Catharsis (Book 2): Catalyst

by Campbell, D. Andrew

  This first house isn't even a major drug storehouse of any kind. Ren suspects there won't be much money or even drugs inside, but it does belong to a man that he suspects of being on the payroll. A lawyer who keeps bailing out the thugs I either send to the hospital or leave for the police to pick up. Ren is pretty sure he'll lead us to somebody further up the proverbial food chain. The biggest problem here is that the lawyer has a family, they'll most likely all be home, he lives in a nice, modern home and I'm going to have to get into his personal office on the second floor.

  "But how do you know which one is his office?" I had asked Ren when he was describing the place and what I had to do. Knowing the exact room I had to get to was nice, but I was suspicious as to how he had figured it out.

  "Well, I don't know for sure," he told me. "But I counted the number of bedrooms and then his number of children. There's one extra room. So then I looked for which room would be the furthest from the others and pegged that as his office."

  "Furthest?"

  "Yup. A dad like that with children around and he needs to take care of shady business? He wants to be interrupted as little as possible, so he would pick the room that is the furthest from the others."

  "Makes sense," I told him in agreement. "And what about our little bonus device I'm installing? Set that up, too?"

  He had stopped and considered this for some time before answering. "Yes. It may come in handy. We just won't activate it if there's any chance of the family being home. It's not worth that."

  "Are you sure?"

  "About installing it or the family not being home when I flick the switch?"

  My glare at him answered his question.

  "Yes, Cat," he had told me. "I'm positive. This is a war. There will be some collateral damage."

  Studying the outside of the house, I see that I was right about not being able to climb the building's framework. No brick. Just a nice wood siding with no openings wide enough for me to wedge my fingers into. That's what I thought I had picked up from the internet views we had located of the house. That means I have to find another way in. And thanks to my having had to deal with Chadwick's defenses previously, the idea quickly comes to me: jumping from a neighboring roof.

  It's not quite as silent an entry method as I would have liked, but it should be effective. Checking the houses on either side and not liking the distance between them (Stupid affluent neighborhood with their several acre lots.), I settle on a house two doors away as the closest one with climbable bricks. I'll just have to do a double jump to get back here. Not ideal, but beggars can't be all choosey.

  Double checking my backpack for a length of rope for later, I relay my plans to Ren and which houses I have chosen. He clicks his assent, and then goes back to quietly waiting for my updates.

  This has to be completed as quickly as possible as I don't want to be seen lurking in this neighborhood. It's too nice of an area to be forgiving to a person running around behind houses while dressed in black. Exhaling through my nose a few times to center my thinking, I take one final pull into my lungs and then jet away from my hiding spot and down the grassy plain between the backs of the gently-lit homes.

  Luckily for me there are no people out grilling in the backyards this late into the evening on a cool autumn day. That would have thrown an unnecessary wrench into our plans. Making it to the brick-covered house in mere seconds, I launch myself into the air as I approach. I hit the wall near a second floor window and only slide for a fraction of an inch before I find a useable handhold (This is where the practice has paid off. I'm much better at leaping from a run and finding purchase on rough surfaces on the fly. Sometimes Ren does know what he's doing.). Scaling the house like a tiny chameleon trying to avoid a child's grasping hand on a hot Florida afternoon, I slither the dozen or so feet to the roof in a matter of seconds. Carefully moving up to the apex of the building, I try to both minimize the sound that trickles down below me and give myself the maximum altitude from which to jump.

  Letting out the breath I took while in the backyard, I inhale a few more times to prepare myself for what comes next. I plan to sprint the length of the house I'm on, leap through the air and land on the roof of the neighboring house. Then I hope to continue that momentum as I leap from that second building and onto the lawyer's house. All while staying completely silent and without falling off.

  Holding that final breath and saying a small prayer for the forces of good, I pull in my energy so that I can accelerate across the roof at my highest possible speed. As the far edge of the roof quickly becomes the near edge, I wait until the last second and then propel myself up and over the vast chasm of open air and fencing that separates the two homes. This is as close to flying as I could ever get. And it's exhilarating! The wind tears through my hair as I pull my arms and legs in close to my body in an attempt to negate as much wind resistance as I can.

  My speed works to my advantage and I clear the approaching edge of the house with several feet to spare. Releasing my legs as soon as they are over the house's roof, I hit it with them churning like a sprinter heading into the final turn of a race. I exhale my breath as I climb the steep roof towards the top and do my best to increase my speed while traveling up the incline. Popping up onto the pointed crest, I pull up even more energy and race towards the final jump.

  One more time as I see the end of the building approach, I prepare my body for its brief visit to the world of flight. For the second time in less than a minute, I leap up and fly through the air and feel the freedom that comes with being a member of the avian species. There's a moment of jealousy, and then it quickly passes as I see where I want to land loom up in front of me. Focusing on not making any noise upon impact, I land on the shingles of the lawyer's roof, roll twice to dissipate some of the momentum and then launch myself up into the air to land gently on his brick chimney (Of course it's only brick here at the top, he opted for fancy, "unscalable" wood siding down below.).

