The Fifth Profession Page 4

  But Savage had to get to the top of the cliff before the storm made climbing difficult. He reached up, found a handhold, braced the toe of one of his boots in a niche, and began his ascent. Though two hundred feet high, the cliff had multiple fissures and outcrops. An experienced climber, Savage would not have trouble scaling it in the dark.

  The wind increased. Spray from the waves stung his face and made the cliff slippery. He gripped his gloved fingers tighter onto outcrops, wedged his boots deeper into niches, and climbed with greater deliberation. Halfway up, he reached a fissure. Recalling it from the photographs he'd studied, knowing it would take him to the top, he squirmed inside it, braced his boots against each side, groped up for handholds, and strained higher. His mental clock told him he'd been climbing for almost ten minutes, but all he cared about was each second of caution. The fissure blocked the wind, but a sudden cascade of rain replaced the spray from the waves, and he fought the urge to climb faster. He groped up, touched nothing, and exhaled, realizing he'd arrived at the top of the cliff.

  The rain fell harder, drenching him. Even so, it now was welcome, providing him with greater concealment in the night. He crawled from the fissure, scurried across the rim, and crouched among bushes. Mud soaked his knees. His stomach fluttered with nervousness as it always did at the start of a mission.

  But it also burned with fear that despite his meticulous preparations he might fail as he had six months ago.

  There was only one way to learn if he'd recovered.

  He inhaled, concentrated on the obstacles he faced, and subdued his distracting emotions.

  Scanning the storm-shrouded night, detecting no guards, he crept from the bushes.

  9

  The photographs he'd taken had revealed the first barrier he would come to—a chain link fence around the estate. From the photographs, he hadn't been able to determine the height of the fence, but the standard was seven feet. When he'd magnified the photographs, he'd discovered that the fence was topped by several strands of barbed wire attached to braces that projected inward and outward in the shape of a V.

  The rain made the night so dark that Savage couldn't see the fence. Nonetheless, by studying the photographs and comparing the theoretical height of the fence with the distance between the fence and these bushes, he'd calculated that the barrier was twenty yards ahead. The photographs hadn't shown any closed-circuit cameras mounted on the fence, so he didn't worry about revealing himself to remote-controlled night-vision lenses. All the same, from habit, he crawled. The rain-soaked ground felt mushy beneath him.

  At the fence, he stopped to remove his knapsack. He took out an infrared flashlight and a pair of infrared goggles. The beam from the flashlight would be invisible to unaided eyes, but through the goggles, Savage saw a greenish glow. He aimed the beam toward the fence's metal posts, scanning upward toward the projecting metal arms that secured the barbed wire.

  What he looked for were vibration sensors.

  He found none. As he'd expected, the fence was merely a line of demarcation, a barrier but not an intrusion detector. It kept hikers from trespassing unintentionally. Its barbed-wire top discouraged unskilled invaders. If animals—roaming dogs, for example—banged against it, there'd be no alarm needlessly attracting guards.

  Savage put the flashlight and goggles into his knapsack, hoisted the pack to his shoulders, and resecured it. As the rain gusted harder, he stepped away from the fence, assumed a sprinter's stance, and lunged.

  His momentum carried him halfway up the fence. He grabbed for the projecting metal arm at the top, swung his body up onto the strands of barbed wire, clutched the metal arm on the opposite side of the V, swung over the second group of barbed wire, and landed smoothly, his knees bent, on the far side of the fence. His woolen clothes and gloves were ripped in many places; the barbed wire had inflicted several irritating nicks on his arms and legs. But his injuries were too inconsequential to concern him. Barbed wire was a discouragement only to amateurs.

  Staying close to the ground, wiping rain from his eyes, he studied the murky area before him. His British mentor, who'd trained him to be an executive protector, had been fond of saying that life was an obstacle course and a scavenger hunt.

  Well, now the obstacle course would begin.

