“I won’t be going back to the house,” Marilyn said. “I’ll drive out of this neighborhood the opposite way, so nobody will see our cars together.”
…
The first phase of sneaking in was very easy. After the practice with Angel, Stacy was able to vault the wall quickly and efficiently. There was soft grass on the opposite of the wall, so letting herself down from a three meter height was not a problem. While Stacy kept a lookout, Riley opened the front gate, allowing Naz to drive in.
It was most fortunate that they had such a black Rolls Royce with them. A Rolls Royce was completely normal in this neighborhood. But the unusually black paint made it difficult to see once the lights were turned off. Furthermore Rolls Royces are extremely silent cars, so this was done easily.
And now everyone took up their positions.
Angel guarded the entrance to the garage.
Naz went down to help Riley bypass the lock.
Getting past the garage door was no problem for Naz. Apparently garage door openers produced in the 1990s are easy to hack for someone who knew what she was doing. But why would Naz know about this? Stereotypes from the Soviet Union came to mind very quickly, since Georgians were often associated with criminal gangs, car smuggling and theft, etc. Stacy decided not to ask any questions.
“Now comes the difficult part,” Naz commented as the ZIL members entered the garage.
Stealsky’s garage was an unexceptional one. There were a couple of old cars, clearly not top end stuff. There was a red BMW convertible, probably his fun car. There were some large cupboards that probably contained garage stuff, as well as some standard equipment found in garages such as spare tyres and a hydraulic jack on wheels that made Naz frown.
Since the garage door had never been opened, no drone could peek inside. There was no way to tell how robust was the securing mechanism for the room inside.
But the first door turned out to be a standard house lock. Riley got past that within a minute.
Stacy reflected that there were no stereotypes about Lithuanian lock picking, so Riley might get away without being questioned. But she should ask Riley where she learned lock picking from.
Now there was a pause. Naz and Riley were both tense.
It was normal for an automatic garage door produced in the 1990s to use simple technology. It was also normal for the first door in this garage to look normal. After all, if you were a rich man and had a door in your basement that resembled a safe, it would be like proclaiming to everyone that something valuable was stored here.
But what about the second set of doors that lay within?
This was normally not visible to anybody in the garage, so it could be a huge, high security safe door with an unbreakable lock.
Just because the Benefactors had assigned this mission as being within ZIL’s current capabilities, didn’t mean that they knew everything. If the door within was high security, ZIL wouldn’t be able to continue with their mission.
Despite the ZIL members’ best efforts, they were ultimately still inexperienced with break ins.
And now they were confronted by an unexpected sight. The door within had no handle and no keyhole. It was a huge, totally smooth metal door on giant hinges. With just a simple plaque mounted on the middle of the door.
“This place is serviced and protected by Dimas Domestic Defenders,” the plaque read.
“That’s so silly,” Naz said.
“Isn’t that the security company?”
“Nope. That’s the Maids. Their company car has a DDD sticker on it. The security guys don’t!”
“All right. With no handle and keyhole, how are we going to get past this door?”
“Wait, the hinges are on both sides. And there’s no line break on this door. So it’s just a huge metal barrier mounted on hinges. How does Stealsky even get in to enjoy his room?”
Naz looked down at the door, which was not flush with the floor. Then her eyes flicked across the garage.
“Ah, got it.”
Stacy didn’t know what was going on, but Naz gestured for Angel to come over. So Angel abandoned her post at the garage door.
“I think I need your help, just in case,” Naz pointed out the hydraulic jack.
“That’s funny. It looks like a warehouse or general equipment jack for pallets. Not for cars.”
“Exactly. I was wondering earlier.”
Naz had Angel bring the jack to the door. It wasn’t set flush with the ground, so the jack had metal prongs that could pass underneath. Now Naz got Angel to lift the door off its hinges.
“Whoa!”
Riley and Stacy put two hands up to stabilize the door, but it was still very heavy. It took both of them and Angel to keep the door from falling over. Then they slowly dragged the door out of the doorway and into the garage.
It took the four women and the jack two minutes to move just two meters.
Finally the huge metal door was leaning against a wall.
“Whew,” Angel panted. “This is not light even for me.”
