Getting in was the easy part.

The trick was finding the right day to do the recovery. The security guards’ schedule followed a predictable pattern. Sloppy. I took them out one by one – a quick slash across the throat made the kills silent.

I knew it wouldn’t be long before they were found, so I went on to the next easy part: stealing the plans. Turns out security cameras don’t do much immediate good if the person watching them has a river of red down the front of her uniform, and I wasn’t worried about anyone watching the recordings later.

In three minutes I had a flash drive tucked into a suit pocket, and no alarm yet. Time for Part 3: unrolling the stiff explosive rope off its spool, tucking it into every corner of the computer room.

Raised voices. Alarms. Someone found the bodies. Doesn’t matter; I was almost done. Watching the door, I worked the electrodes into one end of the rope and started the timer. The door shivered; soon, my makeshift barricade would be splinters.

I dove for the window, tumbling to the harbor amid a shower of shards of glass.

The harness was right where I’d left it, of course. I hooked it to my belt, hearing frantic shouts from the open window two stories above me. It would be too late for them, of course.

Jamming my feet into the board, I released the harness from the dock, the sail billowed and the winds took me from the scene just as the building exploded behind me.

Easy.