The Prometheus Deception (69 page)

Within the space of a few seconds she “owned the box,” as the hackers liked to say. Though she was no hacker, she had long ago made it a point to learn the hacker's trade, just as a good field operative would learn the burglar's methods, the safecracker's techniques.

The training had paid off. She was in.

*   *   *

The fourteen-foot aluminum fishing boat was powered by a quiet, forty-horsepower Evinrude outboard motor. Bryson moved quickly across the lake, buffeted gently by the swells. The sound was minimal, carried away from the Manning property by a prevailing wind. As soon as he saw the string of bright orange barrier floats that demarcated the protected waters before Manning's dock and front lawn, he reduced speed and then cut the engine, which coughed and died. Theoretically he could have charged the line of floats, but he had to assume, even if he didn't know for sure, that Manning had some sort of security in place to detect the approach of intruder craft.

Even from here he could see the mansion, illuminated by floodlights, low-slung and hugging the hillside. Most of it was underground, making the structure appear more modest than it actually was. He dropped anchor, mindful of keeping the skiff in place as an escape option, if he was so fortunate as to be able to escape. He had told Elena,
assured
her, that his plan provided for a way out, but it was not true; he wondered if she secretly suspected it. He would win and survive, or he would lose and be killed. There was nothing in between.

Quickly, he began to assemble his equipment. Although he needed to travel as light as possible, he also had to provide for dozens of different obstacles that he simply could not foresee, which meant a range of equipment. It would be unfortunate to blow the entire operation for want of the right lockpick set. His tactical vest was heavy with various weapons, neatly folded clothing, and other objects, all sealed in plastic.

He radioed Elena on the secure two-way communicator.

“How's it going?”

“Good.” Her voice was strong and clear, sounding upbeat. “The eyes are open.”

She had succeeded in penetrating the video surveillance feed through the fiber-optic line. “How far can the eyes see?” Bryson asked.

“Uh, there are clear areas and areas that are not so clear.”

“What's not so clear?”

“Private, residential areas and the like. They seem to be monitored locally.” She meant that the cameras in the non-public parts of the house were watched not at Systematix headquarters but within Manning's house itself. Manning obviously wanted at least
some
semblance of privacy.

“That's unfortunate.”

“True. But there is some good news. There are some good reruns on TV.” She had located yesterday's video feed and had figured out how to pipe it back to the video monitoring system so that it appeared to be today's!

“That's excellent news. But wait until after stage one is completed. All right, now I'll be back in touch after I've gone for a swim.”

The lightweight black Nomex bodysuit he preferred for infiltrating the residence was water absorbent, so he wore a scuba wetsuit over it. He felt overheated, but the cold lake water would soon cool him down. Over the tac vest he now fastened his inflatable BC, or buoyancy compensator, which was already strapped to the tank, adjusted the quick-release buckles, adjusted the weight belt, donned his silicone dive mask, put the second-stage regulator into his mouth. After a quick double-check of his equipment, he knelt on the side of the boat and plunged in, headfirst.

There was a splash, and he was floating on the surface of the lake. He looked around, oriented himself, and started deflating his vest. He sank slowly beneath the surface of the water, which was cold and crystalline. As he descended, he noticed that the water became steadily muddier and more opaque. He stopped to equalize the air pressure, felt his ears pop. When he had reached a depth of about sixty feet, it was hard to see much farther than ten or twenty feet ahead. This was not good; he would have to proceed carefully, slowly. Feeling weightless, he began swimming in the direction of the shore.

He listened for the distinctive, bass-toned moan of sonar, but he heard only silence—which was reassuring in one sense, nerve-racking in another: there
had
to be some sort of security system in place.

And then he saw it.

There, floating no more than ten feet ahead of him, swaying in the water like some marine predator. Netting.

But no mere netting. An underwater alarmed security barrier. Webbing with fiber-optic mesh woven into the structure, linked fiber-optic panels that formed alarm zones, sensors connected to electronic control units via optical fiber-communications cables. This was an intrusion-detection system of unusual sophistication, used to protect military marine installations.

