Three Fates

urbanites out for a stroll.”
    “Cops tend to do a lot of drive-bys in tony neighborhoods like this,” she commented. “Just how many years in the pen can you get for what you’re carrying in that man-purse?”
    “It’s a bag. Just a bag. Three to five,” he decided, “if the judge is a hardcase. Suspended. I’ve got connections.”
    He palmed his walkie-talkie. “Crossing Madison at Eighty-eighth.”
    “Good to go.” From Malachi.
    “And here.” From Gideon.
    “Base copies that,” Rebecca reported.
    Jack took her hand as they walked by the entrance of Morningside, turned the corner. They worked their way around to the delivery entrance.
    As rehearsed, Cleo took out her walkie-talkie while Jack opened his bag. “B and E Central,” she said quietly. “James Bond here’s breaking out his toys.”
    “I’m at, what is it, Eighty-ninth between Fifth and Madison,” Malachi said. “Looks to be a party in a flat here. A number of people, fairly well pissed, are coming out.”
    “I’m heading back from Park Avenue,” Gideon checked in. “Saw a few street people in doorways, and a goodly amount of traffic for this time of night. No problems.”
    “Ready to go up?” Jack asked.
    She nodded, craned her head to study the four stories. “There’s this really good door here. I just want to point that out.”
    “Odds are she has the Fate in her office safe. It’ll make her more nervous if the break-in targets the upper floors.”
    He aimed what Cleo thought of as a harpoon, shot out a three-pronged hook and length of rope. “Harness,” he said, and shot the second line while she shrugged into her harness. He clicked the safety, attaching her, then repeated the steps with his own.
    “On three,” he told her. “You were square with me about your weight, weren’t you?”
    “Just count, pal. One, two.”
    “Three,” Jack said, and pressed the mechanism on his harness.
    They went up smoothly, and a bit more quickly than Cleo had anticipated. “Jesus! What a rush.”
    “Keep your eyes on the roof.”
    “If that’s like telling me don’t look down, it’s exactly the wrong . . . Oh shit,” she whispered as she did, indeed, look down. Teeth gritted, stomach flopping, she fumbled for the ledge, skidding a little as her palms had sprung with sweat, and heaved herself over with no grace whatsoever.
    “You okay?”
    “Yeah, yeah. It just threw me for a minute. Four stories looks a lot higher when you’re up there, without a floor under you. I’m cool.” She remembered her next step and pulled out her two-way. “Base. We’re on the roof.”
    “Copy that,” Rebecca answered. “Shutting down alarms in sector twelve in sixty seconds. Mark.”
    “Mark,” Cleo echoed as Jack depressed the timer on his watch, nodded.
    He tucked the two-way back in his bag, fixed on a headset. “All units copy?” He nodded again when he got affirmative responses. “Got your breath back?” Jack asked Cleo.
    “Yeah. I’m solid.”
    He gave his line, then hers, a last testing tug.
    She eased off the ledge, took one huge breath, then let herself slide into the air.
    The breath rushed out of her lungs, but she steadied the bag for him as they dangled. Following his directions, she braced her feet on the wall of the building, relaxed her knees.
    Jack’s watch beeped quietly, and Rebecca’s voice came through his headset. “Sector’s down. Five minutes. Mark.”
    A cab drove by on the street below, turned at the corner and headed up Madison.
    He attached a portable scrambler to the window glass, punched in a code and waited while the numbers ran. When the display glowed green, he detached it, handed it off to Cleo.
    “Window backup system off-line, silent alarm killed.” He fixed suction cups to the window, held out his hand like a surgeon. Cleo slapped the glass cutter into his hand. Despite the chill, a line of sweat dribbled down her back.
    “Four minutes, thirty,” she announced while he meticulously cut through the reinforced glass.
    The wail of a siren had her choking back a startled yelp.
    “You steady?”
    “As Gibraltar.”
    “Take your end.”
    She gripped the wire from the suction cup in her gloved hands while Jack mirrored the gesture with the second. At his nod, they lowered the pane inch by inch inside the building until it rested on the floor.
    “Going in,” he said quietly, and boosted himself inside the window.
    “Three minutes, thirty,” Rebecca warned him.
    He unhooked his