Town at the Edge of Darkness Read online

  “And, naturally, we want to get into the west building,” Dylan says with a smirk.

  “Correct. And we need to do it without anyone knowing we were here. So that means no taking out of guards.”

  “Not even a sleeper hold here or there?” Ricky asked.

  “Not if it can be avoided.”

  “You’re taking all the fun out of things.”

  Ananke glanced at Dylan and Liesel. “I think we should go through the east building, and take the tunnel between the buildings you guys were told about. Do you have any idea where we’d find it?”

  “We did not see it,” Liesel said. “But the guide seemed to indicate that it is somewhere in this area.” She drew an oval between the two rectangles, near the northern end.

  Ananke asked Dylan, “Is that your sense, too?”

  “It is.”

  “Okay, then that’s where we’ll go.”

  They spent a few minutes working out the plan, divvied up the equipment, and headed through the dark to the back side of the east building’s lot. Just beyond the fence was a nearly empty parking area, lit by LED floodlights no doubt powered by stored solar energy. Unlike at Harris’s house, there were no gaps between the lights for them to hide in while approaching the building. And though the cameras were spread apart, they were angled so that their fields of view overlapped, leaving none of the grounds unmonitored.

  Ananke set Ricky, Liesel, and Dylan to work on creating a way through the fence that didn’t involve cutting the chain link, and then contacted Rosario over their comm gear.

  “We need two of the cameras blacked out for…” She paused, assessing the distance from the fence to the back of the building, and added some padding. “Forty seconds should do it.”

  “Show me.”

  Ananke aimed her camera phone at the back of the building. The device was currently linked to Rosario’s laptop at the hotel. “This one,” Ananke said, zooming in on one of the cameras. She switched to the other device in question. “And this one.”

  “A moment, please.”

  Ananke scanned the lot, knowing it was nearly time for one of the guards to take a walk across the back. No sign of anyone yet.

  “Okay,” Rosario said. “I am picking up several different Wi-Fi networks from the building. Most are pretty weak where you are, but I should be able to…yes, good. I am in. This will take a few minutes.”

  “Understood.” Ananke glanced over at her colleagues. “How we doing?”

  The others were working on one of the poles, and had already detached the lowest wire bracket holding the fence to it.

  “A couple more of these and we’ll be able to lift it high enough to get under,” Ricky said. “Should be ready by the time Rosario is.”

  Ananke caught movement at the far corner of the building. “Everybody down,” she whispered.

  A guard had come around the side and was now walking along the back of the structure.

  He was about halfway across the back when Rosario said, “I am in Security and have control of the cameras. Just give me the word. And, Ricky, I believe that means I win.”

  “On a technicality,” he whispered.

  Ananke watched the guard meander along the structure until, finally, he reached the other corner and disappeared. If the pattern that she and Ricky had noted on their recon held, they had a good ten minutes until the next guard showed up.

  “Let’s get that thing open,” Ananke said.

  Thirty seconds later, the last bracket came free.

  “Done,” Ricky said, after testing to make sure he could raise it high enough.

  “Rosario, whenever you’re ready.”

  “Hold a moment,” Rosario said. “Okay. Blackout in five, four, three, two, one.”

  As she said zero, Ricky lifted the fence again.

  Liesel slipped under first and sprinted toward the building. Dylan followed, then Ananke and Ricky.

  Once they were all at the building and out of the cameras’ sight lines, Ananke whispered into her mic, “You can turn them back on.”

  “Copy,” Rosario said. “Cameras back online.”

  “Are we all good?”

  “I am looking at a feed from inside the monitoring room. The two men who are watching the screens seemed surprised at first, but have relaxed now that everything is working again.”

  “What about outside security?”

  “Both men are still at the front of the building. One is at the main entrance, and the other has stopped by the guard shack at the vehicle entrance. They appear to be unaware that there was a problem.”

  “Keep tabs on them, and let us know when they head back this way.”

  “Copy.”

  Ananke turned to Ricky. “You’re up.”

  With Dylan providing the boost, Ricky climbed onto a wide ledge sticking out over the loading dock. He leaned over the side and helped pull up the others.

  From there, they used a pair of pipes that ran up the side to scale the building all the way to the roof.

  Ricky gave everyone a helping hand at the end of the climb, then asked Liesel and Dylan, “Where to?”

  Liesel took a moment to get her bearings, said, “This way,” and headed toward the right.

  The building’s roof was curved, not so much that they might slip off it, but enough to be a bit of a hike to the summit. Add to that the fact it was nearly all covered with solar cells, and it meant they had to carefully pick their way through the maze to avoid damaging anything.

  Spaced evenly down along the apex of the roof were hatches, each about four feet in length and two and a half feet wide. Liesel led them to the one at the north end.

  From the video Dylan had shot during the tour, Rosario had been able to identify the doors’ manufacturer and learn they were primarily used for ventilation and could be remotely controlled.

  “Okay, Rosario, we’re here,” Ricky said. “You want to let us in?”

  “One moment.”

  A brief pause preceded the whoosh of air escaping from under the hatch as it crept open. When it stopped, the gap was only a bit more than eighteen inches wide.

