Chapter 34
“So, we can’t hack into it?” Andrea naively wonders.
“No. I found the service manual with the diagnostic procedures and escalation protocols, and there’s no universal backdoor to this safe.
We’d need a technician device, as well as a safe-specific code that only exists in physical form in the manufacturer’s vault in Sweden.
These safes are highly secure, and if we input the wrong code twice, we’ll trigger an alarm that will not only resound to a deafening level but also warn Becker on his phone and his security team.
The only panel that could be tampered with is inside the safe. ”
“Damn … It didn’t seem like such a complex safe when I saw it.”
“To be fair, it is an extremely simple safe, but they made it virtually impregnable to anyone who doesn’t know the code.”
Andrea pauses to ponder, and I run the soapy sponge over her arm. Following our scare, we’ve been doing our best to relax. That’s why we’re sharing a warm and bubbly bath, as well as a bottle of champagne I ordered from reception.
I thought seeing her bleeding from a gunshot wound would forever be my worst experience in life.
But those twelve minutes where I had no idea what was happening were even worse.
Horrible images and vile thoughts wreaked havoc in my mind as I waited for something to happen.
Anything. I was on the brink of a heart attack until I saw her exit the hallway a few minutes after them, unharmed and untouched.
Had they done anything to her, I would have gone scorched earth and destroyed everything, them included. With nothing left to lose, I would have let my rage take over and rule me.
“We’d only get two tries?” Andrea asks, pulling me out of my thoughts.
“Yes. And then, game over.”
“How many digits?”
“Could be four, could be twelve, or twenty … It’s at the client’s discretion.”
“Jesus, we’ll never figure it out.”
“Aside from capturing Becker and torturing him until he talks, I don’t think we will, no.”
“I like the torturing idea. Maybe we can do it, regardless.”
“I’m with you on that.”
She’s silent for a moment, distractedly sipping on her champagne, but I can practically hear the gears running in her head. Already, she’s trying to think of a way to overcome this new obstacle. It takes her about five minutes to think of something worth sharing.
“You know how the safe was set a little deeper in the niche?”
“Yeah, you said five inches or so.”
“Well, I couldn’t see the upper panel of the niche. It was set low, at about my chin’s height.”
“And?”
“Becker is much taller than I am.”
“Most people are.”
She counters the jab with a small slap on my forearm. “That means he probably never sees the ceiling of the niche.”
I think I see where she’s going with this, but I let her continue with, “Go on.”
“A while back, Mason wanted to spy on his situationship, who he thought was sleeping around. So, he wanted to get a spy camera, and he asked for my help to choose one.”
“That’s healthy …”
“Oh, Mason is toxic as hell, for sure. Anyway, some of them were so small, baby. As big as a thumbnail. And they can operate on motion detectors and do their work for days.”
Now, I’m sure that I know what she’s thinking about. “You’re considering sticking one to the upper panel of the niche, waiting for it to activate, filming Becker inputting the code, and then retrieving the camera.”
“I mean … It’s dumb as hell, but it could work. Efficient, almost risk-free, and we can set it up as early as tomorrow.”
“‘We?’ You’re not considering going back there, are you?”
“One last time. Then, I tell the housekeeper I’m feeling a little ill and need to go home. She’ll fire me on the spot, which will allow me to make a discreet exit.”
I try to stay calm and not let her carelessness frustrate me as I ask, “After our scare today, you’d go back?”
“You heard them on the security feed say Horvat was returning to Seattle to get visual confirmation that you’re there. And Becker is returning to his family in Palm Springs. The penthouse will be safe again.”
I take a few seconds to process her words, shocked she’d be so easily willing to return there. “You’re completely mad.”
“If I don’t go tomorrow, I’ll get fired. And if I get fired, we’ll lose our access to the penthouse.”
When I don’t answer, she goes on with her argument. “I told you they were talking about delivering ‘butterflies’ this Friday. I’m pretty sure Becker will need his computer at some point for whatever goes down.”
“Then what?”
“Then, I don’t know … We find another way to get in. Get the camera back and crack the safe.”
“Such an easy plan.”
She twists around to offer me a miffed frown. “At least I’m trying to think of something.”
