Chapter 3 - The art of Burglary - Phantom

The basement was pitch black but Phantom’s night vision was acclimatising quickly, allowing him to manoeuvre relatively unhindered around the general clutter and box’s that littered the space. Within seconds he found what he was searching for, the building’s fuse box. Gently scraping the insulation away, he exposed two of the live cables (one supplying the box and one leaving it) and carefully attached a piece of wire between them, forming a bridge. Now this was in place he could afford to remove the breaker which fed the main security system, without trigging its back up (or ‘black out’) supplies. He then removed the breaker that fed the CCTV system, no point leaving any evidence. Now was the moment were he found out if the guard had lived up to his end of the bribe, conveniently going for an extended coffee break. The seconds ticked by, nothing, he was safe. He cautiously made his way up the stairs to the ground floor and slid a mirror between the door and the floor, an empty security post and a disserted hallway, perfect. Phantom made light work of the doors feeble locking mechanism and prowled his way through the ground floor, always alert for any noises that were out of the ordinary. Not trusting the lift, for its confined space and possible added security features, he settled for the stairs, senses at there highest state, testing each step before putting his full weight to it. He wound his way through the maze of corridors and gallery’s each lined with portraits of the long since dead. Until he came to a grand set of heavy wooden doors and here came his first real challenge. The doors themselves had simple enough locks to them but they were synchronised, positioned on either side of the double doors, a design for two people. Now it would have been easier to simply bring a partner in on the caper but Phantom mistrusted everyone else’s competences and knew of the temptation of greed to the weak minded, to allow anyone to tag along on ‘his’ heist. The solution to this problem was found in an outside contractor, a watchmaker to be precise. Who, under phantoms designs, created a curious device, no larger then a matchbox with a slit running through its centre. Prior to this heist, phantom had spent a lot of effort in blackmailing the curator, who had a taste for large bets on slow horses, and acquired a set of the door keys. He placed one of these said keys into the device then slid the key into the lock. Turning the device three times, it began to emanate a quiet ticking sound. Phantom strolled over to the second lock, inserted his key, and upon the count of three turned the lock. Both locks opened simultaneously and the two doors opened, revealing the main gallery hidden behind. The gallery was akin to most, easy clean floors, benches for the weary patrons, life size portraits of the great military leaders and row after row of glass cabinets. Phantom would of like to have spent some time perusing the various artefacts of war but his paid window was running out. The job was still at hand. And there it sat, pride of place, in the centre of the exhibits. The Prize.