“No, tower, we don’t see anything. Quiet as a church over there.” He raised his rifle and peered through his scope. “The back area is clear. If there was someone, he could be inside by now.… Clyde, hold up on the south side. We’re gonna check the back of the offices while Jim’s team checks the building. Keep your eyes open.… No, Jim, I don’t give a shit if it’s not your shift. Take a couple of guys and check out the offices. Unless you’d like to call up Gino and cry to him. Maybe he’ll be feeling generous and let you get some more beauty sleep … That’s what I thought. Now get going … Copy that, tower. Heading to the back of the building.”
The two guards started moving again, and I heard a door slam open over by the front guard building. Light shone from a door set into a structure that was part of the main processing facility. Three men hopped into a car and drove across the compound.
“Now, Mag,” I whispered. Everyone in the area would be watching the car. We dashed to the storage tanks and slipped between them. “Now it gets interesting.” I looked at Mag. “You know the drill. Cover me from shadows and corners,” I whispered.
I peered out from the shadows, looking for any movement directly across from the compound. The three in the car were just getting out. Otherwise, the coast looked clear. “I have a general idea where I want to place these, but anything is possible once we get up into the superstructure.”
I patted her head, took a deep breath, and sprinted across the compound, my feet patting against the ground as lightly as raindrops. The superstructure of the chemical plant loomed above me, much of it illuminated in bright lights. I ran into a recessed area that had stairs leading up into the plant where I found a double-set of doors with an Authorized Personnel Only sign on one of them and a single door to the left with a High Voltage sign on it.
“Watch the yard, girl.”
Ensuring I wasn’t in the line of sight to the office building, I went to work on the High Voltage door. I installed that phase-door just as quickly as the last one and set the palm-reader directly into the door under the High Voltage sign. Mag didn’t make a sound as I worked. I gathered my gear and headed up into the infrastructure with two more doors to install. I spent the next two hours working my way around most of the facility, looking for the right spots. Mag and I easily avoided the few plant employees going about their business, and I found the next spot at an upper utility closet door. It was about halfway up the superstructure on the side facing the security building at the main gate. I installed the phase-door slowly, making sure nobody could see.
I placed the last phase-door in the highest location I could find. It faced east, and the sign next to it simply said Maintenance Access. I’d seen workers in gray overalls go in and out during the day, all of them wearing standard tool-belts. Looking down at the three-story building below me with the guards on the roof, I realized I would have to be very careful. If any of them looked up, they might see the soft flashes of light that a door-installation caused. I switched my goggles to thermal and scanned the rooftop below, easily making out the hot silhouettes of each guard. One appeared to be sitting with his back against the wall. His head at a slight angle, I figured he was asleep. The other three were sitting upright in the remaining corners looking out into the desert. I’d have to risk it. This spot was prime real estate for the plan that was taking shape.
I moved quickly, installing the door in record time. I checked the guards several times, but none of them ever looked upwards. I hoped this would be the only door I needed, but I’d put the others in as a safety precaution. Packing up my gear, I figured I was done for the night. I moved down the stairs along the west side of the tower. A glimmer near the highway caught my eye, easily seen from my vantage point. The vehicle came down the road and stopped at the gate as one of the guards came out to greet what I could now see as a stretched limousine. I enhanced the magnification and zoomed in. I briefly saw the coarse features of Gino DiMarco flash in the streetlight as the mobster said something curt to the guard and disappeared back into the car. I ran as silently as I could down the steel steps, Mag a silent shadow trailing behind me.
The guard hollered to his partner in the booth, and the gate swung up just in time for the already moving limousine to pass through. Before the gate had come down, I covered three of the eight flights of stairs to the bottom. “Mag, get back to the storage tanks,” I told her as I rounded another flight of steps and raced down. “I want to see if I can learn anything from DiMarco.”
