casing the room
The office’s door had a decoration of a triangle within a circle, and no bolt of death for locking, but merely a sadly cheap recess-lock in the knob. Nowhere the small nozzle of standard 10.525 GHz microwave alarming. The large windows had no small ends of wires about their frames. This left the possibility only of a magnet-contact alarm, which if so was difficult to jumper but also possible.
Context
The intake interview is, for Marathe, a security survey run in parallel with a recited first-step. While Pat rummages a cabinet he inventories the room like a burglar planning a return: the lock rated ("a sadly cheap recess-lock"), the absence of microwave-alarm nozzles and window-frame wiring noted, the residual magnet-contact possibility weighed, the optimal forced entry chosen ("the bay windows were the optimal office's entry if required"). He can do this because he can "recite complex lines of covering-story on addiction while also... locking down the face and locations of every person" — the cover-story is the noise under which the reconnaissance runs.