Free Into Focus (Focus Series Book 1) by Alex Bostwick Page B

otherwise. High tech security systems, redundancies,
backups, passwords, biometric scanners, and whatever other fancy
things they like to throw into every script all have the same
weakness.
    They’re made and monitored by people.
    People are easy to fool, and anyone with more
than a rudimentary understanding of fieldcraft knows it. Someone
with enough confidence and audacity can do more in an afternoon
than a dozen drones in a week, if they’re in a decent position and
know what to do. We’re social animals, like it or not, and we’re
all conditioned from birth to respond in certain ways to certain
people. We listen to older people, ignore landscapers, sign
whatever the delivery guy sticks under our noses, and move on with
our lives.
    If you were to ask someone what their opinion
of their plumber was, they’d probably remark on the quality of his
or her work. They may mention a few side details, like oh, he’s a
nice guy, but they don’t really know anything about their plumber
to share.
    But everyone has a strong opinion about their
boss. Whether they work in an office, a construction site, or one
of those new tech startup companies that operate out of someone’s
garage, everyone works for someone, and everyone has something to
say.
    These are the kinds of things that nobody
really thinks about much, if at all, and it’s something that,
regardless of how much training someone has, can be exploited.
    After I got the details and the payment for
the job, I spent the next week getting ready. The target was in the
middle of nowhere in New Mexico, a few dozen miles away from any
towns. I wasn’t sure exactly what they did there, but there were
always several guards on duty, patrolling the perimeter in shifts.
The guards carried actual assault rifles, not the civilian ones
that politicians talk about banning every few months—these were
ones that could unload a thirty round magazine in less than three
seconds. I was extremely durable, but I was not anxious to
experience what it felt like to be turned into Swiss cheese.
    The other security measures looked fairly
basic, limited mostly to the fence and strong doors, which made
sense. In the middle of the desert, particularly a flat desert, it
was not only unlikely that anyone would show up to cause trouble,
but it would be nearly impossible to do so without being spotted by
one of the guards on duty.
    I knew all this because I flew over the
compound myself. I was a buzzard at the time.
    Shapeshifting is excellent for
reconnaissance. But it’s not always enough to see what’s going on,
because, as I said earlier, it’s really about people. So, to remedy
that, I watched the guards from a perch on the roof of one of the
buildings long enough to see one of them drink from a flask.
    He may as well have handed me a picture of
him sleeping with the First Lady. Liking to drink is one thing, but
drinking on duty usually indicates something deeper than that. This
guy liked to drink. If an outfit like Blackstone caught wind of one
of their employees drinking on the job—especially when he isn’t
even in the field—he’d be fired and blackballed in a heartbeat.
This guy wanted a drink badly enough to risk his career, such as it
was. That made him a target.
    So, when he left the compound and headed
home, I followed him from the air, then waited unobtrusively for
him to go out for the night. He didn’t disappoint; he was only home
long enough to shower and change out of his clothes before driving
to the local bar, a dive called The Rusty Badger, which was a
stupid name. The place was almost empty, because it was a Tuesday
evening, but the bartender seemed to know him, and they struck up a
conversation over a shared beer.
    I left long enough to scrounge some clothes I
had stashed before starting my recon, and returned, this time as a
human, though I didn’t look like myself at all. I made myself a
little taller than normal, though not tall enough to be too
intimidating, and