It took us another twenty seconds to make it down the rest of the stairs. We leapt down the last flight, hitting the dirt and running without breaking stride as the limousine pulled into the parking lot next to the Lexus. I paused, crouching in an island of darkness in the middle of the compound, and waited for DiMarco to get out. The driver got out, moved to the back door and opened it. DiMarco stepped out, lighting a fat cigar as he stood up straight. Two of the perimeter guards disappeared around the corner of the building. DiMarco didn’t acknowledge them, and they didn’t wave. I’m sure they knew better.
“I don’t know how this fucking guy does it,” DiMarco said to the driver. “He never sleeps. Good thing I ain’t paying him by the hour … and he sure has made me a mint, hasn’t he?”
“Yes, sir, Mister DiMarco.”
“Leave the motor running. I won’t be long, and I want to get back to the house. I don’t want to miss CSI. I fucking love that show. Who says T.V. can’t be educational?”
“Yes, sir.”
DiMarco walked towards the front of the building, and I bolted from my spot, sprinting as silently as I could. I ran around the trucks in the dirt lot and slipped into along the darkness near the fence-line. The driver neither heard nor saw me as I passed by. My objective was in sight. The guards were out of sight around the corner of the building now, making their way along the north side of the compound.
Running parallel to the back of the building, I cut a sharp left as I approached the dumpster. I’d have one shot. I leapt up and in one stride cleared the edge of the dumpster. My left foot came down on the edge hard with a loud BANG as I jumped up. My momentum carried me forward and up. I hit the wall with my right foot and pushed up as hard as I could. Reaching up with both hands, I caught the edge of the building and pulled, my momentum carrying me the rest of the distance. My feet cleared the edge of the building by a foot. I came down, rolled forward and stopped in a low crouch. The guards on the north side stopped when they heard the noise and stared at the building.
“What the hell was that?” the driver yelled.
I heard the limo door open and close as I approached a roof access door. It stood near the edge of the roof on the parking-lot side, leading down into the building.
“I’ll take a look, guys,” the driver hollered at the two guards.
“Roger!” one of the guards shouted. I heard him say something quietly, undoubtedly over his radio, and I could feel sniper-eyes scanning the rooftop for any signs of life.
I had to move slowly around several patio lounge chairs and a picnic table as I crossed the roof. If they saw any part of my outline, they might shoot first and apologize to DiMarco after. I heard footsteps below walk up to the corner of the building and stop. I peered down over the edge. I saw the driver peek around the corner with a Beretta in his hand. I moved back to the door, reached into a pocket, pulled out my lock-pick set and prepared to work on the lock. Fortunately, the stairwell entrance lay between me and the snipers. I pulled out a torsion wrench and S-rake and then paused, turned, and looked at the patio furniture then back at the lock. Doing a double-take, I turned again to the patio furniture, thinking about why they were there. I cocked my head to the side, reached out my hand slowly, and pressed down on the door lever. It twisted easily in my hand, already unlocked, and the door swung open for me.
“Sweet,” I said, smiling. I slipped the tools back into the case, the case back into my pocket and stepped quickly into a dimly lit stairwell. I closed the door behind me and slip
ped down the stairs. There was a door on the second level, and the stairs continued down to the first floor. Gambling that whoever DiMarco was here to see had an upper-floor office, I turned the lever and silently pulled it open a few inches. None of the lights were on, but light from the streetlights outside was enough to see by.
There was no one in sight, so I stepped in quickly and sank down into a low crouch, sneaking up to the edge of a short hallway. A low-walled expanse of small office cubes filled the central part of the second-floor and a row of offices lining the north wall that continued all the way around the building. Most of them had their doors open. In the far corner I spotted the back of a small man with a long, black ponytail. He had on a black t-shirt and worked in a doublewide cubical along the south wall. A half-dozen monitors glowed before him in the corner where he sat.
He appeared to be switching between tasks on all of them. He worked like I did. I zoomed in on the screens I could see. They displayed a mix of chemical data, engineering diagrams, and some scheduling and volume data measured in thousands of gallons. I moved quickly down the aisle between the offices and cube-farm, stopping when I heard the elevator doors chime and start to open behind and to my left. Trusting my camouflage, I turned the corner and snuck down the aisle directly behind the man in the cubicle.
