By Anie #200309 Operation Car Alarm #409-81
(As seen through the eyes of an agent)
As we all know, Carmen makes the most interesting heists
ever to be concocted. After hanging around the water cooler
long enough, I have learned the details of quite a few of them.
This one in particular caught my eye (or ear).This is the
case of...
Operation: Car Alarm
By agent 200309
March 23, 1997, the Caribbean
At this point in time(and she still is) Carmen was on a
mask kick. Don't ask me why. Ever since this grand heist
Carmen hasn't been able to get enough of them. Rumor has it
she will decorate the new lodge hall with them. It started
a long time ago, about a month, when Carmen saw this
exquisitely carved mask in a reference book, a.k.a. Carmen's
gift catalog. As usual, when Carmen wants something she
just goes out and gets it. But this proved to be a
problem.
Step one of any heist is to locate the site of
the object. This was at the Alvo Pacifica Grande Museo.
Next one checks security. Now it is boasted in security
clubs a certain seismic system that is used in government
offices around the world. One can make not one sound,
not touch the floor for a second, and not possibly
break in without this irritating little device going off.
Alvo Pacifica just so happened to have one of these.
Our hero stood on a hill about 500 yards away from this
museum for days, peering at through her 85x scope,
wearing a Hawaiian T-shirt and culottes (you haven't lived
'till you've seen Carmen in this! Hee hee!) looking
for some way to get around this minor setback.
You can't destroy the alarm, it will go off.
You can't go in as a guard, the area is off limits to guards
after closing time. Why? The alarm!
You can't steal before closing time, the shifts are 3 hours
long and there are cameras.
Yes the cameras CAN be rerouted but that might cause just a
little suspicion.
You can't come in as a tourist. Where are you going to
stuff a mask that big? In your hat?
Maybe if I didn't make a sound....
We called in a dedicated ninja from division 820 (Japan) and sent
him in. True ninjas make no sound at all, but this darned
alarm went off anyhow! The guards swarmed in and arrested poor
Kasagi but we intercepted the police car and sent him home with
a bonus on his paycheck.
Carmen sighed.
Now Carmen was SURE there was no way around this alarm.
"Ach!" said she.
But our hero had not given up yet!
That point didn't come until about a week later.
Saddened by her defeat, Carmen went out
to the supermarket to get herself a treat. Exit Carmen with
a bottle of sherry and dried apricots. As she passed a rather
beat up car next to hers, she brushed up against it ever so
slightly and a booming alarm was set off! This was very unexpected!
Being the thief that she is, Carmen ducked between the two cars,
waiting for something to happen. It took a second for Carmen to realize
it was only the alarm of the car next to her. Carmen stood up and
surveyed the scene. No one was looking, no one was running toward the
car, yelling and screaming.
No one cared!
A slow a steady smile appeared on her face.
A day later Carmen called a meeting in a the center square of 410
(Jamaica) Everyone who residentially worked there plus a few others
where seated in a semi-circle. The sun was hot and Carmen still
hadn't shown up yet. Some where threatening to leave, when suddenly
Carmen pulled up into the middle of the square in and old brown car,
looking very similar to the car that drove the laundry downtown.
Carmen honked the horn merrily, her cheerfulness bouncing off the
puzzled faces.
Carmen stepped out the car and faced them, then pushed a button
on her key ring and the car beeped. The crowd waited for something to happen
but nothing did. A man in the second row asked the inevitable.
"Carmen, did you just set the car alarm to that thing?"
"Why yes!"
"Why? That car goes off at anything! It's a pain in the neck!"
A second woman set in.
"You don't think your car is safe? What are we, criminals?"
The crowd laughed and Carmen with them. Then she answered with
a plan that could only be marked as the genius that was Carmen.
"Note the car. It has a very, very sensitive alarm. It goes off
at just about anything!"
Carmen kicked the car and the arena was filled the blare of the car
alarm. She shut it off.
"What do you do when you here the sound of a car alarm?"
"Nothing" answered guy #1.
"Why?"
"Because the dang thing goes off so much you know it's probably
just a malfunction. You kicked it. Doesn't mean you were stealing it."
"So car alarms are disregarded because they go off for next to no reason."
"Yeah."
Carmen looked very happy at this point.
