She saw nothing. Absolutely nothing.
She cursed to herself.
Although her mask had built-in night vision, it only worked when there was ambient light. In the basement, there would be none. If she wanted to see, she knew she had to take a giant risk. Reluctantly, she pulled out a small flashlight from her pocket. She turned it on and followed its beam down the stairs.
The basement came as another surprise. Not only because Kozlov had built one so close to the water’s edge, but because of its simplicity.
It was the opposite of everything she had seen above.
The red floor was nothing but painted cement. The walls and ceiling were lined with plastic and insulation, probably to absorb sound more than heat. It looked like the ‘boiler room’ of a telemarketing firm that went bust. Ironically, she got the sense that more business was done down here than anywhere else in the house. The kind of business that involved a pair of pliers, a baseball bat, and a screaming victim.
She focused her attention on the gray metal door in the center of the far wall. It sat next to an elaborate cooling system that clanked in the corner. Blueprints and work orders had led her to believe that there would be a room in the rear of the basement.
In a flash, she realized it wasn’t a room at all.
It was a walk-in meat locker.
4
It wasn’t the polished steel exterior of the giant door that had given the freezer away. It was the oversized, single-handle latch.
She had come prepared for every kind of door. Even the simplest, most well-concealed vaults were protected by a lock of some kind. Bank and casino vaults - the gold standard by which vaults are measured - employed everything from analog pin-and-tumbler combination locks to next-generation biometric triggers, such as palm and retina scanners. She had even seen systems that monitored perspiration and blood pressure. If someone showed any signs of distress while attempting to access the vault, the software would deny access - even if the correct codes had been entered.
Fortunately for her, this door was pretty basic.
All it required was a simple tug.
A rush of cold air pushed against her as she peeked inside the freezer. The walls were lined with steel racks that held bins of frozen vegetables, as well as store-bought items such as ready-made pasta entrees and desserts. In the center of the room stood a butcher’s station - a heavy, stainless steel table and an assortment of saws, cleavers, and carving knives. Two sides of the steel island were surrounded by hanging slabs of meat. Sides of beef, as well as whole hogs, slabs of mutton, chicken, rabbits, and duck dangled from hoists like a wide curtain of flesh.
As she closed the door behind her, the unit’s compressor hissed. The vents spewed freshly chilled air in an effort to compensate for her body heat.
She shivered as her breath crystallized.
For all its innovations, her suit did little to shield her from the cold. Then again, it wasn’t the frigid temperature that bothered her the most. She was more interested in the size of the room. Large as it was, it was still much smaller than she had been led to believe. This room should have consumed nearly a third of the basement, but it wasn’t close to that. Either the blueprints were wrong, or this freezer was more than it appeared to be.
Five minutes later, she had her answer.
Thanks to the icy walls, the second door was virtually invisible in the back of the freezer. What gave it away was the set of hinges that allowed the racks in front of the door to pivot forward and swing aside. Once she pushed the frozen vegetables out of the way, she spotted a tiny slot in the metal surface of the rear wall. She immediately recognized it as a card reader, like those used in fancy hotels.
Unfazed, she produced a slim device from one of her many pockets. She flipped open the cover and inserted the gadget into the card reader. It fit perfectly. A flurry of access codes streamed across its tiny screen. She raised an eyebrow when the microcomputer continued to process after matching a fourth number. ATMs only require four-digit pin numbers, so a fifth digit seemed slightly excessive. By the time her device had acquired the tenth and final digit, she was beyond intrigued.
What the hell is he keeping in here?
The Ark of the Covenant?
With a faint click, the door popped open. She wrapped her fingers around the edge of the door, then pulled it toward herself. She was expecting to see stacks of cash, mountains of cocaine, or something that would justify the security measures.
Instead, all she saw was a giant.
At nearly seven feet tall and roughly 400 pounds, the Russian guard literally filled the doorway. Standing face to face - make that chest to face - with a crafty ninja, he panicked and reached for his pistol instead of wrapping her in a massive bear hug that would have squeezed the life out of her in a matter of seconds.