  10

  The island of Mykonos was hilly, with shallow soil and many projecting rocks. Papadropolis had built his estate on one of the few level peaks. Savage's photographs had shown that a surrounding slope led up to the mansion.

  From the mansion's perspective, the bottom of the slope could not be seen. Hence Papadropolis had decided that an aesthetic barrier around his property, a stone wall instead of a chain link fence, would not be necessary. After all, if the tyrant didn't have to look at the institutional-looking fence, it wouldn't offend him, and metal was always more intimidating to an intruder than stone and mortar.

  Savage tried to think as his opponent did. Because Papadropolis couldn't see this rocky slope and probably avoided its sharp incline, most of the intrusion sensors would be located in this area. The photographs of the estate had shown a second fence, lower than the first but not enough to be jumped across. The fence was halfway up the slope.

  But what worried Savage was what the photographs couldn't show—buried detectors between the first fence and the second. He removed his knapsack and selected a device the size of a Walkman radio: a battery-powered voltmeter, its purpose to register electrical impulses from underground pressure sensors. He couldn't risk referring to an illuminated dial on the meter, the light from which might reveal him, so he'd chosen a device equipped with an earplug.

  Lightning flashed. His earplug wailed, and he froze. The night became dark again. At once his earplug stopped wailing, causing him to relax. The voltmeter had reacted to atmospheric electricity from the lightning, not to buried sensors. Otherwise the earplug would have continued to wail even when there wasn't lightning.

  But the flash of light, though startling, had been useful. He'd been given a glimpse of the fence a few yards ahead of him. It too was chain link. Not topped by barbed wire, however. And Savage understood why—anyone who'd climbed the more imposing first fence would be tempted to scramble over this seemingly less protected barrier.

  He approached it cautiously. Another flash of lightning revealed small metal boxes attached to the posts supporting the fence. Vibration detectors. If someone grabbed the chain links and started to climb, an alarm would warn guards in the mansion. A computer monitor would reveal the site of the intrusion. The guards would quickly converge on the area.

  In theory, the vibration sensors could not be defeated. But Savage knew that vibration sensors had to be adjusted so that a specific amount of vibration was necessary before the sensors would trigger an alarm. Otherwise, wind gusting against the fence or a bird's landing on it would needlessly alert guards. After several false warnings, the guards would lose faith in the sensors and fail to investigate an alarm. So the only way to get beyond the fence was to use a method that seemed the most risky.

  To cut through the links. But it had to be done in a special way.

  Savage unslung his knapsack and took out wireclippers. Kneeling, he chose a link at shoulder level and snipped it. Instead of fearing that he'd caused an alarm, instead of succumbing to second thoughts and rushing away, he calmly waited forty seconds, snipped another link, and waited another forty seconds, then snipped a third link. Each snip was the same as a bird landing on the fence or given the weather, rain lashing against it. His carefully timed assault on the fence had insufficient constancy to activate the sensors.

  Twelve minutes later, Savage removed a two-foot square from the fence, eased his knapsack through the gap, then crawled through, slowly, making sure he didn't touch the surrounding links.

  He put the wireclippers into his pack and resecured the pack to his shoulders. Now, in addition to the voltmeter, he carried a miniature battery-powered microwave detector. As well, he again wore his infrared go
ggles. Because his photographs had revealed a further danger. A line of metal posts near the top of the slope. Nothing linked them. They appeared to be the start of a fence that would soon be completed, wires eventually attached to them.

  But Savage knew better.

  He stared through his goggles, anxious to know whether infrared beams filled the gaps between the posts. If his suspicion was correct, if the beams existed and he passed through them, he'd trigger an alarm.

  But as he crept closer to the top of the rain-swept hill, his goggles still did not detect infrared beams between the posts. Which meant …

  The moment the thought occurred to him, the earplug attached to his microwave detector began to wail.

  He halted abruptly.

  Yes, he thought. Microwaves. He'd have been disappointed if Papadropolis used infrared. That type of beam was too susceptible to false alarms caused by rain. But microwaves provided an absolutely invisible barrier and were much less affected by weather. This test meant nothing without a sufficient challenge.

