The streets were still steaming from early evening rain showers and traffic was beginning to thin out. Judith and Jason, clad in black jeans and black long-sleeved jerseys, carefully picked their way from dark shadow to dark shadow along the old fortress’s walls. The body of the citadel, now a national park, had been closed for hours but its outer defenses surrounded the old town, easily accessible to anyone who, for whatever reason, decided to take the same evening stroll along the ramparts as a Spanish sentry might have done nearly five centuries before.
Jason suspected such excursions might be prohibited, judging from the razor wire that was strung across the wall at regular intervals. Whether it was there to discourage impromptu exploration and possible injury, to prevent access to some of the roofs of the old city, or plain-and-simple bureaucratic desire to thwart any activity it did not control, Jason could not have said.
Whatever its purpose, the wire yielded to two pair of wire cutters and the black costumes blended with the darkness of a Caribbean night, a velvet that provided the backdrop for a million sparkling diamonds above. Once or twice, an unusually bright pair of headlamps passing on the adjacent road had sent Jason and Judith diving flat onto the broad surface of the wall’s top. Generally, though, they were unmolested by light or other human contact.
They had been traveling along a section where the streets below seemed to sink farther and farther away, when Jason stopped.
“This is Calle Luna. The house should be the sixth one down.”
“You’re going to cross one roof to another?” Judith asked.
Although she couldn’t see it in the dark, Jason gave her a nod. “Yeah. You got a better idea?”
She shook her head no, nonetheless pleased her opinion had been solicited. “Can’t come up with one at the moment.”
She ran the beam of a flashlight along the row of roofs. A wicked reflection of more razor wire blazed between each rooftop. Not exactly neighborhood-friendly.
“Shit!” Jason grumbled, “I couldn’t see that from the air! We can’t cut every strand; someone would notice tomorrow.”
Judith switched off her light, using it as a pointer. “That is not the problem. I doubt anyone checks the wire regularly. The problem is we are not alone.”
Jason saw them now. Two or three couples on two or three different roofs—roofs that provided a cool place away from kids, parents, or whomever someone wanted to leave behind for a few minutes—all taking in the damp night air.
“If we wait until there is no one here, we could be here when the sun comes up,” Judith observed.
Judith, the optimist.
Jason had a plan. It was the reason he had allowed Judith to come. She might be untrained, but she could sure cause a diversion if one were needed.
Fifteen or twenty minutes later, excited voices rose from the street below. Jason, now alone, had no need to look. He knew what had happened. One of the city’s opportunistic pickpockets/purse snatchers had no doubt made a poor choice. He had seen a woman alone, a norteamericano, possibly intoxicated and with her purse held loosely in her hand instead of slung from her shoulder by a strap.
Jason had no trouble visualizing the scene as he slunk across roofs where the occupants were enthralled by the activity below. The criminal had, Jason guessed, snatched at the seemingly carelessly held purse. Maybe he succeeded, maybe not. Either way, the ruckus would get the attention of the people on the roofs.
The sirens and flashing blue lights arrived as Jason reached the roof of Number 23 and stuffed the wire cutters into a pocket. He lay flat on the cool tiles for a full minute. In the reflected light of the city, he saw no security cameras or motion detectors. Of course, both could easily be obscured in the darkness that covered most of the roof.
Crawling on his belly to eliminate any silhouette an unseen camera might pick up, he made his way to the structure that housed the staircase. Placing an ear against the door, he listened closely for a full two minutes.
Nothing.
Standing, he gripped the Glock at the small of his back with his right hand and tapped gently on the door with his left.
Again, nothing.
He had to assume there was nobody in the space behind the door.
He took a penlight from a pocket and examined the lock, a standard deadbolt as far as he could tell.
Holding the light between his teeth, he reached into another pocket, producing an odd, remotely gun-shaped object. A screwdriver-like blade extended from what would have been the gun’s barrel. Inserted into a lock, the blade vibrated, causing the pins to fall into the lock’s preset pattern. The device had arrived from Washington via UPS along with his weapon.
SouthOrd electric lock-pick gun, available on the Internet to anyone who could come up with $49.95, no identification other than a credit card required. The thought had done little to increase Jason’s sense of security, but he had gone right ahead and ordered it anyway.
The click of metal on metal told him the lock had yielded. Replacing the lock pick in his pocket, he squatted, reaching up to the knob. There was only one way of telling if the door was connected to an alarm system. He turned the knob and eased it open a mere crack. The absence of sound did not mean the system was not in place, just that the occupants of the building didn’t want an intruder to know it had been set off.
When there was no reaction after a full five minutes, he guessed there was no alarm or it hadn’t been armed. He opened the door wider and slid into darkness. He waited another moment, hoping his eyes would adjust. Too dark. Blind, he felt for the railing along the steel spiral staircase and slowly eased down to the next floor.
When he reached the bottom, he could see light squeezing under a door. There were muffled voices inside, although he could not tell if they came from this floor or the one below. The one sound definitely emanating from the other side was a muted hum that Jason associated with high-powered electronics.
He mentally discussed the pros and cons of breaching this door also. Too great a risk. If there were someone in this room, he not only would be in trouble but his penetration of the building discovered, bringing stronger security measures. No, better to try again when he could be relatively certain he would have the opportunity to look around.
The question was, when would that be?
Jason thought he had the answer.