My Kidnapper's Mistake

Chapter 22: Help from a Hacker

Anya's P.O.V.

The living room had become inaccessible since Megan had claimed it as her IT. Room. The short hacker, with her spiky multicoloured hair, looked nothing like the guy she had shared a womb with. She hardly ever left the couch, when she wasn't shooting virtual soldiers or hacking into who knows where she was shouting profanities at Tristan about his nightly endeavors. Nicolette avoided her as best she could and I to had a hard time warming up to her, but we needed her far more than she needed us. Only Clive had seemed to take a shine to her, which was all fine and well seeing as they had to share the living room as sleeping quarters.

Meetings in the kitchen without outsiders had become a regular occurrence since our camping trip. We'd had some of them before but now it was more of an unspoken ritual.
"She's been here more than a week and the only help she's been is in helping Nicolette burn through Brian's trust fund." I complained.
"Don't forget making the power company suspicious." Kevin added.
Silence fell and we all looked expectedly at Tristan.
"What? I got her here, I'd say that I'd done my part. Now it is up to you guys to share the workload of getting her to do our bidding. Splitting it eight ways should make it a lot easier."
"You don't say." I trailed off sarcastically.
"What are you guys up to? Discussing a top secret mission." Megan barged in though the door from the living room.
So much for an outsider free meeting. Now we knew next time not to put Kevin in charge of keeping them out.
"Just the girl we wanted to talk to." Brian made good of a bad situation.
"Yeah?" Megan drawled suspiciously, pausing with her hand on the fridge door.
"We want you to hack into someone's security system." Julian caught on.
"I figured as much when Tristan called me. I was wondering how long it would take you to spill the beans."
"Wait Tristan didn't tell you why he wanted you here?" I asked incrudiously.
"Nope. Just asked me to come over. So here I am."
"You ever going to mention that you hadn't told her why she was here?" I asked Tristan.
"Never mind that. Tell me about this place you want to rob." Megan took a soda from the fridge and perched on the kitchen island, completely ignoring the four unoccupied chairs.
"That's more Nicolette's expertise. We need you two to put your heads together and take full control of their security system." Julian explained.
"Easy. When are you planning to go through with the heist? I could have it all off in a jiffy."
"We don't want you to shut it down. We want you to trigger it."
"Trigger it? Wouldn't that be a bit of a tell that you are robbing the place?"
"I think Julian turned. Pat him down for wires!" Kevin exclaimed dramatically.
"I'll leave Anya to explain."
All eyes turned to me. Up to this point only Julian and I knew the entire extent of the plan so all this was news to the rest of the guys as well.
"We'll use their own security systems against them, because face it if we disable it we'd still have a small army patrolling the ground."
"Oh I get it. We set off the alarm to monitor their response time and strategy." Stuart kept true to his roll of the brainy one by catching on quickest.
"But I bet they'll have more than one strategy for exactly that reason." Jason countered.
"And they'll probably update their systems, kicking me out."
"That is why we set it off multiple times. You can always hack them again, can't you? And there are only so many updates to be made."
"I guess."
"Great and in addition to monitoring every strategy we also sabotage the guards by lulling them into a false sense of security. After a while they'll stop expecting a threat with every alarm."
"They'll be less alert and more irritated,so when we do set off the alarm during the heist they won't come running as quickly." Jason summarised my meaning.
"And the rest of the plan?" Clive questioned.
"We haven't come to planning that yet, but we have time. We'll have to set the alarm off at random intervals over the period of a month so the unexpected will become part of their routine." Julian answered on my behalf.

Two days that was how long Megan and Nicolette had been hauled up in the living room trying to hack Richard's systems. Enough time for us to establish the normal routines of the men doing rounds on the property. It was time for the first frenzy.
"The alarms will go off in thirty seconds. Everybody ready? If you have to blink do it now." Nicolette's voice crackled over the comms unit.
"Everybody got their target in sight." I asked.
"Negative." Jason's reply came.
"Well then you better get a move on, chaos in five, four, three, one," Nicolette counted down the seconds like someone sitting behind a computer at NASA might count down to the launch of a rocket.
The alarms rang with urgency and men came running from all directions shouting orders or just shouting. They reminded me of ants when you pour water onto the nest. Soon a pattern emerged. Groups formed and move in a general direction and if I wasn't mistaken and Megan had set off the correct area they would be moving to the room that Richard kept the ledgers in. They breeched the room in under 5 minutes, but it took !0 more minutes for them to search the property. The men disbanded after confirming that it was a false alarm. The force was split in two, one half moving back to their quarters and the other half went back to their posts and patrolling areas.

15 Minutes wasn't much, but I could work with it. Technically Jason would have to work with it, being the excellent thief that he was. The first test was done, only eight or so more to go.