"What other very, very sensitive alarm can we think of?"
The light bulbs began to appear over various heads in the audience.
"Good God Carmen that's brilliant!" shouted one.
"Capital idea, Mad'am Sandiego!" said another.
"I don't get it." said a third.
To which Carmen the Patient replied,
"As thieves we have come to fear many types of alarms, especially
the ones we can not hear. Lucky for us, the seismic in Alvo
is quite loud and quite irritating. It can be heard for miles!"
"And this is good, how?" asked Number 3.
"Car alarms! Loud and noisy and irritating as they come, also
sounding for miles. But what makes them different is no one
pays any attention to them. Why? Because they are so defective,
no one takes them seriously! A thief could sound one and STILL
get away!"
"It's true!" came a call from the back.
"I've done it too!"
"Yes!"
The calls of many proud car thieves filled the air. Carmen clapped
her hands and all were silent. Except one.
"Carmen, the seismic 62 is NOT a car alarm. It is quite efficient."
To which Carmen the Benevolent replied,
"The system is so sensitive, anything will make it go off.
We must set it off numerous times until the police believe the
system ineffective, thus eventually giving us enough time to
slip in and out. It is as simple as throwing a rock through
a window, over and over again." and at that, Carmen kicked
a small stone at the car, sending it once more into a fit, which
Carmen righted quickly.
"Carmen, won't the police FIND the rock and know someone was doing
it and it not just the alarm?"
"Why yes, if we where using a rock, but we aren't. Instead, we
will be using... ice."
"Ice?"
"Sculpted into pellets, the ice will be shot through an air duct
in the ceiling. Seeing as Alvo is in the Caribbean, the pellet
won't last long after it's purpose has been fulfilled. No evidence,
no mess, except a small drop of water. We will keep close tap
on conversations until we feel that the situation is ripe, and
then, it is ours for the taking."
The crowd looked at her, stunned. She was a beautiful woman, in her
red light linen blouse around and matching pillatzo pants. A straw hat
shaded her face but one could still see it beaming, the blue eyes
sparkling.
Standing there in front of that beat up brown car, stood a genius.
The crowd cheered!
She was their genius, their boss, their thief!
"Nothing can keep her down!" they cried.
Good ol' Carmen comes through again.
* * *
And so it went, Carmen and a few selected would climb to the top
of that hill and shoot the pellets over and over again. Every time
the alarm went off. Every time the police responded diligently...until
the forth or fifth time, that is. Now, the police know that if there
is an alarm sounding, they must respond but there were much more
important things to deal with and the temper was growing short towards
Alvo Pacifica. They were demanded over and over again to have the
system fixed. And each time it was checked, but for obvious reasons,
no glitch could be found. Soon they would be ordered to replace the
system or scrap it all together. A seismic 62 would cost millions to
replace. True it was insured, but for the life of them, they could
not find proof to prove it to the insurance company, thus the cost
would fall completely on their shoulders. So they began to weigh
the odds. True, a ninja had just tried something, but other then
that, all had been quiet. What more could they do but keep checking
the system?
And so it went.
Alvo Pacifica, Caribbean. Thursday, May 7, 1997. 1:27am
It was now a month later. By now the police all but ignored the
signal coming from Alvo Pacifica. As well, the guards decided that
the evening soccer game was far more entertaining than seeing who
was "breaking in".
Which was fine with Carmen.
She strolled around until she found what she had come for, then
flew up through the skylight again. It slowly occurred to the guards
that someone should shut off the alarm. A guard rose out of his
comfortable chair and ambled down the hallway without a care in the
world. Until he saw the empty display case.
"El diablo es aqui!" he cried. Soon the building was swarming with police
as well as two familiar detectives.
Boy George (agent #200899)was the only one close enough to make
out what Zack and Ivy were saying, though he didn't make out everything.
So what he couldn't hear, he ad-libbed as best he could.
Detective dialogue according to Boy George:(Stuff we are pretty sure he
made up is in parenthesis)
Ivy: (God d--n it!)I can't believe we fell for something
so obvious! No duh it was a Carmen crime!
Zack: Don't blame yourself.(Carmen's just the best thief in the
world! We didn't stand a chance!)
