The Prometheus Deception (70 page)

“What's the protocol? I've never had one of these before.”

“What the hell do you think, asshole? First things first. Call the fire department. Then notify Mr. Manning.”

*   *   *

As soon as Bryson gave her the word, Elena had pressed the button on the small wireless transmitter, which emitted a signal that instantly detonated the firing pods Bryson had wired to each of the twelve theatrical flash cartridges and the four flame-projector tubes. The flash cartridges, which nestled among the leaves and low foliage just over the perimeter fence on Manning's property, immediately generated thick plumes of dense brushfire smoke, mushroom clouds of grayish and black smoke; the flame-projector tubes produced flames that shot eight feet into the air, lasting only a few seconds. Bryson had timed them to go off in sequence, simulating the effect of a wildly spreading brushfire. These were props, special effects used in theatrical and film productions to imitate forest fires convincingly yet safely, without actually causing one. He had no interest in burning down national forestland; there was no need to do so.

*   *   *

“Seattle Fire Department Dispatch, go ahead.”

“This is Security at Gregson Manning's estate. Get over here right away—we've got a huge fire that seems to have started in the national forest—”

“Thank you, but we're already on the way.”

“What?”

“We've already been notified.”

“You
have?
”

“Yes, sir. By one of your neighbors. The situation appears to be quite serious. We advise complete evacuation of the residence immediately.”

“That's out of the
question!
Mr. Manning is in the middle of an
extremely important
function, with guests invited from all around the world,
important
guests—”

“Then it's all the more
crucial
, sir, that you evacuate your
important
guests to safety,” snapped the dispatcher.
“Now!”

*   *   *

Working at top speed, Bryson hooked the compact mechanical winch on to the steel collar at the head of the ventilation shaft. The double-locking snaphook at the end of the galvanized steel cable he connected to a carabiner, which hooked on the full body harness sewn into the tactical vest.

Built into the portable winch was a controlled descent device, user-controlled, with an auto-lock cam that gripped the rope as it was pulled through the spring-loaded reel, regulating the speed of the descent. It allowed him to lower himself down the shaft at a steady, metered rate.

As he lowered himself, he reached over and replaced the grate, shoving it up against the sturdy black thermoplastic casing of the winch, which would not be obtrusive at a distance. Then he resumed his descent down the dark, seemingly endless duct. In the distance he thought he could hear the warbling sirens of fire engines; they had responded even more speedily than he had anticipated. As the line continued its metered payout, he reflected that he was about to enter the zone of heaviest surveillance. The mock brushfire would raise all sorts of alarms, diverting the precious resources of Manning's security complement. Attention would be riveted on the threat of an enveloping forest fire, a far more immediate concern than any theoretical intrusion. Any alarms Bryson inadvertently set off would be attributed to the arrival of firefighters on the property. Confusion would reign, controlled panic: the ideal cover for his infiltration. Bryson had been careful to plant the smoke-generating cartridges sufficiently distant from Elena's truck that her presence would not create suspicion; still, she had to remain alert for questions. Bryson was confident she could handle them.

As the cable continued to spool out from the specially designed pulley far above, Bryson marveled at the distance, the astonishing
depth!
When he saw the red end-of-travel indicator near the cable's end, he knew that he had descended almost 225 feet, the maximum length of the line. Finally the line jerked to a stop. He looked down; another five or six feet remained. He dropped down to the polished concrete floor, his crouch absorbing the impact of the fall. He left the line dangling in place, in case it was needed.

*   *   *

Captain Matthew Kimball of the Seattle Fire Department, an African-American man of imposing height and girth, planted both feet before Gregson Manning's chief of security, a stocky man in a blue blazer named Charles Ramsey who was only a few inches shorter.

“There's no evidence whatsoever of any brushfire,” the firefighter said.

“Well, two of my men saw it on the cameras,” Ramsey replied defiantly.

“Did you see it with your own eyes?”

“No, but—”

“Did
any
of your men see the fire with their own eyes?”

“That I don't know. But the cameras don't lie.”

