Page 84 of Stolen Kisses
Dante
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Well this was different to how I came to this place last time.
The Crowthorne Society however looked the very same. Same elaborate structure of grand archways attached to a beautiful châteaux style mansion and acres of lush land surrounding it.
Last time I was on my bike and I’d practically been snooping to see as much as I could of Christina and Donny Manello.
This time felt like I’d been given the chance to spend the day on the set of a film like Mission Impossible. Just for the fact that while Claudius and Marcus had gone inside the regular way, Gio and me were dressed up in overalls under the guise of men from the electric company. Alex was on surveillance with two of the guys from our tech team.
Very elaborate set up we had going on here.
The goal was to cause some sort of distraction with Claudius and Marcus ordering lunch and tea while we got to working on the actual mission. There were ways of walking into a place and taking what we wanted. It didn’t always mean we had to go in guns blazing with death in our eyes.
We would only do that when absolutely necessary. It wasn’t an option when it prevented us from having enough time to get what we came here for.
Claudius and Marcus were acting as the decoy. They would be the massive distraction to throw off the Antonellas.
I could imagine them up there in the restaurant and the manager at the very least knowing they were enemies to the Antonellas. Knowing and wondering what in the hell they were doing there.
It sent a seriously big message that we were up to something.
This place was somewhere none of them had really been to before, and definitely not to eat.
I could imagine the manager calling around to report it, but who to exactly? Well that would be some kind of mystery and something to definitely be interested in. Barabbas was seen just last year. Maybe they would report it to him and he’d march down here in all his glory to find out why they were here.
Gio and I had on disguises along with the overalls. We both wore caps, the standard kind guys from the electricity company would wear. I, however, had a moustache and beard to cover my face. Gio had on thick rimmed glasses and had even shaved off his beard.
He actually looked so different without facial hair that it may have been enough of a disguise by itself.
The secret squad did a really good job figuring out the layout of the place. We knew that there was one guy in the security office located in the basement watching the CCTV. There were six guards on site. Four custodians that took care of the interior, and two managers on site at all times. One took care of the restaurant while the other took care of the function halls and event rooms.
The area we needed to focus on was the basement area near the security office. They had an archives department that held all the records we needed.
Our fake ID passes got us in with no problems, and the manager escorted us down here to the electrical room.
Alex was screwing with the CCTV. When he gave the signal to move on to the Archives room, we headed there quickly.
The good thing about this place was the doors were unlocked. The security at Crowthorne was so tight that anyone on the grounds or inside the building were all vetted to the highest degree. Especially people working on the premises. If we were anyone else there would have been no way that we would have made it inside so easily.
Gio opened the door to the Archives room. We had to be careful here. We weren’t authorized to be here. Alex would tell us if he saw someone coming, but past experience taught me to keep watch myself and stay on alert even with the backup of surveillance.
Things could always go wrong.
“Where should we start?” I asked Gio while looking at the many, many rows of shelves.
We were after video files and record books.
“How about you start with the video files? I will look for the books,” Gio answered.
I nodded it was a good idea to split up the search. The faster we could get out the better. I hoped for this to be a simple grab and go job.
The minute we were done, Alex would let Claudius know and they would leave too.
I left Gio and moved to the section with all the video files. Whoever took care of this place had to be one of those overly organized, perfectionists who had to have everything a certain way. Everything was labeled. The video recordings were all labeled by date and there was a file cabinet for every year going back to 1999.
I guessed they probably didn’t do much in the way of surveillance before that. CCTV wasn’t exactly popular these days. I guessed that the Antonellas would have been very possibly the first people to get it.