  Looking back across the two dark shadowed roofs and what I just accomplished, I shake my head in awe of my own abilities. That was impressive even for me.

  Silently lowering myself down the chimney's brickwork, I activate my mic to let Ren know I made it. "Mama Bird is on the nest," I whisper just loud enough for it to pick up for him. A moment later my pocket clicks twice to let me know he heard me. I'm sure he's cursing his inability to berate me for my ridiculous code phrase right now being as that he is limited to only simple speaker clicks. Of course that only makes it more enjoyable for me.

  "Looking to drop the first egg," I say while suppressing a giggle at the thought of his reaction to my word choice. Wrapping the rope around the chimney and securing it tightly, I bring it over to the edge of the house so that I can climb down to the window. I keep the excess rope tucked into my backpack so that it doesn't dangle down past me. The last thing I need right now is someone looking out a window and seeing a black snake of corded nylon wiggling past them.

  With the rope secure, I lower myself over the lip of the house and walk the few feet down to the suspected office window. It was awkward learning to hold the rope so that it wrapped my body once to support my weight and then leading with my head while traveling downward. The natural instinct is to hang from the rope and lead with one's backside. Although it may very well be instinctive, it isn't exactly useful when trying to peek into a room without being seen first. There's a reason SWAT teams are trained this way. And if it’s possible for them, then my abilities can certainly allow me to do it.

  Standing directly above the window, I bend into a crouch and peek into the darkened room. My eyes adjust quickly to the unlit gloom, and I can immediately tell Ren was dead on with his guess. This is not a child's bedroom. It is filled with tall, wooden bookcases packed with large, dark-spined tomes of varying shades. In the middle with its back to the window is a beautiful cherry wood desk and rolling armchair. There are no lights on in the room and the drapes are pulled mostly closed, but luckily they have gapped n
ear the top allowing me my slight view of the room’s layout.

  "It's perfect Ren," I say quietly into my mic forgetting about my code phrase. Shaking my head at my own slip, I recover and say, "Egg drop starting."

  For this house, Ren chose a tiny all-weather camera that I'll plant on the outside of the window. It's designed to look like an abandoned, half-finished wasp nest, and the goal is to place it along the top edge of the window so that the little lens can see into the room through the crack in the drapes. If the lawyer does look out and see the camera, he'll just notice the wasp nest and hopefully ignore it (With it being so high off the ground and no active wasps in it, we are hoping it won't register as very important on the "honey do" list.).

  From the camera setup, I run a filament-thin power cord to the corner of the window where I'm also attaching a tiny suction cup. There's not much we can do to hide the suction cup aside from hope he never looks in this direction, but the suction cup is the more important of the two devices. It houses a microscopic "vibration microphone" that picks up the sound waves from the window and its movements. The tiny camera and its microphone won't do much through a window pane, but the suction cup is designed especially for this situation. It will pick up all sound on the inside of the room, and it doesn't need line of sight to be effective. As long as it is touching the window glass it will work. You gotta love technological advances.

  With the cup glued into place and attached to the camera, I run a second filament of wire along the vertical crease of the nearest piece of wood and glue it into place as I go. This wire runs all the way back to the chimney where I install a playing card-sized solar panel to power the whole setup and a small transmitter to send the signals back to us at the warehouse. As long as he doesn't get his roof inspected anytime soon, we should be fine. The wire can't be seen from more than a foot away, and I've angled the panel to draw as little attention as possible during the daytime. It might not be perfect, but it's better than anything we had previously.

  With all the wires in place and glued into position, I put all the excess materials back into my backpack and pull out the final element of our plan. "Eggs are in the nest, Ren. Is it all a go on your end?" I ask to make sure he's getting the proper signals before I leave. I don't want to have to come back and make adjustments later.

  My pocket clicks twice, and then I ask one final question. "And you're sure you want me to install this? Last chance to bail."

  Three seconds of long silence later my pocket clicks twice more. With a sigh, I start maneuvering around the roof of the house to find the easiest attic access.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Back on my bike, I accelerate hard and leave the lawyer's neighborhood behind me. The first stop took less than an hour and had no hiccups. The law of averages says the next one can't possibly go that well, so I steel myself for an unforeseen complication occurring while I'm there.

  "That was an easy one," I tell Ren as I gun the bike down the city streets toward my second stop. "I’m not sure what it’ll be, yet, but I’m expecting trouble on this next one. No way we get lucky twice."

  He laughs gently in my ear, and I can tell his mood is already lightened from earlier. Apparently our small taste of success was all it took to wash away the bitter tang of fear that had been hanging around us. "I'm hoping we do, Cat. I spent time planning these out so that they would go smoothly. Let's not jinx it, yet. And this next house should be easier."

  "I know," I tell him. "Not as much worry about damage mitigation, but I still have to worry about running into people. I'll have an easier time getting in, but they'll also be more prepared for me once I'm there. I'm not exactly walking into a princess castle. It's still a dilapidated drug storehouse filled with gun-toting thugs. I'm just not focused on hurting anybody this time."