“Well, someone was in error,” Captain Kimball grumbled, turning back to his crew.

Charles Ramsey glanced at the security man next to him, his eyes narrowing. “I want a head count of every single firefighter who entered the property,” he snapped. “Something's definitely suspicious here.”

*   *   *

Bryson found himself in a spacious parking garage whose floors were of concrete polished to the sheen of marble. There had to have been more than fifty vehicles here: antiques, collectors' cars—Duesenbergs, Rolls-Royces, Bentleys, classic Porsches. All Manning's, he was sure. At the far end was an elevator, which went to the main house directly above.

Depressing the talk button on the two-way communicator, Bryson said quietly, “Everything okay?”

Elena's voice was faint but audible. “Fine. The last of the fire trucks has left. The flames and the smoke dissipated long before they arrived, leaving no trace.”

“As planned. Now, as soon as all exterior activity returns to normal, I want you to … go to reruns.” It was far too risky to feed in yesterday's surveillance video as long as there was activity outdoors, movement whose absence would be noticed by anyone watching the monitors. “And as soon as I'm in the house, I'm going to need you in close radio contact to guide me through the minefields.”

Bryson became conscious of a movement in the shadows to his left, a shifting between the rows of automobiles. He turned, saw a blue-jacketed guard with a gun pointed.

“Hey!” shouted the guard.

Bryson spun out of the guard's line of sight, then dropped to the floor. The gun fired, the explosion reverberant in the chasmlike bunker. A round hit the concrete inches from his head, ricocheting, the spent cartridge clattering to the floor. Bryson whipped out the .45, aimed with split-second timing, then fired. The guard attempted to dodge the bullet, but caught it in his chest. He bellowed, his body twisting; Bryson fired again, and the man was down.

Bryson raced to the fallen man. The guard's eyes were wide, staring, his face contorted and frozen in pain. Clipped to the lapel of his blazer was a security pass. Bryson took it, examined it carefully. The house's security system was structured into zones, Bryson concluded, and controlled by means of a conditional-access system. The entrance to each separate zone would be equipped with a proximal scanner, much like the electric eyes of supermarket doors that opened automatically as you approached. The security pass, worn on the breast pocket of a shirt or blazer, was scanned, the unseen computer noting the wearer's ID as well as his location and the time and date, and checking which level of access the individual was allowed. For unauthorized persons, doors would not open, and alarms would sound. The system kept track of where everyone was at all times.

But Bryson also knew that penetrating the house's security had to be more complex than simply stealing a guard's security pass. Either there was a backup, biometric system—fingerprints or handprints, retinal scans and the like—or codes would have to be entered by the person seeking entrance.

The guard's security pass might in fact do nothing to help him get into the house. He would soon know for sure.

The elevator was his way into the house, the
only
way. He raced toward it. He would have to move quickly now, for where there was one guard there would be others; the slain guard's failure to answer a routine, radioed question would raise alarms—alarms that could not be masked by diversionary measures.

The elevator doors were brushed steel, with a call button and keypad mounted on the wall beside them. He pressed the button, but it did not light up. He pressed again, and again no response: a code had to be entered on the key pad in order to summon the elevator—probably a series of four numbers. Unless the sequence was entered, the call button did not function. The security badge he had taken from the guard and clipped to the front of his tactical vest would do no good here.

He inspected the walls nearest the elevator, looking for concealed cameras. It was almost certain that there were in fact security cameras here, but Elena had spoofed them by substituting yesterday's surveillance footage in the system. If for some reason she had been unable to do that, or she had reason to believe that her ruse was not working, she would have radioed him already. She was his eyes and ears; he had to rely on her thoroughness, her skill. And he did; he always had.

The elevator doors could, of course, be forced open by brute force and a crowbar, but that would be a mistake. Modern elevators, even those of rudimentary technology, ran on electronic circuitry, like so much else these days. Prying the doors open by ax or crowbar would break the elevator interlocks and stop the elevator from running; as long as any door on the shaft was open, the elevator would not run. That was a safety feature common to almost all elevators built in the last quarter century. And if the elevator did not run, Bryson ran the risk of drawing the attention of security personnel. Though by then he might already be inside, he did not want to alert security to his intrusion, raise an alarm. An effective covert entry required that tracks be covered.

