They moved quickly, keeping to the shadows of giant oaks and thick bushes along the side of the street. On more than one occasion, Adriana imagined seeing one of the other neighbors through an open window or doorway, but after stopping, she realized it was just her mind playing tricks on her.
Allyson could relate. It was an occupational hazard. Paranoia ran deep when it came to breaking into a place, whether it was a home or a bank. It also provided a new rush of adrenaline that, for a short while, wiped away any exhaustion the women might have.
Rounding the turn, the two headed down the straightaway as they’d done before, this time keeping low next to the stone retaining wall that ran along the street in front of the last row of houses.
The only conversation the women had while sitting next to the river was how to approach Klugen’s home and which door to go through. They assumed there would be a back door, but without seeing it, that could pose any number of issues. It could be attached to a porch, which would require picking two locks instead of one. With no reconnaissance of the house, it made more sense to work with known variables. While going through the front door exposed them to view of nearby wandering eyes, the women would be difficult to see in the darkness. And they wouldn’t be out in the open long.
Once inside, they could figure out where Klugen kept her valuables and anything related to her mother’s job at Hitler’s museum… if there was anything to find.
They reached the concrete steps in front of Klugen’s home, looked both directions to make sure no one was watching, and sprinted up and across the pathway toward the front door. During the short run, they were exposed. That made it imperative to move fast.
Getting to the door took less than eight seconds, even with their small bags clutched firmly to keep any contents from rattling and signaling their presence. Once under the shadow of the house’s triangular roof, the two thieves got down on bended knee.
A loud bang thundered from down in the valley, startling the two for a brief second. Then they realized what it was as another explosion boomed in the sky a half mile away. Someone in the city was shooting off fireworks for whatever festival they were celebrating.
Adriana had already removed the tool she needed before they began their march up the hill. She’d clutched it in her palm during their sprint from the street. Her fingers pried open a thin, flat rod and removed a detachable, thick wire from the end. The device— a small object similar to a Swiss Army knife, both in size and shape — was a collection of lock picking tools she’d used to gain entry into a number of different places. How many, she couldn’t say. The count had been lost in her memory years ago. What hadn’t been lost was her ability to pick a standard lock in under twenty seconds.
She jammed the flat piece into the keyhole and then proceeded to stick the wire in just above it. Allyson crouched nearby, watching the street for any signs of late evening walkers or worse, a drunk who’d wandered too far away from their destination after a night of heavy drinking at the bierhaus.
The door clicked, and Adriana held both utensils with one hand while turning the knob with the other. Once inside, Allyson was going to override the security system with a device Adriana gave her earlier. The piece of technology was an incredible innovation. For most home alarm systems, the wires connecting the keypad to the system itself had a backup. So if someone cut the wires, the alarm would still go off. And if the power was cut, the battery backup would still pump out the annoying and somewhat effective alarm.
The device in Allyson’s hand took care of that issue. They would melt the wire covers with a small, intense heater made for that purpose, connect the wires to the back of the console via clamps, and the internal computer would handle the rest. It was set to send a signal to the security system that everything was okay, without having to know the keypad entry number. It was ingenious, and had helped Adriana on more than one occasion.
She gave a silent, questioning look over at Allyson to make sure she was ready and then turned the doorknob.
They rushed through the door and into the home. Adriana allowed Allyson to pass by to find the security keypad while she closed the door. But as the door clicked in the frame, both women realized something wasn’t right. There was no prolonged beep telling them that they only had so many seconds until the alarm went off.
Allyson searched the walls to find the keypad but saw none. She looked back at Adriana in a panic. “Where’s the console?” she hissed.
Adriana kept her breathing slow and listened carefully. Her eyes searched the dark house for anything resembling the keypad. Then she had an epiphany. “Relax. There’s no alarm here.” She couldn’t help but smile as she put her lock picking toolkit back in the rucksack.
Allyson was obviously dubious. “What? How could there not be an—?”
“Because this home is at least four hundred years old, and I’m guessing that Frau Klugen didn’t bother to have any upgrades done when she acquired it after her mother’s death.”
“Right. Good point.”
The only light in the room seeped through the curtains at the front window. From the looks of it, they were in a cellar. That meant the main entrance must have been around the back or on the side. None of that mattered now. They were in.
Allyson moved over to the window and pulled the curtains closed. Any good thief knew that one of the simplest and biggest mistakes bad thieves made was to keep lights off but wave their flashlights around as if a circus was in full swing. Keeping the windows covered was an easy remedy.
Once she was done, she started to put Adriana’s device into her bag. The Spaniard saw what she was doing and stopped her. “What are you doing?”
“Just putting this away. Why?”
Adriana shook her head and walked over to where her counterpart stood. She put her hand out, demanding the device.
“Fine. Jeez, you are uptight.”
Adriana shook her head disapprovingly and stuffed the object into her rucksack then set the bag down on a nearby box. Both women removed their smartphones from pockets and turned on the bright LED flashlights, careful to keep them low and pointed at the floor.
In the white glow, they could see it was definitely a cellar. Cardboard boxes were stacked high against the wall on one side. Another collection of boxes sat on the floor near a wooden staircase. Upon checking them out, the women realized they were full of beer bottles.
“Ugh, I’ll never understand why Europeans drink their beer at that temperature,” Allyson said.
Adriana shone her light on the next wall, running it over an electrical panel, another stack of boxes, a washer and dryer, and an old gray filing cabinet.
“We might as well start down here,” she said. “Odds are, if Klugen’s mother had something she kept around from the war, it will probably be down here.”
Allyson sighed. “It’s gonna be like finding a needle in a stack of needles in this mess. Some of these boxes are pretty dusty. Looks like they’ve not been touched in a long time.” She stepped over to one and made a tight circle with her lips then blew the layer of dust off the top. It was more than she’d expected and stepped back, waving the dust away from her face as she turned away.
Adriana shook her head. “Good. Check those boxes. I’ll start with these files. Keep an eye out for anything related to Paris, 1945, the Nazis, anything in that realm.”
“And art.”
“Well, yes. Art.”
When the two set to work, it was almost nine in the evening, local time. Minutes rolled by and turned into hours. At one point, Allyson stopped and sighed, complaining about how tedious it was sifting through old records, photo albums, and just plain junk. Adriana kindly requested that she keep at it and be patient, that sometimes things like this took time.