Riley inclined her head, thinking aloud. “I think that’s Stealsky’s natural security.”
“Yes. Door is unbreakable and pretty much impervious to being cut,” Naz observed. “And most people wouldn’t think of taking the entire door off its hinges since it’s so heavy. Even if they thought of it, they wouldn’t be able to do it unless they had a Strength hero with them.
Most thieves focus on Agility and Stealth, so hardly any thief or gang of thieves will have a Strength hero with them.”
“All right, now we know something valuable is inside. Let’s see!”
The Amber Room was indeed located in the room that Stacy had suspected it would be. After all, that room corresponded with the reported size of the Amber Room in history.
When they removed the second door, all four women were standing in the doorway and concentrating on keeping the heavy metal door from falling over. So nobody had looked inside. But now they could see inside. And even without turning on the room lights, the amber panels within reflected the light from the garage outside.
“Waaaahhhh…”
Riley stepped forward and turned on the lights within.
“Waaaahhhh…”
All ZIL members present just stood and stared. No one had ever seen a room like this, not even in movies or anime.
The room was awash in gold-yellow light. It was indescribable. Every panel was gorgeous. A completely gold-panelled room would not look so good, because it lacked the detailed baroque styling and multiple shades of different amber panels.
…
Riley’s ever-rational voice reminded Stacy of what she was here to do.
“Don’t forget, lots of photos and videos,” Riley said as she stepped forward with a tape measure and some reference items whose size was commonly known.
“Right.” Stacy hastily grabbed the camera out of her bag. She had brought two cameras and four memory cards with plastic zip lock bags for waterproofing the memory cards later. She had to make a total of four passes over this room. Now she got to work.
Naz and Angel reluctantly stopped oogling and left the room. Naz had to monitor the drones, and Angel had to guard the outside of the garage to make sure nobody interrupted Stacy and Riley.
…
Less than ten minutes later Stacy had taken at least 50 photographs, and spent over one minute with each camera on video mode so that she could take a running video of the entire Amber Room. There was enough detail to convince any expert that this was the real thing. This was one rare photography session where not one photo was taken with the camera flash.
Riley was by the side, and her main job during this phase of operations was to be a camerawoman’s assistant. She kept moving the rulers and reference items around, so that the photographs came with measurements and common items for comparison.
Outside, the black security van came by again. This was unexpected, because they had kept to a rigid two-hour night routine yesterday.
Marilyn was watching the back of the house from a nearby tree. She did not act when the men exited their van and approached the gate. Marilyn had to be restrained and not panic. But once they started fiddling with the lock, it was obvious they intended to enter Stealsky’s house. Marilyn quickly shot both men with her taser rifle.
“Contract security came. Back door. Two down,” Marilyn spoke tersely over her radio to Naz. “Time to get out of here.”
Naz didn’t reply. Marilyn hoped it was not because Naz was already preoccupied with other things in her vicinity. Suppressing her sniper instincts, she spent another two more minutes in the tree, watching for movements in the area around, before shimmying down.
She then relocated to another tree about twenty meters away. She had planned this last night.
If this was daylight and Marilyn was facing professional soldiers, the distance might be regarded as ridiculously dangerous. But since this was night and lighting was few and far between, Marilyn figured another nearby tree would be sufficient. Her job was to take out any incoming security personnel at the back of the house.
…
Stacy and Riley were just about to leave, when a strange feeling ran through Stacy. It made her feel queasy, uncomfortable. It reminded her of a visit to the World Trade Center in New York City…
Before Stacy could process what this meant, a clear female voice rang out.
“What are you doing? Put down your things immediately!”
“And raise your hands above your heads!” Another female voice called out.
Stacy and Riley turned in surprise to find themselves facing the three maids. The dirty blonde and the brunette were standing in front.
What made it scary was that they had large guns in their hands. Judging from the size and shape of the barrels, these were tasers.
Not the more streamlined, high-tech kind that Riley was using. The maids appeared to be holding traditional taser guns which fired two awkward looking darts at the target and transmitted electricity through these darts.
“Um…”
“Uh…”
Riley and Stacy had been taken by surprise. Now they were wondering if there was any way to get out. But this room had only one entrance, and the maids were standing right there. Even though it was a good sized room of around fifty-six square meters, the space for running around was still quite limited.
