Steve's Villa
At the absolute peak of noon, the blistering California sun beat down mercilessly on the sprawling, wealthy hills northwest of Los Angeles.
Arthur remained perfectly still, his muscular frame carefully and methodically hidden among the thick, leafy branches of a massive oak tree.
His heavily modified vintage motorcycle was already completely gone, tucked safely away into the invisible void of his dimensional private space!
It was precisely because of the absolute, undeniable existence of this supernatural private space that Arthur had managed to flawlessly tail the cautious Stella Bridger over the past few grueling days without being exposed.
Otherwise, relying entirely on his current, relatively amateur tailing methods, his cover would have been completely blown by the professionals long ago!
Raising his newly purchased, high-resolution tactical binoculars to his eyes, Arthur gently pushed aside a cluster of green leaves obstructing his view.
He seriously, meticulously observed a heavy vehicle parked securely in the dense shadows about twenty meters away from his elevated vantage point.
That specific, menacing vehicle was none other than the heavy-duty Dodge Ram 3500 Van that Arthur had personally, aggressively modified with his own calloused hands back at the warehouse.
There were at least two quiet people sitting in the front cab of the armored van, though his sharp eyes calculated there could easily be more hidden in the reinforced back.
The absolute only thing Arthur could be entirely sure of was that the legendary master gold thief, Charlie Croker, and the stunning Stella Bridger were both sitting inside that van right now.
They were currently maintaining a tense, silent vigil, observing a massive, sprawling luxury villa situated dozens of meters away.
Unsurprisingly, that heavily fortified fortress should absolutely be the private villa the traitor Steve had purchased with his stolen wealth after fleeing to Los Angeles.
Finally found it! Arthur thought, a cold, predatory thrill racing through his veins.
Steve's lavish villa was located northwest of the sprawling city limits of Los Angeles, completely isolated and only about twenty kilometers away from the glittering, famous streets of Hollywood.
This was the absolute pinnacle of wealthy residential areas in Los Angeles, sitting no less than forty or fifty kilometers away from the busy, congested downtown commercial district.
However, the scenic estate was beautifully nestled between the towering mountains and the water, offering a breathtaking, unobstructed view overlooking the vast ocean to the west.
In terms of both pristine environment and highly exclusive location, it easily ranked among the absolute top five luxury communities in the entire Los Angeles area and its wealthy surroundings.
As a direct result, there were many sprawling luxury villas built into these hills, most of which carried staggering price tags that started at several million dollars.
One had to deeply keep in mind the tragic financial reality of the youthful body Arthur had miraculously possessed.
His predecessor's working-class parents had toiled and bled for decades in the unforgiving city, and the cramped, decaying house they had finally managed to buy was only worth about a hundred thousand dollars at most.
However, the inheritance tax and annual property taxes in the United States were notoriously, aggressively high!
If his poor predecessor had desperately wanted to legally inherit that modest house, he would have been brutally forced to pay nearly seventy thousand dollars in cold hard cash just to cover the suffocating taxes.
So, up until this exact moment, Arthur genuinely hadn't even thought for a single second about paying those outrageous taxes to inherit the old, third-hand apartment of his predecessor's family.
If he possessed the massive money, he would just buy a brand-new, luxurious estate of his own.
Anyone who actually wanted that old, crumbling property could happily have it.
Down on the street, Charlie and Stella observed Steve's fortified villa for a tense, quiet while before finally starting the heavy van and driving away into the winding hills.
However, Arthur absolutely did not leave his hidden vantage point with them; instead, he stayed securely behind in the branches to continue his meticulous, tactical research.
I finally know exactly where Steve lives! he mused, lowering the heavy binoculars.
The crucial next step is to seamlessly find a flawless way to get inside those walls.
And then, completely take the mountain of gold straight out of his secure safe.
With the absolute, physics-defying power of his invisible private space, Arthur wasn't actually worried in the slightest about being unable to physically remove the heavy gold from the vault in a short amount of time.
He indeed didn't possess the stunning Stella's world-class [Lockpicking] skills just yet, but the internal cubic volume of his dimensional void was now incredibly massive, comparable to the size of half a room.
If he simply couldn't take the heavy gold bars out directly through the reinforced steel doors, Arthur could just aggressively pack up the entire, multi-ton safe and take it completely away with him into the void.
Afterward, in the absolute safety of his own home, he could take his sweet time meticulously opening the heavy safe without any ticking clocks or armed guards rushing him.
He had thoroughly tested the system's absolute limits before.
As long as his bare hand made direct physical contact with an object, regardless of its immense weight or size, it could be directly and instantaneously collected right into his private space.
This was exactly why Arthur was supremely confident he could flawlessly steal the massive, ill-gotten gains right out from under Steve's paranoid hands.
What his highly intelligent mind desperately needed to figure out as soon as humanly possible was exactly how to physically enter Steve's heavily guarded villa without triggering a massive firefight.
This was undeniably going to be a significant, highly lethal challenge!
Steve's luxury villa was incredibly large, and precisely because it was built directly into the steep mountainside, the surrounding vegetation and ancient trees were very dense.
Therefore, the visual privacy of his sprawling villa was exceptionally excellent, hiding it from prying eyes.