  “Can you give us a little more space?” Ricky said. “That’s a little tight.”

  “The only way is if you remove a limit bar.”

  “This is fine,” Ananke said. She glanced at Ricky. “Find someplace to tie off.”

  Ricky removed the rope from his backpack and attached one end to a large AC unit nearby. “All set, boss.”

  “Rosario,” Ananke said. “How are we looking below?”

  “All clear.”

  Ananke peeked through the gap before grabbing the rope. “Me first, then Liesel and Ricky. Dylan, don’t get too bored.”

  “Bored? Sitting here, watching the stars, getting cold. What’s boring about that?”

  Ananke smirked and dropped out of sight.

  Liesel glanced at Dylan. “No sleeping.”

  “Wouldn’t think of it.”

  She vanished next.

  “Okay, buddy,” Ricky said. “If the bad guys show up, kill a couple for me.”

  “That’s not funny,” Dylan said.

  Ricky grinned. “I’m not trying to be funny.”

  He slipped over the edge and lowered himself to the catwalk where Ananke and Liesel waited. He gave the rope a double tug and Dylan pulled it back through the gap.

  “Clear,” Dylan said over the comm.

  Rosario lowered the hatch, sealing Ricky, Ananke, and Liesel inside.

  Ananke surveyed the space below. This being the middle of the night, only a handful of the overhead lamps had been left on for safety purposes, turning the giant room into a spotty mix of shadow and light. Rows of boxes filled most of the floor, the only exception a clear area to the left.

  “That seems the most logical place for the tunnel entrance,” she said, pointing toward the spot.

  “I agree,” Liesel said.

  “Rosario, we’re ready to go down,” Ananke said. “Are we clea
r?”

  “One more minute, please.”

  While they waited for her, they moved to the end of the catwalk, where a wall-mounted ladder led down to the warehouse floor.

  “Cameras are looped,” Rosario said, letting them know the feed would show previously shot footage of an empty parking area. “You can go now.”

  “Copy,” Ananke said.

  They climbed the three stories down to ground level, and quickly made their way through rows of boxes to the cleared area. Ananke’s instincts had been correct. A conveyor belt, at least six feet wide, ramped out of a hole in the floor, then leveled off and ended at a boxing station.

  Ananke peered into the opening, but it was too dark to see more than the faint outline of the conveyor system.

  “Shall we?” Ricky said as he hopped up on the belt.

  “I’ll check first,” Ananke told him. “You stay.”

  She pulled out her phone and flipped on her flashlight, climbed on the belt and followed the downward slope into the abyss. Though the ramp was steep, the semi-adhesive conveyer belt material kept her from tumbling to the bottom, which would have been even worse than she’d assumed since the ramp turned out to be twice as long as she’d expected. The belt must have gone down at least twenty-five feet before leveling off.

  She shined the light ahead. The tunnel was about four feet wider than the conveyor, with most of that space on the left side, creating a walkway she guessed maintenance workers used. As for the height, it was about ten feet tall from the concrete floor to the ceiling, which meant around seven from the top of the belt.

  “Come on down,” she said.

  She turned her light so that it illuminated the ramp. Ricky came first with Liesel a few steps behind.

  “That was fun,” Ricky whispered when he reached the bottom. “I wonder if anyone’s ever tried to slide a cardboard box down that.”

  Ananke turned back to the tunnel and headed into it. Half a dozen steps in, she jammed on the brakes and doused her light.

  “Rosario, there’s a camera down here!”

  “Are you sure? I do not see anything in the security system.”

  “I just flashed my light straight at it. So, yeah, I’m sure.”

  Rosario was silent for a moment. “No change in the security room. Hang on a moment.”

  Ananke didn’t think they had a moment. Maybe the security guards hadn’t noticed the unauthorized light pointing at the camera, but if their system was worth anything, an automatic alert would pop up at any second.

  “It is not a security camera,” Rosario said. “It is part of production monitoring, to make sure there are no problems in the tunnel. It is currently off.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. You will encounter eight more before you reach the other end. They are also off.”

  While Ananke did trust Rosario, she felt uneasy as she turned her light back on and walked past the camera.

  The conveyor stretched through the gray, utility pipe-lined walls, each section looking the same as the last. Here and there they passed one of the nonoperating production cameras. The conveyor seemed to go on forever before the team finally spotted another ramp ahead, ascending to ground level.

  “Door,” Liesel said.

  Ananke looked to where Liesel was pointing her light. Tucked into a nook along the wall was a door with an attached sign that read MAINTENANCE. Ananke motioned for Ricky to check it out.

  “Locked,” he said. “You want me to pick it?”

  “If we think it’s important, we can hit it on our way back.”

  They climbed back onto the belt and headed up toward ground level. Just shy of emerging into the other building, Ananke stopped.

  “Rosario, we’re at the other side,” she whispered into the comm. “Room check, please.”

  “Stop!” Rosario said. “Did you not hear me?”

  “Hear you? What are you talking about?”

  “Thirty seconds ago, I said do not leave the tunnel. Did you?”

