Free Cries of the Lost by Chris Knopf Page B

located a dozen distributors within Greater London that could provide what I needed.
    I went over it with Natsumi.
    “I’ve identified the cameras here in the mews. Not very well hidden. All we need to do is find where they converge and tap the feed. There should be a switch box, and with luck, a router that sends the images to home base via the Internet.”
    “Okay. And what do I do?”
    “Meet the neighbors.”
    After a relatively brief cab ride, I had enough supplies to cover initial operations.
    Later that day, I visited the offices of the building that sat between the mews and the street and asked if I could take a few snapshots of our new dwelling from above. The request was bizarre and homely enough that they readily agreed. I’d lived among Londoners. I knew their weakness for eccentricity.
    “Hoping to inspire jealousy on the home front?” said the fellow who led me to the perfect window above the mews.
    “Exactly,” I said. “Especially my brother-in-law, who told my wife’s parents I was an intellectual weenie who’d never amount to anything.”
    “Good for you, then.”
    I brought a telescoping pole to keep the camera still, and shot at the highest resolution the professional Canon could achieve. It was all done in a few minutes, which left ample time for shaking hands and trading quips with the cubicle denizens clearly in need of diversion from their official duties.
    Back at the computer, I downloaded the images, and after some enlargement, identified the coaxial cables from each camera, tracking where they joined together and dove down a conduit behind the southeast corner of the mews.
    Getting there involved several sorties down alleys and behind commercial buildings, and one risky clamber over a chain-link fence, but I eventually reached the spot. The conduit, strapped to the wall, ran into a grey metal box bolted to the side of the building. The box was secured by a type of simple keyed latch a child could pick. Pleased as I was by this, I felt a bit of resentment that the security company guarding my newly established home would be this sloppy.
    “Wankers,” I said under my breath, as I fiddled open the lock.
    Inside I found the switch box, and to my delight, a wireless router. In a few minutes, using the gear brought along in a light backpack, I’d hooked into the feed, sending the signal through the secondary router I’d brought along, which beamed it via the Internet directly to my computer.
    Back at my desk, I tested the connections and saw the five security cameras pop up on my screen. Using a network video recorder and surveillance software that allowed you to skip over long periods of inaction, I could efficiently track the comings and goings of the neighborhood.

    “O UR NEXT door neighbors are George and Mirabella McPherson,” said Natsumi. “He’s a financial guy and she’s an astronomer. How cool is that?”
    “How did you meet them?”
    “I knocked on the door and introduced myself. I didn’t actually meet George, but Mirabella was very friendly and welcoming, and we ended up chatting for quite some time. She’s French. I think I used up every bit of our backstory. You better study it again. How was your day?”
    “We’re now monitoring the complex. We’ll give it a few days and see what the software can tell us.”
    “We don’t have to wait that long for the McPhersons. They’ll be here in about an hour for tea. They’ve never been inside this house. Said the couple who owns it kept to themselves. Mirabella is beside herself with curiosity.”
    “Just don’t let them in the spare bedroom.”
    “Right. The surveillance array might take some explaining.”

    G EORGE MCPHERSON , about sixty-five, was much older than his wife. He had a large head lightly covered in very thin, white hair, and a thick neck—so at first he seemed overweight, but on closer inspection was reasonably trim. Mirabella was at the age, mid to late thirties, when the bloom of youth is still