i dont any rights to the alex rider bookds, or this story, it belongs to TheUlmuri
Part VII: Operation Stage III: Extraction
The streets of Irkutsk lay cold and deserted in the dead of night as the witching hour approached. The nightclubs that were becoming so common in Russia had closed for the night and the city waited on baited breath for the bustle of the new day to begin. The only movement around the capitol was the pacing of the guards as they attended to their posts. No one noticed the black shadow scaling an unlit corner of the building.
Alex had spent the afternoon preparing for the infiltration; double-checking blueprints and schematics, finalizing the plans with K-Unit, and making sure he had all of the necessary equipment. The sun had begun to set by the time he was satisfied that everything was in working order and he left the safe house, dressed as any civilian with normal evening plans. He had used the last of the daylight to scope out the building, wandering around like any of the other tourists that had found themselves stuck in the city when the lines between East and West were once again redrawn.
As the sun had fallen below the horizon, he had slipped into the abandoned office complex across the street from the capitol building. The building had been simple to break into and provided him with a secure place to carry out stage one of his plan. He slipped out of the heavy jacket, dark blue button down shirt, and faded jeans that he had been wearing to reveal the black Nomex body suit that would allow him to blend into the night. He then began removing an array of equipment from the canvas backpack that he had brought with him from the safe house. Alex secured his specialized holster system over the Nomex suit and proceeded to put all of his guns in place and proceeded to strap his Steel Eagle combat knife to his calf. A utility belt that held several other pieces of specialized equipment followed his weapons and finally, he slipped a metascope, secured by a special head strap, in place over his right eye. He left the cloths and back pack in the office building, he wouldn't need them again.
Alex had used the rest of his time in the office building to work out the complex pattern of the guards' rotation and the placement of the external security cameras, looking for gaps that would allow him to slip through unnoticed. Through the Metascope, he could make out the faint beams of infrared light that he had already expected to crisscross the lawn and though he couldn't see, he was willing to bet that the roof was protected with similar security precautions. Finally, his watch beeped quietly, indicating that the time was 0400 hours and Alex had known that it was time to put his plan into action. He had crept across the lesser-used south lawns, keeping low to the ground with an army crawl as he weaved skillfully through the treacherous web of invisible beams, carefully lifting himself over some and carefully sliding his body under others. He had then used the buildings crumbling brick façade to scale it at a location carefully chosen for its protective shadows and minimal cameral exposure.
Alex slowed as he reached the top of the building, aware that the Scorpia operatives would have taken the time to rig the roof to alert them in the case of an intruder. Sure enough, the Metascope, a night vision monocular that detected infrared light, revealed an array of infrared beams crisscrossing over the flat rooftop. They were invisible to the naked eye and anyone who walked carelessly on the roof would disrupt the path of the beams, triggering an alarm. Thankfully, there appeared to be no cameras.
Alex carefully pulled himself up over the edge of the roof and picked his way through the maze of infrared beams. He was careful that he never came to close to any of the beams as he slowly made his way to his target: a ventilation shaft for the building's air system. A steel grille covered the shaft and Alex carefully examined the edges before pulling his knife from its sheath and carefully using the tip of the blade to remove each of the screws that held the grille in place. He caught the heavy grille as it came loose and started to fall before gently lowering it to the ground, making sure there was no noise and that the infrared grid was not disturbed.
