The Project Pt. 01

Trying another angle, he said, "Ah yes, the securities police can be very irritating, no? But tell me, what is your technology background?"

"Antonio, for tonight only, I must remain a mystery woman. My assignment from Scott is to smile, listen, and say nothing."

"Katherine, I admit defeat. Scott has already trained you well. Your partner is very smart, and now after Xtrax, I gather he is very rich. I hope that you do well with him in this next venture." He extended his arm and said, "Now, let us circulate."

I felt a little sorry for being so unhelpful and, squeezing his hand, whispered in his ear, "I will give you two tidbits for being so kind to me. I have a PhD in optics from Cal Tech. And I played varsity soccer."

His eyes sharpened right up at that. I could see wheels turning. Then he smiled and grinned at me, "So men who are too forward with you may find themselves clutching something important!"

I whispered in his direction, "Leaning over and clutching, it has been known to happen!"

With something of friendship kindled, we clasped arms warmly and said hello to a number of people. The wine on an empty stomach was not improving my memory.

I said to Antonio, "Do you think Scott wants me to remember all these names and faces?"

"Dear Katherine, I think you are here to attract attention, which you are very much doing, and to lend an air of mystery to Scott's project. So no, I don't think your memory is needed at the moment."

Just then Scott came bustling up, "Antonio, you have a million thanks for protecting Katherine from the wolves all about! But we must go."

"My good friend Scott, I understand that Katherine has very special skills in protecting herself. It is I who am feeling protected, and very honored to have met you," he said, turning to me and brushing my cheek lightly with a kiss.

I gave him a hug with all of my chest thrown into it, nuzzled his ear, and went off at the end of Scott's arm.

I asked Scott, "Is he one of the good guys, or is that all for show?"

"Antonio is a good guy, but he also is on the make. They don't pay him all that well as an association exec, so he has to dig for insider stuff and use it if he can, meaning sometimes just barely legal."

ÒNow listen to me carefully. I picked up some very useful information that needs to be acted on right now. So Alphonse and I have moved up your first team assignment to tonight. I know you have a zillion questions, and we'll get to them, but right now, please smile a lot and stroll out of here as though you had a great time and are just looking forward to the next party."

"By the way, Alphonse is that studly black guy who helped you out of the Ferrari."

While I was digesting that, we arrived at the valet stand, where Scott handed his ticket to Alphonse and got some keys and something else in a quick exchange. "Mr. Thomas, your car is in the usual place."

Scott made a show of slipping him some money and saying, 'Alphonse, thanks so much for looking after it for us."

Taking my elbow, Scott headed toward the garage elevator, but then veered through another door and up a dark staircase, and then another. Before we went through the next door, he whispered in my ear, "There is surveillance everywhere in this place, and we can't be sure it hasn't been infiltrated by the bad guys. When we get into the hallway here, I want you to grab me and pretend we are making out and on our way to a room for some hot stuff. When we get there, I'll close the door and guide you into the bathroom in the dark. We can talk there with the shower running, but still no lights. Do you think you can change your clothes in the dark? Alphonse has left a duffel for us in there."

I mumbled, "OK," and tried to keep all this sudden information straight. We went through the door and he put his arm around me. I leaned my head on his shoulder and weaved a bit. "That's my Dorothy," he said out loud, "that's my girl."

Ok, two can play at this. "Donald, are we going back to our room so soon? You're so nice to me, I'm ready for playtime." And we weaved some more around the corner and into the last room in the corridor. Scott closed the door, put his arm around my waist, then leaned down and eased off my heels. Then across the room in pitch black and into the bathroom. He started the shower, then he was reaching for something on the floor and thrusting a handful of what turned out to be underwear into my hands. Then zipping down my dress and sliding me out of panties and stockings. So here I was, for the second time today, naked as a jaybird under strange circumstances.

The new duds were not exotic lingerie. The top was a running bra and plenty tight. The bottoms were boy shorts made out of heavy fabric. Then he was helping me into a jumpsuit with a heavy slippery fabric that fit snugly all over. Another case of Scott having my measurements.

