The Forgotten Soldier

by Brad Taylor

  9

  Clinging like a cat to the steps carved in the rock, Jennifer waited until Knuckles was behind her. He tapped her and she began to climb. She moved slowly, taking the steps one at a time, bent forward so far she could almost go up on all fours, listening for any sign of movement over the soft noise of the surf.

  They reached the plateau of the sunbathing deck, and the lights from the house spilled out. Jennifer paused and surveyed, seeing five lounge chairs lined up, facing the ocean. At the back of the deck was a proper staircase made of crushed coral, leading to the next terraced deck, then a farther staircase going up to the infinity pool and patio.

  The noise from the party spilled down the hill, tinkles of glass, conversation, and laughter. She rose up slightly, until she could pinpoint the security at the edge of the patio. She ducked back down and whispered, “They’re still in place, on our side of the pool.”

  Knuckles grinned and said, “Should we use one of the chairs or just lie down on the deck?”

  Jennifer scowled, inwardly cursing Pike for talking her into this plan. He routinely came up with some pretty outrageous ideas, but agreeing to Knuckles’s suggestion was about the worst.

  After spitballing various ways to get inside, they’d decided that they needed to play on the guard force’s reason to exist. In other words, let the guard force find them, but do so in such a way that they’d be laughing instead of suspicious. Let the guard force discover them engaged in something embarrassing, then apologize in the face of the laughter and slink “back” into the party.

  But what? What could the guards stumble upon that wouldn’t get them thrown out? Knuckles had come up with the idea: sex on the beach. Or more appropriately, sex on the sunbathing deck.

  Jennifer was mortified just thinking about it.

  Knuckles said, “Well?”

  Jennifer shook her head and said, “The lounge chair.”

  Knuckles said, “Me on the bottom or you?”

  “Jesus. Seriously?”

  “Well, it’s got to look real.”

  “You on the damn bottom.”

  He crept to a chair and lay down. She straddled his waist, glaring at him. He said, “Put your shoes on.”

  “What?”

  “Your damn Sammy Foos or whatever they’re called. They’re still around your neck. It’d look pretty silly when they find us.”

  She bent over and put on the high heels, muttering. She leaned back up and said, “Satisfied?”

  “Oh yeah. This is every male’s fantasy. High heels, formal dress . . .”

  She tried to thump him in the head, but he blocked it, continuing, “. . . secret mission in the Cayman Islands. I’m with Pike. I can’t believe I’m getting paid.”

  Exasperated, she said, “Are you done? Can we get on with the mission?”

  He grinned and said, “Yeah. Final equipment check. You can get to the Octopus? And your Third Lung if this goes south?”

  She reached back and felt the butt pack, saying, “Yeah. It’s good. All I need to do is ditch this skirt.”

  He said, “Stand up for a minute.” She did, and he unbuckled his belt, dropping his pants to his mid-thigh, but not touching his underwear.

  He patted his lap and said, “Okay then, lover. Let’s get it on. Start moaning.”

  She did, embarrassingly trying to sound like she thought someone in the throes of passion would sound. She’d never really paid attention to what she truly did. It came out like a wounded kitten.

  Knuckles said, “That’s it?”

  “Well, what the hell am I supposed to do?”

  “Shit. I can barely hear that, and I’m underneath you. Get them over here.”

  She shook her head and took a breath, then let out a moan like a porno film. Knuckles whispered, “That a girl! Pretend like I’m Pike.”

  Her eyes flashed, and she let out another moan, which sounded dangerously close to a lion closing in on a gazelle. Knuckles said, “Uhhh . . . might want to tone that one down a bit. You sound a little like you want to hurt me.”

  She said, “Shouldn’t you be helping?” And dug her hands into the soft flesh right above his hip, twisting. He involuntarily yelped, grabbing her hand, and they both saw the flashlight beam flick above their heads. He let go and said, “This is it. Get ready to act.”

  She moaned again, getting into it, and the flashlight came bouncing down the stairs. They jerked their heads up as if in surprise, then Jennifer sprang to her feet, pretending to adjust her dress. Knuckles leapt up, buckling his pants.

  The guard said, “What the hell are you two doing down here?”

  Jennifer ducked her head and moved behind Knuckles. Looking sheepish, he said, “Nothing. Nothing at all. Just looking at the view.”

  The guard tried to hide a grin, but could not. He said, “Sir, madame, I’m sorry, but the party is up at the house. Please, for my job, save this for after you leave.”

  Knuckles adjusted his tuxedo, gathered his feigned dignity, and said, “Sure. Sorry. Can you keep this between us, please?”

  The guard nodded, obviously having no intention of doing so once the party was over, and the three marched up the stairs and entered the house. Nobody paid them a second glance.

  Jennifer couldn’t believe it had worked, whispering that into Knuckles’s ear. He said, “It was the moaning.”

  She dug her hand into his kidney, twisting the flesh and making him jump. She said, “Now it’s your turn. Find the target.”

  They passed across the patio, the separate bedroom off to the left, a man outside. Knuckles said, “Still no way in from the front.” She nodded and they entered through the sliding glass door to the lower level. Knuckles looked around, seeing impossibly beautiful couples dripping wealth, but not his target.

