Northern Sun: Book Four in The Mad Mick Series

by Franklin Horton

  “They say anything about the staffing level at the facility? About how much manpower Mumin has on tap?”

  “Not much,” Shani said. “There’s a security guard living in a trailer on the road in. That’s why we haven’t seen him. Apparently, the guard station isn’t visible from the property. They must not feel like a heavier presence is justified when this place is so remote.”

  “I wonder if he’s skilled security or just some bum with a gun?” Conor mused.

  “I’m not certain, however, Mumin’s head of security for the casinos disappeared around the same time Mumin went underground. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s operating somewhere on this facility. She also mentioned a caretaker named Joseph, who tends the animals and does the odd jobs. He doesn’t live on the property. Then there’s the building I was warned not to go inside.”

  “Hmmm, tell me more. Sounds like the kind of place we should know about.”

  “When I first got there, I asked one of the other cleaning ladies if I was supposed to clean in this one particular building. She warned me to never go in that building alone. Apparently, another girl made that mistake when they first started working there. Supposedly, there are around fifteen men in there and the girl was severely injured. The story is she disappeared and Mumin paid her family off, although the other women think she’s dead and buried in the woods somewhere.”

  “You think they killed her?”

  “No way of knowing, but I suspect she was assaulted and Mumin had her killed to cover it up. I met one of the men from that building and he definitely gave off that rapey vibe.”

  Conor raised an eyebrow. “Does that mean we have a body to bury?”

  Shani smiled. “Not yet. I played the terrified, sheltered woman and ran away. He didn’t follow me. And as much as I’d have enjoyed killing a man like that, I was glad he didn’t follow me. No use raising the alert level around this place. Right now they’re relaxed. That’s the way we want to keep them.”

  “Could you tell anything about him?”

  “He smoked Gold Leaf cigarettes.”

  Conor grinned. “Pakistani!”

  “I think so. He spoke just enough English to try to lure me into the building with a lie.”

  “That bastard,” Conor said. “No wonder you would have enjoyed killing him. Did you notice anything else?”

  “Clean clothes, soft hands. I don’t think he does much work here in the physical sense. Makes me wonder...”

  “Makes you wonder who they are?”

  “Makes me wonder if they’re part of the terrorist network involved in the initial attacks on the US.”

  Conor’s face clouded. “I always assumed they had their exfiltration planned in advance and slipped back across the borders. I figured any terrorists who survived were already back home now, relishing the fruits of their labors.”

  “We’d have heard about that. The Mossad never received any intel that said the terrorists were repatriated. There would have been some level of celebration and word would have gotten out. We’d have picked up on it. Because we never did, we assumed the terrorists involved were either killed as part of the clean-up or were safely hidden in another country. I never considered the possibility they were still in the United States. I’m considering it now.”

  “We have to find out more,” Conor said. “If those men are part of the terror network, it changes things.”

  “Doesn’t it, though?” Shani agreed. “Until I encountered that man smoking on the porch, I was certain we could hit Mumin tonight, exfil out of here, and be home in time for breakfast.”

  “We have to get a message to Ricardo. They may want to drop a team in here and collect these guys for interrogation. I hear it’s a good time to extract information. Very little oversight. The rules are a little fuzzy.”

  Shani dug into the pocket of her web gear and extracted her sPAD. “These damn things are supposed to include satellite communication, though I’ve never tried it. We’ll see how effective it is.”

  She used her thumbs to hammer out a rapid message to Ricardo. Conor watched her with a raised eyebrow. “What are you gawping at?” she asked.

  “You’re pretty good at that texty-business there, Shani. Your fingers are flying like some teenage girl. You spend a lot of time chatting it up on the latest apps?”

  “It’s called dexterity,” she said drolly. “It’s the same set of skills you use to open a candy bar, only more refined.”

  “Always with the fucking food,” Conor snarled. “I’ll have you know this body is a finely-tuned machine. Like any powerful machine, it requires a lot of fuel.”

  Shani nearly burst out laughing but clapped a hand over her mouth. “Sorry, I missed the Ferrari emblem on your back. I just thought it was a tramp stamp.”

  “I could swear you and my daughter must be related,” Conor fumed

  At that comment, Shani grew silent, the humor gone from her face.

  “What?” Conor asked. “No comment? No smart comeback?”

  Staring at her sPAD, she didn’t meet his eye. “Just watching to see if this message goes through.”

  “You never know with that fucking guy. Who knows what he does in his off-hours?”

  “He has no off-hours. He works every minute he’s awake. He pulled most of his operation back from Washington and runs everything from that compound in West Virginia. He’s never confirmed this to me but word among my folks is that the CIA is picking up the tab for the whole thing. They’re providing his security. Keeping Ricardo’s business up and running is important to some high-level people.”

  “I’m sure it is,” Conor said. “He doesn’t have to play by the rules. Governments need friends like that. It gives them the ability to deny everything.”

  “Ricardo loves his work, though. He’s a patriot. He’s making a lot of money but it’s not all about the money for him. It’s about dealing with America’s enemies in an efficient, permanent manner.”

