Bottom Feeder (19 page)

I cannot sit still. My legs fidget, my
arms twitch, and my hands want to hit something. Hard. I stand.
Pace. Jog in place. Pace. Check my watch. 1:17. Jog in place.
Finally, at 1:22, the Lincoln pulls to the corner of Abecorn and
East Harris. I step out from the shadows and run to the back. The
car speeds off before I shut the door.

“
You’re late,” I say
irritably. “Didn’t you say there’s no room for error?”

A guy in the front seat turns around.
“You got it?” he asks. I roll my eyes at the cliché of all this and
hand over the drive. He pushes a new flash drive in my hand, along
with a tiny plastic device, and another flash drive stored in a
metal casing.

“
The plastic piece is a
bug,” he says. “Remove the backing and stick the device on the
underside of a lamp, phone, or picture.”

“
The other
drive?”

“
It’s a keystroke logger,”
the driver says. “Use another port to download the software, remove
the drive and you’re finished. We will handle the rest.”

Agent Mace places a tablet in my lap.
The screen shows a satellite view of Daddy’s warehouse. He points
to a section of the building next to a line of oak trees covered in
Spanish moss. “We will drop you off on the other side of these
trees,” he says. “They will provide cover for your entry here.” The
Agent points to the bottom center of the building. “Stay low. When
you are within fifteen feet of the window, crawl the rest of the
way on your belly.”

He points out sections where the
cameras cover outside. “You will have exactly one minute to break
the window— ”

“
Waitwaitwait.
Break
the window?
They’re going to hear that. He’s going to know, Suit! He’s going to
know someone broke in.”

“
I hate when you call me
that.”

“
Yeah? Well I hate when
you send me on a task that screams, ‘Look at me, I’m breaking in
your
fucking
warehouse!’”

Oh. I’ve never dropped an f-bomb
before. Huh. It felt pretty good.

That’s irrelevant,
Carrington! They’re sending you on a mission that can get you
killed and no one would know. Stay calm and get your crap together.
Now is not the time to weenie out. Go in, download, and get out. If
you die, Dixon, Violet and probably Jackson will die, too. Pull up
your big girl panties and woman-up!

I hate whatever part of my brain these
logical—or illogical—pep talks derive from.

“
The alarms will be turned
off during the sixty seconds, but afterwards will be on again. You
will have ninety seconds to get through the window and to the
stairs here.” He taps the screen and a picture of a storage room
pops up. “You know where to go?”

I nod. Up three flights of stairs and
to the right, where the hallway ends at a boardroom on the left and
Daddy’s private office on the right.

“
You will have until 2:12
to get up there, Madelyn. That’s only two minutes to get from the
bottom of the stairs and inside Cordell’s office. The security feed
on
that hallway only
will be replayed until 2:20. That gives you enough time to
get back to the stairs. You have the office key?”

I nod again. A mixture of fear and
fury rises inside me. These emotions are never good for clear
thinking.

“
You’ll have precisely
four minutes to download everything. After that, get out the same
way you came in. You’re sure you have the password?”

Daddy’s password is always the same.
It has to do with a Thoreau quote that says something about
disobedience and the foundation of freedom.

“
Will I have any way to
contact you in case something goes wrong?”

The man in the front seat turns
around, “No. Don’t fuck this up.”

“
Hopkins—”

“
Wow,” I say, my anger
flaring to a level usually saved for Dixon’s villains. “You wipe
your lips with the same toilet paper you wipe your butt with?
Because that is some foul shit coming out of your
mouth.”

Second swear word in my
entire life within ten minutes. Dixon’s right. They
are
addictive. Oh, but
my traitorous mouth doesn’t stop there.

“
If you knew how to do
your job correctly, you wouldn’t need me for this,” I continue. “So
how about you turn around and have a nice cup of shut the fuck up
while the grownups talk.”

Aaaaand there goes number
three.

Hopkins sulks in the front seat. The
driver and Agent Mace bite back laughter. I fight the urge to
throat punch all three of them.

At the edge of the tree line, the
driver hands me a small pouch. I pull out a small pen-like gadget.
One end is rounded steel and the other is—

“
It’s a diamond-tipped
glass cutter,” he says. “The pane in the window isn’t very thick,
so you will break it with that. Cut a single line down the
middle—do
not
go
back over that line, or the glass will shatter. After you cut, flip
the cutter over and tap the glass with the rounded end
gently
.”

“
Won’t it shatter
anyway?”

The driver shakes his
head. “If you tap one side of the glass gently, it will fall
slowly. Catch it and you will be fine. Lay the glass on the
outside
of the window
so, at first glance, it appears as if someone on the inside made
the cut.”

I tie the pouch to my belt loops, set
my watch with the agents’, put on my gloves, and sprint into the
woods with nothing but a tiny flashlight guiding my way. My feet
make little noise as I slow my sprint to an easy jog. Time is
limited, but I can’t afford mistakes. I scrape my arms against the
oaks a few times and run directly into a spider web. I suddenly
become a Kung Fu Master as I work to get the web out of my face. I
don’t have time to feel sorry for the loss of the spider’s home.
Enough valuable time was lost in the process of removing said home
from my mouth without saying, “Ew ew ew” over and over
again.

I’m only in the woods for a few
minutes, but it seems like hours later when Daddy’s warehouse
finally comes into sight. I adjust the baseball cap and beads of
sweat slide down my neck. Deep breath. I run as fast as I can to
the window while pulling out the glass cutter.

Not exactly my smartest moment, but
there it is.

