Looking back toward the ledge and the opening, She noted that there was a gap in the cabinets wide enough to climb between, giving her the option of approaching the target from the top of the cabinets instead of from below. She knew that the cabinets wouldn’t hold much weight, but if she could stand up on the ledge, she might be able to hook the target with something and pull the target over toward the opening, placing it within easy reach and out of the view of the cameras.
The target was a ceramic-lidded pot with two ceramic arms on both sides, giving it the appearance of a Grecian urn. She did a quick inspection of what was available on the ledge and countertop, and she noticed there were several large paperclips as well as a ball of twine. She took a paperclip and bent it until it resembled a fishing hook. She tied the end of the hook to the twine and unrolled several feet. After that, she stood up. By standing on her tiptoes, she could just see the target above the edge of the cabinets.
She held the ball of twine in one hand and the improvised hook in the other. She took aim and let the hook fly at the target. The first throw was several inches short of the mark. She pulled the twine back, listening carefully for the sound of footsteps. She took aim again and let the hook fly a second time. This time, just as the hook reached the pot, she jerked slightly on the twine, causing the hook to stop its forward momentum and curl towards the closest arm on the side of the ceramic pot. The hook dropped through the arm with a slight clinking sound. She gently pulled the twine, making sure not to pull the hook loose. The hook caught the pot’s arm, and soon the pot was sliding across the top of the cabinets toward the opening where she was waiting. It made a low scraping noise, but there were no sounds of footsteps approaching. She continued pulling the pot until it was within reach.
She unhooked the paperclip, untied it from the twine, and bent it back into shape before putting it in its original position on the ledge. She rewound the twine and put it back in its original position as well. Reaching up again, she grabbed the pot, opening it quickly to make sure that the contents were there. She closed the pot and moved back to the ledge to start working on an exit strategy.
A lone watcher studied the video monitor carefully, looking for any sign of movement. Several cameras were simultaneously sending signals to the monitor, allowing the watcher to see if anyone were entering or crossing the rooms. Three cameras were pointed at the pot in one room, and she was certain that any attempt to reach or take the pot would be seen.
The watcher looked closely at the images coming from the room next to one with the pot, trying to see evidence of movement. Even in the low light, the cameras captured images with incredible detail.
The video monitor showed sixteen different camera images at the same time, and the watcher scanned them all repeatedly. If something caught her eye, a push of a button would enlarge the view from any of the cameras until it filled the video monitor’s screen. Another button would return the image to its normal size so an operator could scan all of the images together.
After several minutes of checking and rechecking the images coming from the room next to the one with the pot, the watcher glanced at the displays from the cameras trained on the pot itself. She jumped to her feet. Something was wrong: the pot was missing!
The watcher enlarged the center camera on the pot and backed it up until the pot was in view. She pressed play to see what had happened. The pot was sitting in its proper place, and then it slowly slid to the right and out of the picture. She checked the other two cameras and saw the same thing. The pot simply slid out of view of the cameras.
She was about to turn on all the lights and make a search of the rooms to find out what happened to the pot, when she heard a voice coming from behind her.
“Want a cookie, Mommy?”
Emily McCafferty Anderson spun around. There, standing in the doorway of her office, was her twelve year-old daughter, smiling triumphantly. Jamie Michelle Anderson was dressed all in black and was holding the pot that Emily used as a cookie jar in one hand while eating a cookie held in her other hand.
Emily looked at her daughter with a mixture of absolute surprise and pride. Reaching her hand out, she said, “Give me the cookie jar please, Jamie.”
Still smiling, Jamie walked forward and handed the cookie jar to her Mom. She licked the cookie crumbs off her fingers and sat down in a nearby chair, waiting for the questions that she was sure her Mom would have for her.
This was a game that mother and daughter had played for years. Emily Anderson had designed the best video surveillance systems on the market, and she now served as a senior executive of the company that manufactured and distributed the systems to military and law enforcement customers all over the world. Ever since Jamie had been a toddler, Emily had used her daughter as a test subject, creating challenges and using the surveillance system to thwart Jamie’s attempts to win their games.
Emily sat down opposite her daughter and took a cookie before putting the cookie jar on her desk. Tonight’s challenge had been one of the hardest Emily had devised to-date. It was also the first time Jamie had won a challenge. Emily knew that Jamie was bursting at the seams to tell her Mom how she had done it, but Emily wanted to make Jamie wait a little to get back at her for winning. Emily ate the cookie slowly, pretending to ignore the impatient look on her daughter’s face.
Jamie knew what Emily was doing, so she leaned back in the chair and smiled quietly at her Mom. She not only managed to grab the cookie jar unobserved from on top of the cabinets in the kitchen, but she also got it back across the living room and all the way to her Mom’s office at the end of the hallway without being seen or heard. She was quite pleased with herself.
Emily looked at her daughter while she ate her cookie. Like Emily, Jamie had red hair, but rather than the light red and fair skin of her Mom, Jamie had auburn hair and skin that tanned lightly in the summer. Her face was similar to her Mom’s, but Emily noted a lot of her husband’s features in her daughter as well. Even at twelve, Jamie was athletic and fearless. She had been taking martial arts classes for almost eight years and already had several junior black belts, tournament trophies, and medals to her credit. There was nothing she wouldn’t try and, so far, nothing she couldn’t excel at when she put her mind to it. She was an excellent student, a warm and outgoing person, and a loyal friend. Emily was very proud of her daughter.
Once she finished the cookie, Emily sat back in her chair and looked at Jamie. “Ok, I know you’re dying to tell me. How did you do it?”
“Are you sure you really want to know, Mom? Would you rather have another cookie first?”
“No,” Emily replied, smiling, “I don’t need another cookie right now. Just tell me how you did it please.”
Jamie proceeded to give Emily the details of how she managed to beat the challenge. Several times, Emily stopped Jamie so she could back up the video monitors and try to see if Jamie were visible from any of the cameras. Evidently, even though Jamie had no idea where the cameras were located, she managed to stay out of sight of all of them.
“How did you get the cookie jar?” Emily asked after Jamie had finished telling her about crossing the living room.
“Well, I knew that you’d have more than one camera on the cookie jar, and there was no way I could just stand up and reach for it. When I saw the string and the paperclip, I remember watching Dad create a hook with string and paperclips a long time ago, and I thought it might work to get the cookie jar out of sight of the cameras. Getting the cookie jar wasn’t that hard. The hard part was getting it back across the living room.”
“How did you do that?”
Jamie told her, and Emily looked at the video monitors again, astonished that Jamie didn’t appear on the images from any of the cameras. She was about to ask another question when she heard the outer garage door opening.
“Dad’s home!” Jamie cried, leaping up and running out the door and down the hall to the kitchen. Emily stood, picked up the cookie jar, and followed her daughter.
A moment