Can we evade their tasers? Stacy desperately thought to herself.
On her part, Riley was trying desperately to remember her classes. Once fired, taser darts were used up. In order to fire a second or third time, the traditional taser gun would need to be the kind that could hold more than one firing cartridge. But not all models could do that. Did these… were these… Riley tried to remember her classes.
But how was it possible for two women to evade three women? Standing behind the dirty blonde and the brunette was the maid with chestnut hair in a pixie cut. Pixie Cut was also holding a taser gun, although she pointed it down because she was currently blocked by her comrades. But if her comrades missed, she could certainly fire.
And all parts of this room were within range of the taser guns.
There seemed to be no way of avoiding the guns in this room. Riley needed just to buy two seconds of time. To take cover, draw her own taser and shoot back… and the only cover was Stacy…
As Riley debated whether to leap behind Stacy so that her leader could get hit by the tasers while she fired back…
Angel appeared silently behind Pixie Cut. She clamped one hand over the maid’s mouth, and pushed another hand against the small of the woman’s back.
A look of terror quickly appeared on the maid’s face and she didn’t struggle. Clearly she thought Angel was armed.
It wasn’t obvious what Angel was holding. Nobody could see from this angle. But there were cans of lubricant and car waxes in the garage as well as wipers and other cleaning tools. Probably Angel was wielding anything that felt like a gun when pressed against someone’s back.
“I have a gun on your friend’s back,” Angel spoke up.
Normally Angel didn’t speak Russian with an accent. But now she spoke this single sentence with a heavy Central Asian accent, practically a parody of her normal speech. It might be a psychological tactic that made Angel sound more like a tough criminal.
“Uh…” the two maids were distracted. Riley made her move.
“Pfffttt!” That was one shot. It hit the brunette just under her right breast.
“Pfffttt!” A second shot. This was aimed at the dirty blonde’s tummy, and it scored a direct hit.
“Aaaa!” The brunette groaned and folded over without firing a shot. She started to fall on her side.
“Zuuuup!” The dirty blonde managed to get a shot off, but it missed Riley by about a meter. The two taser darts leapt into the air and then fell harmlessly onto the floor as the dirty blonde let go of her taser gun and fell forward.
Then as Stacy watched, open mouthed, Angel stepped forward. Angel was strong enough to both keep her grip on Pixie Cut’s mouth, and to step forward and stick out one foot higher than her waist. Pixie Cut was practically being moved like a doll. If she had martial arts skills she might want to attack Angel’s sole supporting leg, but she was too scared to think about ways to resist.
The brunette’s head hit Angel’s shoe. Angel supported the brunette’s face on her foot and moved it downwards in a controlled fall. She wound up crumpled at Angel’s feet with her face on Angel’s shoe.
In the meantime Riley had also stuck out her foot by sliding it along the floor. She was wearing moccasins though, and Dirty Blonde’s head hit Riley’s foot with a hard thump. Dirty Blonde’s body jerked and spasmed a little, then lay still with her face on Riley’s foot.
“Oi!”
Riley was practically frozen for a second. She looked like a comic character with her mouth wide open but no sound coming out. Riley was in pain but felt obliged to suppress her scream.
“Shoot her!” Angel hissed as she shoved Pixie Cut forward. Pixie Cut looked terrified, but Angel’s hand remained clamped over her mouth so she couldn’t say anything.
“Oh sorry, I forgot,” Riley said and shot Pixie Cut without looking. Riley was that good a shot at this range, and scored a direct hit on Pixie Cut’s left hip. The woman began to crumple, and Angel let her do a controlled fall on top of her colleague Brunette.
“Oi! Oi! Oi!” Riley cradled her foot. Naz appeared at the doorway, drawn by the sounds.
“Not everyone can do this,” Angel was saying. “Got to have good coordination. Catch them with your foot and follow down.”
“What…” Stacy was still not getting it. It seemed as though Angel had been going for the woman’s face with her foot, which was mean and humiliating.
Stacy didn’t see the purpose of treating other people like that. The maids were just trying to stop a home invasion with non lethal weapons…
But from everyone’s demeanor, it didn’t look as though they were out to humiliate the maids. They all seemed to treat this as normal.
