Down to the Wire by Shannon Greenland

Author:Shannon Greenland
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Suspense
ISBN: 9780142409176
Publisher: Speak
Published: 2007-09-06T00:00:00+00:00

That evening, Wirenut and I knelt behind a gravestone, scoping out the back side of the Museum of History. Three entrance possibilities: front door, side window, rear door. No other entry points existed on the one-room stone structure.

To the untrained, the building had the lure of an easy job. The old looks can be deceiving held true in this instance. I’d learned a lot from Wirenut during this morning’s surveillance.

A camera mounted on the building’s upper-left corner pointed straight at the back door. A novice would avoid the back door and break in the side window because of that camera. Wrong decision. Everything’s about illusion in this business. A mere breath, change in temperature, or slight touch on that window would immediately set off the alarm.

“Any other night I’d go in that window,” Wirenut whispered. “For the sheer challenge of it.”

“Don’t get sidetracked,” I warned. But I totally understood. Nothing felt more satisfying than cracking a system no one had ever broken. The only difference was I had to have a reason. Wirenut would do it just to do it.

He shook his head. “Not tonight.”

Twenty feet of warm night air separated us from the mounted camera. Wirenut pulled out a piece of bamboo. He rolled some putty, pushed it into the end of the bamboo, then peered down the length. He sucked in a breath, held it to his lips, and blew.

The putty whistled through the air and splatted right on the camera lens.

My jaw dropped. Wow. “You need to teach me that.”

He grinned.

Pulling our hoods down over our faces, we sprinted from the cemetery through the museum’s backyard and halted at the rear door.

Wirenut peeled down the right-index-finger portion of his leather glove. Placing the tip of his finger on the steel door, he closed his eyes and counted.

His eyes shot open. “Water pulse,” he whispered.

I blinked. Water pulse?

“I didn’t expect that. Nobody’s ever penetrated a water-rigged security system. I’ve studied all about it. It came out after I joined the Specialists. Otherwise, I would’ve already tackled it and proven it faulty.”

Of course.

“Can you do it?” I had no doubt he could.

He rolled his eyes. “Please. Give me a second.”

Slowly, he rubbed his hands together. His gaze focused on nothing in particular as he drifted into deep thought.

“One wrong move, and the entire museum locks down. The building will flood with water stored in oversize pipes in the walls, trapping us and the display pieces. But the display items are protected. We’ll drown.”

We'll drown? Wait a minute…

“Pretty nifty security idea.”

I don’t think it’s too nifty we’re going to drown.

“Too bad I’ll have to be the first to prove it faulty.”

He’d better prove it faulty.

Wirenut reached for his tool pouch. “Okay, think. A building rigged with water will have 1009 proc-gauge wiring. Plastic-coated. It’ll be charged by aluminum cantver currents. The water and electricity will flow together, not against each other. Any sort of contact between the two will spark the release. So as long as there’s continuous motion of the two, the system will be fooled.

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