by PN Burrows
Realising he was not going to get any further unimpeded reconnaissance of the warehouses, Sam decided to withdraw. ‘I’m OK thanks, but I suppose I should head back to town, it was nice speaking with you. The garden is lovely, very calming.’ Sam turned and slowly walked across the green to the shop.
After a few minutes browsing along each aisle, he picked up a packet of sugar-free gum and a small pack of handy wipes. The shop was unremarkable in the way of produce variety, except there was no children’s paraphernalia, sweets or comics and it was heavily into fresh produce. It didn’t feel like a village shop, either, it felt familiar, structured, and orderly. Placing his items at the till, he asked the assistant, ‘Do you have any bottles of Glendrumlindeen?’
‘I’m afraid not sir, sorry, we have a fine fifteen-year-old single malt at the back. Glendrumlindeen is a lovely smooth whisky, but it’s a little pricey for most of my customers,’ the elderly cashier replied. ‘That’ll be £3.53 please.’
‘So you have heard of it?’ Sam enquired as he paid, noting the strong, calloused hands on the old man. Not the typical hands of a shop keeper, those were from hard labour — and a lifetime of it.
‘Don’t mind my hands, sir, I grow all the vegetable you see here. We’re very independent around here, self-sufficient you might say,’ he explained as he saw Sam looking at his hands. ‘And yes, I enjoy a tipple or two of Glendrumlindeen now and again, as I said it’s a smooth malt, as the name suggests, from a glacial valley in Aberdeenshire.’ He handed the change to Sam, who promptly deposited it into the “Save the Rainforest” charity tin. Having a pocket full of jingly coins was definitely not desirable at that moment.
With no reason to walk back into the compound, and with the staff near the warehouse staring in Sam’s direction, he made his way back to the road. I need to get in there, he thought to himself, and set off formulating a plan.
CHAPTER THREE
As Sam drew parallel to the gates, he realised that he had only observed the trucks arriving from the west, coming from the A525. The roadway to the east looked as if it had infrequent use as the branches of the trees encroached on the head space required by an articulated trailer. Sam considered wandering up there to see if there was another way in, but remembering the satellite photos thought better of it.
It took him five minutes to come upon one of the few long straight stretches on the road, luckily this one had what he required. An artic had passed him a few minutes ago and thanks to the tortuous, almost convoluted road, he should be able to see the top of the next curtain-sided trailer minutes before it got to his location.
The farmer’s gate was typical of most, in that the only form of locking mechanism was a simple drop latch. A handful of sheep were lovingly eyeing up the tall grass that grew between the tractor tracks leading up to the gate. Their field had been shorn low by the multitude of fellow sheep grazing there. One budding escapologist was squeezing its head under the gate via the tyre depression. Upon hearing Sam approach, it struggled to break free, leaving a few tufts of wool on the bottom of the gate. Sam opened the tubular steel gate and let it swing until it caught in the long grass, as if a farmer had simply failed to latch it correctly. This left a small opening for sheep to exit one at a time. Making his way further along the road he located a hole in the hedge of an arable field, large enough for him to squeeze through. Acres of three-foot tall sprout plants spread out in front of him, most of which had been picked clean by the farm labourers at some point over the winter, starting from the bottom of the stem where the sprouts bulked out first and maybe revisiting them in a few weeks to pick the top section. Thanks to a childhood vacation on an aunt’s farm, Sam knew that hand picking was tough on the fingers and damned cold in the winter frost. He was surprised to see that some farmers had resisted modernisation, a sprout harvester would have cut the each stem at the ground and fed it through the de-leafer, stripping the sprouts from the stem as it did so and then ejecting it back on the ground. God he hated sprouts, foul tasting things.