  They went up the wooden staircase to the main floor and Knuckles saw him sitting on a couch in the corner, next to the balcony, the Brazilian in a chair adjacent to him, both deep in conversation. Knuckles took stock of the area, seeing the acre-size kitchen island, the expanse of food, and servers darting in and out among the guests. He looked for a couple close enough to the targets to be worthwhile. He found one about their age and said, “Let’s go. You lead, I follow. Comment on the woman’s dress or something.”

  He got no response and said, “Jennifer? You switched on?”

  She was staring farther in, at the metal spiral staircase leading to the master bedroom. She refocused and said, “Yeah. I’m good.”

  He saw where her attention had been and said, “One step at a time. That may be a bridge too far.”

  She snatched a champagne glass from a passing waiter and said, “Let’s get in the fight.”

  Walking toward the couple, she said, “I’ll start the introductions, but I’m going to excuse myself. Check things out.”

  “Check things out how?”

  “Just look around. You’ve got the magic microphones. It’s your mission.” They got closer and Jennifer took in the décolletage of the woman. She said, “Just remember to look her in the eye.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  She glanced sideways at him, but said nothing. He came within frontal view of the woman and said, “Okay, okay. I see.”

  Jennifer introduced herself, asking something innocuous about the woman’s jewelry, then turned it over to Knuckles, rotating her body to let him enter the conversation closest to the targets. Knuckles shook the man’s hand, then began spilling out his cover story as the CEO of a paint firm specializing in anticorrosive and low-visibility enamel, dedicated to the US military. Jennifer was actually amazed at how knowledgeable he sounded. Nothing like the man-child who’d demanded she moan for a thrill.

  She asked the woman for the location to a bathroom, then moved away, following her directions, sliding in between the groups of people and weaving her way to the back of the room
. She reached a hallway and saw exactly what she wanted: a line of three women waiting outside a door.

  She said, “Is this the only bathroom?”

  “I doubt it, but it’s the only one outside of a bedroom.”

  Perfect.

  She went back to the great room, seeing Knuckles still engrossed in conversation and catching him surreptitiously stealing a glance at the woman’s cleavage. Damn Neanderthal.

  She pulled up next to him and caught his attention. He smiled and said, “That was quick.” Appearing embarrassed, she said, “Honey, I really have to go to the bathroom, but there’s a line outside.”

  Knuckles looked at her in confusion and said, “Yeah? Uhhh . . . I guess wait.”

  She bored into him with her eyes and said, “I really have to go. Something I ate.”

  She was beginning to wonder if he would make the connection, when it finally clicked. He said, “Let’s see if we can find another one.”

  He pointed to the winding metal staircase and said, “You guys know if there’s a bathroom up there?”

  The man said, “I came early and got a tour. It’s the master bedroom, and yeah, it has a bathroom, but I don’t know if they want guests to use it.”

  Jennifer put on a pouting face, looking at Knuckles as if she were a dimwit wanting him to solve the problem. He said, “I’m sure they won’t mind.”

  He flagged down one of the roving security and said, “My date really needs to use the bathroom, but the one in back has a line. Something she ate. Would you mind if she went upstairs?”

  The guy hesitated, then spoke into his wrist. He waited for a response, touching his earpiece, then said, “That would be fine, but I’ll have to take her up.”

  Jennifer smiled and said, “Thank you. I really have to go.”

  Knuckles squinted at her and said, “I’ll be right here. Don’t take too long.”

  She nodded and he flicked his eyes at the targets and said, “You do, and I might wander off, looking for another date.”

  Jennifer got his meaning, but the comment drew a scowl from the other woman. Jennifer pecked him on the cheek and said, “I’ll be quick. I promise. Nobody else will have to moan for you.”

  She walked away, leaving Knuckles to respond to the couple now standing with their mouths open.

  10

  Jennifer followed the security man up the winding staircase, feeling the adrenaline build. She started to wipe a sheen of nervous sweat off of her face, then realized it might help her story.

  They broke into a large master suite dominated by floor-to-ceiling windows and glass doors facing the ocean. The man pointed across the bed to another door, one that slid into the wall. Jennifer grabbed her stomach and hurried through the room, saying, “Thank you. I might be a while.”

  She slid the door closed, made a show of noise by dropping the toilet seat, then focused on the window. It was large enough.

  She kicked off her Jimmy Choos and began to pull the Velcro off her skirt, the noise sounding as if she was tearing a bedsheet. She stopped and listened. Nothing. She looked at the wall and saw three light switches, one down. She flicked it and was relieved to hear a fan crank up, the noise enough to cover her transformation.

  She peeled off the skirt, leaving her in what looked like a black leotard. She piled the clothes and shoes in the walk-in shower, not really sure what hiding them would accomplish. She slid the window open and stood on the toilet, slithering through legs first and hanging by her fingers from the sill. She glanced left and saw two security men on the paved drive, one smoking. Neither looking her way. She looked right and saw her target window, at ground level and below the foliage. In between were two other windows she’d have to avoid. She surveyed the exterior, assessing what she had to work with. The building itself was constructed of stone, made to look like a real castle, with irregular bumps and ridges that were perfect for her skills.

