BEING SMARTER PAYS

Lucas, Elvis, and I stepped out of Lucas’s rear mansion with our face masks. Lucas had ordered a new car with a fake identity.

We branched first at Ebony's mansion. The place was deserted except there were CCTV coverages. 

“We need to deactivate the CCTV. But we only have a few minutes before the signal will be noticed,” I whispered in a low voice. Not wanting any CCTV or audio device to pick up my voice.

“I think I can do that,” Elvis whispered.

We scanned for the CCTV station wire. I found it first.

“I think that was what we are looking for,” I said, as I pointed to Series of connected wires.

We carefully walked toward it. Elvis disconnected the wire. There was a slight alert sound. 

We sighed in relief. We hurried in. Lucas led us to her bedroom. There are a lot of rooms. Up to twenty. The mansion was big for a model. That was the first reason why I thought that Lucas was stupid. How can a model own this kind of apartment? It was even bigger than Lucas's mansion and rear mansion.

We searched her room but found nothing. We moved to other rooms. But we didn't find any documents.

“Do you think that the undercover guards had found and taken the document,” Elvis said. Lucas nodded negatively.

“No, it is here,” Lucas said with confidence.

“Then let us try to think of any unimagined place she could hide it. Those who were working for the undercover guards were very smart in keeping documents or secrecy.” I said. They nodded.

We checked all the toilets, bathrooms, kitchen and every store, but we found none.

Then I tried to imagine another place where she could hide the document because my mind still insisted that the document was in the mansion.

“Can we go back to her room,” I said to both of them? They appeared to have lost hope and were wary. It has been a long search, a search that yard nothing. Ebony must have been a brainy lady. To have hidden such a document inside her mansion without even anybody could easily find it.

We got to her room. I stood by the door. I tried to guess where we hadn't searched. I went over to the bed. I pulled up the duvet. I pulled up the bed. The bed bunk skeleton showed nothing. But my eyes dashed to a tiny rope. My hands were shaking as I pulled the rope up. The earth opened. There stood a series of books and documents. Elvis and Lucas's faces lit up. They were joyous. They rushed to me. They pulled up the bed bunk skeleton. And yanked it over the door.

They started pulling up books by books and documents by documents.

I went over to the cabinet, I picked up a big sack I saw there.

I threw it at Elvis. He caught it by the air. The documents were so many that I don’t think the sack will contain them.

They started throwing the books and documents into the sack.

There were a lot of books. I don’t anticipate what those people perpetrate for them to obtain those documents and books.

After they had packed everything. Elvis hauled it on his shoulder, we hurried off. Without looking back. I was sure that the undercover guard would have noticed the disconnected CCTV.

We drove off at a fast pace. Not long after we had got to the main road, we saw the undercover guard's car approaching Ebony's mansion.

They stared at us. Then they drove away. The cars were three in number with up to twenty guards.

After they had gone. We laughed and chuckled.

“And the plan worked,” Lucas said.

I smiled.

“I wished I could remove the mask, I am not comfortable in it,” Lucas said.

“You have to be comfortable,” I said.

“Ana, I just wish you were a man like me, I would have gone into combat with you,” Lucas said.

“I am a man in woman form. If we are combating, I will beat you,” I said jokily.

“You sound like my sister, always challenging men, yet you can’t beat us,” Lucas said.

“I can beat a man, even I can beat more than a dozen men with my combat sting,” I said.

“I want to watch you perform your proficiency in martial arts,” Lucas said.

We drove into his mansion, the one which was attacked.

His guards were still intact. Only a few lost their lives. They all surrounded the car as we drove in.

“I think, we should be sure if the undercover guards haven't hidden any audio or CCTV around, so no talking until we are sure,” I said. They were surprised.

“I will have to inform the guards first,” Elvis said as he opened the door. He stepped down. 

He whispered to the guards. They all nodded in affirmation.

“We need to check all the guards' bodies and phones for any bugs,” I whispered. Elvis nodded.

He communicated it in a gesture to the guards, they nodded.

We started checking their bodies for any bugs. We found bugs on two guards' hair.

They were audio devices for transmitting audio through a signal. The two guards were grounded. We checked all the guards' phones. We discovered five guards' phones were bugged too.

We scanned for any audio or recording device outside the compound, we found one but the gate. They were made of tiny devices which can only be recognized by experts.

We disconnected the bugs by destroying them.

We discovered a hidden camera at the entrance of the mansion.

I picked it up. It was a new device, which means it was just inserted. Maybe that day.

“Elvis, do you inform the guards if we're coming,” I said after I made sure I checked for any Audio link, I had the camera off. There must be someone inside who inserted all the devices. He must have known that we would arrive today, it's likely, he thought we would come back anytime very soon.

“No, but I informed them that we will be around either today or tomorrow,” Elvis said.

“Okay, let's proceed,” I said.