Having assured himself that there were no farm workers in the field, he crouched and waited for the next truck. Within 10 minutes he heard the roar of the engine as it drove around the bend onto the long straight. Three sheep had wandered across the road to graze on the tender long grass of the verge. Sam heard the vehicle slow down and then crawl towards the sheep. As it passed he caught a glimpse of a very unhappy driver as he honked his horn. The sheep took little notice, having heard the trucks roar by all of their lives. With a squeal of brakes the truck came to as slow stop and the driver begrudgingly exited the cab to shoo the daft animals out of the way.
Sam watched as the driver walked around the front of the cab. Sam stealthily crept from his hiding place and snuck under the trailer’s under-ride guard beneath the trailer bed. Not having hid under a lorry before he was not really sure what to expect, but he knew border patrols and customs officials constantly removed would-be immigrants from articulated axles. Thankfully the weather was dry and so was the underside of the trailer. Cramped and perilously balanced on an axle between two bulbous air reservoirs for the braking system, Sam held on to the cross-beams whilst waiting for his unwitting chauffeur to move off.
He had previously thought that being in the back of the army’s eight-tonne trucks was the world’s worst ride, but now he knew differently. He’d never have dreamt the journey of a quarter of a mile could possibly be as nerve-wracking as this. He was, of course, bereft of the truck’s suspension. He felt every bump, stone and pothole all the way up to his teeth. The road seemed to zoom along at a hundred miles an hour, even though he knew the lorry was only doing a maximum of forty. Every twist of the road threaten to dismount him from his precarious perch, which would result in him either being run over, squashed between the axle and road or worse, dragged alive whilst the tarmac stripped away his flesh. The dust billowed up from the road, threatening to deposit grit into Sam’s scrunched-up eyes. To breathe he had to cover his mouth and nose with the crook of his arm whilst still maintaining a firm hold on the chassis. The thirty-second trip was more of a sphincter-clenching, white-knuckle ride than anything he had ridden in the theme parks and thankfully the deafening screech from the breaks signalled the end of the nightmare. Below him he saw the painted tarmac of the warehouse floor and to his vast relief it was stationary. The steady vibrations of the idling engine continued to rattle his teeth and make his pectoral muscles jiggle up and down. He smiled to himself as he thought, I’m armed, hanging for dear life under a truck, trying to break into God knows what and I am worried about jogger’s nipple. The conscientious driver, wanting to allow the turbo to cool down correctly to prolong its life, let the engine idle for a few minutes. Eventually, to Sam’s relief, the jiggling stopped, silence surrounded him like a blanket of bliss and every muscle screamed out in protest.
The driver exited the cab after a few seconds and proceeded to uncouple the clasps holding the curtain on his side of the trailer. Sam heard the whirr of an electric forklift as it drove around the front to park alongside where Sam was still hunched. It was quickly followed by a second. The ratchet catch at the back of the trailer clicked as the tension was removed. The forklift driver lifted the front bar, which then allowed the curtain side to be pulled to the rear. Sam only had a few seconds to make his escape before the driver repeated the process on the nearside of the truck.
He silently lowered himself to the ground. A quick scan for personnel and cameras showed only three cameras, all of which were pointing toward the entrances. The warehouse was a large, open-plan design. It had four sets of closed double doors, each set leading to a burgundy painted roadway. This gave the lorry drivers a clear indication where they should drive. Each had a large rectangle for the designated loading bay. The 30-foot span between the painted roadways was separated by low pseudo walls created by various crates and stacks of blue GKN pallets. With few precious seconds left, Sam rolled beneath the under-ride, crouched
and quickly made his way to a collection of stacked crates.
Sam heard one of the forklifts approach from the rear of the trailer and the clatter of the tines echoed across the semi-deserted warehouse as it set the pallet down near his hiding place. A quick flash of red and it was trundling around the cab as the other appeared from the rear. The lorry driver walked around and started unfastening the clasps on this side. As he pulled the curtain side back, Sam had his first glance at the cargo: thirteen blue pallets per side, each containing four nondescript black fifty-five gallon metal drums. The forklift drove away as it deposited the fourth pallet. He could see a small label on each barrel, but it was too far away to read. Keeping his head well below the level of the barrels he made his way out from between the crates towards the barrels, crouching down just as a forklift delivered the fifth pallet.
