Scott was busy stripping the line for apartment 102. “I believe you’ve seen my condo in the Southwest Waterfront district. You already know the answer to that.”
Drake started to catch on. “And you’re a megalomaniac techno geek just like our terrorist hacker. No offense.”
“Genius. The word your gorilla brain is looking for is genius.” The engineer put down his strippers. “And just because you say ‘no offense’ after calling me a megalomaniac geek doesn’t make it okay. What’s your point?”
“This place is in one of the poorest sections of Budapest,” said Nick. “You wouldn’t live here, and neither does Grendel. He’s just using the apartment to house a small stack of servers. No oven use. Minimal heating. I bet he’s drawing way less power than the other residents.”
Nick’s finger moved along the panel as he scrutinized the readout of each meter. It came to rest three rows down from the top and seven units over. The dials were hardly moving. “This one. Three oh seven.”
The door behind them rattled, and then rattled again. A tired voice grumbled in Hungarian just outside. Keys jangled.
Drake shot a withering look at the engineer and hissed, “What did you do?”
Scott stuffed his equipment into his bag. “Nothing! There’s no way my reader alerted anyone.”
A key slipped into the lock. Nick pushed the engineer behind the water heaters and rushed to one side of the door. Drake was already on the other side, bent down and digging through a black bag in one of the cardboard boxes. He raised up with a heavy flashlight and two pairs of dark glasses just as the knob turned.
The big operative lobbed one pair of glasses over the opening door and Nick grabbed them out of the air. The two of them backed into the shadows.
A balding man with a sagging middle and two days of dark gristle on his chin shuffled into the utility room, still grumbling. He started toward the row of water heaters where Scott was hiding, but he stopped when he saw the open phone panel.
“Mi ez?” he asked, walking over to the panel. He touched the first line with his forefinger, squinting at the section Scott had stripped bare.
While the intruder’s back was turned, Nick nodded to Drake. Both men donned their dark glass and then the big operative strode into the open behind the Hungarian. He whistled.
The heavyset man spun around, and Drake aimed the flashlight at his face and depressed its trigger, filling the room with strobing green and blue light. The Hungarian fell forward in a dead faint.
“A little help here,” grunted Drake, catching the overweight super in his arms.
Nick rushed to help his teammate lower the man to the ground. Then he pulled a small cylindrical CO2 injector from his pocket and gently dosed the super with a sedative. “That’ll keep him down for a while. He removed his dark glasses and glanced around the room. “What happened to the geek?”
They found Scott lying flat on the floor behind the water heaters, passed out. Drake slapped him on the cheek a few times. “Wake up, Sleeping Beauty.”
“Ohhh. Why did you do that to me?” the engineer moaned.
Drake lifted him to his feet and guided him out of his hiding place. “I used a MOID,” he said, pronouncing the acronym as a word, “a multifrequency optical interference device. It knocks you out with sequenced pulses of light.”
Scott doubled over and put his hands on his knees as soon as Drake let go of his arm. “Yes, I know what the MOID is, you idiot. Why did you use it on me?”
“He used it on the super.” Nick nudged the unconscious Hungarian with the toe of his boot. “If you’re going to hang with us in the field, you’ve got to pay attention.”
“I didn’t think the MOID would get you in your hiding spot,” offered Drake. “Normally it only knocks people out who look directly at it. Even then it doesn’t always work. Some just get nauseated.”
As if on cue, Scott stumbled over to a wastebasket in the corner of the room and heaved up the contents of his stomach.
Drake stifled a laugh. “Apparently some people get both effects.”
Nick was not amused. Before Scott was done retching, the team lead had him by the shoulder, dragging him back to the phone panel. “We’re on a time limit now. I dosed our friend here with six hours of juice, give or take, but if someone comes looking for him, our clock will run out fast.” He pulled the reader and the wire strippers out of the bag and shoved them into Scott’s hands. Then he used the inside collar of the engineer’s coat to wipe the bile from his chin. He slapped the man lightly on the cheek. “I need you back with me, Scott. Apartment three oh seven. Get on it.”
Scott mechanically did as commanded, stripping the wire and setting the clips in place. Once the numbers started rolling up his LCD screen, he stared at them blankly.
Nick’s patience grew thin. “Well, genius?”
The engineer blinked a few times and then finally came out of his daze. He nodded. “This is—” He choked on the words, fighting the bile still in his throat. “Ahem. This is the correct line. This is Grendel’s apartment.”
CHAPTER 12
The team propped the building super up on a chair and left with their black bags slung over their shoulders. They locked the door. With any luck, no one would disturb his slumber.
Despite the late hour, a woman in a flower-print headscarf, stooped with age and leaning on a cane, came through the entrance just as the three of them came up the stairs. She eyed the bags suspiciously.
“Jó estét,” said Nick, bidding her good evening. He did not speak Hungarian, but he had picked up a few phrases on previous operations and he had boned up during the crossing. The woman just frowned at him and started up the stairs.
“These people keep odd hours,” whispered Drake once she had passed the first landing.
They gave her three minutes to clear the stairwell and then started up, pausing to listen at the third floor. A rhythmic thumping sounded from the hallway. Nick peeked around the corner and couldn’t believe his bad luck. The old woman lived on this floor. Her cane thumped into the worn carpet with every shaky step. Nick stepped aside and nodded for Drake to lean out and take a look.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” said the big operative when he ducked back into the stairwell. His eyes widened. “You don’t think she’s—”
Nick shook his head. “No, although, at this point, I’m not averse to Tasing her.”
After another few seconds, the thumping stopped and they heard the scrape of a key in a lock. They waited until they heard the door open and click closed and then Nick checked the hall one more time. “We’re on.”
They moved quickly, padding down the hall without a sound until Scott caught a toe on a lump in the carpet. His shoulder thudded against the old woman’s wall. Nick shot him a glare.
The engineer winced. “Sorry.”
The old woman did not reappear and they continued on. At the door marked 307, Nick pulled a small black leather wallet from his coat and flipped it open. A few years ago, it would have held the snakes, rakes, and hooks of his lockpick set, but picking locks was now a dying and largely unnecessary art. These days, the wallet held bump keys. Nick checked Grendel’s dead bolt and doorknob and then selected a matching pair, handing one to Drake.
Both men drew pistol-style Tasers from their coat pockets and inserted their keys into the door locks, Nick standing at the dead bolt, Drake crouched in front of the doorknob. After a final check that his teammate was ready, Nick whispered a count to three and they both gave their keys a sharp bump and a turn.