Ivy:(Yeah I guess your right) But she just walked right in
and swiped the (couldn't pronounce the name of the mask so he
called it the voodoo mask) Voodoo mask! All this time and it
had just been a trick!
Zack: Well we know she can never try something like that.
Ivy: I bet she would.(And we'd probably fall for it again too.)
Zack: Well, we have a run away mask on our hands and no clue yet.
Ivy: I think that was all she wanted to do, Zack.
Zack: (D--n!)
Ivy: You know what really boils my pasta? She used a crime detection
unit AGAINST us! The irony of it! (makes me so God d--ned
mad! If I ever get a hold of her I'm going to kill her!)
Zack: That's Carmen for you. Ya gotta admit, it was a good idea.
Ivy: Zack!
Zack: Well it was.
Ivy: (@#$%!)Hey, there's someone in those bushes over there!
Zack: Where?
Ivy: There! (and my God what a hunk a man HE is! D--n he's hot!)
This is where Boy George goes off the deep end. Needless to say, Boy
George got a beat down from Ivy when she caught him. His description of
THAT scene typed would have so many parenthesis with dashes in them that
there would be basically no text. I'll just say it wasn't pretty and leave
it at that. Now before you all think EVERYONE's like that, they aren't.
Boy George has a bit of a cursing problem and he's incredibly narcissistic.
What IS common however, is a general fear of Ivey, because, well, Sandiego
rules state we can't hurt them, but Ivy sure can hurt us, and she takes
the liberty quite often.
Still, it was kinda funny to see Ivy chasing him. Boy George is SUCH
a womanizer and Ivy was just the perfect justice.
Wait a minute I'm getting off track here!
As I was saying, that is what conspired between our detective friends.
Meanwhile Carmen has changed clothing and has escaped using the metro.
At 2:00 in the morning, public transportation isn't as low on Carmen's
list as it is during the day. Besides, everyone will be combing the
air and sea for her. They would NEVER suspect getting on a common subway.
Ah, the genius of Carmen.
She came up at a rondeveu point and was picked up by an ordinary looking
cab that one of our guys drives part time. We all regrouped in the basement
of the Blue Shell Inn.
Then, we partied!
Everyone who had been a part of the crime was in (I helped! I had to carry
equipment, but I helped!) which was about twenty people. It was a very
good party indeed. The best part of these victory parties is when we all
get Carmen to stand on a box or a table and have her make a speech about
what great thieves we all are and that together we could take over the
world and such. Once we all started singing Gospel music. The entire
time Carmen spoke we kept crying out, "Yeah Sister! Say it loud, Sistuhhh!"
It takes a while but Carmen eventually gets into it.
So like usual Carmen made her speech and we acted like a bunch of idiots
until about 6 in the morning when the owner kicked us out because he would
be opening for business soon. Carmen had a glass of wine or two,
then left at about 3am. She usually leaves early. Many others did as well.
She went back to this huge stone hovel inn the rurals and had a good sleep.
We, on the other hand, continued to roam around the countryside until
7 or 8 then went back to camp. Carmen generally doesn't mind or even care
what we do off-duty. So long as we were ready to go by 8:00 on Monday, we
could do whatever we pleased(To a point of course).
We all woke up in time the next day to see our beloved leader on TV.
Because none of my comrades spoke Spanish, I'D been chosen to translate.
Needless to say, it had been a success. The media was all over the
story, all inadvertently praising Carmine's genius. Most of the reporters
caught on to the idea of a car alarm, and hailed her even more. Ivy's
quote about Carmen using a crime detection unit against the law was
repeated several times and the legal system was scolded over and over
again for letting something like this happen.
Carmen was in a very good mood for the rest of the week. The next night
she started a string of thefts all relating to the mask theme but
none would compare to what she had just pulled. I believe that particular
crime wave is over now, but sure as the sun rises, Carmen's already started
something else. That is for sure. Carmen couldn't keep away if she wanted
to. And if that wasn't assurance enough, another volume of Carmen's
"gift catalogue" is missing.
"Whoever said I did it to prove myself an intelligent woman, was right.
But what I'm really after is to prove an intelligent alliterative
can always be found for any situation,... and that I'll
always find it." -Carmen Sandiego
By Anita Knipping
a.k.a. #200309
(
geocities.com/empressleonine5)