Dirty Little Secret

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He grasped the steering wheel tightly as the van, lights out, slowly came to a stop. A final unrest of gravel kicked out of the tire treads and then silence. He took a moment to adjust to the surroundings and then pulled out a pair of ancient night-vision binoculars. The house slowly came into focus. He shifted in his seat. A brown duffel bag rest next to him on the front seat. The van's interior was faded but clean.

A pair of miniature evergreen tree dangled from the rearview mirror. He smiled grimly as he caught a wiff of their scent. Soon he might be going to the land of evergreens. Quiet, peaceful, miles away from all his worries. He had to get out. It was time. For all the times he had said that to himself, this time he felt sure.

Sixty-nine years old, Simon Alexander was eligible to collect Social Security. At that age most men had slowed down to be grandfathers, when weary joints were eased down into familiar recliners and memories of love and life long past started to fade.

Simon had had only one career his entire life. It involved breaking and entering into other people's homes and places of business, and taking away as much of their property as he could possibly carry.

Luther only had one criterion in choosing his targets: he took only from those who could well afford to lose it. He considered himself a more self-concerned modern day Robin Hood.

A good many of his sixty-odd years had been spent in assorted medium- and maximum-security correctional facilities in middle America. Like chock collars around his neck, three prior felony convictions stood to his credit in three different states. Years had been carved out of his life. Important years. But he could do nothing to change that now.

He had refined his skills to where he had high hopes that a fourth conviction would never materialize. There was absolutely nothing mysterious about the consequences of getting caught again: he would be looking at the full twenty years. And at his age, twenty years was a death penalty.

Yet with all that at risk he couldn't take his eyes off the home, mansion, of course, one would be have to call it. It had engrossed him for several months now. Tonight that mystery would end.

Simon took a long sweep of the area with his still sharp eyes. An occasional firefly winked back at him. Otherwise he was alone. He listened for a moment to the rise and fall of the branches in the wind and then that chorus faded into the background.

He pulled the van further down the blacktop road and backed onto a short dirt road that ended in a mass of thick trees. His off-white hair was covered with a battered ski mask. His leathery face was smeared black with camouflage cream; piercing, blue eyes hovered above a cinder block jaw. The flesh carried on his spare frame was as tight as ever. He looked like the Police Chief he had once been. Simon quietly exited the van.

He waited a few moments and then disappeared into the embracing thickness of the corn stalks.

The ground was mostly clear and his tennis shoes made no sound, which was vital, for any noise carried easily here. He kept his eyes straight ahead; his feet, after much practice, carefully picked their way through the narrow rows, compensating for the slight unevenness of the ground. The night air was cool after the debilitating heat of another stagnant summer, but not nearly cool enough for breath to be transformed into the tiny crystaline clouds that could be seen from a distance by wandering eyes of someone on a midnight stroll.

He crouched down at the edge of the front grounds and took one more long look around; no need to rush. No dogs to worry about, good. A human, simply could not outrun a dog. But it was the noise they made that stopped men like Simon cold. There was also no perimeter security system, also very good. However, Simon would shortly be faced with a highly sophisticated alarm that he would have twenty-seven seconds to disarm, and that included the ten seconds it would take him to remove the control panel cover.

The grounds were pitch black, and thick shrubs clung to the brick entryway. He checked each window of the house: all black, all silent. He had watched the procession of cars carrying the home's occupants move out two days ago to points west, and took close inventory of all owners and personnel. The nearest property was a good two miles away.

He glided out from the field in long strides across the lawn, and in seconds was facing the thick, solid-wood front door with reinforced steel framing together with a locking system that was rated at the top of the charts for holding force. None of this concerned Simon in the least.

He carefully pulled from his backpack an item wieghing just eight ounces, which was slightly bigger than a pocket calculator and was the best investment he had ever made in his life.

The five digits of this code had already been supplied to Simon and programmed into his computer. Their proper sequence was still a mystery to him, but that obstacle would be eradicated by his tiny metal, wire and microchip friend. The home also had pressure-sensitive windows and floor plates, in addition to tamperproof door magnets. All of which would mean nothing if Mr. Wiseguy, the nickname he gave his device, could crack the code.

