No Fortunate Son (Pike Logan, #7)(63)

We’d taken his information and gone to dinner earlier, ostensibly just a couple of American visitors, and had wandered the lanes and alleys around the hotel, seeing the problem up close. The entire area was a tourist mecca, with Grand Place only a couple of blocks away and the surrounding terrain chock-full of small eateries and stores. The only good thing was the weather. A bunch of storm clouds had settled overhead, threatening to burst open with a torrential downpour. The tourists didn’t care, but they would when the buckets of water started coming down, especially given that it was about forty degrees.

We’d circled the block on foot, getting to rue de l’écuyer and passing right in front of the hotel entrance. Walking down the street, we’d conducted a full reconnaissance, finding a parking garage underneath the hotel with about twelve spaces, along with a laundry room for the cleaning crew and what I thought was an interior stairwell, but it was locked up tight.

Throughout the garage were the ubiquitous surveillance cameras. There had been no monitor at the reception desk, so it wasn’t real-time, but I had no idea if we were now on tape. I’d done my best to stay out of their view. We’d returned to the street and I’d pulled out a neat little Taskforce gizmo we called God’s Eye.

It had been invented by a startup called Panono and originally the size of a basketball. We’d stolen the idea and miniaturized it. About the size of a softball, and surrounded with small embedded cameras, it allowed you to toss it into the air and get a panorama snapshot of the area around you. The higher you tossed it, the greater the panorama. The best part about it was that once it took the picture, a software program allowed you to take a point of view from anywhere on the image.

You could analyze everything, from any angle, like the eye of God. Or Google. Or maybe they were the same thing.

We’d started strolling like a couple seeing the sights, and the clouds had opened up, scattering the tourists. I suppose I should have shouted with joy, but we were getting soaked, which aggravated the hell out of me.

I’d waited on a break in traffic, not wanting anyone to see me toss the ball. I cowered under an awning, saw it was clear, then threw the thing in the air. After I’d caught it, we’d walked a little bit more, then repeated the procedure, trying to get a look inside the room next to the street.

We darted from awning to awning, Jennifer holding a newspaper over her head and acting just like a woman on a date. She’d actually taken her leather jacket off and balled it under an arm, saying it would get ruined. On the last awning, I said, “Some commando you are.”

She looked at me, hair dripping water and trembling from the cold. She said, “Was that you I just heard cursing? As you tried to throw the Eye from under the awning? What did that get you?”

My last toss had actually caught the edge of the canvas and ricocheted into the street, forcing me to chase it in the rain to keep it from getting run over. I held it out to her and said, “Do better?”

She snatched it out of my hand, gave me her jacket, then stood in the rain and tossed it up, waiting defiantly for it to come down. She caught it, darted back under the awning, and said, “Satisfied?”

I said, “Yeah. I was just trying to get that shirt soaked.”

She looked down, saw the damage, and punched me in the arm, now really pissed. She started to stalk off, and I tugged her sleeve, getting her to stop. I pulled off my own jacket, a Gore-Tex one designed for operations in inclement weather. I held it out. She looked at me, and I knew she was going to tell me to stuff it. Arms crossed over her chest, shirt soaked, she was going to let her anger get the better of her.

I said, “So you can keep your leather one dry.”

She glared at me, then took it. She slipped it on, then shoved her leather jacket underneath. Still piqued, she said, “We done yet?”

Knowing I was ahead, I said, “Yeah. Let’s head back through the indoor mall. Remember how to get there?”

She took off at a brisk walk, hood over her head and not looking back. I trotted to keep up, the rain pelting my face like ice cubes.






43




It took about forty-five minutes for Dunkin to download the data from God’s Eye, then massage it with his software programs. When he was finished, he’d given us the damage. Using the pictures and his own internal mapping from the Brussels server, there was no way to get to any of the rooms from the outside without being seen by security, with the exception of one. There was a single break between the various camera angles and the corner room on the first floor. The one that butted up to rue de l’écuyer, the only road next to the hotel that allowed cars.

The good news was that right next to the window of the target room was one of the hotel security cameras, posted at an angle to see the street. Dunkin had studied it and said we could slave from the cable coming out. We couldn’t stop it from recording, but he could see everything that was tied to the surveillance array and give us early warning about anything that happened inside the building.

Looking thoughtful, Jennifer had analyzed the problem and said, “I suppose we could pretend to be a maintenance crew. Get a painting ladder or something and go to work right there. Slave the camera, then work on the window. I could get inside and Pike could give me cover. Can we get some government maintenance uniforms? Can the Taskforce do that on short notice?”

I thought the whole scene was cute. Her brow scrunched up, dissecting the problem, trying to find a solution. Too bad she was way, way off.