I slip on a patch of dewy grass and
instead of crawling like Agent Mace instructed, I slide on my knees
the rest of the way to the window. My fingers are clumsy inside the
gloves as I attempt to slice through the glass. I check my watch.
46 seconds left. I flip the cutter to the rounded side and tap the
window until it finally begins to break in half with a smooth edge.
Instead of following the driver’s directions, I pull off my gloves
and push on the glass until it separates more. 34 seconds left. I
take an extra few seconds to wipe my prints off the glass and place
it beside the window. The left piece slides out easily.

I peek my head inside to check out
what I’m jumping into. It’s empty. No tables, no tools, no dust. If
I have to hide, I’m screwed.

I lower my body feet first inside the
room. My feet land on the glossy cement floor and I freeze. I feel
like I’ve been here before. Weird.

I don’t have time to
contemplate this
déjà vu. I creep along
the north wall and make it up three flights of stairs without an
issue. I panic when I found the third floor door locked. Why would
separate locks be on the inside
and
outside of a door?

No worries, Carrington.
You can do this. Think. Think. Think.

I pull out the glass
cutter and slice around the edges of the blacked-out glass. I
lightly push the top corner of the glass and catch it before it
falls. I stand as far on my tiptoes as I can manage, thankful for
all those years of ballet but cursing my short, t-rex arms. My time
limit is up by now, but there’s no turning back. I’m in this. I
step into the empty hallway.

The glass fits haphazardly
back inside the cutout. Hopefully security doesn’t decide to do a
walkthrough.

Daddy’s office is simple
with only a large half-circle desk and leather chair. No photos, no
lamp, no chairs for anyone else to sit. A painting of the Tybee
Island Lighthouse hangs on the exposed brick behind his desk. It is
the only decoration in the room. While the computer is booting up,
I stick the bug to the back of the painting’s ornate
frame.

I type civildisobedience into the
password field and insert both drives. The keystroke software
begins to download immediately. I locate the correct files to
download on the blank flash drive and I wait. I check my watch.
2:11.

The keystroke software finishes before
the file download is complete. At 2:13, a glass shatters down the
hallway.

Crrrk “
Alpha Team, this is Charlie Team. We’ve got a shattered
window from a door leading into the basement on the top floor. You
know anything about that?”
Crrrk

“
Negative, Charlie Team.
Cameras are clear, but investigate the third floor. Bravo Team,
split and check the other floors. Report when you clear a
room.”

“
Roger, Alpha
Team.”

Crrrk
“10-4, Alpha Team. I’ll check the offices here and report
back shortly.”
Crrrk

That’s when I know I am
caught.

Not yet,
Carrington.

I quickly, efficiently remove the
drives and shove them in my pocket. I make my way to the window. It
glides up silently. I poke my head outside and look up. Nothing. I
grudgingly look down. Nothing except the overhang that protects the
smokers from getting drenched in the rain. If I drop down, I will
fall through or make enough noise to draw attention to
myself.

At least
try,
Carrington. Drop
and say you tried or sit here and present yourself like a sheep
going into slaughter.

I pull myself to a sitting position on
the windowsill, my legs dangle over the edge, and my hands grasp
both sides of the wall inside. I notice a rain gutter to my right.
Crap.

You’ve climbed a wall and
rope hundreds of times in Krav Maga. Turn yourself around, loosen
your limbs, wrap them around the gutter and pray the material is
industrial strength.

This will never work. I’m too short.
I’m too big. And suddenly I find myself clinging to the downspout
of the gutter and wall at the same time. My jeans rip on the screws
holding the aluminum together. Blood trickles down my leg. The
downspout scrapes and groans beneath my weight. I continue sliding
down inch-by painstaking-inch.

Voices shout above me.
Blood pounds behind my ears. The voices become louder. I unclench
my legs slightly and begin sliding faster. Without further warning
the downspout separates from the top gutter, then the wall. The
metal overhang breaks my fall. Pain barely registers before I hear
the
crrk
of the
walkie talkies.

“
Alpha Team, this is
Charlie Team. We’ve got a suspect on the overhang beneath Cordell’s
office. I repeat, suspect on the overhang beneath Cordell’s office.
All black clothes, black baseball cap.”
Crrrk

Remembering the way Jackson showed me
the landing when he jumps out of airplanes, I jump the short
distance from the overhang, loosening my body while tucking my
knees to my chest. I hit the pavement hard and roll until I can’t
roll anymore. Ignoring the pain and running on pure adrenaline, I
sprint into the woods, zigzagging until I reach the west end of the
tree line and no longer hear voices chasing after me.

I stick to the shadows of
the trees and slow to a jog. The adrenaline is wearing off quickly.
My body hurts
in every place
imaginable
.
I
check my watch. 2:32.

I hear a car coming up the street
behind me. Immediately I drop and roll to refuge in the oak trees.
The car creeps along the pavement with the lights off. My body
tells me to run, but I know better.

Keep breathing. No sudden
movements.

The front and back passenger window
rolls down. Agent Mace and Hopkins stick their head out the window.
Dogs bark from somewhere in the woods.

Dear God, they’ve got dogs
chasing me.

“
I don’t see her, Boss,”
Hopkins says. “Whose bright idea was it to have her do this,
anyway? She’s not trained for this shit.”

“
My bright idea,” Agent
Mace says. “I’m going to have to call backup.”

“
You can’t do that. It
will ruin everything we’ve gathered on Carrington.”

The snarls and growls from the dogs
are closer. Too close for my comfort.

I jump from my position in the trees
and run to the car.

“
Door!” I
whisper-yell.

Agent Mace looks startled, but opens
his door. I dive inside the car, face first, and slide across the
Agent’s lap. “Drive!” I yell. “They’ve got dogs chasing
me!”