  “I’m not complaining, Shani. He’s treated me well. I love my work too.”

  “As much as you love a Snickers bar?” Shani teased.

  Conor glared at her, then relaxed into a smile. “Now that you mention it, I am a little hungry.” He dug into his pack and retrieved another protein bar. He also came out with a single-serving squeeze pack of peanut butter. He opened his protein bar, laid it out on the leg of his pants, and dispensed the pack of peanut butter onto it.

  “Are you serious?” Shani asked, staring at the concoction.

  Conor held it out. “Take a bite. Try it.”

  She looked uncertain but took a bite. Her eyes widened. “Hey, that’s not bad.”

  “I know.” He extracted another packet of peanut butter from his pack and tossed it in her direction. “You’re not eating all of mine. Make your own.”

  While Shani was smearing peanut butter on her own protein bar, the sPAD vibrated on her leg. She wiped her hands and picked up the device, let it read her thumb, then entered her code. She opened the secure messaging app and took a bite of her protein bar while scanning the message.

  “Well?” Conor prompted.

  “He wants more information, preferably pictures of some of the men. Then he says he’ll have to find someone in intelligence who has access to the facial recognition database if it’s still up and running. If he can get an ID on at least one of the men, it would give him something to take to the people paying for this operation. They can make the call.”

  Conor let out a long sigh. “That complicates things. So much for a quick in-and-out.”

  Shani raised an eyebrow at Conor. “Your standard mode of operation?”

  Conor looked away. “I’ll not dignify your jabs at me stamina.”

  “Don’t forget—”

  “I haven’t forgotten anything!” Conor cut in. “Now can we get back to the matter at hand?”

  “I’ll have to get in there again,” Shani stated.

  “I don’t like it. Why don’t we relocate to that side of t
he compound? Set up optics on the building the men are staying in and try to get pictures when they come out to smoke?”

  “I’m open to trying that but we can’t sit out here forever. Maybe I just walk in there by accident.”

  “And accidentally start taking pictures with Ricardo’s magic phone?”

  “I’ll rig it under my abaya to video the encounter.”

  “What if it turns into a physical altercation?”

  “I’m trained to deescalate situations.”

  Conor smirked. “You’re not going to deescalate this particular situation. I guarantee that. Then some people are going to end up dead and we need to make certain they’re the bad guys before we start stacking bodies.”

  “There is a preponderance of evidence.”

  “I concede that,” Conor said. “Let’s give it one day though. We know where Mumin is. Let’s focus on the building with the men and we’ll re-evaluate tomorrow night. We’ll update Ricardo and see what he says.”

  Shani nodded.

  Conor detected her hesitance. “You’re ready to bust in there and drop them all, aren’t you?”

  Shani nodded again.

  “One day,” Conor requested. “We wait one day and see if that tells us who we’re dealing with.”

  10

  In less than two hours they were in position. They found a hulking stack of stumps and logging debris piled up by a dozer during construction. It sat in such a position that Shani and Conor were able to make themselves a nest atop it. The position put them nearly at eye level with the building in question. The dense pile of brush made them invisible to anyone giving them a casual glance. Anyone giving them more than a casual glance would have to be dropped with a suppressed round.

  “I think this is going to work,” Conor said.

  They managed to photograph four of the men before darkness fell on the compound, then switched to night vision and continued to monitor the scene. No one came to deliver any food, which told them that the men were cooking for themselves. Conor thought they must have eaten around 1900 hours because more men came out to smoke after that. The pair tried to capture some photographs through the spotting scope but the images were too distorted to be of any value.

  “I’m surprised they still have cigarettes,” Shani muttered.

  “If they knew they’d be hiding out here, they may have cached some serious supplies ahead of time.”

  Shani didn’t take her eye from the scope. “More than a dozen men for several months. We’re talking pallets of food.”

  “I’m assuming that’s what Mumin was for,” Conor said. “Stateside logistics. Building and supplying this facility.”

  “That’s what the intel said.”

  Conor frowned. “Why are they still here though? It doesn’t make sense. What’s the end game? They planning on staying here forever? Is there some additional component to the plan that’s not been enacted yet? These men can’t stay on ice here forever.”

  “We could arrange that,” Shani replied. “If we’re able to verify our suspicions, we could put them on ice forever.”

  “Don’t get ahead of yourself. What if they’re all casino employees that Mumin is housing because they didn’t have anywhere else to go?”

  “Not likely. That’s not the vibe I got from the man I spoke to,” Shani said.

  “I can hardly wait to meet this friend of yours. You speak so highly of him.”

  Shani pushed herself away from the optic. “I think this observation post is a waste of time right now. I’m getting restless.”

  “You have a better idea?”

  “I say we let things quiet down a little and then do some poking around. I’d like to get a closer look at the men’s building and see if I can pick up anything. Maybe you could check out that building we don’t know anything about. I suspect it’s storage but it would be nice to confirm that.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Conor replied. “I’m tired of sitting still too. You may not have noticed but I’m a man of action.”