  Our second stop for the night goes back to my run-in with the boys in the Escalade. The house that they left that evening is one Ren has suspected of being involved in the trade for a while now, but we don't necessarily think they keep any of the drugs or money stored there. He's not real sure how they use it, except he knows it gets mentioned quite a bit when he digs. He's hoping that by wiring the place we can either get a better idea of what goes on there, or at least catch them making references to other places.

  This house was the tough one for Ren to decide on as it is what he referred to as a "gamble" target. It could either pay off with a huge reveal and give us information that we never would have suspected, or it might be useless and just turn out to be a place where they store sandwiches to deliver to hungry employees (Although I doubted the possibility of Ren's 'sandwich theory', I understood his point. And it was good to see him give in to his sassy side a little.). Because we don't know what to expect from the place, Ren wasn't sure how to prepare. He sent me with both outdoor tech (the wasp nests and suction cups) and indoor (vent cams, light switch mikes and a few other low grade goodies). Our goal is for me to scope the place out, see how occupied it is, what floors look most accessible and then go from there.

  That means I have no idea what I'm walking into. The house is in a middle-class neighborhood surrounded by your basic run-of-the-mill families. I'm hoping that means the number of men prowling around with guns will be minimal, but I've been surprised before. If I can find an easy way inside and I don't sense many people are home, then I'll head in and plant what I can in whatever appears to be the most ideal location.

  If the house is lit up, crowded or otherwise unapproachable then I'll just try to get to the windows and set up what I can there. Not being seen or getting caught is priority one right now. Getting inside the house would be my second priority, but only if it doesn't interfere with my first one. And then third is just getting ears attached somewhere to the building in hopes we get lucky.

  Looking up and recognizing the houses from my previous trip through the area, I let Ren know I'm getting close.

  "Ok, Cat. Remember to park the bike at that ranch house I pointed out earlier. It's a bit further, but that was the best option I could find around there. The family's gone for the week, so at least you shouldn't be disturbed."

  "I remember, Ren, thanks. And I see it," I tell him. "Will be set up and ready to move in just a few minutes."

  I steer the Zero quietly into the house's driveway and then up next to bushes to keep it partially hidden from view. The house we're targeting wasn't on the road that brought me into the neighborhood, so I haven't had a chance to see it and know which tech to pack yet. That just means I'll bring enough for either job and just decide once I arrive. It gives me a bit of extra baggage to move around with, but that shouldn't bother me too much.

  "Parked and unpacked," I say in a low voice as I finish buckling the small bag with Ren's toys around my waist. "Heading over to the target now."

  The evening has fully passed over into night now, so the darkness has become my ally. It, along with my black clothing and natural ability to avoid light sources, means I travel through the backyards with as much ease as a mouse's shadow. The house that Ren picked is only a few backyards away and luckily there are no fences to climb between us. The lack of obstructions also means I get a decent view of it before I even arrive on the property.

  It's a dark brick- and vinyl-sided two-story house that I would say was built a little over a decade and a half ago. It's been kept up over the years, but there has been little done in the way of landscaping. Two plastic chairs and a large flower pot sit on a relatively empty back patio. Without even getting close, the burning stink of recently extinguished cigarettes flicks at my nose telling me what the stone-laid sitting area is mostly used for. Although smoking may be its primary use, at least it isn't being used to feed any addictions right now. The place is empty.

  I smile as I realize the house doesn't appear to be too occupied. I pick out a bedroom light on in an upstairs window, and there's one light on downstairs in what could be the kitchen. Either they're holding a meeting in someone's sleeping area, or the majority of the res
idents are gone for the night. And one of those seems much more likely than the other.

  "Looks good so far,” I say. "Two lights on in the place. One upstairs and one downstairs. I can't pick out people yet due to a strong tobacco tang in the air, but I'm going to get closer and let you know."

  In a flash, I sprint the distance across the open backyard, leap over the brick patio and chairs, and land lightly on my toes next to the sliding glass door. Being so close to their makeshift ashtray makes my eyes water, and I'd guess someone had been out here and making use of it recently. There's no heat shimmers or smoke curling up from a smashed cigarette, but it’s the only way to explain the strong tobacco scent permeating the area.

  Ignoring the acrid stench behind me, I push my nose up against the crack between the glass door and the wall and inhale as deeply as I dare. I still get more stink in my lungs than I want, but I'm sure part of that is due to the smokers bringing in traces of their bad habits with them. The identifying scents of almost a dozen people circle through my brain as I categorize what I'm smelling, but only three of them register as being strong enough to have been here recently. The others have been gone from the house for several hours at least.

  Exhaling and pushing the lungful of air back out to clear the passageway, I push my nose even further into the crack to get a better pull and verify my guesses. As I brace myself against the glass and push against it to lever my nostrils deeper into its crevasse, the door squeaks slightly and slides open against my face.

  Letting out a strangled "Ahh", I step back and examine the slightly opened doorway that I had just been snorting against. Apparently in my enthusiasm I had managed to slide the unlocked door open. Well, that was nice of them. It'll certainly save me some time.