TAKING DOWN DON CARLOS HERNANDEZ

“We're running out of time,” I angle my elbow to check my watch. “Approximately 4 minutes before the alarm goes off,” I say.

“30 seconds,” David calls out from behind the monitor of the portable home computer that sits on the oak brown nightstand just beside the large double bed.

Carlos's bedroom is sufficiently large and surprisingly neatly arranged. The room smells of a sweet lemon fragrance that you can almost taste if you'll just stick out your tongue. But I have no time for that. As I hold the door open, I feel the continuous thud of my heart against my ribcage. If the alarm goes off and we're still here, the doors will automatically lock and we'll be trapped inside the house till the police and Carlos—who, of course, will get a notification of his singing alarm—comes. Better I keep it open before any of such happens. I look at David again, wondering what the hell he is taking so much time to do.

“You're not going to ruin this for us, Dave,” I look at my watch again, the flourescent illumination of the room casting its reflection against the glass. “Let's get out of here!” I say impatiently.

Four-and-a-half months of studying The Carlos Mansion—that's how he calls it—observing its security framework and the routine of the small Carlos household isn't what David is about to ruin for us with his perfectionist attitude. Hell, we even took turns to pose as pizza delivery men so we could observe the internal security infrastructure. I look at my watch again: 3 minutes before the alarm goes off and the CCTV is restored. We need to get off this mansion, and we need to do it fast.

“Da—” I stop short as David half sprints towards me, subtly enough not to leave prints on the shiny white marble. He wouldn't have left a print, anyway: our shoes are covered with rubber soles we put on before we walked through the doors. But I guess you cannot be too careful.

“We have about 2 minutes to get out of this place,” I call after David who hurried straight ahead. I push the door shut, not worrying about fingerprints since we are wearing white latex gloves. David specifically made sure it was white because according to him, we must leave the house exactly the same 'white' way we met it—no blue or black smudges.

We take the short flight of stairs down and we are once again in the large living room. I catch myself for a split second admiring the Japanese flower vase sitting placidly on the gold plated glass table in the centre of the high-windowed living room. I shouldn't be admiring anything in the house of a murderer and drug dealer who parades himself in the saintly robes of a real estate developer, I say to myself. We are soon in the kitchen where we had come in from. David tries the door knob and the door thankfully flings open as I take another look at my watch.

Our feet tap quietly on the hard marble floor of the spacious exterior. I wonder what Carlos saw in marble. I take in a deep breath as we hurry to the low fence which had an electric security wiring on top of it. I'd overriden the electricity to the fence and the alarm before we broke in. In about 60 seconds, everything will be back to normal and the delayed alarm will blare with all its might.

I hold my breath as David leaped onto the fence, holding onto the metal bars that held the electric wiring. You cannot trust technology and breaches, but he is not dead. He isn't electrocuted. I follow the same routine and in about 5 seconds, we are both at the other side of the fence, outside the mansion. I instinctively look around to confirm that nobody saw us, or in truth, to confirm that I didn't see anybody who may have seen us.

***

“What was all those time wasting for?” I turn to David as soon as we're settled in the car. “We were almost trapped in that house!” The alarm is already blaring at that point. The police will respond first before Carlos will come rushing down in his heavy black truck that roars like thunder. I'm not going to wait for any of that, so I slot in the key and turn the ignition on.

“Chill, Max. We needed it to be clean and perfect. He'll definitely suspect that something is wrong, so I had to put it in a place that even an IT expert will not bother to inspect.”

“And where is that?” I take my eyes briefly off the narrow road that leads to the highway and turn to him. His chocolate brown face gleams from the sunlight that is piercing through the window and his lips are curled in a smile. He is feeling good about himself.

“The recycle bin.”

That's pretty smart, but I'm not going to give it to him; after all, I was the one who masterminded the whole security breach. “And what if he clears it out?” I ask.

“He won't, the man never clears 'em out. I checked.”

“And what if he suddenly decides to do so this time?” I'm connecting to the highway, so I keep my eyes on the road. In the distance behind, I hear the faint sounds of police sirens.

“I didn't put all my—our eggs in one basket. I put a duplicate in the program directory.”

I bang my fist on the steering wheel and the car horn blares like a sheep deprived of pasture. I turn to him, feeling the heat on my face. My heart is threatening to explode. “What!”

A smile is forming on the corners of his lips, and the Lord knows I hate that smile.

“Chill, Max. Keep 'em eyes—”

“You don't tell me ‘Chill, Max’ when you just ruined all our efforts for Finn!” I snap. I turn on the right blinker, we can as well slug this out right now.

“It's pretty obvious, ain't it?”

“Program directory? That's damn pretty obvious, Dave! What the hell were you thinking?”

“Yea, yea I know. It has to be perfect. It's a Trojan horse.”

“Trojan horse?”

“Yeah. Listen, Max. Carlos and the police'll go over the CCTV and they'll see nothing—you put 'em cameras on loop, remember? No video, no finger prints, no nothing. But Carlos'll know that the alarm cannot go off on its own will, so he'll call a bug sweeper and an IT guy. The bug sweeper will see nothing but the IT guy will spot the malware, and there—jackpot. He'll clean it up and tell Carlos that all's good.”

“So, we still have one in the bin?” I ask. I'd parked the car by the side of the road, but my palms are still wrapped around the steering wheel.

“Yes, no and yes.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

David is smiling again. “It means that it could remain there or the IT guy will decide to sweep the recycle bin clean—”

My stomach churns and I glare at David, but he holds his hands up and continues, “I put a copy embedded in his family and work files. You can't spot it. He'll think all's good from the IT assessment, so he'll not have to worry while all the time we're getting his info.”

“Jesus! Dave. When did we agree on that?”

“Last minute addition,” he says, smiling.

I release my grip on the steering wheel. I didn't realise I'd been holding it so tightly. I sigh. David is speaking again so I turn to him.

“You did a pretty good job out there, Max. The malware, the house alarm and the fence. You know, I really thought I'd die when I was going over that fence.”

A smirk is forming on the corners of my jaw. “You didn't trust me?”

“Not like that... You know... Everything...”

“Perfect.” I nod. “I get that part.” David is nodding, too. The smile gone from his face.

I turn the ignition on again and the car roars to life. I look at my watch before taking another glance at David. He is back to his normal self—thinking and calculating. At The Carlos Mansion, he didn't seem to me like he was contemplating jumping over the fence. He seemed perfectly sure that the temporary override I'd done on the electricity was still in place. The Lord knows I'd have hesitated if I was the one in front. Anyway, he's right about something—I did a pretty good job: I designed the malware to look on the surface like any harmless .txt file. It was a complex creation, though, one capable of transmitting all the information on the system including password and login details to our remote server. It can also make use of the computer's microphone and camera without raising suspicion. No antivirus or deep system scan can as much as detect it, even—that's the best part.

I peep at David from the rearview mirror which is angled in his direction. He is looking through his phone and smiling to himself. He looks up at me and I can see his yellow upper teeth escape the confines of his lip.

“It's live, brother,” he says. “The police got nothing on us. Our timing was just about perfect—right according to plan.”

“Right according to plan,” I repeat, as a smile of my own escapes my lips. Don Carlos Hernandez is about to go down just the way he and his men downed our friend, Finn. Only his will not be quick and painless like the bullet that tore through Finn's head.