Thief (18 page)

The thief guessed not, but decided to make sure. This was a simple B&E, but as in any skill the little things count. He got out a small Maglight, cupped the lens, and flipped it on. He cast the narrow glow around the perimeter of the door, and in the upper right-hand corner saw a steel conduit about the diameter of a pencil running off it. The conduit looked new and ran around the side of the building.

They're taking precautions,
he thought.
They know the value of what they're on to. Well, it only made sense, right?

Rather than bemoan this glitch in his plan, Monarch adapted, following the conduit around the corner to a control box above the electrical supply. Like the conduit and the locks, the control was new and digital. The thief wished he had thought to have Barnett ship him some of the high-tech gadgetry they normally used to swiftly bypass such security systems.

Instead, he had to do it the old-fashioned way. From his pocket, he retrieved a Leatherman tool, and used it to unscrew the cover. The conduit spilled three leads: red, green, and black. It could have been much worse.

Monarch considered just disconnecting the telephone line and snipping the alarm lead, but figured there had to be a redundant and immediate response either way. So he dug into his pocket again, came up with a small spool of light-gauge electrical wire.

With the Leatherman the thief stripped off the ends of a single nine-inch length. He used the plier tool to form the exposed ends into narrow hooks, and then turned the flame of a cigarette lighter on them. When they glowed hot, he tugged the hooks against the red and green wires, watched them melt through plastic, and then bond with the underlying wire to form a loose circuit.

Enough current was still flowing to keep the controller from signaling a system failure, and triggering an alarm when he opened the door. He'd tear it all out as he left.

Monarch checked his watch, and saw it was half past seven. Dealing with the alarm had taken almost fifteen minutes. He wanted to be out of the alley and into the building as quickly as possible. The longer he remained in the public right of way, the bigger the chance of being spotted.

Monarch picked the new lock in less than a minute. But before he opened the door, he cut another length of wire, stripped it completely, and threaded it between the upper right-hand corner of the jamb and the door. Holding the wire there with his right hand, Monarch reached down and opened the door inward with his left, ready to sprint out of there if the alarm sounded. But he only heard that background thrum of bugs and the distant music of Carnival. Pivoting inside, he kept pressure on the wire where it met the plate of the alarm, and eased the door shut, and locked it. Turning on the small flashlight again, he walked halls and climbed stairs until he was outside a smoked glass door, with a sign that read
VOVO INSTITUTE
.

After checking around the door and finding no evidence of a second alarm system, Monarch picked the lock with ease and was soon inside a warren of four cramped offices with aging computers and beat-up furniture. There were names on the doors that allowed him to link what he saw in a given room with the dossiers Barnett had put together on each of the scientists.

The first office belonged to Philippe Rousseau, a French-Canadian who had a Ph.D. in botany from McGill University. The scientist taught at Rice University before coming to the University of Rio and the Institute two years before. The office was neat with many plants growing on stands set about the room. Some looked like dormant orchids, while others were blooming. There were several different kinds of succulent plants as well, one small, barrel-shaped, and armed with thorns, and another with long dagger stems. Besides a small stack of files, a ceremonial pipe of some sort, a lamp, and the desktop screen, his desk was clear.

There was no server for the computer. The screen and keyboard were connected to a CAT6 line that disappeared into the wall. A photograph on the wall showed Rousseau, a tall, thin man with a scruffy beard, hiking in the jungle. Another caught him near a dramatic waterfall. There was little else that spoke to the man's character or personality.

Todd Carson's personality, however, was widely apparent in the office across the hall. Behind his desk there was a framed certificate naming Carson as a second-team all-American infielder at Louisiana State. Beside it was a framed diploma from Berkeley, awarding him his Ph.D. in chemistry. There were fifteen or twenty pictures of the scientist, a beefy, jocular blond dude in all manner of outdoor scenes, from desert to jungle to surf and snowfield. In most he was grinning like he was having the best time of his life. In the few where he wasn't, he was with a stunningly beautiful woman with dark features and eyes that looked into the lens with a casual defiance.