"OK, he whispered, "here are some socks and sneakers, you might as well sit on the floor and put them on while I change."

Another couple of minutes and he was back at my ear, "I know you don't want to ruin that hair, but we have to be black from top to bottom to get out of here, so I hope you can ease this hood on without wrecking everything."

I was still processing too much information to argue, and did my best with the hood. Olga would not be pleased, it wasn't even ten o'clock. And my "lover," whoever that was, hadn't had a chance to appreciate any of my expensive glamour.

Another earful. "It's time for me to turn off the shower. We need some moaning from you, then we slip into the bedroom and fall onto the bed, which will creak a lot. Then we are going out the window and down the ladder to a car right at the bottom. All those parts have been oiled and won't make noise. I'm going to place a night vision goggle over your head and try to center it over your eyeholes. Ready to go?"

I squeezed his hand and he turned off the shower and opened the door. I made several low moans like a woman in heat and noticed that with the goggles I could see pretty well in the bedroom. We walked across the carpet and fell onto the bed. He was right, it made plenty of noise. I moaned a little louder and more urgently, especially when Scott put his hand between my legs and squeezed. I reciprocated, finding him mostly hard. He kissed me lightly, then pulled us up carefully and over to the window. He guided me out first and I started down the ladder, which was twenty feet off the ground. There was an eight foot gap at the bottom, but I dropped off lightly and looked up to find Scott right behind me.

The car was totally black and nondescript. He motioned me around and unlocked it before I got there. He pushed a button and the car moved off with no motor! Complete silence except for some gear noise.

I looked at him and said, "Electric?"

"Yes, doesn't have much range, but there is lots of acceleration and it is just right for the kind of job we are doing tonight."

He knew that he owed me some explanation and said, "Karen, trust me a little longer. We wouldn't be doing this to you if I hadn't heard something tonight at the party that needs immediate attention."

Hmm, I thought. From high tech glamour to high tech underground in less than ten minutes? That must be some kind of record. What about all that work on me? Was that just going to waste? At least I still had the dress and the jewels in the duffel, which I saw Scott toss in the back.

Somewhere along the line, Scott had picked up a few driving pointers. The electric car was whooshing down the street with lights out, but a red and green illuminated screen was giving him a look forward. In front of me was a second screen looking back. I didn't need instructions to know I was responsible for being a lookout.

For the first mile, we turned at almost every corner, and did multiple blocks with no lights. Then headed south and west toward downtown Phoenix.

Headlights turned onto the boulevard behind us and began rapidly closing. I called this out to Scott, who said, "Hold on, we're making a very fast turn at the next corner. I don't think he's had his radar on us for very long."

We were in luck, it was a commercial block and Scott was able to duck into an alley halfway down and then immediately into a rear parking lot with some vehicles in it. We stopped quickly next to one of them and killed everything.

Scott pulled me down below the seat with him and whispered, "One of Alphonse's helpers is tracking us in an SUV. When the GPS screen shows we've stopped, he'll try to get here right away."

"Scott, why would we have picked up a tail so quickly? What happened back there at the party?"

"Two of my Xtrax buddies told me that the new owners are secretly negotiating with the Russians to transfer some of the proprietary optical gear. It's worth millions, but strictly illegal to export. And the first transfer is scheduled tonight from the development facility in Phoenix."

"But the two of us can't stop something like that, can we? Russian hoods, or worse, the KGB, are seriously bad. You didn't tell me I was going to get perforated the first night on the job!"

Before he could answer, a bright glare lit up the car as a patrol with searchlight entered the lot. Scott held me tightly and nuzzled the back of my neck. Another whisper, "I didn't mean to get you into this. I didn't mean to get me into it. But something just snapped back there when I thought about technology I worked so hard to develop slipping into the wrong hands."

The patrol kept moving and left the area. Scott moved us silently to the street. There were no vehicles in either direction, so we went a couple of blocks west and then headed south again. This time with normal lights and at the speed limit.