In the dim light Sam could just about read the label. Each drum was identical and each stated that the contents were Liqualin CC, a highly alkaline industrial cleaning agent suitable for the food industry.
FFS, this can’t be right, Sam thought as he crept back to the safety of the crates. He was sure something nefarious must have been happening, none of this made sense. He almost stood up and walked out. What would they say? ‘Hey you! You shouldn’t be here, get out.’ He’d risked life and limb under the lorry for nothing and generally made a fool out of himself.
He steeled himself as his gut instinct told him that he should look around a little bit more, as his gut had served him well in the past. The artic was efficiently unloaded and the driver drove along the burgundy track and out of the fourth doorway. The heavy doors swung open automatically for him and closed afterwards, returning the interior to a yellowy incandescent gloom.
One of the forklifts was moving around the wall furthest from the doors. It picked up and removed an extra-wide stack of crates — the speed at which this was performed suggested that the crates were not as loose and haphazardly-stacked as their appearance suggested. The removal revealed a grey, metal-framed exit, leading on to a wide rubber conveyor belt. The belt went up into the darkness on a trajectory that would take it through the back wall, just below the eaves. Three more electric forklifts appeared from behind the rear pallets, each with powerful floodlights mounted on the top of the safety cab. Sam ducked down, the shadows of his hiding place swaying in front of him as the trucks manoeuvred close by. He heard a hard clang of metal on metal as the tines jangled on the carriage. The shadows moved violently and suddenly he was back in the gloom as the trucks raced the short distance toward the conveyor. Peeking around the crates, Sam could just make out that unlike the other forklifts, these had specific drum carrying attachments. The lead truck rotated its drum, various hydraulic pipes becoming taut with the pressurised fluid that controlled the hydraulic rams. It carefully deposited the drum on the metal framework, where it gently rolled towards the end of the conveyor. As the area was now illuminated by the trucks’ lights, Sam could clearly see the conveyor. It had large lugs which were spaced at regular intervals along the rubber belt, preventing the barrels from rolling back as they were quickly transported into the murky shadows above. Within ten minutes, 104 barrels disappeared as the forklifts whisked about in a precisely choreographed dance. All the pallets were stacked away, the opening was covered again and the warehouse returned to a yellow crepuscular glow provided by the underpowered ceiling mounted bulbs.
Now that was unusual, he thought, peering from behind his cover to look up into the darkness.
No sooner had the lights gone out than the double doors opened once again. Sam realised that his little escapade with the sheep had cut their timing to the bone. The process repeated itself, only this time there was a few minutes spare between each delivery.
As Sam was stuck there all day, he realised that it was only because the adapted barrel-carrying forklifts are so well obscured that they had prevented their drivers from seeing his crouched run from the artic earlier. As Sam watched from the relative safety provided by the crates, he used the wet wipes to clean away the grime from his under-truck voyage. At approximately four-thirty the last delivery arrived. Upon completion of their task the workmen called it a day, parked their trucks at the charging stations, locked up the front doors and disappeared through an unseen door that Sam heard close, but could not see.
Pausing to listen for any stragglers, he jogged towards the hidden conveyor. Sam squeezed past the crates, jumped and continued to jog up the now-still rubber into the darkness. He could feel the air change as he passed through the side of the building into what he could only assume was a cavern, cave or tunnel into the rock face. His shadows caused by the warehouse lights danced onto the rubber, obscuring the lugs and making progress dangerous. He paused, there was a faint glow ahead, possibly a hundred feet or so, but not enough to proceed safely. Taking his pocket torch out, he shielded the beam with his hand and clicked through the brightness settings with the rubber toggle on the bottom. With the torch set on low, and wishing he had brought the red filter to preserve his night vision, he continued upwards.