“I think it’s not practical for everyone,” Naz spoke to Riley. “What works for me and Angel won’t work for you, because you wear soft shoes.”
“This…” Stacy was trying to process this. It didn’t look as though Naz was being mean spirited, but her words implied that she was also supportive of this face-and-footwear action.
“Oi… oi…” Riley continued. “I think I’ll have to pass.”
“Can’t be helped,” Angel said. “Our safety comes first. Not letting them do face plants is a luxury courtesy.”
Stacy found her voice. “Luxury courtesy?”
By now Naz had figured out that Stacy was confused by the gestures.
“I’ll explain this. People who are shot with our taser guns will go down, and go down fast. So they might hit their heads on the floor.”
“I’m, we’re, not so nice as to protect confirmed hitmen,” Angel said. “So we didn’t do this with the men who tried to assassinate you, Stacy. But we agreed we can extend legit security this courtesy whenever it doesn’t threaten our own safety.”
“Realistically we won’t do this with male security guards,” Riley looked up. “Too heavy. But I figured I could catch that maid’s face with my shoe before she did a painful face plant on the floor. I wasn’t expecting her head to be that heavy.”
“A head is heavy. Most of the time you’re not thinking about it, because you’re supporting your own head when conscious. But someone incapacitated by tasers is going to hit the floor pretty hard,” Naz said. “Riley, never put your foot to stop their fall, unless you’re wearing steel toed boots like me.”
“Da, or do what I do,” Angel said. “Catch their heads on the way down with one foot to prevent them smashing their faces, whether on your foot or onto the floor!”
“An average head is 5kg in weight. If you just put your foot there, it’s like dropping a 5kg bowling ball a height of 1.5 meters onto your foot.”
Angel jerked her head at Naz. “With your steel toed boots, you have to catch them in the air. Face planting on your boots at ground level is hardly any different than face planting on the floor!”
“Whew! That really hurt!” Riley yelped.
“Catch them before they fall all the way, all right?” Angel reiterated. “Momentum builds up. I’m sure Miss Blonde’s nose will hurt a lot when she wakes up.”
“Let’s go.”
“Shoot them again before they recover.”
“Wait, after we shoot them again, they might still recover before we can get away.”
This was because to get out of Rublevka meant driving along a highway that had only one major exit within a 20km stretch.
Naz quickly stepped out of the room.
“Garage has good storage closets. Come, let’s put the maids in here.” And Naz started removing things from a closet.
Riley, Stacy and Angel half dragged, half carried the three defeated maids to the closet. Actually Angel just picked up two maids and carried them over, one on each shoulder. Riley and Stacy had to struggle with Pixie Cut, who seemed to be the lightest but was still pretty hard to carry.
(This leads to ZIL Ecchi 001 Stealsky Maids. If you’d like to read more, just click here. If not, just read on.)
[The link will become active after March 2023. My target is to have four ecchi posts a month. Maybe two will be in text and stories, two will be pictures. At least, that’s the target for now.]
After putting all three maids in the closet, Riley shot them again with her taser gel pistol. Their pretty uniforms were now a nasty mess of sticky white gel stains, but it couldn’t be helped. Then Angel locked the closet and put the key on the floor outside, so it would be easy for rescuers to open.
“Let’s get out of here fast.”
“No need to put that superheavy door back. They already know we were here.”
Naz had parked the Rolls Royce in the shadow of a nearby wall, and the car was completely invisible in low light. Most things were packed in the first place, so there was not much to do other than to put the drones in the boot. Now Naz gave Marilyn an update, drove over and picked up her three teammates.
…
As the sniper, it was also Marilyn’s job to cover her teammates’ retreat. Seeing the two security men start to move again, she shot them yet again with her taser rifle before climbing down the tree.
“Two minute departure,” Marilyn whispered into her radio before turning it off. Even though she would be driving in the opposite direction, she would not move until two minutes had passed. That way the Rolls Royce was not associated with the Lada.
As ZIL was driving out of the neighborhood, three black security vans rushed down the road past the Rolls Royce.
Nobody paid attention to a Rolls Royce Phantom. It was normal for the Rublevka neighborhood. And even if the private security suspected anything, they knew better than to stop a random Rolls Royce and ask questions. It might belong to somebody very powerful and important who could make life difficult for them.