  “The only action I’ve seen out of you is chewing.”

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear my daughter writes your material. The same smartass comments come out of your mouth as spill out of hers.”

  “I might have to meet this daughter of yours sometime.”

  Shani immediately regretted saying it. There were a lot of reasons why that probably wouldn’t happen. They weren’t friends. They were colleagues in a line of work that none of them ever talked about after the job was done. Then Conor surprised her.

  “Maybe.”

  It was more than she’d expected and the concession made her smile in the darkness.

  11

  The compound grounds were spread out. All of the structures were separated from each other by sections of fenced pasture and open ground, with winding gravel paths for walking between buildings. A single road bisected the property, with driveways branching off for parking at each building. There weren’t as many vehicles as one might expect for a compound this size. There were some trucks and vans parked at the barn, and the two luxury SUVs parked at Mumin’s house, but the other buildings had none.

  After he and Shani parted ways, Conor headed south. He climbed up the slope to the field, then headed in the direction of the barn. He paused there, hearing nothing other than the shuffling of a horse in a stall. He crept around the barn, then walked along the fence to another metal-sided structure set off by itself, perhaps eighty yards from the barn. It had a driveway of its own and a small parking lot, but Conor had not seen any activity at the building since they’d arrived onsite. In fact, it was the only building where they hadn’t seen signs of life.

  At the end of the fence, Conor took a knee and sat there for a moment. He let his breathing return to normal, listening. It was a cold night, the temperature dropping below freezing. He and Shani would probably have to slide their sleeping bags into bivvy sacks tonight. Without the weatherproof cover, the frost would make them damp. When a sleeping bag was the only warmth available to you, you protected it.

  No one was out moving about. The cold nights and short days forced people inside early. Conor wondered what they were doing. Reading? Video games? Movies?

  When nothing caught his attention he approached the metal building and stopped again to listen. There was a hum coming from somewhere but it was all he heard. No voices. The side of the building facing onto the driveway had a tall garage door. That was too noisy for Conor’s purposes. He planned on entering by way of the walk door located on the south side of the structure. Before he entered, he circled the place to make note of anything unusual.

  The source of the humming turned out to be a solar heat pump on the rear of the building. Conor owned a similar unit. The power to run it came directly from a solar panel during the day. At night it drew power from the system batteries. It was too small a unit to keep a building like this comfortable but maybe that wasn’t the purpose. Maybe they just wanted to keep the temperature above freezing.

  Finding nothing else of interest, Conor went to the windowless steel entry door and crouched by the knob. It was a six-pin Schlage commercial lockset, pretty standard hardware for a building of this type. Conor had opened hundreds of them over the years. By feel, he located a pouch on his web gear and tugged open the Velcro flap. Inside was a vinyl pouch with the half-dozen picks he used the most.

  Again working by touch, he inserted a rake into the keyway, then placed a tension wrench below it. He applied very light pressure to the tension wrench, barely resting a finger on it. He went by feel, experience guiding him. He first tried raking the pins, which sometimes worked for him. It didn’t this time so he had to deal with each pin separately. He quickly got the feel for the internals of this lock. He could tell it hadn’t been used very much. The springs were stiff, the inner workings not polished by use.

  One by one he raised each pin then dropped it, letting it catch on the shear line. When he did the last one, the tension wrench gave a
little beneath his finger. He applied more pressure and the keyway turned. A little more pressure and the door unlocked. Conor pushed it open just enough that it wouldn’t lock back, then returned his picks to their pouch.

  He stood, knees popping, and raised his rifle, using his toe to open the door a little wider. When there was no response from inside, he pushed it open all the way. When the gap was wide enough for him to enter, he waited. He stood there for a full minute, listening. All he heard was the faint hum of the heating unit. He finally stepped inside and closed the door behind him, latching it as quietly as he could.

  He killed the power to his goggles and flipped them up out of the way. Raising his rifle, he touched the pressure pad and the weapon light burst to life. He played it around the room but saw no one. This space was definitely not a residence. Tall shelves lined each wall. They were the same steel rack systems used in home improvement stores, capable of holding entire pallets of goods, stacked to the ceiling.

  In the glow of his weapon light, he could see rows of palletized food, both canned and freeze-dried. There were cartons of paper products, hygiene products, and cleaning supplies. There were five-gallon jugs of kerosene and a neat row of kerosene heaters. There was a workshop area with a selection of power tools, hand tools, and mechanic’s tools. Strong metal shelves contained neat boxes of fasteners and spare parts for home repair. There were water heater elements, filter cartridges, a few spare faucets, supplies for repairing toilets, light bulbs, and several unopened boxes of electrical wire in various gauges.

  Each pallet was covered with a clear plastic drop cloth to protect the pallet from gathering dust but he could still see the contents. Conor walked every row, weapon at high ready, to make certain there was no one else in the room with him. When he was satisfied that he was alone, he turned off his weapon light to conserve the battery and transitioned to the tiny Streamlight flashlight he carried on his gear.