* * *
Colonel Manny Trujillo stopped the line the minute the explosion and smoke appeared. They were on radio silence but this occurrence might trump that order. The billow of smoke was huge, way beyond what mere munitions would have wrought. They were four clicks from the perimeter, the Dhruvs were one click from them, or at least the way the crow flies. To see what happened they would have to go around the hill right in front of them, as it blocked their line of sight. The temptation was too much for the Colonel, so he pulled out his cell phone and turned it on. “That’s funny, I’m not getting a signal?”
He picked up a mic from one of the trucks radios, yet paused before speaking. They were taught as soldiers to think on their feet and not to be robots. His instincts told him that they had just lost a whole squadron of attack choppers and there wasn’t much in the way of war sounds to go with that loss. That was the puzzling part, they were only a click away from the Dhruvs and there should have been a discernable exchange of munitions from both sides, both felt and heard.
The temptation was too much. He keyed the mic, “This is Rojo Leader to Base, come in.” Nothing. Next, Colonel Trujillo ordered that every man pull out their cell phones (that they were not supposed to have) and see if they had coverage. So far, no one had any bars on their contraband phones. What now? Go ahead with the attack? Or go back to get reinforcements, and of course, Intel?
* * *
Casper Lopez was looking at his phone. The honcho said, “Check your phones,” but he was getting no reception so he ventured up the little hill to his right. It was no more than twenty-five feet up, but he thought that might be the difference to earn him the admiration of the Jefe. He would soon find out how right he was about his location making a difference.
First he pointed it toward Ibarra, then toward what would be the ocean some miles away, then toward the front of the convoy, where he could see the billowing smoke over the hill. The Colonel waited impatiently for everyone to report back about any noted phone coverage, but no one had a signal.
The next thing Casper knew, he was coming out of a state of unconsciousness, his head ringing like he was standing inside a cathedral bell.
Completely in a haze he wondered, what is that smell? His right hand felt hot, he moved it away then it wasn’t any more so he moved it back, then it was hot again. Right over my stomach, why is that? Then he realized his uniform was on fire! He burst awake and rolled over, dousing the flames, but bringing on a whole other kind of pain as he had also been hit with shrapnel in the upper right leg and it was now being jammed in.
He quickly rolled back over and tried to listen, but his ears didn’t work as the intense ringing was blocking all else out. Over everything, his ears were the worst and he put his hands up to them and he cried out, “AYUDA ME!” The last thing he remembered was the Colonel barking orders and the next, he was on his back. He wiped the sweat and debris from his eyes and fought the pain, forcing himself up with every ounce of strength he had.
He discovered two things. First, he immediately found out that his division was a smoldering death pile. Secondly, the reality of his injury came to him one second later as he found out what happened to a person who breaks both their eardrums. His equilibrium lost, Casper immediately fell back on his back and clutched the earth with both hands. The world was spinning worse than when he’d drank too much at his cousin’s wedding.
* * *
Pedro was frozen. He was just a cheese maker. What did he know about wars and bombs? But he could not ignore the call, “Ayuda me.” It was coming from where the hombre with the camera was. He cautiously went to help the man, praying Dios was looking out for him.
* * *
Vincente picked up his phone and got nothing. What the hell? He tried his cell. Nothing. How is that possible? He no sooner got out of his office when he heard rumbling everywhere. Ecuador had just been sent back to the Dark Ages communications wise. His Chief of Staff came running around the corner, saw him, and blurted out with a great air for the dramatic, “We lost contact with both units and your Generals want directions!”
* * *
“They did good,” Vera pointed out to the room.
Pablo looked elated as he spoke, “They did better than good. My Dear, they performed like a well-oiled machine. One by one, we’re reducing their options.”
Matt chimed in, Felipe right at his side. “They’re so deadly.”
Pablo turned and looked at Matt, who was standing next to his tattooed little soldier, “We’re so deadly, Matt. You get that now, right?”
“Yes, Pablo, I’m sorry, I just meant them as a unit.”
“Yes, I know, but I wanted you to hear it from me. It’s ‘we’.”
“Thank you, Pablo. Now can I make a small request?”
Pablo looked very quizzical and replied, “And what would that be, Matt?”
“I want to be here, ’till the end, no matter what that end is.”
“Yes, go on.”
“Well, it’s obvious the dogs are of no use anymore. Can I please let them go?”
“Let them go, Matt?”
“Yes, let them go. They’re of no use to us anymore. I just want to take them out past the perimeter and let them go. Actually, tunnels 1A and 3A both have exits past the perimeter.”
“Yes, that’s true. Okay, Matt. Go make it happen, but at your own risk.”
Vera looked at him proudly from her seat next to Pablo, “Hurry back.”
Pablo instructed, “Felipe, you go too, but you talk to your troops and give them the praise they deserve. Then prepare them for the next wave. This is the calm before the storm so let’s make sure they know to stay humble and work in unison.”
They rode down the elevator in silence. Felipe never talked and Matt had learned long ago not to try to make small talk with him. Vera warned him early on, “You’ll just feel stupid and wished you hadn’t.”