The Aqua Mesh was rigged to a series of buoys and anchored to the lakebed by means of weights. He could not swim through it, of course; nor could he cut or tear it without setting off the alarm. He deflated his BC until he was standing on the lakebed, then approached it, examined it. He had in fact set something like this up in Sri Lanka, and he knew that false alarms were not uncommon. It was prone to chafing and breaking, since water is constantly moving, and underwater creatures, whether fish or crabs, might wriggle through, get caught, even nip into the cables. It was not a perfect system by any means.

But he could not take the chance of setting it off. Manning's security personnel would be on heightened alert tonight, of all nights. They were likely to respond to any alarms.

He found that he was breathing shallowly, a reaction to fear, and this was causing him to feel unpleasantly short of breath, as if he could not fill his lungs; he felt a momentary panic. He closed his eyes for a moment, forced himself to be calm until his breathing became steady.

This is designed for boats, for underwater craft, he remembered. Not for divers, not swimmers.

He settled to his knees, inspected the sinkers that held the netting down. The lake floor was silt, a soft muddy sediment that yielded as soon as he touched it. He pushed at the silt, then began digging with his fingers, his hands cupped like spades. A cloud arose all around him, turning the water opaque. Swiftly, and with remarkable ease, he had dug an elongated trench beneath the bottom of the mesh, through which he was able to half wriggle, half slither. As he passed by, the movement of the water rippled the sensor net. But that could not possibly be enough to set it off: the water in the lake was always moving.

He was on the other side now: in Manning's water. He listened again for the lowing of an active sonar system, but he still heard nothing.

And if I'm wrong?

If I'm wrong,
he thought,
I'll know soon enough
. Speculation would do no good now. He swam onward with single-minded determination until he approached the pilings beneath the dock, mossy with algae. Maneuvering around to the far side of the dock, where he knew the boathouse was situated, he came closer and closer, the water increasingly shallow; now his feet touched bottom, the surface of the lake just two feet above. He deflated his vest completely, walking across the lake floor until his head emerged from the water and he was directly beneath the dock. He removed his mask, listened, peered around as far as he could see, and was satisfied that there was no one in sight; then he unbuckled the BC vest and attached tank of air and hoses, placing the scuba gear securely on a broad support beam. There he hoped it would remain in case he needed it again.

If I'm so lucky
.

Then he grabbed the side of the dock and lifted himself up.

The boathouse blocked his view of the house; it also served to conceal him from anyone who happened to be looking out the front windows. The lawn was dark, the only illumination spilling onto the grass nearest the house from the tall arched windows. Sitting on the edge of the dock, he took off the tac vest, peeled off the wetsuit, and put the vest back on over the black Nomex bodysuit. One by one he removed the weapons and other instruments from the vest, pulled them out of their plastic bags, and replaced them. He crawled the length of the dock and got to his feet in front of the boathouse. It was dark, seemingly empty. If he had miscalculated, he had the snub-nosed .45 handy in one of the front pockets of his vest. He pulled it out and gripped it as he walked toward the main expanse of lawn.

So far, so good
. But there was more to come, much more, and the security precautions would no doubt intensify as he approached the residence itself. He could not allow himself to relax his vigilance. He took out a black knit balaclava and pulled it down over his face. From another pocket of the utility vest he took the Metascope, the night-vision monocular that detected infrared light, and put it to his right eye.

He saw the beams at once.

The lawn was crisscrossed with them, motion-detector beam sensors, probably connected to infrared cameras. Anyone walking across the front lawn would break a beam and trigger the alarm.

But they went no lower than approximately three feet, in order to keep from being set off by small animals.

Dogs?

It was possible. It was, in fact, likely that there were guard dogs as well, though he had not heard or seen any.

