Free Down to the Wire by Shannon Greenland Page B

for the mini-laptop.
    A shadow flickered, and my gaze jumped to the other side of the room. I froze.
    Another person. Dressed just like us.
    I looked at Wirenut and he tensed up. “It’s him,” he whispered.
    Oh, my God, this must be the other burglar. The one who got Wirenut busted. The same one who impersonated him in China.
    “I knew you’d be here.” Some sort of voice box warbled his actual speech.
    He knew we’d be here?
    The burglar took the fiber-lit goggles from the top of his hood-covered head and fit them over his eyes.
    We did the same with ours. Yellow lasers spanned the distance between us and where he stood on the other side of theroom. The ceramic egg sat smack dab between us. Through the lasers’ crisp, zigzagging pattern, I watched the burglar pull a remote control expander from a pocket on the calf of his pants.
    Not only did he dress the same as Wirenut, but he kept his tools in the same locations. Complete, sneaky copycat.
    “Can he disengage the Rayver System from that side, too?” I whispered.
    Wirenut nodded. “There’re two locks. One on each side. Some Rayver System setups have that option.”
    The burglar pointed to the egg, then to his chest. Mine.
    My jaw dropped. The nerve.
    Wirenut got his remote-control expander, and they both moved at once.
    My pulse jumped.
    Leaning to the left at a seventy-degree angle, Wirenut spied his opening tunnel. He pointed the control down the tunnel and pressed the expanding button. The skinny, metal wire snaked out.
    Steady, Wirenut, steady.
    I switched my gaze across the room to the burglar. Through the field of lasers, I watched him perform the mirror image of Wirenut’s actions. I looked at his wire snaking out and then at Wirenut’s, which appeared to be a fraction ahead of the burglar’s.
    Wirenut’s wire connected with the hole below the stand’s lock, and the lasers flicked off.
    The yellow sizzlers on the burglar’s half of the room stayed on. Yep, we’re definitely ahead of him.
    His lasers flicked off.
    Crap, not as far ahead as I’d hoped.
    Wirenut set his watch, and so did I. One minute and seventeen seconds until everything turned back on. Reeling in the expandable wire, he sprinted to the middle of the room. He yanked the tool kit from his vest and spread it out on the stone floor.
    A mere foot of space separated him from the burglar. Wirenut crouched on one side of the stand and the burglar on the other. Wirenut could reach out and strangle him they were so close.
    Taking the nitrox first, Wirenut squirted the control panel below the lock. It popped off, and he caught it. Multicolored wires crisscrossed one another. He grabbed the diversion and ripped them out.
    The burglar’s clump landed right beside Wirenut’s.
    Jeez, the other guy’s quick.
    Wirenut took his extra-long, needle-nose wire cutters and, leaning to the left, found his tunnel through the red lasers. He inserted the cutters and snipped the white wire at the very back.
    ClickClick. Their locks opened simultaneously.
    Come on, Wirenut. Come on.
    Grrrgrrr.
    Wait. There shouldn’t be a grrrgrrr. That wasn’t the right sound.
    The burglar reached for the protective glass. Wirenut stretched around the stand and quickly seized the burglar’s wrist.
    “It’s a trap,” Wirenut whispered.
    He held his hand up to the burglar. Don’t move.
    I barely breathed as I watched Wirenut dig in his vest. This was what he meant when he said there were all kinds of scenarios that could happen. As good as David was, there was no way he could’ve learned everything in such a short time.
    Wirenut slipped mini–jumper cables from his vest. He clipped one end to the control panel, leaned around the stand, and clipped the other end to the burglar’s control panel. I knew from our hours of training that the two connections would cancel each other out and disconnect the alarm.
    Lifting the glass, Wirenut snatched the ceramic egg. He unclipped the cables and swept up his tools. He