As he progressed higher he could hear rhythmic clanks of automated machinery and slowly it came into view. The barrels were corralled onto a series of metal holding frames. A robotic arm hung expectantly at the end of the conveyor waiting to grasp any barrel that nudged its sensors and place it on to the gravity-fed racks. Sam did a quick count and calculated that there was nearly a thousand barrels still in the stands. At the end of the colossal framework a barrel would roll out onto a set of rollers that caused it to rotate and spin around like an energetic break-dancer whilst a pair of nozzles sprayed it with a clear liquid. Counting the seconds, each barrel was completely sprayed every twenty seconds with a few seconds for the liquid to set and then it was rolled off into the darkness again. Three lorries per hour, eight hours a day, 104 drums each, nearly two and half thousand barrels a day.
‘A mighty strange operation for barrels of commercial cleaner,’ Sam muttered to himself.
He lowered himself to an inspection gantry and followed it round as it took him closer to the spraying apparatus. His access was blocked by a latched gate and warning sign proclaiming the fumes from the spray to be hazardous if inhaled. He looked across and saw a large extractor funnel presumably removing the noxious vapours.
He saw another gantry butted up against the rock face, with large domed wall lights providing enough light for him to stow his torch. The walkway followed the next conveyor down another dimly lit tunnel. The dry walls had machine marks which clearly indicated that it was man-made and not a natural occurrence. There were several steel doors in the side of the tunnel, securely locked with no visible latch or locking mechanism on this side. Sam came upon a row of twelve lockers, each one held a garment that he recognised with trepidation. He’d had to wear, train and fight in enough versions of a CBRN suit to recognise these. Chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear protective suits, or Hazmats if you were a civilian. These were top of the range. Each had a self-contained breathing apparatus to ensure a supply of breathable air and had a variety of dosimeters and detection patches on the arms.
Sam took a step back from the locker, looked at a barrel which was trundling past and looked back at the meters on the arms.
‘Oh shit!’ he involuntarily expelled, as he checked every locker. Each was a duplicate of the first. He examined the detector patches to check their status, each was thankfully clear. Upon noticing a portable Geiger counter at the base of a locker he turned it on.
There was no audible clicking, just a large display with quantified radiation levels displayed. Each level was stylised with an icon and with an indicative colour signifying the threat level. Thankfully the needle was in the safe zone and Sam placed the device back and closed all of the doors.
All that shit about keeping it fresh and local when they’re dumping toxic waste down the mines. Sam removed his iPhone from his jacket, obviously there was no
signal underground. He typed a descriptive message to Matt, this was pretty serious and he needed to get word out to the authorities. If he was unfortunate and something happened to him, the perpetrator would more than likely remove any items he carried to examine later. If they took the phone above ground, it would reconnect and send the message. Let the full force of the law fall upon you. Next he took a few photos as evidence and attached them to a second email to Matt.
Sam continued to look along the tunnel and found a few more doors further along. One led to a tiled room, with aggressive looking full-body shower arrays. Another was a toilet block which he gratefully used, though he dared not flush because of the noise.
The last door before the gantry terminated held a frosted mesh window. Fluorescent light shone through from the room behind. Creeping up to it, Sam carefully listened for any activity and scanned the door for any locks or alarms. Curiously it had neither, just an old-fashioned heavily-worn brass door knob. Slowly opening the door a fraction to peer through, Sam saw a corridor going left and right. From the crack he had created between the door and jamb he could just make out a corner at the far end where the corridor angle right where it hit the toilet block. Opening the door silently, he stepped into the frame to allow his left eye to peek the other way. It was clear. There was a set of two blue fire doors thirty feet away, the corridor was illuminated via standard fluorescents and there was a fire hose on one wall but no cameras. He stepped through and cautiously started to make his way to the fire doors.
Halfway down the corridor, a slight glint of light caught his eye just as he walked into what looked like fine spider threads hanging from the ceiling.