop of joy when the next to last stack of barrels came thundering down. A fortune in cabernet sauvignon pooled ankle deep in the cave and made a visible current as it drained under the door.

"That should get somebody's attention," said Harper who had moved to the back of the cave as Gabriel worked toward the door.
"Not too many somebodies, I hope," Gabriel said.

"Not now, Benny." The wine box over my head stopped moving. "We got a line backing up out there." The case of wine came back down and sealed me off again.
"Awright," the voice said.
Then the previous voice: "Unload at the usual place. Wait for somebody to come check the inventory before you leave."
"My pleasure," Rex said.
The cargo door rumbled again and the truck began to move. Only then did I reset the safety. I heard the safety on Kilgore's pistol click about the same time.
Moments later, the truck slowed, reversed, stopped. A minute later, cool air flooded in over me.
"Wake up, asshole," Rex said.
Beyond him, the yellow and black stripes of a loading dock showed beyond the mostly closed cargo door. An electric forklift whirred in the distance. I got out and helped excavate Kilgore, who climbed out quickly and paused to suck in the fresh air.
"Okay, let's stage the scenery as best we can," Kilgore said as he started moving wine cases toward the back of the van. "Stack the plywood flat in the corner so it's not noticeable. The more innocent things look, the more time we'll have before they tumble onto us."
Rex and I followed his lead, and minutes later Kilgore keyed the microphone. "We're in."
Then we rolled up the cargo door, grabbed a case of wine apiece, and followed Kilgore through the chaos on the loading dock. Caterers, vendors, and platoons of people in white uniforms with toques cursed in a dozen languages, demanding forklifts, assistance, and insisting to be escorted upstairs immediately or the canapes, ice sculptures, gelato, and everything else would be ruined. Ruined!
Braxton's security, dressed in blue blazers, khaki pants, white shirts, and rep ties, sidled through the unruly mob, trying to establish order. The looks on their faces said they'd prefer to shoot most of these people if only it wouldn't deprive the General and his guests of pâté or pastry.
"I like this very much," Kilgore said as we pushed our way through the melee and across the loading dock. To our right, an arbor heavy with summer foliage blossomed and extended the length of the lot now jammed with trucks.
"The formal entrance is on the other side of this," Kilgore said."Braxton wouldn't want his very snotty guests insulted by the sight of common people working."
We followed him into the coolness of the main service entrance.
"Right up there." Kilgore pointed at shadows in the far right corner. We stood stock-still for a moment, blending into the dimly lit area. One of the security officers looked over at us, then turned to a tall, thin young man who was haranguing him about how his was the most important course and the General would be displeased if the delivery was not made immediately
Kilgore led us around an oblique corner to a shadow-filled corridor and set his wine case down.
"This should be it."
Rex and I stacked our wine on top of his. A long, dimly lit cave stretched before us, lined on both sides with phalanxes of identical oak-plank doors bound with black iron straps.
"From here, I count maybe twenty doors."
"Damn… ," Kilgore mumbled. "Let's get going." He turned and slid the heavy bolt of the nearest door. The tunnel resonated with the screech of metal in desperate need of lubrication.
"Jeez!" Rex said. "Better hope the noise back there continues."
"We have a choice," I said as I took the first door on the other side of the tunnel. It screeched slightly less than Kilgore's.
"I'll work ahead," Rex said as be walked half a dozen doors down the tunnel. I cringed as he slid back the next bolt and filled the corridor with a deafening metallic thunder.
"Listen!"

Gabriel stopped by the door and stood up. The last pieces of broken barrel staves and a hoop hung loosely at his side. Above the sounds of priceless cabernet dripping into the expensive red flood came the rusty complaints of the cave doors and muffled voices of men.

Harper sat still and concentrated. "Yes, this may be good." He struggled to his feet as Gabriel scaled the last remaining tower of barrels, the one adjacent to the door. When he looked back at Harper, something on the cave wall caught his attention.

"Doctor?"
"What's over by you? Looks like a crack in the wall."
Harper shuffled over to it. "A crack in the wall."
"These are supposed to be solid stone."
Gabriel climbed down, walked over, and stared at a small trickle of wine

disappearing into the crack.
"Don't you think you should get ready?" Harper looked toward the door. "In a sec."
Gabriel rapped on the area around the crack. Hollow. He rapped on a spot about

five feet over. Solid. He tore at the crack, peeling off concrete fragments. "What is it?" Harper asked.
"Maybe a better way out," Gabriel said as he worked at the wall. As the bolt

sounds in the outside tunnel grew louder, the concrete came off in bigger pieces, revealing the mesh of reinforcing metal. The cool dankness of trapped air made its way through the mesh.