He eyed the handle of the door and with a practiced motion hooked Mr. Wiseguy to his belt so that it hung easily against his side. The handle turned effortlessly and Simon replaced his black leather gloves with a pair of more nimble plastic ones that had a second layer of padding on the fingertips and palms. It was not his practice to leave any evidence behind. Simon took one deep breath, then opened the portal. He quickly moved into the spacious foyer and confronted the alarm panel.

The automatic screwdriver whirled noiselessly; the six metal pieces dropped into Luther's hands and then were deposited in a carrier on his belt. Simon quickly found the correct spot to attach Mr. Wiseguy, clipped the strands into place and then flipped on the power source to his companion.

Faster than the eye could follow, the numbers flashed across the digital screen in neon green; the allotted time blinked down in a small box at the top-right-hand corner of the same screen.

Three seconds elapsed and then the numbers 3, 7, 9, 8 and 42 appeared on Wit's tiny glass face and locked.

The beep stopped on cue as the security system was disarmed, the ominous red light flashed off and was replaced with the friendly green, and Simon was in business. He removed the wires, screwed the plate back on and repacked his equipment, then carefully locked the front door.

The master bedroom was on the third floor, which could be reached by an elevator down the main first-floor hallway to the right, but Simon chose the stairs instead.

The master bedroom door was not locked. In a few seconds he had his low-power, nonglare work lamp set up and took a moment to look around. The green glow from a second control panel mounted next to the bedroom door broke the darkness.

He looked up at the full-length mirror. It was heavy and built right into the wall, or so it seemed, but he knew that hinges were carefully hidden into the slight recess six inches from the top and bottom.

Using brute force and the aid of a crowbar he could overcome the locking system built into the mirror's carvings but that would take precious time. And, more than that, it would leave behind obvious signs of the place having been ransacked.

Simon looked at the three remotes lying on the nightstand. One to work the TV, one for the VCR and one that would make his life much simpler. Each had a brand name on it, each looked pretty much like the other, but a quick experiment showed that two worked their appropriate apparatus and one did not.

He walked back across the room, pointed the control at the mirror and pushed the lone red button located at the bottom of the hardware. Simon watched the door swing open easily, silently on the now-revealed no-maintenance hinges. He replaced the control exactly where it had been, pulled a collapsible duffel bag out of his backpack and entered the vault.

The cash, bundled neatly, went in first, then the contents of the slender boxes that were definitely not costume jewelry. His quick judgement ended at almost twenty million dollars, probably more.

The limo moved quickly down the road followed by the van. Inside the spacious back seat of the limo were a man
and a woman, whom was close to being drunk and who was doing her best to undress the man and herself right there, despite the gentle defensive efforts of her victim.

Simon heard the vehicles enter the front drive. He rushed to a window and followed the mini-caravan as it went around back, where it would be hidden from view from the front drive. He counted three people coming from the limo, one from the van. His mind scrolled swiftly through possible identities. Too small a party for it to be the owners of the house. Too many for it to be someone simply checking on the place. He could not make out any faces.

He thought quickly as noises filtered up to him, presumably from outside the rear of the house. It took him a second to realize that his retreat was cut off and to calculate what his plan of action would be.

Grabbing his bag, he raced to the alarm panel next to the bedroom door and activated the home's security system, silently thanking his fading memory for numbers. Then Simon slipped across to the vault and entered it, carefully closing the door behind him.

A burst of laughter and then the drum of voices filtered up to him, together with the loud beep from the alarm system, which sounded like a jet plane screeching directly over his head. Apparently there was slight confusion about the security code. Heavy steps on the oak plank staircase. Whoever they were they didn't care who knew they were there. He counted three, possibly four. They turned left and headed his way.

The door to the bedroom opened with a slight squeak. Now Simon could only hear two voices, a man and a woman. She sounded drunk, the he, not much better off. He recognized both of the people in the room. She was the mistress of the house, he knew this from the gallery on the walls of the hallway. The man he knew for an altogether different reason; he certainly wasn't the master of this house. Simon slowly shook his head in disbelief and let out his breath. The vault door also served as a one-way mirror. With the light on outside and darkness within his tomb, it was as though he were watching a movie screen.

He looked around, his ears focused for any sound of the other people in the house. But what could he really do? In over forty years of active larceny, he had never encountered anything like this, so he decided to do the only thing he could. With only an inch of glass separating him from absolute destruction, he settled down quietly against the shelves and waited.

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