by TR Cameron
Everything about him had been altered enough to ensure that no one could connect him to his real identity. A clever lift in his boot altered his walk, and the several days of scruff with a little product to make his eyebrows wilder than normal altered his face. The baggy clothes hid his body. The only thing that wouldn’t ring true was his lack of tattoos, but he’d claim to be allergic to the dyes if asked.
He lived in a run-down hotel on a cash-only basis arranged with the person behind the desk, strictly off the books. It was less than glamorous but gave “Ketch” a reason to be hungry for work and connections, all of which he would need to infiltrate the right group.
Kayleigh’s deep dive into the PD’s surveillance system had brought quick results. They’d identified more low-level operatives in the days after their restrictions had been eased, and Sloan now headed to a meeting with one of them. He’d cultivated random connections where he could since his arrival, and this man had turned out to have an in with another group they were tracking.
If he played his cards right, he could be on the cusp of getting in with the group that had opposed them in the first place. He also might be wasting a whole lot of time on someone who couldn’t get him connected at all. That was the problem with undercover work—it was notoriously unpredictable. But over multiple rounds of drinks, his target had ranted about the unfairness of being a non-magical in a gang that included people with power. That alone made the connection worth pursuing.
He pushed into the dive bar, one of many hidden in this section of town, and approached his contact, who was in the center of a gathering of friends. They shook and bumped fists, and he waved at the bartender for his usual. He had a good tolerance for alcohol, which gave him an edge against most of the criminal element he met in bars. By the time they were sloppy, he was only slightly buzzed.
Clean living. And a hell of a lot of genetic luck.
In truth, everything about him made him right for undercover work. His magic, his ability to connect with people, and his skill at adopting others’ mannerisms were all natural. They’d merely required refining. His trainers said he would have been a great actor had he chosen that path.
I probably should have. The pay would be better, anyway. And there’d be marginally less risk of getting killed on the job.
He took a long drink of his beer—Iron City, the local brew—and stood on the sidelines as his contact and friends competed at darts. Sloan suppressed a smile at the way they all dressed in the same jeans and hoodies he wore. It reminded him of high school in a way. Considering how well they threw, it was obvious that they knew how to control their alcohol intake.
That’s promising.
Eventually, he was challenged and threw a poor game, only partly on purpose. His punishment was buying the next round. He did so cheerfully, and they moved into the back area of the bar, then through an unmarked door and into a very small room with a card table and four rickety chairs.
His contact, Teddy no-last-name-just-Teddy, motioned for him to take a seat and claimed the other side as his own. His features were thin and gaunt, but his aim had been true, which showed dexterity and potential strength. Two others filled the remaining seats, and the last man leaned against the wall, most likely in an attempt to look menacing. If so, he failed badly. The thug looked more like a teenager, and the metal studs over his eyes didn’t argue against the possibility.
Teddy leaned forward. “Ketch, we have a thing tonight that might be good for you.”
Sloan nodded. “I need a thing. Is there money in it?”
“Some. But more importantly, it’s a chance to show what you’re made of.”
“I’m not here for a fucking audition, Teddy.”
The man raised his hands. Like the rest of him, they seemed prematurely aged. Their research had put him in his mid-forties, but his grizzled gray hair and beard suggested at least a decade more. A lifetime of smoking had contributed to the harsh texture of his face, and his nose had clearly been broken several times. Sloan’s power had flashed on him at their first meeting. He already knew Teddy’s almost skeletal thinness was a result of a chronic illness he kept from his friends but which never strayed far from his mind. If the dip into his thoughts hadn’t also revealed his opinions on people who differed from him in any way, Sloan might have felt bad for him.
Teddy smirked. “Settle, bruh. It’s all good. It’s not an audition, more of a…rite of passage. That’s what it is.”
Sloan scratched his stubble. “Well, that’s a different story, sure. I can get behind that. What are we doing?”
