Austin Camacho - The Payback Assignment

“I’m still not sure about your boots,” she said as the stairwell door closed behind her. “They might make too much noise on the steps. I’ve got to get you a pair of these special crepe soled boots.”

Morgan turned and closely examined the steel door they had just come through. “Don’t sweat it, Red. These fire doors are almost completely soundproof. Now, quit stalling and let’s get up there.”

She smiled a challenge in response to Morgan’s remark and launched herself forward. She moved beside him as they took forty-one flights of cement stairs in four quick jogging bursts. Every five minutes she reported elapsed time. During each of three rest stops, one minute each, the pair breathed deeply but did not speak. In the dimly lighted stairwell, seemingly infinite above and below, they simply watched each other. She checked his face for alertness and tension level, and she knew he was checking her as well, looking at looseness of muscle, depth of breathing, lightness of tread. They both searched for any hint of hesitation or loss of sureness. She wasn’t disappointed, and his subtle nod said that he wasn’t either.

On the forty-first floor they faced a door and a cinder block wall. Felicity briefly thought she had miscounted, until she remembered how often these old buildings had no thirteenth floor. While Morgan pressed his ear to the heavy steel door, she produced a small container of lubricant with which she doused the door hinges. She crouched at the door while Morgan, above her, pressed the door handle and held it down, barely cracking the door open.

Three long minutes of silence passed. She imagined Morgan’s hand had to be starting to ache, locked around the handle, but he never made a sound. His closed eyes told her he was keeping his mind relaxed. Finally, the slow, easy tread of a bored hall guard approached.

As the footsteps moved past them, Morgan pressed forward and the door eased open without making a sound. His steely right arm snapped out, his gloved hand clamping over the patroller’s mouth. His other iron hand locked around the guard’s throat, dragging him into the stairwell with startling ease. Felicity pulled a hypodermic from a pocket on her belt, dropped the protective plastic sleeve and slid the needle into the man’s forearm, through his shirt. He could only have caught a fleeting glimpse of her beautiful, smiling face as she pulled the needle out. He struggled pointlessly for a few seconds, but then his movements slowed and the light went out of his eyes.

While Morgan sat the guard in a corner of the stairway, Felicity stepped into the hall. Using a tiny jimmy and screwdriver, she removed the cover plate from the controls of Seagrave’s exclusive elevator. Morgan was soon looking over her shoulder, but she knew her silent ritual held no meaning for him. Felicity was staring into the blackness of the hole in the wall, while she produced a tiny black box.

As they had rehearsed, Morgan shined a pencil torch’s thin beam into the workspace, barely five by three inches. Three wires hung from the black box. With a penknife, Felicity loosened connections and peeled insulation in the control access. Using alligator clips, she attached the black box to three contact points. Once the contacts were solid she turned and smiled at Morgan. He pressed a gloved finger into the elevator call button.

Seconds later, steel doors wheezed open and Morgan and Felicity played “Alphonse and Gaston” four or five times before she finally entered the elevator first. They were still grinning about their “after you” routine a moment later as the doors whispered open again three stories higher. Morgan stepped out, turned right, and came face to face with a yuppie playing hall monitor.

Felicity hung back for a good view. This part she loved. The guard was about fifteen feet away. He had been scanning a folded newspaper as he walked, humming softly to himself. He dropped his newspaper, his right hand snapping jerkily for the weapon under the left arm of his tweed jacket. Morgan took three quick loping strides and had him by the wrist before his hand could clear the blazer. Morgan’s right hand moved in a blur, stiffened fingers driving into his opponent’s solar plexus. As the man doubled over, Morgan’s elbow crashed down onto the base of his skull. Snatching the back of the blazer’s collar, Morgan lowered him to the floor without a sound.

Felicity’s movement’s matched Morgan’s efficiency. On her first visit to that building, she was on a fishing expedition, but this time she knew exactly which room she wanted to enter. Picking the lock on the target door took her exactly nine seconds. Once inside the now familiar conference room, she waved Morgan in behind her. He eased the door closed behind himself and stopped to listen for a moment. Apparently satisfied, he moved to the desk and turned on the lamp. Felicity nodded to him and stepped across the room. He called to her in a loud stage whisper.

“Red. Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure,” she said, backtracking closer to him. “I’ve met him, remember? And I heard everything Aaron told us about him, didn’t I? This is the kind of man who would strictly separate his family life from business. His ego and sense of self-control are obvious. On top of all that, he’s the type who’ll be wanting to keep his real treasures near at hand. He’d want to be playing with his toys.”

Morgan nodded. “Still sounds like a wild guess to me.”

“Morgan, I have to trust my guts,” she said. “All my experience, all my instincts are telling me the brooch has got to be in his living area, I’m betting in his bedroom. And surely he’d have the hallway outside his apartment upstairs heavily guarded, so this is the way to go in.”

“If it is the way in,” Morgan said. “I’m still not sure that elevator you noticed last night when you stared Seagrave down goes to his apartment. What if it goes to the warehouse?”

“There’s no reason on earth to have an elevator here, going there. Common sense and all my experience tells me it’s Seagrave’s back door. Trust me.”

Morgan’s face reflected his concern. “What if you meet a guard up there?”

“What, in his own apartment? In his home?” she asked. “Not a chance. Not if I understand the man at all.” She slapped his shoulder playfully and headed for the other end of the room. As expected, she needed no special gadgets to open it. The silent movement of the doors, folding open to welcome her, was a pleasant surprise. She stepped inside and waved to Morgan as the doors closed.

Seconds later, gilt-edged doors slid back, and the elevator opened onto a cozy study filled with expensive electronic toys. It was what she expected to see based on her read of Seagrave, and she would bet most of the stereo and video equipment was never used. She stepped out of the elevator car, keeping to the edges of the room. Floors, she knew, usually creaked least at the edges.

The darkness was as thick and deep as the ankle covering, wine colored carpet she walked on, yet Felicity moved through it with ease, as a shadow at home among shadows. She brushed past the velvet sofa followed only by the sound of her own heartbeat.

At the master bedroom she listened in rapt attention to the slow, steady breathing of its two occupants. Satisfied that those in the room were both asleep, she peered inside. There lay Adrian Seagrave in yellow silk pajamas, beneath burgundy satin sheets, in a king size water bed. His wife lay face down, two feet away. One of them had kicked the covers down to their ankles.

Mrs. Seagrave wore an expensive nightgown, rucked up around her hips. She was taller than her husband, blond, and the kind of plump many shapely women become when they no longer have any reason to watch their figures. But Felicity was struck most by the contrast between the two sleeping faces. The woman’s face was relaxed, untroubled. Few wrinkles showed. A slight smile rested on her lips. She slept the sleep of the innocent. Was this woman aware of her husband’s brutal life of crime? Did she know he ordered people killed just to increase his profits? Perhaps not. Maybe she thought he was just a typical American businessman.