"The reason why we are heading to the development facility is because there is a second line of defense in that building that no one but some of the development team knows about. After the first several breakthroughs, we realized the product was going to be a fantastic success, and industrial espionage was very likely. Even from within, possibly someone from our venture funds. So we contracted for a standard monitoring system, and then took our own separate precautions. Including enough phosphorous to incinerate the premises. One of my teammates was Special Forces before he went to grad school, and knows the ins and outs of demolition."

Chapter 5 - A Dangerous Visit

A few minutes later, the car glided to a stop on a dimly lit street in a commercial district of Phoenix. On Scott's side of the car, a standard tiltup warehouse building was illuminated by a pair of lights on poles. There was no activity.

I said, "That's the Xtrax R&D lab?"

"Yes. After the program started paying off big time, we decided to lower our visibility. We only had first round funding, and not much of that. So it was pretty easy to string the VC's along with a story that we needed some more space, but didn't want to spend any more on rent than we had to."

"So how are just the two of us going to stop a bunch of serious bad guys?"

Scott smiled somberly and said, "We may not be able to, but I've got some ideas that may slow them down. We can't afford anything here tonight that will attract the cops. So some vital components on their acquisition list have to disappear."

While I was digesting this, he moved the car silently down the block, around the corner and into the side yard of a nondescript house.

"OK, after we get out, I'm going to set the beacon for Alphonse's people and alarm the car. He'll know we are going in the secure entrance."

This didn't mean much to me, but we quickly went to the dark side of the house and Scott punched a code into a hidden lock on what looked like a shed door. I had my infrared goggles turned on again, but the inside of the shed was totally dark.

Scott put his mouth to my ear and said, "Right under you is a trapdoor and a ladder. After we go thru it, I can turn on my torch, but right now just feel your way with me."

He knelt down, located a ring, and pulled the very small door upwards. His other hand was on my hip, then pulling me down to the floor with him. He put my hand in the hole and I found the top of an equally small ladder. As I carefully felt my way down, my breasts brushed his hand, and he got a quick squeeze in.

Men! I thought, and got to the bottom after about ten steps. His butt was in my face moments later, and I got a squeeze on his balls in return. Without turning on the light, he pulled me into a clinch and kissed me hard.

"Are you still ok with this caper?" he asked.

"Well, if your intention is to ravish me in an out of the way place, this seems to fit the bill," I said, pushing my front into him.

The cocktail party perfume was still on me and he sucked in his breath, saying, "That's a much better idea than what we're actually doing. Promise me that when we get back to the RV, we can go back to boy-girl mode."

"Whatever, you say, Master," I mumbled as the flashlight went on and he led the way down a narrow tunnel.

Whoever built the secret entrance, it was a class job. To get under the city utilities, we had to descend two more ladders, Then, every hundred yards or so, there was a ventilation tube opening, a fan and a battery bank to power it. Periodically, there were steel doors with pushbutton locks on them.

A dozen yards from one of these doors, Scott stopped and said quietly, "This is the door to the subbasement of the lab. It didn't originally have a subbasement, and we went to a lot of trouble to have it excavated, framed and poured without anyone knowing. You need to stay here until I make sure it hasn't been discovered by the new owners and booby trapped."

"How will you know," I asked.

"We had really paranoid consultants and paid them well," he said, then padded to the door, pushed an unobtrusive button and listened. There was a very quiet chime in about five seconds.

He motioned me forward and said, "There's a holographic image stored in that scanner that is compared to an infrared scan of how the room on the other side looks right now. It's essentially impossible for someone to have been in the space and left again without altering something so that the images don't match anymore. Especially if they tried to install their own surveillance gear. Not perfect protection, but we'll go thru this door, across the room, and into an alcove with some equipment. Follow my steps carefully, don't make any noise, and don't say anything to me unless it is a danger alert."

Even for tough, worldwise Kim Brandon, this was getting tense.

In the alcove, Scott pressed a couple of knobs and a large panel swung back. Behind it were several tv screens, completely dark. Shining his light on a keypad, Scott entered several sequences of numbers and the screens came alive with images of the laboratory above. There was no movement on any of them, except the one that was at the front entrance, where a security guard was dozing.