Still, it was half an hour before Stacy could breath freely. She sat back on the bench seat of the Rolls Royce, appreciating the physical comfort without feeling completely safe inside.
“It’s over,” Angel said.
“Not until I upload the information,” Stacy said.
XXX
The trip back to Kirovskaya Ulitsa was uneventful. Naz stopped halfway to change the plates. Marilyn would be doing the same on her own route back to Moscow.
…
After Stacy had uploaded the information, it was time for a mission debrief. So the ZIL team sat around and analyzed what they did wrong.
“It all went well this time, but it could be worse,” Angel said soberly.
“I agree,” Marilyn said without hesitation. “As I’ve heard, the private security company sent reinforcements towards the front gate in 3 vans?
That’s at least 6 people. All of whom would be undoubtedly alert.
Even if I was safely ensconced on a tree, at night, I don’t think I could have taken out more than 3 people before being forced to move. It’s too risky to pit one sniper against that kind of manpower.”
Marilyn didn’t reiterate that she was actually posted at the rear gate. Which means it would have been Naz and Angel who had to confront at least six alert security men at the front gate. Without the benefit of a sniper’s ambush position overhead and concealed by vegetation.
Angel said: “I really was watching the front of the garage. I did not expect the maids to show up inside the garage just like that. Fortunately them showing up inside means I was behind them. And more fortunately I was in my cheerleader sneakers, which are very silent.”
“Their shoes are formidable,” Riley sighed.
Women appreciate shoes. This is something that men perpetually underappreciate. Men’s appreciation for female shoes tend to be limited to things like red four inch stilettos. ZIL members were marveling at the maids’ ultra silent shoes. Stacy regretted not photographing the shoes so she could ask her Benefactors later. Angel and Naz reminded themselves that the next time they should ask for name and contact number of the manufacturer. These shoes were perfect for stealth missions.
“By the way, about the maids: I did not see them outside the rear gate,” Marilyn said. “Where was their car?”
“There was no car,” Naz said. “I was watching the compound and its front approach from multiple drones, remember?”
“Not possible…”
“They must have come from somewhere.”
“Don’t tell me they were hiding all along in the house?”
“Not possible. I really saw them come and leave on Wednesday. Unless they are clones?”
“I really doubt they came from some underground tunnel.”
…
The talk went on for another minute before Stacy related her strange feeling.
“I think it could have been the operation of Mani. Something magically summoned the maids,” Angel said seriously.
Mani! So that was it!
Stacy’s uncomfortable feeling in the World Trade Center had been because she was there to interview some bankers. The operation of financial magic caused these feelings.
“If it’s Mani at work, no wonder I had this weird feeling just now.”
“I think we all felt it,” Angel said. “I don’t have Mani. But when I see somebody who is super wealthy, sometimes I also have this weird or uncomfortable feeling. You know, they just wave a hand, and servants appear out of nowhere. And I’m left wondering where the servant or underling was hiding until their master waved his hand.”
“It’s definitely Mani,” Naz said. “When my family gets called into somebody’s basement garage to maintain their fleet of luxury cars, we sometimes feel this Mani thing too.”
“So a summoning spell was at work?” Riley blinked uncomfortably. “Maybe we tripped some invisible magical trap?”
“Don’t know enough to draw a conclusion now,” Stacy said. “But I do think we have to be careful in future. I’ll consult my Mentor. Need to learn more about the existence of magical objects, summoning spells and circles.”
This leads to ZIL Epilogue 001: What happened to Stealsky later. If you’d like to read that, please click here. If not, just click here for Mission 002.
[Epilogues are not included in Mission text because they take place outside the regular running order of the Missions. The aftermath or consequences of a Mission may take a long time to unfold. Not all Missions will have epilogues.]
[Epilogues will be hosted exclusively on my Patreon account, but no payment or information will ever be required for Epilogues. The reason for hosting exclusively on Patreon rather than my own website, is just to avoid visitors accidentally reading the Epilogues. Since they often contain spoilers.
I may not post the Epilogue until many months later. If you’d like to be informed of these updates, please click here (link to be posted later).]