Vienna Betrayal - Lila Dubois Page 0,52

get current security plans for Wagner Global. That was how she’d known that hitting the headquarters would never work.

And if her expensive information was to be believed, in this building, security came second to Alexander’s and his guests’ privacy.

According to the plans, there were only a handful of cameras and motion detectors, all of which were centered around the doors and windows.

The trick was getting inside, but once someone was in, there was almost no security.

Still her information might have been wrong, and she held her breath as she started down the stairs. She paused on the third floor, again on the landing halfway to the second floor. Nothing happened.

Had there been motion detectors, she was fairly certain she could have talked her way out of the situation—hence the careful clothing and hairstyle choice.

She sat on the steps at the bottom of the second floor for five minutes, restlessly playing with the cord of her “blowdryer.”

She even had a stupid story prepared about why she was carrying a blowdryer.

Satisfied that she hadn’t tripped any security measures, Alena rose and rolled her shoulders.

The building might not have had interior cameras and sensors, but that didn’t mean she was home free.

The next hurdle? Every door in this place had its own unique passcode lock.

The people who worked here were given the codes to let them into the building, and then into their floor and into their office. Only the house manager and, of course, Alexander himself, had the master override code that would open any door.

She didn’t need a master code; she just needed to get into one room, a room she’d seen, briefly, earlier in the day on her tour.

She didn’t need the master code, but she was fairly certain that was what the house manager had been using at each room they visited.

Standing, she grabbed the baby powder bottle from her pocket and walked over to the side table beside the second floor parlor door. A vase of fresh flowers hid the otherwise unsightly keypad that unlocked this particular door.

When Daniela had given her a tour, opening the rooms one by one, Alena had watched out of the corner of her eye. The tour had included the first floor offices used by the handful of full time staff needed to maintain and manage Alexander’s affairs. Curator Absolon Blanchar hadn’t been in his office, but she’d had a chance to meet several of the cleaning staff, who were updating the care and maintenance logs for the expensive antique pieces of furniture they’d dusted, waxed and polished today. If Daniela thought Alena’s interest in the household staff was odd, she was far too proper to show it.

Alena unscrewed the top of the baby powder bottle, dipped a travel size blush brush into it, then carefully dusted the keypad.

The powder clung to the oil left by Daniela’s fingers. Five numbers. One, two, three, five, and zero.

Knowing nothing but the numbers in a code was only useful if someone had unlimited attempts to key in every possible combination of numbers, as well as nothing better to do, because that would take forever.

That was why she’d tried to memorize the way the house manager’s hand had moved each time she entered the code.

After seeing her repeat the process of unlocking a door several dozen times, Alena was certain the code was six digits long and started at the bottom of the keypad.

She looked at the fingerprint powder. A six digit code, and five numbers. Shit. One of the numbers repeated.

This part of the plan was always the most unsure. Despite what the movies depicted, the number was rarely ever something personal. It was a random number, occasionally with a pattern for ease of remembering. She had a custom-built app that would spit out the most likely passcode for a given set of numbers, which it did by analyzing millions of currently active passwords.

It was a gamble, and one she’d hoped not to have to take. And now it looked like even her long-shot option was too long of a shot. The app might give her a right answer if she could give it the correct six numbers. With the added complication of one of those numbers appearing twice, and less time than she’d hoped, that option was out.

She had a Universal Software Radio Peripheral unit upstairs, disguised as a portable personal humidifier. The USRP unit used radio signals to disable alarm systems. She could try that, but it wasn’t a precision tool and she risked