The Forgotten by David Baldacci Page B

had the well-nourished and pleased looks of folks for whom life had held no hardships.
    They punched in the code and the gates swung open.
    As they passed by him neither of them even looked at him. But he looked at them, memorizing every detail of their faces.
    And now he also had the six-digit security code to the front gate, beacuse he’d seen the man input it. The only remaining problem was the surveillance camera.
    He drew closer to the gate and worked on trimming back a bush. His gaze ran up the pole to which the camera was attached. The power line was enclosed in the metal pole, a standard practice, he knew. But once the pole was set in the ground the power lines had to go somewhere.
    He stepped through the gate before it closed all the way and started to work on a patch of lawn running back from the camera post to the fenceline. As he got down on his hands and knees and clipped at weeds and picked up an errant leaf that had had the effrontery to land on the lush grass, he studied the slight hump inthe ground. This was where the trench had been dug for the electrical line running to the gate, which also powered the camera, voice box and security pad.
    He eyed the rumpled contour of the lawn to where it disappeared under the fence. If one had not been looking for it, the evidence of the trench would have been almost invisible. But not to him.
    He had to assume that the power line would be encased in a hardened pipe, but maybe not.
    He rose and walked around the perimeter of the property. He could not go back through the gate without revealing that he now knew the code. He also wondered how often it was changed. They were in the middle of the month and also the middle of the week. If they changed the code at the end of seven or thirty days, which was probable, he still had time.
    He reached the rear of the grounds and saw the vastness of the Gulf spread out before him. Seagulls swooped and dove. Boats either flew across the water or slowly puttered along. People were fishing, sailing, motorboating. That was during the day.
    At night they were moving other kinds of product. The kind he had once been. But luckily he had escaped. Others had not been so fortunate.
    He put his bag of lawn debris in one of the trucks and paused to drink from a cup of water he had filled from one of the large orange water coolers. He glanced at two other men who were working on a tree just inside the fenceline. They were Latinos. There was also one white man, two blacks, and then there was him. He was of indeterminate origin. Technically, he was Caucasian.
    Technically.
    He had never categorized himself that way. He belonged to an ethnic group, a strong one, judging by his features. There had not been many people looking to come to his country and breed with the ones already there. It was remote, it was harsh, outsiders were welcomed not with open arms, but only with suspicion. His people were proud, and they did not take kindly to insult or injury. Well, that was putting it mildly. They never turned the other cheek.
    He crumpled up the paper cup and threw it into the garbage binon the back of the truck. He walked through the rear gate and made his way over near the infinity pool area.
    The Maserati was parked nearby. Lounging next to the pool was the woman who’d been in the car. The man was not there. She had slipped off her sundress and high heels, which sat next to her as she lay back on the chaise. Her bathing suit was tiny, a strip of fabric up top, a thong below. As she rolled over on her stomach he could see nearly all of her revealed buttocks. They were mostly firm, but still soft enough in places to be intensely feminine. She undid the straps on her top and let them fall to the side. Her legs were long, smooth, and toned. Her light blonde hair, done up in a ponytail while in the car, now cascaded along her freckled shoulders.
    She was a very beautiful woman. He could understand why the man in the Maserati had been smiling so smugly,