Chapter One: Gerard
“This is Hawkeye, calling Shadow. Do you read me?”
The sound of his partner’s voice came clearly through the earpiece that Gerard was wearing in his right ear, his hand currently occupied in gripping one of the stone windowsills that lead up into the mansion of Monterrey de Ortega, a wealthy Spanish businessman whom his client had requested to have a few sensitive documents lifted from his home. Exactly what was in those documents he couldn’t say, but given the fact that the client had been willing to pay he and his partner thirty-thousand dollars for this job, he wasn’t going to ask too many questions.
“I hear you, Hawkeye. How are things looking on your end?” he asked as he reached his hand up towards the next ledge, his foot moving from the foothold he had been using to climb higher, taking great pains to make sure that he didn’t glance down. Vertigo was a consistent thing when it came to him, and while he could control his hesitation about heights to a certain extent, I couldn’t completely undo it. Even with all those years of training, I still have much to learn.
“It looks like we are in the clear. The guards are still changing shifts, so you’ve got at least ten minutes before everyone is back in position. Are you nearing his office?”
Gerard smiled at the sound of his partner’s distinctly feminine voice, her British accent tickling his ear slightly as he pulled himself up to the window that he had been trying to reach and pushing up on the bottom of it. The client, someone who was well acquainted with the target, had visited the mansion only a couple of days before. He had been the one to arrange for the documents to be placed in a safe in the very room that Gerard was about to break into, and had also been the one to ensure that the window remained unlocked. The agent known as Shadow smirked as he felt the window slide open effortlessly, crawling through it and landing gently on his feet, immediately pressing himself back against the wall in order to merge with the shadows while he waited for his eyes to adjust.
“I’m in,” he said quietly into the small microphone positioned in front of his mouth, making sure not to speak at any volume higher than a whisper for fear of alerting someone to his presence. Even if the guards were changing right now, that was no guarantee that they might not have stationed at least one person in front of the door on the off chance someone might try to do the very thing that he was doing right now. “There seems to be no sign that anyone knows I am here just yet.”
“The briefing said that we would find the envelope containing the documents we are looking for in the bottom drawer of the expensive mahogany desk that should be in the middle of that room,” Hawkeye said in a hushed tone. “Do you see the desk in question?”
Now that his eyes had grown accustomed to the level of gloom in the room, he took the time to glance around. He could just barely make out a looming shadow a few feet away from where he knelt, the faint gleam of moonlight reflecting off what looked to be lacquered wood catching my his immediately. “I think I might have found it, yeah,” he said cheekily, creeping quietly across the floor until he was kneeling right next to the sizable desk chair that sat behind the giant wooden piece of furniture. It was at that moment that he pulled out the small flashlight that he always carried on these kinds of missions and turned it on low, allowing himself just enough light so he could get a good look at the desk in question.
It looked to be one of those old-fashioned desks that had been all the rage in England back in the early 1900’s, though he could tell that this one had been designed specifically with the owner in mind. There was a single key hole located in the center of each of the drawers that employed something like a deadbolt.
“The drawer has a dead bolt lock on it, though, so this might take a moment for me to undo.”
“Well, try not to take all night. The guards are now all in position once more, so your extraction is going to be a little trickier than your infiltration was, and I would rather not have to blemish my perfect record by having today be our first failure,” she said snippily, the sound of her teeth chattering coming through clearly in his ear.
“If I recall correctly, I was the one who said I had no problem with serving as the lookout. You were the one who said that it would be more reasonable for me to make the infiltration, even though you are smaller and probably would have had a much easier time climbing up the side of the bloody mansion,” he muttered into his mouthpiece. “Seems a little late to complain now.”
“Just shut up and get those damn files,” she said snidely, temporarily severing our connection.
I need to have a serious word with my superiors about her when I get home. Even for her usually bad-tempered self, this is a little bit much. He couldn’t say that he was really surprised about her being in a bad mood. Apparently, she and her boyfriend had broken up only a few days before the two of them had left on this mission. They had been going steady for as long as Gerard could remember, so it was obvious that it was affecting her greatly.
Shaking his head to clear his thoughts of the drama of Hawkeye’s life, he pulled a lock pick from the small backpack where he kept his supplies and went to work on the lock. This was something that he had done thousands of times in his career as a spy, the movements almost feeling like they came second nature to him. Gerard soon heard that satisfying sound of the lock clicking, the drawer popping open slightly. Shining the small beam of flashlight inside, he couldn’t hold back the wide smile that spread across his face as a thick manila folder came into view.
Jackpot. “Shadow to Hawkeye, I’ve found what we are looking for,’ he said softly, pulling the envelope slowly from the inside of the desk drawer, my flashlight shining onto the big, embossed stamp on the front. “Give me a status report.”
The line was silent for a moment before Elena’s voice finally came through his headset. “We might have a bit of a situation here, Shadow. I just saw a limousine pull up in front of the mansion, and Ortega was in the back seat. I can’t see where he is headed, but something tells me that he might be headed for the room that you are in right now,” she said urgently. “I think that you need to get yourself out of there, and quick!’
“Say no more; we got what we came here for,” he replied, slipping the folder beneath his shirt, feeling the coarse material rubbing against his chest. “I’m going to make my way out now.”
“Are you going out of the window again? If so, I would recommend using a grappling hook or something like that. I’m not sure you’ll be able to find decent enough handholds if you are trying to rush, but we don’t really have the time for you to take your time,” she said urgently, the note of worry in her voice flattering him.
“Didn’t know you cared that much,” he said teasingly, reaching into his backpack and retrieving his grappling hook from within.
“I care about getting paid, and I won’t be able to do that if you manage to botch this operation,” she snapped.
Gerard chose not to dignify that with a response. Moving over to the window, he bit his lip as he considered how he was going to get out of this situation. He didn’t want to whirl the hook around too many times for fear of it attracting attention, not to mention the fact that he would basically be making a shot in the dark. No need to worry. I’ve done stuff like this countless times before, and in far worse situations.
Just as he was about to start swinging his grappling hook to try and make his escape, he heard the sound of footsteps outside of the door. He sighed gently before slipping out of the window, his hand gripping the windowsill tightly as he tried to find himself a foothold. He almost cursed as he felt his foot slip, but thankfully, his arm strength managed to hold out long enough for him to find another foothold. Exhaling gently in relief, he started climbing down the side of the mansion, using the hook to help keep him secure. As soon as he felt his feet touch the ground, he ran, keeping his arm pressed against his stomach to keep the folder pressed against his skin.
“Shadow here. I’ve got what we came here for and I’ve successfully exited the mansion. Let’s rendezvous at the agreed upon place.”
“Roger that, Shadow.”