Plan B by Joseph Finder Page B

posts: an electromechanical anticlimb sensor. Grab it, tug at it, and you’d set off the strain gauge, kicking off the alarm.
    Not bad. Not bad at all. But it made for quite a challenge.
    As far as perimeter security went, an electric fence was pretty good. Not as ugly as coils of razor wire, and more effective. Of course, any security measure could be defeated, given enough lead time and intelligence and preparation. And Soler’s system wasn’t perfect. A utility pole, for instance, was less than six feet from the southwest corner wall. Theoretically you could climb the pole and vault over the fence, but as long as the electric fence was powered up, you risked hitting the wires on the way down and turning into a churro. Even if you did make it over the wall intact, all of the house’s doors and windows were wired into an alarm system, with video cameras trained on every entrance.
    Then there were the armed guards inside the residence. Benito’s police sources had told him that fifteen firearms licenses had been issued for the household security staff, but that didn’t tell us how many guards would be on-site at any one time. My observations told me that while he was in residence, Soler normally had four. I also took note of when the guards’ shift changed. I saw Soler leave the property several times in his armored Maybach limousine, accompanied by a duo of bodyguards.
    “Imagine you live in a house like this one?” Benito said.
    I was quiet for a moment. “Yeah.”
    “Oh, right,” he said, embarrassed. “You did, yes? When you were a kid?”
    “It can be like living in a prison.”
    “I wouldn’t mind living in a prison like this one.”
    “A security system this elaborate is sometimes just as much about keeping people inside as keeping them out.”
    “Huh.”
    “How solid is your intel on Soler?”
    Benito turned to look at me. His eyes blazed: indignation, but also a little defensiveness. “Come on, Nick. I myself saw him get into his Maybach and leave here at four o’clock this afternoon. I followed him to El Prat. His private helicopter filed a flight plan with a five o’clock departure. His chopper left right on time. My guy in Madrid observed him arriving at his flat on Calle de Alcalá at six twenty this evening in one of his other Maybachs. He’s not here.”
    “Gotcha,” I said. “Nice work.”
    He drummed on the steering wheel some more. “We don’t know how many guards he keeps here when he’s out of town. That’s what I don’t like.”
    “Agreed. But if we do this right, it won’t make any difference if he has an entire battalion.”
    “If,” Benito said.
    “I like to think positive.”
    “A guy like this, he always takes measures.”
    “Sure.”
    “He’s a billionaire. He makes a lot of enemies. He spares nothing for his protection. He gives his guards every weapon he can buy.”
    “He’s also not here. Which means his guards aren’t going to be on high alert.”
    “I am not so sure,” Benito said. Anxiety had begun to seep into his voice, and I didn’t like that. Anxiety often leads to mistakes. “Just because he’s gone doesn’t mean he doesn’t have something to protect.”
    We both knew what he meant: his valuables. His possessions, as he saw it. Which included a fifteen-year-old girl named Svetlana, his latest acquisition, who was being held prisoner inside.
    The night she disappeared, her father told me, he got a brief, panicked call from her cell phone. The call was cut short after a few seconds, and she never called back. Nor did she answer his repeated calls and texts.
    The next day, Kuzma had hired an attorney in Madrid to put pressure on the Spanish legal authorities. They’d made perfunctory inquiries, Vadim said. Soler not only denied she was there, he denied ever having met the girl. But when I checked with Svetlana’s wireless provider, I was able to confirm that her mobile phone was indeed inside Soler’s house.
    So there was really only one