Read The Fifth Profession for Free Online Page B

staggered so the microwaves formed an overlapping pattern.

    In such a formation, the posts were protected. If an intruder tried to use them to get past the system, he'd interfere with the microwaves. However, Savage's photographs had shown that the system was in a straight line.

    It
could
be defeated.
    Savage removed a metal clamp from his knapsack and attached the clamp to the post, above the slots that transmitted and received the microwaves. He screwed several sections of metal together to form a three-foot-long rod, then inserted the rod into the clamp, the rod projecting toward him. Next, he threw his knapsack over the post, gripped the rod, and raised himself onto it. For a heartpounding instant, he almost lost his balance. The rod became slippery in the rain. Wind pushed him. But the ridges on the soles of his boots gripped the rod. He managed to steady himself and dove over the top of the post, avoiding the microwaves.
    He landed in a somersault. His shoulders, back, and hips absorbed his impact. So did the rain-soaked ground. He cringed from pain, however, still tender from the injuries he'd sustained six months ago. Ignoring the protest in his muscles, he came smoothly out of his roll and crouched to study the near crest of the slope.
    It was haloed by faint light made misty by the rain. No sign of guards. In a careful rush, he put the clamp and rod back into his knapsack, along with the infrared goggles he no longer needed. He aimed his voltmeter and microwave detector and proceeded higher.
    At the top, he lay on soggy ground and studied his target. Arc lights, dimmed by the rain, illuminated a lawn. Fifty yards away, a sprawling white mansion—a concatenation of cubes and domes that imitated the houses in the town of Mykonos—attracted his attention. Except for the arc lights on the corners of the building and a light in a far left window, the mansion was dark.
    His photographs had not been detailed enough to let him know if closed-circuit television cameras were mounted above the doors, but he had to assume they were present, although in this storm the cameras would relay murky images and at three A.M. the guard who watched the monitors would not be alert.
    As Savage charged toward the mansion, he saw a camera above the door he'd chosen—on the right, farthest from the lamp in the window on the opposite side of the building. The camera made him veer even farther right, rushing toward the door obliquely, clutching a canister that he'd taken from his knapsack.
    When he reached the door, darting from the side, he raised the canister and sprayed the lens of the camera. The canister held pressurized water, its vapor coating the camera's lens as if a gust of rain had lanced against the house. The streaks of dripping liquid would impair but not eliminate the camera's murky image, thus troubling the guard who watched the monitor but not compelling him to sound an alarm.
    Savage picked the door's lock—a good lock, a dead bolt, but freed in twelve seconds. Still he didn't dare open the door.
    Instead he removed a metal detector from his knapsack and scanned the door's perimeter. Metal on the upper right, four feet above the doorknob, made his earphone wail. Another intrusion detector.
    Savage understood the principle. A magnet within the door kept a metal lever in the doorframe from rising toward a switch that would signal an alarm if the door was opened.
    To defeat the alarm, Savage removed a powerful horseshoe magnet from his knapsack and pressed it upward, against the doorframe, while he gently shoved the door open. His magnet replaced the magnet within the door and prevented the lever in the frame from rising toward the contact switch. As he squeezed through a gap in the door, he slid his magnet farther across the doorframe, then eased the door shut before he removed the magnet. Now the door's own magnet prevented the lever from rising.
    He was in.
    But he didn't dare relax.
    11
    Joyce Stone had described the