The Metascope came with a head-mount assembly, allowing hands-free operation. He would need his hands free. He strapped the monocular on, the eyecup securely in place. Now he would be able to traverse the lawn while evading the infrared beams.

But as he dropped to his hands and knees, crawling under the level of the lowest beam, he heard something that made him freeze.

A low whine, a canine growl. He looked up, saw several dogs trotting across the lawn, their pace quickening. Not house pets: Dobermans. Bullet-headed, trained, vicious.

He felt his stomach tighten. Good Christ.

They galloped, stiff-legged, like horses, barking wildly, throatily, sharp teeth bared. Twenty yards off, he estimated, but gaining rapidly. From his tac vest he whipped out the tranquilizer dart gun, which looked like a pistol; he aimed, heart thudding, and fired. Four short coughs, and the carbon-dioxide-powered short-range projector shot four four-inch tranquilizer darts, the first one wide of the mark, the remaining three hitting their targets. It was a silent business: two of the dogs sagged to the ground almost instantly, the largest one continuing on unsteadily for another few yards before wobbling and then crashing. Each syringe injected 10 cc's of a fentanyl-based neuromuscular incapacitant, which worked immediately.

He was perspiring heavily, trembling involuntarily. Although he had prepared for the contingency, he had almost been caught unawares with neither dart gun nor .45 at the ready; a matter of seconds, and he would have been surrounded, powerful jaws at his throat, his groin. He lay flat on the dewy lawn, waiting. There might be other dogs, a second wave. The barking might have attracted the attention of the security guards. That was likely. But even highly trained dogs could have false alarms; if their barking stopped, attention would be turned elsewhere.

Thirty, forty-five seconds of silence. The black Nomex suit and black balaclava over his face enabled him to blend into the dark night. There were no other dogs in the vicinity; in any case, he could not afford to wait any longer. Built into the front lawn, as required by state building code, would be several grates, ventilation for the underground parking garage immediately below. One of the accounts he had read of the travails of constructing the mansion had alluded to a minor battle with the building inspector over the placement of the garage, invariably and inevitably called the Bat Cave because Manning and his guests entered it via an access ramp carved deep into the hillside on the other side of the house. Under the heat of public scrutiny, Manning had made concessions, adding ventilation shafts that opened unobtrusively into the front lawn.

Bryson resumed crawling across the lawn, moving to the left, careful to stay below the lower shaft of focused infrared light. He saw nothing. He crawled straight ahead another ten feet or so up the gradual slope toward the house, and then he felt it: the steel grille of a ventilation grate. He grabbed at the grating, prepared to unbolt it if need be, but it loosened after a few tugs.

The opening was not large, maybe eighteen by twenty-four inches, but it was enough for him to enter. The only question was, how far down? The inner walls of the ventilation shaft were smooth concrete: nothing to grip on to, no handholds. He had hoped for an easier descent, though he had prepared for the situation he now found. He had learned over twenty years of field operations to prepare for the worst; it was the only guarantor of success. The collar of the shaft, into which the grate was seated, was steel; at least that was something of a relief.

Peering through the night-vision monocular into the shaft, he satisfied himself that there were no infrared beams here. He finally removed the head-mounting apparatus of the night-vision monocular, which had begun to chafe uncomfortably, and pocketed it.

Taking out the two-way radio, he radioed Elena. “I'm going in,” he said. “Cue the effects. Ignition stage one.”

THIRTY-TWO

The security guard stared at the image, dumbstruck. “John, will you take a look at this?” The room in which they sat was round, the smooth walls a mosaic of views, yet unbroken by individual monitors. Each rectangle represented the feed from a different camera.

The second guard in the control room swiveled around in his chair and did a double-take. There was no mistaking it. A fire was raging on the border of the property. Cameras 16 and 17, stationed on the western perimeter fence, showed flames shooting up from the woods, thick smoke.

“Shit,” said the second man. “That's a goddamned brushfire! Some damned fool camper must have left a cigarette burning in the forest, and it's spreading!”