Max Collins - Before the Dawn

That was only because most home invaders lacked Max’s singular skills.

Even here, behind the security-up-the-wazooed walls of a paranoid ka-zillionaire like Jared Sterling, Max would have a good thirty seconds to punch in the correct security code, before the ten-man team came scrambling after her. The keypad and its pin did make this a little tougher than taking candy from babies.

A little.

Four wide concrete stairs, with a huge concrete lion presiding over either side, led to a small landing in front of a formidable green door (it looked to Max like a big dollar bill) with a fancy brass knob and above that a centered, ornate brass knocker. Thankfully, the porch light was not on.

Large dark-curtained windows, each about thirty inches wide, bookended the door, and for a brief second Max considered just breaking one, climbing in, and kicking the shit out of those security boys... just for practice... just for fun...

Pleasing though the notion was, Max thought of Moody (“Only amateurs take unnecessary chances on a score”), and she withdrew her switchblade from her jacket pocket and eased its tip into the latch of the big green door. Less than ten seconds later, that oversized dollar bill yawned open, and Max silently started to count.

Thirty, twenty-nine, twenty-eight...

She stepped inside the entryway, and was swallowed by the darkness of the slumbering house; her night vision would kick in soon. She folded the knife, slipped it away, the world in here so silent she heard only the ticking of a few clocks, her own breathing, and the counting in her head.

Twenty-five, twenty-four...

The keypad was on the wall to her right, each touchpad conveniently aglow, a red light shining in the right bottom corner, a green light in the left, with a copper-colored window to display the code above the numbered pad. She’d been correct: ten digits. Typically, a four-number code.

Twenty-two, twenty-one...

Her extraordinary eyesight determined which of these keys — four of them: 1, 3, 7, 8 — had wear; the code would be twenty-four combinations thereof...

Sixteen, fifteen, fourteen...

Her hands flew over the keyboard, her eyes, ears, and brain working in concert at a pace only nanoseconds slower than a computer.

Ten, nine...

Eleven combinations tried.

Eight, seven...

Seventeen tried.

Six, five, four...

Finally the correct combo kicked in and the red light blinked green. Thinking, It would have been more fun to just break a window, she smiled nonetheless with satisfaction, touched a button marked IN, and the light blinked back red.

The house was secure...

... at least that’s what Jared Sterling’s security staff would be thinking.

Max’s night vision was in full force now. She was in a foyer larger than most homes. The floor was marble (pale yellow in the photos on-line), the walls plaster, and the furnishings here, and elsewhere in the house, were Mission-style, some of them vintage pieces, including some Frank Lloyd Wright originals. She had entered a starkly beautiful, masculine world where every item, however mundane, might be a valuable object d’art.

Straight ahead a staircase wide enough to accommodate ten people abreast led to an upper floor where a long hallway would extend to either end of the house. Glancing up at the landing, Max could make out a couple of dark wood doors, ironically making the second floor, with its plaster walls, look like a hallway in an inexpensive hotel.

On the left side of the staircase, maybe halfway up, was a small wall-mounted video camera trained on the entryway.

To Max’s left and right, closed doors led to living rooms and billiards rooms, dens, and a few other rooms whose functions were not spelled out in her online research. She had tried to find plans for the house, but even with her hacking of both the security company and Sterling’s own firm, plus the web site of the architect who’d built the castle, the plans for Sterling’s home remained elusive, apparently guarded as if they were a government secret. What she did know, Max owed Architectural Digest ...

The curtains on the windows bordering the front door were heavy masculine maroon brocade, Pretty fancy, Max thought, but then my digs run more to taped drywall and sheet plastic. Sterling could afford to live well, and his quality of life was reflected in the quality of his things. If she’d been able to, Max would have backed a moving van to that front door, and spent the rest of the night hauling enough swag out of this joint to retire at nineteen.

Hugging the walls, she worked her way around the foyer till she was on the left side of the staircase, near the camera. Staying low, she climbed the stairs to the camera, got behind it and carefully unscrewed it from its mount, then unscrewed the coaxial cable from the back, all the while listening for the sound of pounding feet, a sure sign she’d been spotted.

She heard nothing. Just those same few clocks... and of course the steady beat of her heart.

Next, from a vest pocket, she took out a device much like a small Tazer, touched it to the cable, fired it, sending a high-voltage burst through the cable. This should short out the entire video system.

Now she heard feet pounding through the house, voices, too, whispers so as not to alert any intruder too quickly. She replaced the camera on its wall mount and hoped the security cam would look normal enough to pass a rapid inspection. Melting into the shadows behind one of the brocade curtains, she watched as four men, all in shirts and ties, converged in the foyer.

Two of these spiffy security guards had pistols drawn, 38 Colt Specials, while the other two carried automatic weapons, Heckler & Koch MP7A submachine guns. A negative wave of emotion ran through Max, momentarily breaking her remarkable self-control.

Guns made her react like that — but it was not fear...

... and she knew how to use such weapons herself, proficiently in fact; only, since her sib Eva’s death, she could hardly stand to touch the damn things.

Each man wore an earphone and... was that?... She looked closer, the cat’s eyes working their magic — yes, each also had a tiny microphone peeking out from the end of his sleeve. Sterling would seem to be serious about protecting his possessions: suits and ties aside, these boys were six feet tall or better, ranging from midtwenties to early forties, two white, one black, one Hispanic, apparently all in shape, their manner professional, their look hard-core, that chiseled emotionless quality you found only in career soldiers... or mercenaries.

Max smiled; she felt a tingle of excitement...

Not that looking at the men frightened her, or intimidated her in any way. But she knew that if the master of the house had gone to this much trouble to protect something, that something must really be worth protecting... something more, even, than a highly valuable painting like the Grant Wood. Maybe, just maybe, she would make an even bigger haul here than she had imagined.

And, too, she kind of liked the challenge of being up against worthy opponents...

Tall, with a graying crew cut, the oldest of the quartet took charge; he had narrow colorless lips, dime-sized scars on either cheek, and — like Max — he wore black from head to toe... his shirt and tie included.

“Maurer,” the leader said, “upstairs.”

One of the guys carrying the MP7As — black, broad-shouldered, clean-cut, wearing a gold shirt with a striped tie — ran up the stairs right past the camera Max had used to disable the video system.

“Jackson,” the leader barked.

Also carrying an MP7A, Jackson identified himself to Max by stepping forward. Burly, white, the youngest of them, he looked like a college athlete attending an awards dinner in his too-tight white shirt and gray slacks with a red-and-blue-striped tie.