“A little breaking, a little entering, and a little taking from those who have way too much.”
“Sounds like fun. When?”
Teddy smiled. “In a while. Before we talk about that, Mur had a question he wanted to ask you.”
Sloan shifted in his chair to face the man on his right. They didn’t have a file on him yet, although he had been a person of interest since the first time they’d met a few days before. Mur was a large man, more muscle than fat, but definitely had some of each hidden by his baggy clothes. He spoke slowly, which grated on the Face’s nerves.
“So, why should we let you run with us? Teddy likes you, but he can be stupid sometimes.” The thin man scowled, and Mur laughed it off in a way that showed he’d clearly meant it as an insult.
Sloan’s talent could usually be counted on in situations like this, and it didn’t disappoint. Mur’s real concern was whether or not “Ketch” would break and run if they ran into a tussle.
“Well, Mur, the truth is I have skills that you can use. But, most of all, it seems like you need more muscle. No offense to the guys in the room. And I love smashing teeth in. It’s good for all of us.”
The chair groaned ominously under Mur’s weight as he leaned back.
One push and he’s over. He’d probably crack his head open. Punch Teddy in the face, an elbow to the moron to my left, and it’s even odds.
He hadn’t lied. Fighting was one of the things he most enjoyed, but that came second behind his undercover work, which he lived for. Mur grinned suddenly and slapped a palm on the table. “Okay, you’re in for tonight. Make it through, and you have a place with us after.”
The bald man nodded at Teddy, who poked Sloan on the shoulder. “The fun kicks off at midnight, which gives us time for one more drink. You’re buying, new guy.”
Sloan grinned. As he approached the bar, he made sure the recording device they’d disguised as his watch was working properly. The second hand still moved, which meant all was well.
Evidence is good. Undiscovered information is better.
Access to the higher-ups in the organization, though. That’s what the game was all about.
They drove a beat-up van to the location, an antique store nestled in the fairly ritzy Shadyside business district. It was closed, of course, had windows that looked like bulletproof glass, and sported a clearly reinforced door. A dark and narrow alley ran beside it. It stretched about a person and a half wide, so Mur would have had to go in sideways. However, only Teddy preceded him, and no one trailed. They made it about three-quarters of the way down when the thin man pointed up. Sloan followed the gesture and saw a small window above them.
“That used to be an apartment, I think,” Teddy whispered. “Now, it’s a good access point. There’s probably a locked door between, but the blueprints at the county office show that the two floors connect. Easy peasy. We go up, we come down, and we open the front entrance from the inside.”
Sloan frowned. “Cameras? There have to be cameras in a place like this, right?”
His partner in crime shook his head and grinned. “Nope. The folks around here are against surveillance, so there’s nothing on the street. They fought the police about it and won. That wasn’t so smart for them, but it’s convenient for us. A system’s hooked up inside, but we’ll be in and out before it matters.” He handed Sloan a ski mask, and the agent pulled it on as Teddy donned his own. The sk
inny man shrugged out of the rope looped diagonally across his torso. “We did some recon. It’s climbable, as long as you’re good. Are you good?”
Ah, the first challenge. Sure, let’s play.
“Better than good. I’m like Spider Man, man.”
Teddy grinned and handed him the line. Sloan knotted it twice around his waist and ensured that the excess dangled behind him. Teddy extended a pistol to him.
Damn.
There were a million arguments against taking it, most of them involving him having to use it or being tied to a weapon used in a previous crime.
Ketch wouldn’t worry about that, though. He’d see it as a sign of trust.
He smiled, took it, and sighted down the barrel with a grin he thought might have won an award. The weight felt right for it to be fully loaded.
As he looked over his shoulder at Teddy to thank him, he had a flash of insight. The man was thinking about how the gun wouldn't fire, so handing it over was safe, even if Ketch turned out to be untrustworthy. Sloan suppressed his grin.
I can work with that.