Sweeping the perimeter again, Arthur noted there was at least one heavily armed, professional guard patrolling the outside of the main gate, guarding the entrance fiercely twenty-four hours a day.
The high, unforgiving perimeter walls surrounding the estate were aggressively topped with razor-sharp barbed wire and hooked directly into a lethal, high-voltage electrical grid.
Inside the villa's manicured grounds, two highly alert, aggressive bully breeds were kept actively roaming to tear apart intruders.
Arthur didn't even know yet exactly how many other heavily armed guards were stationed inside the opulent villa itself.
Furthermore, he genuinely didn't know if the interior hallways were completely rigged with various overlapping, high-tech surveillance cameras and motion sensors.
What an incredibly vigilant, paranoid guy, Arthur thought, a grim smile touching his lips.
This massive, military-grade security must absolutely be designed to guard against Charlie and the surviving crew!
Steve used to be a highly trusted, core member of Charlie's elite team of master gold thieves.
Over a grueling year ago, they had perfectly executed a flawless heist together, robbing an entire ton of pure gold bars from a ruthless Italian Mafia family.
But Steve had violently betrayed Charlie and the others, aggressively shooting and killing John Bridger, the seasoned mentor of the team and Stella's beloved father, in cold blood.
At the chaotic time of the betrayal, because Charlie and the rest of the surviving crew had completely plunged into the freezing, icy depths of the glacial lake, Steve only managed to see John's lifeless body floating to the dark surface in the bitter end.
So, the deeply paranoid Steve probably fiercely suspected that Charlie and the others weren't actually dead at all.
Therefore, even though more than a full, agonizing year had passed since that snowy day in the Alps, he was clearly still on absolute, high alert, desperately guarding his stolen empire against possible, violent retaliation from Charlie and the elite crew.
After Charlie and the others had completely left the winding mountain road, Arthur finally emerged silently from his leafy hiding place and began to seriously, methodically study exactly how to physically enter Steve's fortress.
Charlie Croker and his group had an entire, highly specialized team of elite criminals at their disposal, so physically entering Steve's villa was fundamentally not an impossible, insurmountable difficulty for them.
One of their core team members, the quirky Lyle, was undeniably one of the absolute top technological hackers in the world.
With Lyle actively taking action behind a keyboard, entirely paralyzing the entire Los Angeles centralized traffic grid system would be an absolute breeze.
Not to even mention effortlessly tapping Steve's secure phone lines and digitally bypassing his home's complex security mainframes to seamlessly enter the villa.
The absolute only thing Charlie's crew found incredibly troublesome was exactly how to physically take out an entire, staggering ton of heavy gold bars and successfully escape Steve's heavily armed pursuit in the chaotic city streets.
And this logistical nightmare was precisely what Arthur didn't need to worry about in the absolute slightest, thanks entirely to his dimensional void.
However, Arthur operated completely as a lone wolf; he absolutely didn't have his own elite technological team to remotely support him and hack the grid.
So, exactly how to silently break into Steve's fortified villa and ruthlessly deal with the possible armed guards became Arthur's absolute biggest, most pressing headache.
Fortunately, on these unforgiving streets, there is absolutely always a hidden way in!
After meticulously and silently wandering back and forth around the dense forest perimeter of Steve's sprawling villa for several grueling hours...
...Arthur finally, triumphantly found a massive, glaring structural shortcut.
Steve's luxury villa was precariously located directly on a steep, jagged mountainside.
Most of his sprawling villa was aggressively enclosed by those towering, high walls connected to the lethal high-voltage electricity.
But in one highly specific, isolated section at the very rear of the luxury villa, there was absolutely no high wall at all.
Because that narrow gap of about ten meters sat directly above a sheer, terrifying cliff that was a staggering forty or fifty meters high.
For this exact reason, Arthur specifically hiked all the way down through the dense brush to the rocky bottom of the cliff to investigate.
Looking straight up at the towering rock face, he could clearly see the sheer scale of this imposing cliff.
Except for a few tiny, precarious spots clinging with tough weeds, the absolute rest of the massive rock area was almost completely, brutally barren.
It was a nearly sheer, vertical cliff, dropping at an absolute, unforgiving angle of about ninety degrees.
After scaling this terrifying cliff, Steve's unprotected villa boundary was less than twenty meters away.
And the two highly alert, aggressive bully breeds Steve kept roaming the grounds were let loose entirely at the main villa entrance, which was naturally the gate that looked easiest for a standard crew to break through.
The physical distance from that heavily guarded front gate to this sheer rear cliff was well over two hundred meters of thick estate grounds.
So, if one miraculously managed to climb straight up from this vertical cliff...
...it would be almost entirely, completely impossible to alert the armed guards stationed at the front gate or trigger the barking of the two distant dogs.
The absolute only terrifying uncertainty then would be the possible, hidden guards stationed deep inside the villa corridors and the murderous Steve himself.
It could confidently be said that this sheer cliff was absolutely the safest, most flawless tactical shortcut Arthur could ever find to infiltrate Steve's villa!
The only massive, potentially lethal trouble was exactly how to physically climb this nearly vertical, ninety-degree wall of stone without dying.
Arthur stared up at the imposing rock, his heart hammering with adrenaline. I feel I absolutely need to study this incredibly carefully!