Right. I should be more proactive as well. “Why don’t you ask Paola to hide the camera?” I ask.
“That’s where she’ll draw the line. If she gets caught with it, she’s done. He’ll have her sent back to Peru, if not worse. Even I wouldn’t want to put her through that risk. She has kids.”
“Hmm …” I take a sip of my champagne, giving myself some time to think. If we go with her plan to stick a camera in the safe’s niche, then I might have an option not only to get it back but also to do what we need to do and crack the safe and access its contents.
“I called Emilia a few days ago,” I say.
“Your sister?”
“Yes.”
“Shit, did you tell her you’re in New York? Is she mad you didn’t visit her?”
“She doesn’t know, no. I called her to ask her a question.”
“What question?”
I suck in a long breath, hoping this won’t blow up in my face. There’s a reason why I kept that information private, and either she’ll use it to push harder, or she’ll be mad that I didn’t share it sooner.
“Even though they aren’t on speaking terms, Becker still sends an invitation for his birthday to my father. It always gets delivered by courier at the New York branch.”
“The one Emilia runs.”
“Yes.”
“Why would Becker still send an invitation after all this time?”
“I have no idea. Maybe as some kind of open door in case my father ever wants to rekindle their old friendship. All I know is my father never attends.”
“Okay … I feel like you’re telling me this for a specific reason.”
I sigh. “As Richard’s son, I could technically attend the party in my father’s name. As in, ‘My father couldn’t make it, so he sent me to pay our respects instead.’”
Andrea slides around in the tub and gapes at me. “You could?!”
“Technically, yes. It’s customary in those spheres.”
She’s now beaming with excitement, plans already firing left and right in her mind.
“Are you saying that if I hide the camera tomorrow, and Becker opens his safe because of his ‘special party’ the day after, we could be back there another day later to not only retrieve the camera and get the code but also get the safe to open and access what’s in it? !”
“No, I’m saying there’s potentially that option.”
“Lex! When are we ever going to have such an amazing opportunity?”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s literally perfect. The camera would only be there for two and a half days, making it even less likely he’d find it. And I’ll venture the invitation comes with a plus one? We could go together.”
“It’s still risky. If we get caught in his office—”
“There will be a hundred and sixty guests, Lex. What’s he gonna do? Have us killed in front of everyone? At the very worst, he’ll kick us out and never allow us in there ever again. By then, either we already have what we went there for, or we failed and come back empty-handed.”
I take a moment to consider my options. I knew she’d use the information to come up with a new plan, and as much as I’d like to rebuke it, we are so fucking close to ending all this. Her idea doesn’t sound half bad, but we need to hash out the details and make sure it’s foolproof.
“What about the key? Becker’s office will be locked.”
“I can get it through Paola. Or I can steal the one from Mrs. Reed’s office. She wouldn’t notice by the time the party starts.”
“Paola would be okay with that?”
“Probably. I can meet up with her after her shift, and we’ll make a copy right away, so the key is impossible to identify. She wouldn’t be in trouble.”
“Hm … Okay, so, now we’re at Becker’s party, we somehow managed to sneak away from the guests, into the hallway, and unlocked his office. What then?”
“Well, we get the camera back, we plug it, watch the footage, and get the code from it. Then we open the safe and start working.”
“Which means?”
“We won’t have time to hack into the computer there, and Becker seems paranoid about that laptop, so there might be a program in place to erase everything on it if we mess it up. So, we clone the hard drive instead.”
I know I’m playing dumb, but I still ask, “How?”
“We know the laptop model, so we can practice opening it to access the hard drive. Then we use a cloning station to duplicate it onto a blank hard drive and return everything as it was. He’ll never even know we were there.”
“That’s a lot of tools.”
“It’s not like they will search us when we arrive. And we can use a small cloning station and a one-terabyte microSD. That should be plenty enough.”
“We’d probably need an adapter to clone to a Micro SD. But I like that it’ll be almost impossible to find once it’s cloned. In case they do catch us.”
“See? My plan doesn’t sound so bad, does it?”
“It’s starting to sound good, yes.”
“It sounds great.”
“Except for the part where you go back there tomorrow.”
“It’s a key element. It can’t work without hiding that camera.”
“I realize that.”