Globe Trotting – P6
Annie hoped she had the six hours she had the night before to work while Yuri slept and dreamt of doing unspeakable things to her, but she couldn't bank on that. She got to work quickly, unscrewing one of the screws from her surveillance glasses and dropping it behind the night stand with the phone on it.
She moved to the living room and left another and pulled her phone out as she moved around.
"You OK?" Auggie answered.
"Perfectly fine," she answered.
"He's asleep I take it?"
"Out cold."
"OK, tell me what you see?"
"Auggie, this place is so big his computer could be anywhere," she said as she spotted his suit coat on the back of the couch.
"I've got his phone though," she said as she slipped a hand in the inside pocket of the Italian suit.
"Good, go ahead and clone it over, call me back if you find the computer," Auggie was all business and she appreciated that.
The phone cloned easily with the device Barber had built and once she was sure it was good she replaced it in the suit pocket. She moved about the room still wearing her heels and underwear like some sort of sexy cat burglar.
The room was practically sterile it was so clean and neat. He had only just arrived in town that evening, so there was nothing disturbed which made looking easier. Annie planted the rest of the bugs in various places and tried every wall for a hidden safe.
Finally she found herself back in the bedroom. Yuri was still out cold so she moved about with ease, opening his small suitcase and slipping the last of the tiny listening devices in there. He was only in town one or two days, so he might as well take one with him, if he left a free man.
His suitcase held no mystery, a few changes of clothes and another pair of shoes. The bathroom similarly held the usual accoutrements of a man. The large closet had a standard issue safe in it and while Annie worked to crack it she knew it would be empty, a room that cost this much money had a better safe somewhere.
She called Auggie back.
"Can't find the hidden safe," she said hurriedly and out-of-breath.
"OK, calm down for a sec," he soothed.
"Yeah," she agreed and sat on the edge of the sofa.
"Relax, have some water, your adrenaline is way up," he instructed and heard her pour some water from a bottle on the table.
"Good, now just listen to my voice. I have sent the phone clone on to Langley and they are pulling some really good data off of it. Calder is assembling a team in Moscow and here in Cape Town, this is going to end soon," his voice was so calming Annie actually yawned.
"Am I that boring?" he laughed.
"No, you are comforting, I needed to relax for a minute," she smiled at the phone.
"Well the ball is not over Cinderella, so don't fall asleep on me."
"I still have both my shoes on, not much else, but I managed to keep both my shoes on."
"Please tell me you are not prowling around naked," he groaned.
"Um, no I still have my black lacey lingerie on," she teased.
"You are killing me here," he laughed.
"How many women get to stop bio-warfare in their underwear?" she pondered as she got up from the couch and moved to the dining room.
"I'm pretty sure just you and Angelina Jolie in a movie," Auggie volleyed back.
Annie was quietly staring at the way the rooms came together, assessing the depth of the walls.
"I think I know where the safe is, call you back in a few," she hung up without saying good-bye, a trick she had learned from Auggie.
The dining room neighbored the bedroom with the bathroom in between, but the hall between the two was much longer than the bathroom was deep, so Annie knew there had to be space on the dining room side.
In the middle of the wall was a tall black lacquer cabinet with glasses and such in it. She removed the glassware and tapped along the back panel, sure enough a hollow echo bounced back. She felt along the edges of the case with her finger tips and found a button that opened the back panel and revealed a safe.
Annie hit the button to get Auggie back on the line.
"Find it?" he asked hopefully.
"Yes, looks like a Max 457, very new maybe even the 459," she relayed the details.
"Give me a second here," Auggie said and she could hear his fingers flying over the keys.
"OK, the two are similar enough that our program will work on either," he read the intel on the two models.
Annie's phone dinged the arrival of the safe cracking software.
"Run the scan first," Auggie reminded.
"Not my first time at the safe-cracking rodeo," Annie grinned.
The scan alerted Auggie to a failsafe alarm if the safe was opened any other way than with Yuri's finger print. While Yuri was out, Annie was certain his goons were not far away, an alarm would not be a good thing right now.
"Can you get his print without waking him?" Auggie asked calmly.
"I think so," Annie put the phone down and retrieved a synthetic print sheet from her purse, made to look like the little sheets used to dab unsightly shine from a woman's skin. She wrapped the sheet around her index finger and approached Yuri.
He barely even grumbled when she took his right hand and held her index finger to his, rolling it gently to transfer his print to the blue sheet.
"Got it," Annie reported to Auggie.
"Good, place the phone against the safe, that will crack the code then apply the print when the light goes green," he instructed.
"I'm in," she said gleefully when the safe popped open, no sign of an alarm.
"What is inside?"
"A lap top and some paper files and something that looks like an asthma inhaler," Annie relayed.
"Delivery system, he is further along than we thought. Put the flash drive in the computer so that can work while you snap pics of everything else."
"Got it, will call back when I am done."
TBC…