  Again, as lightning flashed, the earplug to Savage's voltmeter wailed. He paused, in case the lightning coincided with an electrical field from a buried pressure sensor. But when the wail stopped, he knew that the microwave fence was his only obstacle.

  He approached his objective. The lightning had allowed him a glimpse of the nearest post. The post had a slot down its right and left side, for transmitting beams to and receiving beams from the next posts right and left. The post was too high for him to leap over the microwaves, the earth too shallow for him to dig under them.

  Still, the installer—for all his cleverness—had made a mistake, for this system worked best when the posts weren't in a continuous line with each other but instead were staggered so the microwaves formed an overlapping pattern.

  In such a formation, the posts were protected. If an intruder tried to use them to get past the system, he'd interfere with the microwaves. However, Savage's photographs had shown that the system was in a straight line.

  It could be defeated.

  Savage removed a metal clamp from his knapsack and attached the clamp to the post, above the slots that transmitted and received the microwaves. He screwed several sections of metal together to form a three-foot-long rod, then inserted the rod into the clamp, the rod projecting toward him. Next, he threw his knapsack over the post, gripped the rod, and raised himself onto it. For a heartpounding instant, he almost lost his balance. The rod became slippery in the rain. Wind pushed him. But the ridges on the soles of his boots gripped the rod. He managed to steady himself and dove over the top of the post, avoiding the microwaves.

  He landed in a somersault. His shoulders, back, and hips absorbed his impact. So did the rain-soaked ground. He cringed from pain, however, still tender from the injuries he'd sustained six months ago. Ignoring the protest in his muscles, he came smoothly out of his roll and crouched to study the near crest of the slope.

  It was haloed by faint light made misty by the rain. No sign of guards. In a careful rush, he put the clamp and rod back into his knapsack, along with the infrared goggles he no longer needed. He aimed his voltmeter and microwave detector and proceeded higher.

  At the top, he lay on soggy ground and studied his target. Arc lights, dimmed by the rain, illuminated a lawn. Fifty yards away, a sprawling white mansion—a concatenation of cubes and domes that imitated the houses in the town of Mykonos—attracted his attention. Except for the arc lights on the corners of the building and a light in a far left window, the mansion was dark.

  His photographs had not been detailed enough to let him know if closed-circuit television cameras were mounted above the doors, but he had to assume they were present, although in this storm the cameras would relay murky images and at three A.M. the guard who watched the monitors would not be alert.

  As Savage charged toward the mansion, he saw a camera above the door he'd chosen—on the right, farthest from the lamp in the window on the opposite side of the building. The camera made him veer even farther right, rushing toward the door obliquely, clutching a canister that he'd taken from his knapsack.

  When he reached the door, darting from the side, he raised the canister and sprayed the lens of the camera. The canister held pressurized water, its vapor coating the camera's lens as if a gust of rain had lanced against the house. The streaks of dripping liquid would impair but not eliminate the camera's murky image, thus troubling the guard who watched the monitor but not compelling him to sound an alarm.

  Savage picked the door's lock—a good lock, a dead bolt, but freed in twelve seconds. Still he didn't dare open the door.

  Instead he removed a metal detector from his knapsack and scanned the door's perimeter. Metal on the upper right, four feet above the doorknob, made his earphone wail. Another intrusion detector.

  Savage understood the principle. A magnet within the door kept a metal lever in the doorframe from rising toward a switch that would signal an alarm if the door was opened.

  To defeat the alarm, Savage removed a powerful horseshoe magnet from his knapsack and pressed it upward, against the doorframe, while he gently shoved the door open. His magnet replaced the magnet within the door and prevented the lever in the frame from rising toward the contact switch. As he squeezed through a gap in the door, he slid his magnet farther across the doorframe, then eased the door shut before he removed the magnet. Now the door's own magnet prevented the lever from rising.

  He was in.