He shoved the weapon in the back of his belt above where the knots in the rope hung and reached for the decorative bricks that made a pattern on the wall.
His contact hadn't lied. It was an easy climb. The only moment of challenge came when one of the bricks crumbled as he put his foot on it. It wasn’t his first ascent of this kind, though, so he compensated easily. When he reached the window, he found it secured with a standard latch that he slid aside with the thin wedge of metal Teddy had provided for the purpose. He opened it and swung himself inside.
The aperture led to a small bathroom that was long disused and smelled of dust and dirt. He held the rope for the other man to use in his climb, even though he probably didn’t need it, and they tied it off to the sink in case they required an exit route later. Teddy took the lead as they padded through the apartment and found the entrance into the shop at the bottom of a straight flight of stairs. It was a standard internal door. His partner bent to pick the lock, and Sloan tapped his shoulder and whispered in his ear. “Alarms?”
Teddy shrugged. “Maybe operational, maybe not. We’ll know once we’re inside. If there is one and it’s only recording, we’ll wreck it. If it’s not working, that’s more time to collect stuff. Either way, open the front, take whatever looks valuable, and get the hell out.”
Sloan nodded, and the other man pushed the door. No sirens sounded, and they found the alarm system only covered the doors on the first floor that led to the outside. It was an easy task to dummy the electrical feeds with a battery at the panel and snip the wires that were designed to carry the signal to the police.
With the job complete, they opened the entrance for the others in the group. The three rushed inside with Mur in the lead. Low whispers followed as the big man pointed his cronies at the left and right of the room and waved to indicate that Teddy and Sloan should join him in the back.
An office in the rear held a giant freestanding safe that doubtless weighed more than a thousand pounds.
Damn. They must have had to reinforce the floor for that thing.
The large man dragged a chair over and sat in front of the combination lock. Sloan expected him to produce a stethoscope or a drill, given the way the night was going, but he spun the dial several times, pulled the latch, and the door swung ponderously open.
He didn’t have to hide his surprise. “How did you do that?”
“It pays to have friends, Ketch. And as you can see, we’re good friends to have.”
He withdrew an item wrapped in a thick cloth and placed it on the counter behind him. It was clearly something of great value based on the way he treated it, and there was a clean route to the outer door.
Uh-huh. I’m not an amateur, guys, and I’d have to be an idiot to grab it and run. Or did you think I would try to shoot you with my dysfunctional pistol? Even if I didn’t know it was a dud, I wouldn’t trust a weapon from y’all.
He waited as they cleared the safe, which held a number of other precious items. When they returned to the front, the others carried big duffels filled with all manner of valuables, and the thugs made their escape and loaded the bags in the rear of a van. Before they could enter the vehicle, a police cruiser turned the corner a half-block away. Its roof lights activated, and the siren whooped before a loudspeaker blared, “Hold it right there,” as the car jerked to a halt.
They pitched into the back of the vehicle and Teddy dashed to the driver’s side.
Oh, this is perfect.
Sloan screamed, “Die, scum,” yanked the gun from his belt, and pulled the trigger in apparent desperation when it failed to respond. The others pulled him inside and slammed the doors closed, and the van peeled out before the shots from the police could penetrate the metal. They had chosen their escape route wisely to include a couple of tunnels and a highway and were free and clear in no time.
Mur laughed and patted him on the back. “You’re a crazy man, Ketch. I guess Teddy was right about you. Consider yourself part of the team.”
The agent grinned and nodded with what he thought was the right mixture of smugness and excitement.
Phase one complete.
Chapter Nineteen
Diana, Rath, and Anik crossed the threshold into Kayleigh’s lab, a place where the Agents of BAM Pittsburgh were rarely invited. Her space had a very different feel from the one in DC, which was a powerful testimony to the ways in which she thought and operated differently from Emerson. Two worktables were positioned in the center of the room with walking space around each. Computer terminals attached to a variety of equipment ran down the right-hand wall. Laser cutters and 3D printers stretched along the opposite one and performed their tasks with quiet whirs.
