Page 29 of The Protégé

I pinched the bridge of my nose.

“Babe! Party’s waiting for you!” a woman shouted from his end.

“See you soon, cuz. Babes are waiting for?—”

Hanging up, I turned my attention back to the mission for this evening. Anxiety still dogged my muscles, and I needed a thrill to reset my mind and body.

I opened my duffle bag and chose a disguise.

CHAPTER TWELVE

ORION

Already wearinga black T-shirt and dark pants, I put on a black wig, a dark mustache, a pair of black-rimmed eyeglasses, and a baseball cap, then looked at myself in the mirror. The Condor taught me that an appropriate disguise helped protect us during unpredictable moments. I didn’t want to be caught on camera from a convenience store or someone’s mobile phone. It was better to be safe than sorry.

The disguise transformed me into a new character, and the anxiety that had overwhelmed me faded into the background.

In my black SUV, I drove to a residential neighborhood just outside of Providence, toward a house that belonged to a man who had gotten away with abusing three of his ex-girlfriends. This was my small contribution to eradicating evil. Samuel Donatello would lose something he loved today.

With the right equipment, it wasn’t hard to hack into the City of Providence’s crime files to see recent records and complaints from the city’s constituents. Some complaints were never seen by anyone other than the officer who recorded them.

Samuel had been getting away with too many crimes, and the recent one left his ex with two black eyes and broken ribs. He’d paid the officer to cover up his crimes. He’d also paid people to intimidate his other victims, which was why the charges were dropped.

That infuriated me. Kate’s ex-boyfriend was responsible for her mental struggle. It was a good thing he died from a drug overdose. Otherwise, he’d have known what broken bones sounded like.

I’d hacked into Samuel’s phone and discovered his plans for the rest of the week. He was on a business trip out of state working for Apex Insurance and Financial Investments. His home had a five-year-old security system, making it easy to compromise.

My company, SIGMA—Space Intelligence Generative Machine Applications—produced advanced security among other technologies that had assisted NASA on a few projects. NASA had offered to buy me out, but I had no interest. I didn’t need the money, and I didn’t want to be owned by the US government, or any government. Orion Reimann was his own man with an empire that stood strong on its own.

My advanced satellites and security capacities interested many countries’ defense departments. But I only offered a tiny sliver of information when working with them. Info was dangerous in the wrong hands. Money could buy a lot of things, especially people. I knew that members of The Trogyn had infiltrated several governments around the world.

I had to be careful.

I parked my car a block away from Samuel’s home, sat in my seat for a few minutes to gauge the area, and manipulated his security system. Graduate students rented several homes in this neighborhood. Music boomed from a nearby party. With my disguise I blended in with a group of college boys, probablyheading to the party. Though it was late summer, there were still a lot of international students around.

After a few minutes, I made my way toward Samuel’s home. I scanned the area around the colonial home. I carried a box, pretending to be a delivery guy. If anyone saw me, they’d assume I was delivering a package.

My high-tech jammer was embedded into the cap. It manipulated the internet in the area. No one would know who had interfered. They’d be calling their local service and they wouldn’t know either.

If only people knew what their government was capable of, it would blow their minds. People liked comfort and familiarity. When you disrupted that, fear and chaos set in.This was a control mechanism using psychological manipulation. I’d seen it over and over again.

A tabby cat scurriedby as I reached the backyard. It darted under the porch, and I lost sight of it.A detached garage sat in the corner with a camera above it. ButI had reprogrammed it so that it cycled throughthe previous days’ footage. If anyone were to check, they wouldn’t notice the difference.

I walked up the steps, examined the old-fashioned lock, and slid on dark gloves.

“Fucker should have bought a better lock,” I said to myself.

He probably assumed that he had a security system and therefore saved on the lock. But it didn’t matter what lock he had—it wouldn’t stop me from getting inside.

When I first started learning from my mentor, he taught me how to pick a lock. In the beginning, it took me a while to maneuver the intricate pieces with a pick. In order to understand them, I’d bought various locks, then studied and unlocked them again and again.

I set the box down, pulled out my small supply bag. I took out a paperclip, twisted it, and inserted it into the hole. It didn’t takeme long to hear the click. I opened the door and walked inside to his living room. He had a few paintings, but they weren’t of any value. I was here for an Egyptian sculpture of Thoth in his bedroom. It was worth over five hundred thousand dollars. Samuel had gotten this as a gift from someone. I grabbed the eight-inch copper figurine and placed it into my cardboard box. Next, I scoured the house for his safe. A man like him would have a safe. And just like in the movies, it was behind a painting.

Idiot.

I synced my watch to SIGMA’s advanced software and scanned the safe with my camera. I got the maker name, its specs, and a set of numbers with the most fingerprints. After trying a series of potential codes, I got in. It would’ve been easier if I used my silent drill, but then he would’ve known someone had gotten into his safe. I didn’t want him to know anything until it was too late.

He had a hundred thousand dollars in cash, another hundred thousand dollars in gold bars, and some high-priced watches and precious gems. I put them all into the box. All of this took half an hour. As I headed out,the cat I’d seen earlier looked at me and meowed. It walked to the kitchen and turned to look at me again.

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