"Karen, you wouldn't believe the trouble we had installing this gear without it being detectable by any of the regular system scans and controls. Real spooky stuff. Fifty grand in bills only and no names."

He continued, "If the guard is on the same instructions, he has to make a building tour once an hour at random times. So we'll wait until he does that, after which we do our thing in three of the labs. They will have changed all of the compartment keys, but there is a way around them that should work if our subterfuge has not been discovered."

Something occurred to me, "So, if these new owners are as smart as you were, they know about this system, and probably know we are in here."

Scott smiled grimly, "That's right."

As I digested the fact that I could be gassed or blown up any second, the guard roused himself, grabbed his clipboard and went down a hallway.

Watching the screens, Scott continued, "Here's the plan. We're going to liberate three critical components of the optical system. They are in a couple of different rooms and may have been moved from where I remember them. With luck the people coming later tonight or tomorrow won't know exactly what to take, just that such and such rooms should be cleaned out. And the regular lab staff that finds the rooms empty on Monday morning won't know that we took some and the bad guys took some. Nor will the police. Of course, it won't take the Russians long to discover they don't have the whole system, but by then we'll have cleared out ourselves with a good cover story."

I started to ask questions, but he waved me off. "Later, we've got work to do right now. I hate to say this, but you are the mule in this burglary. As I find the right pieces, I'll hand them to you. When we enter a room, I'll disable the surveillance, but in case they have new cameras not on the old system, be sure your hood and clothing cover you completely and don't speak unless it is an emergency. And try not to leave any trace of DNA. No spit, no skin flakes, no nothing that puts Karen in this building tonight!"

For the next thirty minutes, Scott whizzed through the lab trailing me in his wake. We were actually headed back down toward the subbasement, when we heard voices coming from around the next corner. Scott ducked into a janitor closet, pulling me with him. The equipment in my arms was up against him and squashing my boobs in the tiny room. As the voices passed, we could hear snatches of Spanish and Russian.

Scott whispered in my ear, "Double trouble."

Then added, "I think the heist is in progress. If we're lucky, we can make the basement door without being seen. I want you to go right thru the basement and subbasement and into the tunnel. Leave the door open a crack for me. I'll close that panel and try to cover any other tracks. Hurry!"

Five minutes later, miraculously, we were safely in the tunnel with the door secured.

"Please don't do that to me again any time soon," I panted, my heart pounding.

"For your first time out, you're a real pro. Let's get out of here."

Scott had me wait inside the basement of the house while he made sure our car was undisturbed, then took the equipment from me, and put it in the back seat

We were driving down a boulevard about a mile away when red lights and a siren suddenly erupted behind us.

Scott quickly said, "Don't panic. Watch what happens."

He pulled over and the large black police vehicle slid in behind us. A large form got out of the passenger side and approached my door.

Pulling it open, he said, "Ma'am, please get out of the car with your hands up."

God, now we've really had it, I thought, slowly getting out with my hands up as ordered.

Strong arms encircled me, pulling me close and a recently familiar voice said, "You're a real pro, Miss Kim, going out with this nutcase in the middle of the night."

I collapsed into his arms, sobbing, "Oh Alphonse, thank God you're here. I dont feel like a pro at all. I must have wet my pants three different times. Do you know that the damn Russians are in the building right now?"

Scott was busy moving the equipment into the police SUV while I was being emotional. He came over and the two of them just held me until I calmed down.

Scott said to Alphonse, "Well, buddy, it's not every night you get to foil some international espionage."

"Don't get cocky, my friend, things are going to get thicker before they improve. Where you going with this sweet young thing to keep her safe from your wild schemes?"

"I was going to stay in the escape vehicle tonight, but it's better if we move to a safe location. It's also better that neither of us has these boxes. So I won't tell you where we are and you don't tell where you put them, and we both have deniability."

Alphonse answered with, "OK, that's a plan. Send me a coded message when you want to meet again."