Where the tables in DC had been filled with works in progress, this entire workspace was meticulously clean. Everything was in its appointed place. There was no office, only a small desk in the back that she abandoned as she moved to greet them. A row of cabinets identical to the ones that held their operational gear a floor below stood behind her desk. The tech donned a scowl. “Welcome to my lab. Touch nothing.”
Rath grinned. “Ready Player One. Great film.” She gave him a grin and a nod, and Diana realized she’d probably need to schedule more movie time to keep up with the troll.
The blonde pushed the hair out of her face. “So, what do you want to talk about—defense or equipment? And where are the other three?”
Diana was more excited about the gear, so she decided to do the less fun part first. “Defense. Tony and Cara are out on a consult, then going after a level-two. It shouldn’t be a problem.” The security consulting and bounty hunting agency slowly gained traction, and Tony did a fantastic job as its visible leader. His detective skills made him good at reading people. Sloan would have been a valuable addition, too, if they didn’t need to keep him off the radar. “Our Face is out doing Face things, I presume.”
Kayleigh nodded. “Defense it is.” She gestured toward one of the tables and retrieved a black box with a large lens on the top from a cabinet. Once she’d positioned the device on the worktable, she pressed the activation button. A holographic projection appeared in the air above it, and the tech manipulated the image with gestures.
Damn. I really need to get some of those sensors.
Diana laughed inwardly as she looked at her hands. But first, I have to quit breaking my nails in fights, I suppose.
The picture zoomed in on the parking area. “Okay, we’ve added a suite of detectors at the entrance to the base’s level of the garage. Our cars will have a transponder inside to allow them to enter without setting off an alert. If anyone else drives in, we’ll all know about it.”
Anik asked, “Won’t that lead to a slew of false alarms?”
Kayleigh shrugged, and the projection shifted a little in response. “Probably. But the cameras are easily checked, and any one of us can clear the signal through the AR interface.”
“That’s good, but what happens if we do find an enemy in the garage?” Diana pressed.
The picture zoomed to show the tunnel. “I arranged for some surplus military drones—older models—to be shipped in a while ago to play with.” She wiggled her fingers to manipulate the image and another image appeared, looking like a 3D blueprint. “I stripped the weapons, mounted them on a pan-tilt head and tripod, and attached the drone’s optical equipment to a motion sensing suite.”
Diana put the pieces together and smiled. “You’ve created automated turrets.”
Kayleigh nodded. “The systems will register our watches, of course, so we don’t trigger them. I'll have them installed in the tunnel later today, tomorrow at the latest.”
“Stun?” Anik inquired.
“The ones nearest the garage, yes. Probably four of them, based on the time available and materials at hand. The last pair will be drum-fed NATO 5.56.”
The demolitions expert whistled. “Nice. We could rig claymores in the passage, too, if you wanted.”
Kayleigh grinned. “We can talk later.” Anik nodded and matched her smile. “Anyway, that’s the tunnel. Our security that prevents those upstairs from getting down here is already strong, and nothing short of a rocket launcher will penetrate the stairwell door. The coworking spaces above…well, they are a different matter.”
The schematic vanished and the image of the building rotated. “Given the need to keep up the cover business, there are people in and out at all hours. Over the next week, I’ll have techs up from DC to install better sensing gear throughout. Cameras, sniffers, and whatever they have in storage. I’d also like to blow our entire existing bankroll on anti-magic emitters.”
Diana shook her head in regret rather than negation. She put a whine into her words. “Do we have to?”
The tech nodded. “I think so. There's no one we suspect of being magic-reliant on the list, so it shouldn’t be a big deal. We’ll need to offer an explanation, so we could say that we heard the other office building was brought down by magic and corporate has overreacted. We can put something official out on the website, that sort of thing.”