  But he didn't dare relax.

  11

  Joyce Stone had described the mansion's layout. Having memorized the floor plan, Savage proceeded tensely along a dark hallway. He studied an opening to his left and saw an illuminated clock on an oven. The kitchen was spacious, fragrant with the lingering smells of oil and garlic from the evening's meal. Passing a counter, he entered a shadowy dining room, its rectangular table long enough to seat fifteen guests on each side as well as the master and his wife at each end.

  But Papadropolis was not in residence. A member of Savage's surveillance team had reported that Papadropolis and an entourage of guards had flown on the billionaire's private plane to Crete this morning. The tyrant's departure had been an unexpected gift of the Fates. Not only had Papadropolis lessened the number of guards at the mansion, but those who remained would feel a lessened sense of duty.

  So Savage hoped. He'd soon find out.

  At a farther doorway, he halted, hearing muffled voices. Three men. Down a stairwell on his left. Laughter echoed upward. Sure, Savage thought, they're happy to be dry and warm.

  He continued through the shadows, entering a murky living room. Halfway across, he heard a chair creak and ducked behind a sofa. The sound came through an archway ahead. Holding his breath, he crept nearer and saw the glow from a rain-misted light outside two barred windows. Each window flanked the mansion's front door, and in the vestibule, another glow—red, from a cigarette—revealed a guard in an alcove on the far side of the door.

  Savage raised a pistol. Its projectiles weren't bullets but tranquilizer darts, and its front and rear sights had been tipped with infrared paint that allowed him to aim in the dark, its luminous specks visible only through his goggles.

  The weapon made a muffled spit. At once Savage moved as quickly as the need for silence allowed, crossing the vestibule, grabbing the guard as he slumped from a chair, and more important, grabbing the guard's Uzi before it clattered onto the marble floor. He set the guard behind his chair and folded his legs to make sure they didn't project from the alcove.

  With the Uzi slung across his shoulder, Savage studied the top of a curving staircase. A light up there indicated a hallway that Joyce Stone had described. Shifting his gaze from the vestibule toward the corridor above him, then once more toward the vestibule, he slowly ascended.

  At the top, he pressed against the left wall and peered cautiously through the archway, toward the right, along the illuminated corridor. He couldn't see the corridor's end, but so far he hadn't
glimpsed a guard. Rachel Stone's bedroom was in that direction, however, and he took for granted that a sentry would be watching her door.

  He risked leaning farther into the archway to get a better view of the corridor. Still no guard.

  At last he had to show his head, his view of the hallway complete.

  A guard in a chair at the end! The man read a magazine.

  Having revealed himself gradually, Savage used equal care to shift back out of sight, lest sudden motion attract the guard.

  Would there be a corresponding sentry at the opposite end of the corridor?

  Savage stepped softly toward the right side of the archway and peered with greater caution along the left flank of the corridor.

  Or started to. A noise alerted him. A gun being cocked.

  There was a guard on the left flank of the corridor. Savage aimed reflexively. His weapon spat. The guard on the left stumbled backward, his eyes already losing focus as he pawed at the dart protruding from his throat. The guard's knees buckled.

  Savage prayed that the man's cocked handgun wouldn't discharge when it hit the floor. At the same time, he pivoted into the corridor and fired at the guard on the right. This guard had seen his counterpart stagger backward. Reacting to the commotion, he'd dropped what he was reading and grabbed his pistol. He began to surge out of his chair.

  Savage's gun spat yet again. Its dart struck the man's left shoulder. Though the man tried desperately to aim his pistol, his eyes rolled upward. He toppled.

  The thick carpet had muffled the noise of the falling bodies. Or so Savage prayed. Pulse hammering, he hurried to the right, toward the door to what Joyce Stone had told him was her sister's room. He tested the knob; it was locked. He suspected that the bolt could not be freed from inside but only from this side. After picking the lock, he scanned the doorframe with his metal detector but found no sign of an intruder alarm, urgently entered, and shut the door.