In addition to the pictures, there were artifacts, and souvenirs from Carson's travels displayed about the room, many of them affixed to the wall, or crowding the shelves. But like Rousseau, Carson had no server beneath his desk, and little on top except the computer screen, and another one of those ceremonial pipes.

Monarch picked the pipe up, sniffed at the bowl, smelled something like vinegar, and set it down, thinking that there were no big filing cabinets in either of the offices. The two doors at the far end of the hall were locked. The one on the right was also dead-bolted. It took the thief three minutes to open it and step inside a room that was double the size of the other two. It smelled like perfume. Blackout shades were drawn and the curtains closed so he felt comfortable turning on a table lamp.

Monarch scanned the office, noting a closed door in the near corner, before pausing on a gleaming black safe that was bigger than a coffin. It looked completely out of place. He peered under the desk, and found no server, just a cable that ran out from the screen and lay disconnected on the floor. There was another cable coming out of the wall about three feet away, also disconnected.

These facts came together in the thief's mind. The scientists were using a single server for their research. The server and files were being stored inside the safe when the researchers weren't around. Monarch had not anticipated a safe. He would have to return the following night with the right equipment.

His training took over and told him to complete a reconnaissance run. The desk was completely bare. No pipe. No computer screen. There were three bookcases behind the desk, however, the lower shelves of which were filled with books on anthropology, biology, and genetics. The upper shelves held various primitive knickknacks, including yet another one of those ceremonial pipes occupying a place of honor between two framed doctoral degrees from Stanford University, one in anthropology and another in biogenetics.

On the shelf below the diplomas and the pipe were photographs featuring the recipient of the diplomas, that same exotic woman Monarch had seen in several of Carson's pictures. Her name was Estella Santos.

Santos ran the institute and was also the lead author of the research paper that had gotten Sister Rachel kidnapped. In one of the photographs, Santos was in her late twenties, standing in a graduation gown and cap with a handsome older man with much darker skin than hers, and an attractive Asian woman. To the thief's eye, the scientist seemed the perfect melding of both her mother and her father.

Another picture, faded, was of Santos as a young girl. She sat at the feet of an older woman with silken black hair, and skin that was the color of cured tobacco leaf. He figured she was in her late sixties, but could tell at a glance that she must have been stunning as a young woman. And the way she beamed at the camera suggested to Monarch that she was much younger in her mind than she was in her body.

A third photograph showed the view off the stern of a boat: a wide expanse of water shimmering in the soft rosy glow before sunset. Monarch studied it a second, wondering what significance it had, what clues it might yield before turning to the last picture.

In it, Santos stood with her arm about the shoulder of a younger woman with skin the color of oxblood, jet-black hair, and Indian features. They were on the lush banks of a muddy river, and couldn't have been dressed more differently. The Indian woman wore a simple white T-shirt, faded floral-print skirt, and sandals. The scientist wore khaki shorts, a long-sleeve blouse, cap, and stout hiking boots.

But it was the expression on the women's faces that really caught Monarch's eye. While the Indian looked uncertain, the scientist was beaming as if this woman was everything she'd been looking for in life, the thing that answered all questions, confirmed all—

Monarch heard footsteps and then someone jiggling at the door to the suite. He bounded softly across the room, shut the door, turned off the light, and went to the other door, hoping it was another way out. Instead, he found a walk-in closet filled with women's clothes on hangers, and office supplies in a wall of wooden cubbies. Monarch shut the door, and then tucked himself in behind Santos's clothes.

He heard muffled voices coming, and then the office door opening and he could hear them plainly, two men and one woman.

“You read the rejection letter,” Philippe Rousseau complained in accented English. “It was mocking. They won't publish.”

A man Monarch took to be Todd Carson said in a deeper voice, “It called our integrity into question. Your integrity, Estella.”

“And someday soon, we'll make them chew on their own words,” Santos said. “Isn't that what Pasteur had to endure, the insistence on conventional wisdom? Didn't Madame Curie face the same things?”