Felipe spoke without looking at Matt, his English was much better since the last time Matt heard him speak, apparently with Pablo’s teaching. “It’s good you thought to let the dogs go free. They should have a fighting chance.”
“That’s my point, Felipe; let’s give them at least that.” He tried not to show the cat-that-ate-the-canary smile as he sensed the man’s guard dropping just a smidgen. Matt said as he got out of the elevator, “See you back soon.”
Matt came through the massive steel doors driving one of the golf carts. One really heard and felt the doors close from behind as one passed through them, as they had a weight and solidness that reverberated through the mountain when they sealed. Pablo told Matt before he left, “You’re on your own now that the action has started. It is a noble act to save the dogs, but it’s not safe out there.”
As one comes out of the tunnel, the first noticeable thing was the enormity of the warehouse. Just the rolling door required two men to open it, as it was over fifty feet tall. Stored inside the warehouse was an array of vehicles, mostly dump trucks, but a few personnel and military type vehicles were interspersed. Many tools were stored in the far left corner of the massive building, and it appeared that Pablo had acquired every tool known to man. To the right was another ramp heading underground to the dog kennels.
Pablo didn’t trust soldiers to be here. He didn’t need mercenaries and their lack of loyalty, so he chose the most loyal soldiers of them all, dogs. He created a labyrinth of tunnels and obtained twenty-five Rottweiler dogs to be centurions. Really, he just wanted to keep people out. The dogs accomplished that, giving him warnings of intruders and that’s all Pablo really needed.
Pablo originally brought in a dog specialist to train Felipe, who in turn trained Matt. Then it was handed over to Matt full time as Felipe had more pressing matters. That had been the opportunity Matt had been looking for. Although the compound was under video surveillance, the tunnels were not.
One day, while walking a dog on the perimeter he noticed a glimmer come out of a bush—a very small glimmer. Upon quick inspe
ction he saw it was a venting pipe. Matt wasn’t sure which type, exhaust or intake, but this was how he’d been putting information together here—in little pieces. This is also how he had been creating his plan, in little bits and pieces.
He came upon the room under the pipe another time as he was leaving the maintenance room. Matt had purchased a bulletproof dog vest and was going to try it on his lead dog, Storm, later that day. He wanted to store the box, so he placed it in the maintenance room adjacent to his personal office. Matt looked to the left as he exited the maintenance room and observed an open door across the hallway, a door that had previously always been locked.
He walked over to the door and covertly peeked in—only to observe Felipe changing what looked like an air filter in a contraption that must be some kind of venting system. Matt saw one side of the room was completely louvered by an angled stainless steel grate that was eight feet high. The thick filter took up half of it. He knew there were many levels in the lair below and now he knew where they got their fresh air.
He made sure Felipe didn’t witness his observation as that would be a source of concern for the over-cautious killer. From the beginning, Matt had created the impression of being nonplussed about almost all subjects other than Vera or the dogs. His total lack of interest in things not of his concern was certainly what gained him the respect and trust of Pablo. He finally had a plan now and the first step was why he came to Felipe the week after the vent room discovery. “I want to put cameras in the dog tunnels.”
The demented one asked, “Why?”
Matt offered, as concerned as could be, “Because if someone is watching us train the dogs and they have a brain, they could use whistles to subdue our dogs and gain access to the tunnels. It came to me yesterday as I was daydreaming.” That earned him a once over from the little maniac, so he asked, just to push his buttons, “Do you ever daydream, Felipe?”
That got him the sucking on a persimmon look, “I will talk to Pablo,” was Felipe’s only reply. Turns out, Matt had recognized that Pablo had a rare oversight and fortunately, Pablo saw the merit in Matt's plan. Matt was thrilled, but of course, he had only won half the battle.
The next day after the room discovery he tried his key on the door. As suspected, it didn’t work. Fortunately for him, Pablo had an aversion to electronic keys or his next idea would have been useless. Stamped on his key was a number two, and stamped on the core of the vent room was a number one. I either need a one key or I need to pull off that handy trick I learned. Matt knew there was such a key as a core-puller and one of his best internal theft cases came from catching someone switching cores.
He had come into a new store to help out. Macy’s wouldn’t promote him as he didn’t have a BA degree (a job requirement), so they just stuck him in different stores where the manager was out and he would act as interim. It was a brilliant way to have a manager they didn’t have to pay the big money to, seeing he was as good as or better than the graduates he was filling in for.
This particular Loss Prevention Manager had had knee surgery and was going to be out three weeks. Matt had never met him.
Matt always found it helpful when starting at a new store to conduct an audit and go through it to get a good grasp on where the store was operationally. Part of the audit was a lock core audit. The Loss Prevention Staff had number four keys. Those keys only went to the loss prevention office and the observation booths throughout the store, which all had four cores. The wisdom there was that since one could not investigate one’s self, if one had no access to an area of a crime, then one would not be a suspect.
All perimeter door cores were stamped with a one core. Only the Store Manager or one of the three assistants had one keys and alarm access codes. During his audit, Matt found a four core on the back perimeter door, near the loading dock. Later in the audit, he found a one core on a security booth.
