He gave it five minutes. Nothing moved.
He holstered the SC and returned to the door. The gap beneath it was an eighth of an inch — too narrow for the flexicam — so he gently turned the knob, paused for thirty seconds, then eased the door open a half inch, and slipped the flexicam through the gap. The fish-eye lens revealed a short hallway bordered on both sides by pantries and a kitchen done entirely in stainless steel and black granite. It suited what Fisher imagined was Yannick Ernsdorff’s Teutonic personality: cold and utilitarian.
Fisher eased open the door, stepped through, and eased the door shut. Somewhere in the kitchen he heard the click of footsteps on tile. He ducked into the pantry. He drew his sap and went still. The light in the kitchen came on, casting stripes down the short hall before him. A drawer opened; silverware rattled; the refrigerator door opened and shut. The soft pop of a Tupperware lid being removed. The lights went out. Fisher peeked around the corner, then padded through the kitchen, around the center island, and up to the still swinging door through which the snacker had entered. Fisher caught the door with his fingertips and pushed it open until he could see a figure in a black Windbreaker retreating down the wide, dimly lit hallway. Fisher recognized the Windbreaker: one of the guards. Like the kitchen, the hallway’s decor matched Ernsdorff: blond hardwood floors covered in a carpet runner with a jagged red, white, and black pattern. The guard turned left at the end of the hallway and disappeared.
Fisher retreated to the pantry, took the OPSAT off standby, and scrolled through until he found the blueprints of Ernsdorff’s home. The main floor was devoted to living spaces — kitchen, living room, dining room, family room, and three bathrooms — while the second floor was all bedrooms and guest rooms. The third floor was divided into office space, storage, a library, study, and exercise room. Though it wasn’t listed on the plans, based on where the guard seemed to be heading, the monitoring center was in the basement. He needed to make sure of that before going any farther.
The carpet runner was thick and absorbed the sound of his feet easily. He reached the end of the hall and stopped short, sliding along the wall to the head of the stairs. One set went upward, another down. From below he heard muffled voices, a few chuckles. Fisher descended, pausing every few steps to listen. The stairs turned right at the landing, doubled back on themselves, and ended at a six-by-six-foot foyer. The light from the hallway above had all but faded, casting the foyer in deep shadow. To the left was an archway. Fisher drew his pistol and stepped up to the threshold. To his left a narrow hallway disappeared into darkness; near its end, on the right, he saw a sliver of horizontal light near the floor. A door. He flipped his Tridents into place and selected NV to confirm. There were three other rooms in the hall, one at the far end and two on the right. The lighted room was equipped with a biometric keypad lock; the others, standard knobs.
The door to the monitoring center opened, casting a rectangle of white light on the opposite wall. Fisher’s heart lurched, but he controlled it and drew back smoothly, stepping through the arch and turning left into the corner, where he dropped the SC to his side and stood erect. A figure appeared through the arch and started up the stairs. Fisher lifted the barrel of the SC at his waist and tracked the man up the stairs and around the landing until he disappeared from view. Fisher followed, taking the stairs two at a time on flat feet, pausing only briefly at the top to check the corner. One of the doors in the hallway was closed; having checked it already, Fisher knew it was a bathroom. The toilet flushed. Fisher crossed the hall and stepped into the linen closet. The bathroom door opened. Footsteps padded away. Fisher waited until he heard the soft buzz and click from the biometric pad outside the monitoring center, then stepped out of the closet, walked back across the hall, and started up the stairs.
He paused at the second floor only to count open and closed doors and to confirm that the layout matched his blueprint, then continued to the third floor. A few steps from the top, he froze. He crouched down. Directly across from him lay the library. The double mahogany doors were opened. Inside, silhouetted against the mullioned windows on the far side of the room, was a figure. Fisher smelled cigar smoke, and as if on cue, a dime-sized cherry glowed to life in the dark. Whoever it was in there, he was facing Fisher. Ernsdorff himself, Fisher thought. According to his intel, Ernsdorff was traveling alone, having left his wife and two young daughters behind in Vienna.
The cherry came to life again, this time moving, turning back toward the windows. Fisher switched the Tridents first to infrared, then to EM, and saw nothing unusual, so he stood up and walked across the carpeted hall to a seating alcove beside the library doors. He crouched against the wall nearest the doors, then withdrew the flexicam, let it peek around the corner, and waited.
Ernsdorff was in no hurry. Fisher could hear him pacing in the library, not with the insistent stride of a worried man, but more contemplative, as though he hadn’t a concern in the world. And he didn’t — at least not from Fisher, at least not on this night. Of all the players he would likely visit before this job was over, Ernsdorff was the one whose disappearance or death would cause the most harm. If Ernsdorff went down, the others would go to ground. Then again, Fisher thought, if Ernsdorff was intent on spending the rest of the night smoking and pacing in the library, he might have to force the matter.
It didn’t come to that. Ten minutes later Ernsdorff emerged from the library. He was wearing a red silk robe and black silk pajama bottoms. Without a backward glance, he trotted down the stairs to the second floor. Fisher put away the flexicam and ducked into the library.
He switched to night vision. The space was enormous, with a domed ceiling and built-in shelves so tall they warranted a rolling ladder. There must have been thirty thousand books, Fisher estimated. The carpet was dark, perhaps olive, and the desk and side chairs were heavy teak. Fisher switched to EM and turned in a slow circle. Aside from the pulses and swirls of hidden electrical cables, television cables, and phone lines, the room was electromagnetically quiet. If Ernsdorff’s server was here, it was well shielded. Once certain he hadn’t missed any nooks or crannies or hidden alcoves, Fisher switched back to night vision and headed for the door.
He stopped.
A flashlight beam was coming up the stairs.
Fisher retreated. He trotted across the carpet to the desk and crouched down. The flashlight beam grew wider, cutting a pie slice into the library. The guard stepped up to the threshold and panned the light around for ten seconds, then moved on. Routine patrol. Fisher checked his watch: 1:00 A.M. on the dot. Hourly patrols, starting on the top floor and moving downward. Standard stuff. The rest of the guard’s circuit took a mere five minutes; the second floor, which was all bedrooms, would take even less. The man would be back with his buddies in the monitoring center in twenty minutes.
Fisher waited until the man was headed back down the stairs, then stepped out, moved to the railing, and peeked over. Interesting. The guard had bypassed the bedroom floor altogether.