“They did,” Carson agreed. “Everyone who's ever made breakthroughs that profoundly affect human life has gone through this kind of knee-jerk criticism. We just have to man up and take it.”

“Are you suggesting I'm not a man, Todd?” Rousseau demanded hotly.

“Nah,” Carson said. “Just French. I understand the complex.”

“Fuck you,” Rousseau said.

“Cool down, the both of you,” Santos said wearily. “I've got no time for this. The Bola Preta Ball at Scala starts in an hour and I need to be there.”

“One of us should go with you,” Carson said.

There was a pause before Santos said, “Actually, I hunt better alone, Todd. So, if you please, gentlemen, I'd like some privacy to get changed.”

“What are you going to wear?” Rousseau asked.

“C'mon, Philippe,” Santos said. “It's Carnival. Nothing less than the sexiest dress I own will do.”

“And you have that here?” Carson asked with a hopeful tone to his voice.

“Right in my closet, but I'm not putting it on until you're both gone.”

 

24

FUCK, THE THIEF THOUGHT
as he listened to Carson and Rousseau leave the office and shut the door behind them. Santos is coming in here.

Did the clothes hanging from the high and low racks fully cover him? What if that sexy dress was right here?

The thief considered just overpowering the scientist and leaving. With the hood on, she'd never be able to identify him. But she would have security on the institute's offices beefed up even more. Maybe put a guard on duty.

Monarch slipped from behind the clothes, climbed up the cubbies until he was up on top, tight to the wall above the door. As her shoes padded toward the closet, the thief leaned out, pressed his hands against the opposite wall and then walked his feet up the wall behind him until he was braced flush against the ceiling. It was a core move and almost immediately he felt his wound site start to throb.

The door opened. The closet light went on. Estella Santos walked in about eight feet below the thief, tugging a blue short-sleeve shirt off to reveal a black bra and a very deep cleavage. She went to study her clothes along the opposite wall. She pushed aside skirts and dresses right where Monarch had been hiding, and isolated a flesh-toned dress with gold sequins.

The thief prayed Santos would grab her clothes and change in the outer room. Instead the scientist reached behind her back, flipped the hooks, and then shook herself out of the bra. Monarch was so dumbfounded he almost lost his position and fell.

He willed his eyes almost shut, so he saw her moving like a shadow below him, putting on a flesh-colored bra and opaque, thigh-high hose. The wound was screeching at him now, and Monarch felt the sweat boiling on his neck and the crown of his head.

He felt the sweat begin to run when Santos grabbed the dress, a pair of pale high heels, exited the closet, turned out the light, and shut the door.

Swallowing a groan of relief, Monarch walked his feet down the wall onto the upper shelf so his body was no longer horizontal, but diagonally rising. He held the position, panting softly and slowly. But then the muscles around the wound site seized up, and he had to bite his lower lip not to cry out in pain.

He was tasting his own blood when he at last heard the sound of her high heels clipping across the wood floor, and saw the light under the closet door extinguish. The office door opened and shut.

“Oh, that sucked,” Monarch grunted as he twisted and climbed down the cubbies.

He had to stand there a full five minutes before the convulsions stopped. It left him weak, and he wanted to go to his hotel room, sleep, and return the following night with his safecracking gear. But he recognized an opportunity, and the desire to exploit it was greater than his need to rest.

Monarch left the building without incident. He removed the bare wire once he had the lower rear door shut, put it in his pocket. He decided to leave the loose circuit attached, just in case he did have to return. Only then did the thief remove the black hood and gloves.

He took a cab to his hotel, showered, and put on gray linen slacks, loafers, and a short-sleeve black button-down he'd bought earlier that day. Outside, he hailed a cab, told him he was going to the Bola Preta Ball at Scala, and climbed in the back. Twenty minutes later, the way was blocked by thousands of revelers dancing. Monarch got basic directions to the Scala club, and climbed out.