“Jackie, baby! What are you still doing here?” Gino hollered as he entered the cube-farm. He held a pistol in his hand as he scanned the area, obviously looking for an intruder. I stopped at an open door two offices away from Jackie and disappeared into the darkness. He never turned to look at Gino. “I’ve been trying to get ahold of you since Thursday,” Gino added sternly.
“I know, Gino. I was ignoring you.”
Gino raised a fist at Jackie’s back and forced a smile. “Ha! It’s a good thing you make me so much money, kiddo. And what the hell are you doing in the dark?” Gino walked up the aisle and stopped behind Jackie.
“Please don’t turn on the lights.”
Gino scowled again. “Have you seen or heard anything in here tonight?”
“Some guards came in looking for something a couple of hours ago. Aside from that, it’s been quiet.”
“You sure?”
“How could I not be sure about something like that?”
“Right …” Gino looked like he wanted to slap the guy, but he kept his tone calm. “Did you get my message?”
“Yes.”
“And?” Gino asked expectantly.
“I’m crunching the numbers now.”
“And?” Gino asked again, a bit more impatience in his voice. I gotta hand it to the guy, whoever he was. He didn’t seem to fear DiMarco. “I’ve committed us to those god damn Russians, and, believe me, they don’t fuck around,” Gino added quietly.
Jackie sighed and stopped what he was doing. He paused for a few seconds, looking at his computer screens. He slowly turned around in his chair to face Gino. I finally got a look at him. In his late twenties or early thirties, he had a clean-shaven, boyish, Asian face. Black, horn-rimmed glasses sat on a flat nose, and he had dark eyes that, to me, looked just plain mean. He wore leather sandals, blue jeans, and a t-shirt with a logo on it made up of four colored boxes stacked in a diamond pattern: white, blue, red, and yellow. The text read Unstable: May explode at normal temperatures and pressures. I almost laughed.
Funny shirt, I thought, considering the guy’s job and demeanor. I made a mental note to try and find one of those.
“Gino, you only have one thing to worry about,” Jackie said. “The plant can handle the volume. Based on what you gave me, we’ll need to increase production by four-hundred percent. We’ll also need to shut down or severely reduce the hydrogen and liquid nitrogen production, but they’re not really making you any money anyway, so it’s a huge net gain. As you suspected, you don’t have enough storage right now. I figure you’ll have to triple the number of tanks you have out there,” Jackie added, indicating the tanks where Mag hid in the shadows. “Fortunately, you have the space, but they’ll take time to build.” Jackie leaned back in his chair and sized Gino up for a moment. “The real problem is Del Gato. Are you sure he can deliver? I can’t make something from nothing, and he’ll need to increase deliveries by four-hundred percent as well.”
“You let me handle that,” Gino said with a bit of an edge. “Del Gato says he can handle it, and I’m sure as hell paying him enough.” At least I know where the drugs are coming from. I could tell DiMarco wasn’t accustomed to his people talking to him like that, but Jackie was probably a certified, wacko genius. He was the sort of tool a guy like DiMarco couldn’t afford to lose … at least not yet, anyway. “As long as you’re sure you can get it done here, I’ll get what we need from Del Gato. And I can go to other vendors if he comes up short.”
“Alright. I’ll have the report and the project plan to you tomorrow with everything we have to do on our end. We’ll be able to get everything set up and ready to rock in about three weeks.”
“That’s perfect, Jackie my boy. Just email me the specs … make sure they’re clean. I think I may have someone on my back.”
“You got it,” Jackie said, turning back to his monitors. “Oh, and if you want to review any of my data, it’s on the internal network at corporate. You won’t be able to access it from home or anyplace else outside. You’ll need to log in at the downtown office.”