For that reason he had brought a special tool called an interlock key, used by licensed elevator repairmen for emergency entry. It was a six-inch length of stainless steel about half an inch wide, flat and hinged at the top. He inserted it at the top of the brushed-steel doors, just inside the head door jamb, the flat steel frame around the doors, and moved it to the right. Between three and six inches in, just inside the frame and atop the right door panel, was the mechanical interlock. The hinged interlock key moved easily until it hit an obstruction: the protruding oblong of the interlock. The hinged flap of the key slid to the right, knocking the interlock to the right as well, and the doors slid smoothly open.

Cold air emerged from the dark, empty shaft. The elevator cab had been parked somewhere on an upper floor. Bryson took out a halogen penlight and shone it into the shaft, moving the small, bright circle of light from side to side, up and down. What he found was not encouraging. This was not a conventional residential elevator with a drum-and-winch system, nor was it traction-operated, with cables and counterweights. That meant he could not hope to use the cables to grab on to and pull himself up, using mountain-climbing techniques—there
were
no cables to grab! All there was inside the steel-enclosed shaft was one large rail on the right side, along which the elevator was raised and lowered by hydraulic pressure. And that rail was slippery, highly lubricated; he could not grab it and pull himself up.

He had expected the worst, and he had gotten it.

*   *   *

Elena had already located the archive for past surveillance feeds. They were stored in flash memory in the database back at Systematix, easily reachable on this system. Ten days' worth of digitized video was stored, each by date, then further broken down by sector. It was a simple matter to retrieve a copy of yesterday's video and rename it with today's date. Then she inserted it into the video monitoring system. Now, instead of viewing live footage, Security was watching yesterday's archived footage, at the exact same time of day, just twenty-four hours earlier. Of course, this would work only for cameras one through eighteen, the outside and certain interior areas where foot traffic was light or nonexistent.

*   *   *

In the rear pockets of Bryson's tac vest were small, lightweight magnetic gripper devices that were customarily used for bridge and tank inspections, as well as underwater examinations of ships' hulls and offshore oil rigs. He strapped one onto each boot, then onto both hands, and he began to climb, scaling the smooth steel wall slowly: releasing and repositioning hands, feet, moving upward pace by pace, release and reposition. It was arduous work and slow going. As he mounted the wall, he remembered the distance he had dropped to enter the garage: over 225 feet, and that was from ground level, down the hill from the mansion. There would be at least one or two underground levels at which the elevator would stop, but he needed to go to the main level of the residence.

At last he saw, by the halogen beam of the penlight, the first of the basement elevator landings. He was conscious at all times that the elevator might be called to the parking level, that it would descend quickly toward him; in such an event, if he did not release the magnetic grippers quickly and flatten himself into the eighteen-inch clearance space between shaft and elevator car, he would be killed instantly. So he had to remain constantly alert for the sound of the machinery starting up.

Now only ten feet or so remained before he reached the level marked
ONE
where, inconveniently, the elevator car was stopped. Inconvenient, but not unexpected. Bryson sidled over, shifting hands and feet one by one, until he was directly underneath the cab. Then, turning around methodically, he placed the hand grippers one by one, with a metallic clang, onto the lower edge of the steel-sided car. Now he hung from the car itself, his feet dangling into the empty expanse of the seemingly bottomless shaft. He looked down for a moment, which was a mistake: the drop was some two hundred and fifty feet to a concrete floor. If anything went wrong, if the magnetic grippers somehow malfunctioned, that was it. He was not acrophobic, but neither was he immune to the fleeting sensation of terror. This was not a time to slow down, not when the elevator might be summoned at any moment. Moving as swiftly as he could manage, he began climbing up the side of the cab, sandwiched between the cab and the steel wall of the shaft with mere inches of wiggle room.