  “No, we’re still in it. But we didn’t hear anything. What’s the problem?”

  “There are two guards in the production room.”

  “Close to the opening?”

  “Not yet, but they appear to be checking everywhere.”

  Ananke motioned for Ricky and Liesel to move back down the tunnel and then followed them. “Checking like they know there’s a problem? Or checking like they are on rounds?”

  “What? I…an’t…Anan…”

  “Rosario. Come in. Can you hear me?”

  No response.

  They moved past the bottom and continued down the tunnel. “Rosario? Rosario? Can you hear me? Rosario?”

  “Ananke? Yes…hear…. Can you hear me?”

  Ananke was a good fifty feet beyond where the ramp began. “Yeah, I can. There were a few seconds there when you disappeared completely.”

  “Same for me.”

  Ananke looked toward the tunnel exit, her eyes narrowing. “You said the guards were checking everything. Did you mean like normal rounds, or like they think something’s wrong?”

  “They do not seem agitated, just thorough.”

  That was good.

  “They are getting closer to the tunnel entrance, though.”

  That was not good. If the guards descended the ramp, Ananke and the others would never make it to the other side without being seen, because there was nowhere in the tunnel to hide.

  Hold on. Not nowhere.

  “Ricky,” Ananke whispered. “Get that maintenance door open.”

  The maintenance room turned out to be a large, shoebox-shaped space, with the long dimension running perpendicular to the tunnel. It contained very little in the way of maintenance supplies, though, just a single shelving unit, sparsely populated by cleaners and lubricants and tools. Except for that and a cart at the back of the room piled high with boxes, the rest of the space remained unused.

  This left few options for cover if the guards decided to come in.

  “Keep an ear on the door,” Ananke told Ricky. She motioned for Liesel to follow her and headed toward the cart.

  Her plan was to move it from the wall so they could hide behind it.

  As they neared it, Liesel pointed at the wall above the cart, near the ceiling. “Ananke, look.”

  Mounted there was a black, tubular electronic device about two feet long. Ananke knew exactly what it was—a Nakamura Systems 8500 signal jammer. Depending on the setting, it had a range between two dozen feet and nearly one hundred.

  No wonder they had lost contact with Rosario.

  “Why would there be a jammer in here?” Ananke said.

  “I do not know.”

  When they reached the cart, Ananke gave it a tentative pull and found it lighter than expected.

  “Squeeze around the back and make sure nothing falls off,” she said. “I want to move it out a little more.”

  Liesel slipped between the cart and the wall. “Um, Ananke.”

  “Not enough room? Here, let me pull—”

  “No, you need to come here.”

  Ananke moved behind the cart.

  What the hell?

  The cart hadn’t been sitting in front of a blank wall. It had been blocking a door.

  A metal bar lay across the door, held in place by thick hooks, clearly meant to prevent the door from being opened. From the other side.

  “Okay, does that seem creepy to you?” Ananke asked. “Because it seems creepy to me.”

  “Creepy is a good word.”

  Ananke couldn’t help but wonder if this was where the people from the big rig had been put.

  “Hey,” Ricky whispered. Since the jammer interfered with the comm, they could barely hear him across the room. “What’s going on?”

  Ananke leaned out around the cart and motioned for him to chill, then turned back to the door. “Shall we see what’s on the other side?”

  Liesel nodded.

  Ananke performed an electronics swe
ep for any monitoring equipment on the other side. It detected no alarm, but did pick up electronic signatures of five cameras that, according to her app, were in sleep mode.

  She lifted the metal bar from its brackets and eased the door open. The space beyond was pitch-black. She shined her flashlight inside. Another rectangular room, this one with three doors set at regular intervals along the wall on the left.

  “Wait here,” Ananke told Liesel, handing her the bar.

  She removed her pistol from her shoulder holster and crept inside. She scanned the room with her light and spotted two of the cameras. Each was mounted on the wall to the right and aimed at the one on the left, presumably at the doors.

  She approached the first door and slid the latch free. The door opened onto a sparsely filled storage room. Stacked along one wall were several giant, rectangular glass boxes that had one of the long sides missing. She walked over and tapped on one of them. Plexiglas. She took a few pictures, but had no idea what the boxes were used for.

  Ananke moved on to the middle room. At first sight, it appeared to be completely empty. She stepped inside and swept her light through the space. Mounted against each side wall at approximately seven-foot intervals were electric outlets, each with four sockets. The outlet boxes were connected to one another via metal conduit.

  A production room? Where identical workstations could be lined up one after another? If so, it would have a sweatshop vibe. Could that be the big secret?

  As she snapped more photos, she noticed black scuff marks on the floor, under a layer of dust. Not from shoes but from wheels, like on a cart. She took a few shots of them, too, before exiting and proceeding to door number three.

  Ricky pressed his ear against the door, listening for the guards and shooting the occasional glance toward the cart at the back of the room.

  What was taking Ananke and Liesel so long?

  He wasn’t even sure what they were doing back there. Was Ananke planning on bringing the cart over here to block the door? Or were they going to hide behind it? Sometimes it felt like people didn’t tell him anything.