“Why the fuck would I want to look at that shit?” Gino asked. “That’s what I pay you for. Besides, it makes my head hurt.” He turned, walked back down past the rows of cubicles, and then stopped at the end.
“Right,” Jackie said, devoid of any interest in Gino at all.
“Oh, and Jackie?”
“Yeah?”
“Take a few days. Enjoy yourself.”
“Thanks, Gino,” Jackie said without turning around. “I already booked a flight to Vegas for tomorrow night and reserved your penthouse at the Venetian.”
I watched Gino’s face stiffen as he glared at the presumptuous little chemist. He raised the pistol as if he was going to shoot the kid in the back of the head. He took a deep breath, lowered the weapon, turned, and strode back to the elevator. I waited till I heard the elevator open and close before slinking out of the office and back the way I had come. Jackie, his attention focused on the monitors, never moved.
I silently opened the stairwell door and went upstairs into the cool, desert night air. The stars twinkled above, much more visible than they were back in the city. I stood there a few minutes, thinking about home. I waited for the limousine to drive back towards the highway. When the taillights were out of sight, I walked to the edge of the building, checked to see that there was an adequate gap between guards, and stepped off. Hitting the ground effortlessly, I jogged across the parking lot. I crossed the dirt field, returning to the shadows of the storage tanks and felt Mag brush up against my leg.
“Let’s go, Mag. We’re done here.”
The two of us returned to the fence, went through it, and I removed the splitter from the other side. I took a quiet, calm stroll back to the van, put my gear away, switched coats, and drove home.
Parking the van back it its slot, I shut off the engine and looked at Mag. “You want to sleep sea-side tonight? Maybe you can find that monkey again.”
Mag looked at me, smiled, and rasped her agreement.
I grabbed the black coat and got out of the van. “Go on girl. I’ll be there in a couple of minutes. I have to go grab a few things.”
Mag darted past me through the open door and around the corner of the standing closet, and I heard her door open and swing closed. Walking past my bed and up to the row of coat hooks, I hung up the black coat, brushed the dust off of it, and then hung up the tan one I’d been wearing. Grabbing the two dirty ones, I draped them both over my shoulder, stepped up to the front door and placed my hand on the palm reader. Running through the appropriate finger sequence, I pushed open the door and stepped into the living room of my beach house. Humid air and the
smell of the ocean filled my nostrils.
Without turning on the lights, I walked through the dark living room, down the hall, past the kitchen and bedrooms, straight back to the double-sliding glass door. Unlocking it, I slid it open and stepped out onto my patio. The sound of the ocean filtering through the jungle behind my house made me smile. The patio glowed enough in the moonlight for me to make my way to one of the lounge chairs along the low brick wall that surrounded it. Mag had already curled up on one of the other lounge chairs, looking at me. I threw the coats on the long, glass patio table, sat down, reclined the chair all the way back, and was asleep in seconds.
***
The Seventh Day
I woke to the sound of screaming monkeys. I looked at the now empty chair where Mag had been sleeping. The heat and humidity of the mid-morning sun soothed me, and I lay there for a while, simply enjoying the sights, sounds, and smells of the jungle. There isn’t much jungle where I come from. It’s mostly desert and cityscape, although I’d visited plenty of jungle worlds over the years. The canopy stretched overhead, and I watched a troop of monkeys playing tag through the branches high above. The orange blossoms of the elequeme trees that fenced in the sides of my patio and ran around the front of the property gave the air a subtly pleasant perfume. They were part of the reason I’d kept the place, a gift from an old friend on his deathbed. And no, before you ask, I didn’t kill him.
As I stood up, I noticed an iguana on the low, stone wall at the back of the patio, lounging on one of the gateposts. I stripped down, leaving my clothes draped over the back of the chair, and walked through the gate down the path towards the ocean. The soft earth and dead leaves felt good under my bare feet. The sound of the surf grew as I reached the end of the tree line. I walked down the beach and waded out into the surf. I spent an hour swimming and diving deeply, both for the training and the mere pleasure of it.
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