The silence had been unbroken for most of the day, with the exception of a few professional exchanges regarding their plan. Maddox spent much of the time agonizing over every tactical detail and attempting to memorize the layout of Selene’s manor, doing everything possible to avoid so much as looking at Amaia for more than a few seconds. It was a good plan, too: one they’d planned in two separate pieces in anticipation of Selene’s own security measures, and he assumed, based on certain adjustments Amaia suggested, to place her within range for the kill.
In nearly two decades of operations no one felt enough personal concern for Maddox as to attempt to spare him emotional trauma or stress; in this sense, he was dealing with an entirely foreign form of partnership, one based on mutual concern. Trust and concern, if there were two concepts more alien to him, Maddox could think of them. Still, it made for a refreshing change of pace in contrast to thoughts of how to best reign in Harper’s appetite for violence or Edward’s often more troublesome habit of often obnoxiously blatant manipulation.
And these are the things I spend my time thinking about while climbing up a laundry chute. Oh, to be a one man soap opera.
Maddox smiled ruefully to himself and continued up the chute for another fifty yards, putting him—if his calculation were accurate—on the 5th floor of Selene’s mansion, about twenty yards from monitor room—really more like a hundred because of the maze of rooms he would have to navigate to get there. The HUD in his glasses showed a time of 6:23 pm; less than ten minutes remained before Amaia would enter through the roof top atrium—a large glass and steel monstrosity, built to house a lovely Japanese garden Selene rarely, if ever, visited—in anticipation of Maddox having neutralized the manor’s security and surveillance equipment, plenty of time.
Surreptitiously leaning head and shoulders through the chute’s door, he glanced left and right, finding an empty hallway. Well, mostly empty, the cherry wood walls were lined with an amount of art and high priced furniture so excessive that the word gaudy couldn’t begin to describe it.
“Oh god,” he muttered, quietly pulling himself into the hallway. “I think I stole that fresco...And those Faberge eggs; God damn it.”
Seething with irritation—and a certain regret for the absence of C4 from his mission supplies—he dashed down the hall, quick and silent. The first guards he encountered were standing to either side of the hall leading to the staff living area, easily avoided.
Ducking into a nearby lavatory, he quickly unlocked the window and squeezed through onto the ledge. A ledge much, much narrower than expected; he blanched for a moment before easing the window shut and very cautiously sidling along the cool stone walls, hugging the stone and praising himself for a lifetime of balanced dieting.
I do have to appreciate the irony of this. All my acrobatics and clichéd cat-burglar techniques lead to my death mere hours after a woman takes an interest in me. Ah, humor.
The nerve wracking crawl lasted for three minutes before he arrived at the appropriate window: a staff member’s quarters, thankfully unoccupied. A half minute later, he crept through the halls once again. The door to the monitor room was guarded by a single man in a suit at least two sizes too small—Maddox could actually see the outline of a gun against the man’s ribs. Within a few seconds he fell upon the man, smashing the butt of the SIG P229 across his jaw; the guard went slack instantly, collapsing into Maddox outstretched arm.
“Simple and clean, just like I told Amaia it would be. No need to kill anyone,” he remarked to himself, feeling particularly smug as he stepped through the monitor room with the guard in tow.
Three guards, nearly identical to the man in Maddox’s arm, swiveled around to face the door way, raising questioning eyebrows. Maddox stood with a blank expression, one which the three men returned. Silence, awkward silence, almost akin to walking in on your wife and another man; granted Selene had filed for divorce by the time that little peep show had rolled around, but Maddox liked to think it still counted.
“Uh...”
“Breach, secure Ms. Wal—Uht!”
The man’s sentence ended with the crash of a boot heel, sending him spiraling head first into a CCTV screen with a disturbing crack. His two associates just barely managed to disentangle themselves from the unconscious door watcher Maddox shoved into them, both wasting precious seconds reaching for their holstered weapons. Throwing himself forward, Maddox slammed into the two, sending them all to the ground in a heap of limbs, kicking and pulling at one another. Confrontation of this sort appalled Maddox on several levels, not the least of which being the inherent discomfort of crawling around on the floor with another man. But one couldn’t help the circumstances, he supposed. Hands reached around, grabbing for his throat, only for their owner to meet with a stiff elbow to the cheek. The blow didn’t succeed in putting the man down; however, the punch to the base of the skull did.
Rolling onto his back, Maddox caught left the remaining guard doubled over with a kick to the stomach, before snapping both legs around his neck and bringing him to unconsciousness with a triangle-choke.
Thirty seconds remained on the HUD by the time Maddox pulled power to the security systems. Right on the mark, just as planned, he thought with a returning sense of satisfaction.
“Security measures neutralized, Amaia, you’re good to proceed,” he spoke into the short-wave radio mounted on his neckline. “By the way,” he added, with only a slight pause, “I was thinking, we should probably talk about that kiss....And maybe the possibility of more like it.”