"Holy hell!" Gabriel said as he pulled at the bottom. The metal bent outward as he pulled loose the soft metal wires used to fix the mesh to the cave walls. With a final heave, Gabriel lifted the bottom up more than three feet, enough to crawl through.

An excited voice sounded outside the door. Someone had found the stream of wine.
"We don't know where it leads," Harper said. "Or if it leads anywhere at all."
Outside, they heard the thuds of running footsteps.
"That's right, Doc, but life's like that, isn't it? We know we have a tough fight the other way. I say we make a choice and pray for the best."
The bolt on the door rattled tentatively.
Harper accepted Gabriel's outstretched hand.
"Wise decision, young man."
"From you, I'm honored."
Harper wasn't halfway in when the bolt screeched all the way back. "Keep moving, Doc," Gabriel called as he rushed to the barrel stack and scaled it with an ease that amazed him.

Jasmine's heart trip-hammered as she watched Tyrone paging through scene after scene from Castello Da Vinci's security cameras.
"Now, listen." He clicked on a button on one camera image, and the sounds of distant voices came from the laptop's speakers.
"Every camera also picks up sound."
"That's amazing."
Then Kilgore's voice came through on the walkie-talkie. "We're in."
"Okay, help me for a minute," Jasmine said to Tyrone as she grabbed the walkietalkie, plugged in the earbuds and lavalier mike.
"I don't suppose you can locate Brad and the rest?" She clipped the walkie-talkie to her belt and got out of the truck. Tyrone followed her.
"Not too soon, I hope," Tyrone said.
"Why?" Jasmine opened the camper shell and dropped the tailgate. Tyrone came around the side and helped Jasmine pull out one of the radio-controlled airplanes.
"Because if I can see them, so can Braxton's security people."

Rex summoned us with a stage whisper.
Kilgore and I jogged over and nearly slipped on the wet. The unmistakable fragrance of wine saturated the air. Red wine, to be exact. I bent over, wet my finger in the

liquid, and tasted it.
"Young cabernet sauvignon."
Rex shook his head, then slid the bolt, eliciting a shrill, tortured sound that

immediately attracted the beams of powerful flashlights and echoes of sprinting combat boots.
"Freeze!" someone shouted.
"I'm out of here."' Rex said as he muscled the door open. A thundering detonation showered us with wine and pieces of wood.
"The hell?" Rex yelled as he leapt back. Then another barrel exploded against the floor, followed by another and another.
"Jesus Christ, Joseph, Mary, and the donkey!" Rex cursed.
Braxton's security guards drew closer. Cautiously, we looked through the partly opened door at the carnage of expensive French oak and cabernet. Braxton's men closed to half a dozen paces.
"Hands up!" they shouted.
Heedless of the barrel barrage, Rex lunged over the priceless wreckage as Braxton's men grabbed my arm.

Colonel William Lewis paced calmly among his troops in the back of the shabby Napa storefront and listened intently to the radio traffic in his earbud. Lewis's troops were used to him communicating with the "Old Man," as they called Kilgore. They just had no idea where Kilgore was located.

"Sir, we've picked up some interesting stuff." Lewis turned and looked up into the face of Janet King, a fast-rising corporal, a Penn State lacrosse and rugby star (men's teams) with a computer science degree, who'd enlisted "because I was tired of the way politicians always piss on the military." She also hated being called "an Amazon." At sixone, 193 pounds, and a percent body fat she had to struggle to keep out of single digits, Corporal King had the wherewithal to make her objections stick.

"They've gone to the equivalent of general quarters over what appears to be intruders."
Lewis said a silent prayer. "Could it be a faulty alarm or something?" She shook her head. "They've apparently made contact and have apprehended two people."
Lewis nodded and tried to appear calm.

Tyrone leaped from the truck and ran around the back to Jasmine, who'd been pacing the hard-packed lane ever since she had finished connecting the electrical detonators to the accessory circuits of the aircraft. Jasmine turned.
"The security control screen has gone apeshit!"
"Show me."
"C'mon." Tyrone rushed back into the truck with Jasmine close behind. Inside,

Tyrone held up the laptop.
"Notice the red flashes? Those were all green a minute ago."
"This looks like a diagram of the London underground," she said calmly. "It's similar… part schematic, part spatial reality."
"I don't think this is a good sign." Jasmine shook her head and looked back at the