Although it was good methodical work, it didn’t take a genius to figure out that someone with a four key (probably a loss prevention member) had gotten into the lock box in the Manager’s office and obtained the key that can remove and replace lock cores—the core-puller. That someone then switched the cores, enabling a four key to open a perimeter door.
When the Loss Prevention Manager came back the following month, he was behind bars within two weeks. Matt had him set up and now he was cooling it for a few years in San Quentin. I’ll never forget the look on the poor guys face as I came skidding up to the back dock in my car. The guy was right about to load his haul into the trunk of his car after the store had closed. The disgraced manager had been going out the dock during business hours and hiding merchandise around the dock area for retrieval later. The guy’s face was one of total shock, and if Matt did everything right here today, he was going to see that look again. But this time with much higher stakes at hand.
What he learned from that investigation was as long as you had a key and a core to switch, any door could be converted to an entrance point. The cores were about three inches long and most people had no idea they existed. The doorknob looks like one piece to the layman, but it’s not. That’s why hotels went away from keys, as it’s too easy to defeat a key lock if you have the tools.
Almost anyone looking into a master key box will see the number one key is missing as it sits right up front on top, but no one will miss the core-puller, as every box Matt’s ever seen has them on the bottom row. Once obtaining the core-puller, it was basically like having a 1 key, Matt just needed a core his key worked in to switch them.
There was another room adjacent to the locked door of the vent room, it was the storage and maintenance supply room—a lock my number 2 key does work in. The first part of Matt’s plan was the reason he went to Felipe and reported, “My key broke off in my office lock; do we have a spare in the key box?”
When Matt was given control of the dogs, he was also given an office, a sidearm, and control of the outside fences. The trust embargo was over. After his appointment to his new position within the compound, he remembered that Felipe had handed him his new keys from the box, so Matt knew asking him for a replacement key would garner him an opportunity to make a move.
Without a word Felipe turned and went up the ramp to his office in the warehouse. It was the only office up there and it had no windows, it had only the most basic furniture, with folding chairs and cement floors, even though they were beyond rich. This guy was crazy. Felipe walked across and opened the key box.
All the keys were numbered and Matt was relieved to see they ran in numerical sequence. He closed the gap and got right next to Felipe as his little adversary opened the wall-mounted box. Matt had spent years studying the techniques of shoplifters. He learned early on that if he was going to catch someone stealing he had to be better and smarter than they were. There was no technique he had not seen nor mastered himself, including sleight of hand.
So Matt was very confident that if Felipe made the slightest mistake he could capitalize on it. Opportunity came as Felipe retrieved his new number two key. Felipe realized he couldn’t give Matt the hanger with the number on it, as it had multiple keys left. So he started to unwind Matt’s new key to remove it from the ring. It provided him ten seconds to observe the board unnoticed.
Matt saw the ‘C’ on the white hanger tab, the core-puller key was on the bottom left, perfect. Felipe undid the key and went to his desk to get a spare ring, and in a move worthy of Houdini, Matt reached in, got the core-puller key and pocketed it as seamlessly as could be. A true tribute to all the good thieves he’d caught anyway because a camera was better.
A chill suddenly went down his spine. If this guy was one of those people who record their office all the time, then this was his last day on Earth. Felipe turned back with the new ring and said, “Did you get old key out yet?”
“No, I need this to get into maintenance. One step at a time Felipe.”
Matt watched Felipe replace the number two holder as it had two keys left; several of the numbers had
more than one spare on the ring. Matt saw that Felipe never noticed the gap in the corner as he closed the cabinet.
Without fanfare Matt was gone. He hated that little fucker and would do so forever since Vera told him the truth about who Felipe really was, and what he’d done. Matt thought, let’s just say, no tears will fall after I’m done here with these assholes. Matt tested the core-puller on the maintenance door right away and was pleased to see it worked. He was so tempted to pull it now and go see that room. But no, waiting was right. I’ve made it this far on patience.
He re-pocketed the key and listened to his smarter self as he went inside the maintenance room and got out the needle nose pliers. He came out, approached his door and proceeded to get the broken key out. As he was pulling it free, a voice came from behind, “Be more careful next time, Gringo. We’re almost out of keys.”
“Don’t know my own strength,” Matt said, as he tried to joke with Charles Manson’s twin brother. The close call reaffirmed that without patience and proper timing, this would never happen. He needed some other reason to spend time down here, lots of time, but what? That’s when he got the camera idea. It looked like he was being over-cautious to Felipe, but what he really did was create a brilliant camera system with blind spots he built in. So right now, if he followed his created trail, he could get to the room without detection. Everything was a go and it was time to act.
Back then, his impatience almost got him caught, but now was time to enact the plan and he hoped his luck was better than the last time. His first move was to get to the old paint can he placed under the bottom shelf of the maintenance room’s wire rack. Next, he pulled the maintenance core and went to the vent room, holding the can and making sure to travel the path he created. He switched the cores and kept the vent room’s number one core in his pocket.
And the Meek Shall Inherit (Harbinger of Change Book 2) Page 8