  A gymnast in a previous life, she’d worked a spell with Cirque du Soleil and found she had a talent for free climbing. Like a gecko, she could scramble up just about anything, and the Taskforce took full advantage of that skill. Here, she would need every bit of it, because going down a vertical surface was exponentially harder than going up. Instead of eyesight, she’d have to rely on feel.

  She slid her toes to the right, searching for crevices and finding purchase. She followed with her hands, leaving the safety of the windowsill. She began the climb down, moving as fast as possible without slipping, curving around the castle toward her target.

  Eventually, she was at the top of the foliage, and close enough to the ground. She pushed off and dropped, hitting softly in the mulch. She leaned against the rock wall underneath the bathroom window of her target room and did nothing but breathe deeply for a few seconds. She called on her tiny radio, “I’m down. Outside the bedroom.”

  She heard Knuckles say a sentence, followed by “Okay, that’s good,” using his ordinary conversation with another guest as a means to let her know he’d heard.

  She stood up and found the bathroom was actually sunk into the hillside a little bit, leaving the window a mere four feet off the ground. She rotated her butt pack around to the front and pulled out a red-lens penlight, shining it on the lock.

  They knew the castle had a built-in security system, but also that it was disabled during the parties. What they didn’t know was the type of window locks in use. Jennifer was hoping it was like the one she’d left upstairs, a simple sliding lever on the left and right.

  It was. She fished in her pouch again and pulled out a flexible metal tool designed specifically for such breaches, and within two minutes, she was through the window and inside the bathroom.

  She alerted Knuckles, then crept to the door and peeked out; the lights in the bedroom were off, but the illumination from the outside patio gave a soft glow. The room was empty, the drapes pulled closed across the sliding door. As her eyes adjusted, she saw a desk, a wide-screen television, and stacked neatly on the king-size bed, two dozen Faraday bags looking like Easter eggs waiting to be plucked.

  She opened her pouch again, pulled out what Knuckles had called her Third Lung—a miniature scuba tank—and set it aside. She removed a device that had a round disk in the center, about two inches in diameter and one inch thick, with multiple cords extending from it.

  Called an Octopus, its sole function was to access and copy the entire contents of a cell phone’s SIM card. Contacts, call history, text messages, surfed web pages, all of it would be duplicated by the Octopus—even deleted information—and it had a dozen cords coming out, with adapters for every conceivable type of cell phone.

  She placed it on the bed and picked out packets four and seventeen—the ones from their surveillance earlier. She opened the Faraday bags and dumped out seven phones of various makes. She plugged them all in, punched a button on the center of the disk, then sat down to wait, knowing that some encryption protocols would take longer to break than others.

  One minute in, proud of her work, she heard a call that caused a jolt of adrenaline.

  “Koko, Koko, the host is getting antsy. He’s seen the security at the top of the stairs, and he’s asking questions.”

  Uh-oh.

  “Knuckles, I’m not done. I need another minute here, and probably ten to get back inside. I have to climb the wall again.”

  “I don’t think we have that sort of time. Abort. Get out.”

  Already moving, unplugging the phones that were complete and shoving them in their respective bags, she said, “Interdict him. Slow him down.”

  “I’m going to try. What’s your ETA? What do I have to work with?”

  “Best case? Seven minutes.”

  She unplugged the other phones, the last two still being drained, and placed the Faraday bags back where she found them. She scuttled back to the window, shoving everything into her pouch. She was ou
tside in seconds, staring up at the wall.

  She took a breath, found her first handhold, and hoisted herself off the loam of the ground. Starting the climb back.

  11

  Knuckles saw the host talking to security, but wasn’t unduly concerned. They’d done nothing to spike, and nobody at all had paid them a second glance, with most buying his CEO story, hook, line, and sinker. His concern grew when the host pointed up the spiral staircase, clearly asking why one of the security men was in the master bedroom.

  A diminutive man of about sixty, with close-cropped gray hair and skin the color of coffee, the host wouldn’t appear to be a threat, but Knuckles saw how the security man kowtowed to him, nodding his head repeatedly, then talking into his sleeve. Clearly, the host held a power far exceeding his physical stature.

  Knuckles excused himself from his conversation, not wanting to pull his directional microphones away from the targets still seated on the couch, but feeling something amiss. He called Jennifer, getting the readout on the length of time she had left. And felt the first bit of adrenaline begin to flow.

  He watched the host carefully, checking for a change in demeanor. The man at the top of the stairs came down and talked to him, then pointed at Knuckles. Into the radio, he said, “It’s reached a boiling point. Status?”

  He heard a grunt, then, “Climbing. Can’t talk.”

  He started moving toward the host, saying, “Give me a time.”

  “Five. Need five.”

  Shit. That ain’t going to happen.

  He walked up to the host and stuck out his hand, introducing himself and using his CEO title as he had previously. The host said, “I don’t remember that company being invited.”

  Knuckles gave his most charming smile and said, “Well, here we are! And it’s a great party. There’s nothing like coming down to the Caymans on business. Hoping to get some diving in—”