“On it…”
An hour later, Compton and his cohorts had managed to detach the sabotage package from the gas line of the hot water heater, ensuring there would be no leaks, and they prepared to begin on the electric car charger.
“How’s things looking outside, Adrian?” Armbrand wondered.
“Fine, Rog,” Mott replied. “I’ve spotted the lookout; based on the imagery Maia forwarded me, it’s one of the two saboteurs. He’s over in the adjacent lot, where they’re doing the construction, so he’s not too close… and he’s outside the fence. Which got mysteriously repaired overnight, right?”
“Right,” Armbrand confirmed.
“Okay. That means he can’t get onto the property today, and he’s too far away to see a whole lotta detail,” Mott told them. “Which is good, not that he could see anything but the outside of the house anyway. He’s alternating between hiding among the cubes of bricks, standing under a tree, and ducking into the front porch of the house under construction, depending on whether or not it’s clear, raining, or if there’s lightning popping.”
“At least he’s smart enough not to stand under a tree with lightning in the area,” Smith said. “Other than that, the saboteurs’ intelligence seems to be rather missing in action.”
“Their installation skills are pretty good, though,” Armbrand remarked. “Somebody sure taught ‘em well.”
“Right,” Compton agreed. “And thanks for the heads-up on the storm clouds approaching, too, Adrian. That helped a lot. Knowing when to back off on fiddling with the electrical stuff was handy. Otherwise, we could be the ones getting zapped.”
“Not a problem,” Mott replied. “Speaking of which, you might want to get a move on. There’s another thundercloud approaching from the southwest.” He shook his head. “Dang, but that tropical system just won’t give up and die. I guess that’s what we get for being so close to the coast.”
“Yeah, never mind the bay, the harbor, and the river finding ways to funnel the things at us from time to time,” Smith agreed. “The weather gurus say it’s the local terrain making subtle effects in the steering currents. We’re still about a hundred miles inland, but damn! That hurricane that came through around six or seven years back was just bad.”
“No shit,” Armbrand said. “The folks down on the coastal bedroom communities were in a bad way during that mess. I thought it was a nice thing that the first Empress Ilithyia did, though, providing the monies for repair, then upgrading the stormbreaks.”
“Yup,” Mott said. “I’ll sure be damn glad when this storm system finally moves through, though. The winds have mostly played out, and I’m glad of that. But the level of lightning and thunder is just stupid ridiculous.”
“Yeah, no argument, but I think that’s just part and parcel of the whole ‘tropical’ thing – that and the torrential rainfall. The whole region is under a continuous tropical storm warning until the damn thing goes through anyhow! And it doesn’t do me any favors when the lightning hits close, either,” Smith declared. “That whole flash-KABOOM! thing is prone to making me hit the ceiling.”
“No shit,” Armbrand agreed. “Especially when a body’s sneakin’ around tryin’ to do a clandestine operation. Like this one.”
“Alla that,” Mott asserted. “Let’s see how much we can get done before the next thunder boomer arrives on top of us.”
“Ooo-kay,” Compton said – he had never diverted his full attention from the car charger through the entire discussion – as Smith handed him tools, Armbrand put away others, and Mott kept a virtual eye on the approaching storm, occasionally glancing at the advanced radar mapping and comparing it to the view outside.
“Mmph,” Compton grunted as he worked; a while back, he’d donned a special headband and pulled the attached magnifier in front of his eyes in order to make the fine detail more visible. “Those two perps really did know what they were doing on this one, sure for certain. It’s gonna take a bit of doing to get this package cut free of the charger itself. Did anybody bring the spare charger, just in case?”
“Yeah, I got it,” Armbrand confirmed. “Not a problem. I told Maia that I thought she and Lee probably needed to use the spare anyway, until this whole bag o’ shit is over.”
“Point,” Mott agreed.
“Can they do that, and the perps not know?” Smith wondered.
“Yeah, I think so,” Compton decided. “I’ve been thinking about that for the last ten minutes. See, all I really gotta do is to have power running to their timer; the charger itself doesn’t have to have power running to it at all. And we don’t want power running to the rest of the package at all. In fact, I’ve been thinking about maybe just ensuring the timer has power, then completely unplugging this charger. I think it might be easier and quicker to do that now, than to try to undo the whole mess. I can worry about that later. What do you guys think?”
“Or, Lee and Maia can just trash that charger and use this one,” Armbrand brainstormed, patting the other charger, which he’d set on Lee’s workbench in the corner. “After all, this happened on account of work, and we bought the new charger on the expense account, so it’s really just a replacement…”
“‘Nother good point,” Mott agreed. “I say, make it as easy on yourself as you can, Alan, while keeping our people safe, here. Don’t worry about trying to save that charger. Just do what you gotta.”
“Yeah,” Smith agreed.
“Go for it,” Armbrand threw in his opinion.
“Okay, in that case, lemme back up and punt,” Compton said, considering. “I think I’ll just go that way with it, then. It’ll be marginally faster and easier that way, anyhow.”
“Alan, how are you coming there, pal?” Mott asked.
“Slow, in reverse,” Compton replied, tinkering with the tampered charger. “Why?”
“‘Cause
