Point of Contact

As soon as the traffic cleared, Jack jumped the waist-high fence. Once over, he kept as close to the corrugated steel wall as he could, noting that the cameras fixed on the high walls were pointed toward the street and harbor. He made his way past the large commercial boats dry-docked on giant trailers waiting for repairs or refurbishment, careful to avoid the sight lines of the cameras behind him.

He stopped frequently, crouching low in the shadows of the ships he was hiding behind. He marked the slow, methodical rounds of the two security guards he’d counted so far, walking the wide expanse of the shipyard, talking and smoking as they patrolled. When he’d driven by the shipyard earlier, Jack saw only one security guard at the front gate, but the man was more focused on the boxed lunch in front of him than on any passing American. Jack bet that security would be even more lax at night, especially with the yard shut down, and so far that bet was paying off. Once the two guards passed to the far side of the yard, Jack bolted in a low crouch toward the cyclone fence bordering the Dalfan property and dropped down behind a rusted orange forklift parked against it.

Unlike the shipyard, the rear of the Dalfan property was well lit and open. The rear of the warehouse featured four large rolling doors, all of which were shut for the night. Where he was kneeling, he didn’t hear any activity inside the building or out on the asphalt.

Jack pulled out a pair of wire cutters. These were meant to snip electrical cords or household nails, not steel fencing. Jack thought about climbing the fencing, tossing his coat over the razor-wire barrier on top so he could scale the hazard, but the fence was eight feet high and the razor wire another eighteen inches taller. He could stand on top of the forklift and toss the coat up from there and probably land it properly, but he was certain security on the Dalfan side would be tighter and he didn’t want to be straddling razor wire nearly ten feet in the air if Dalfan security guards came charging at him with their guns drawn.

Instead, he opted for patience and took his time, clamping down hard with the wire cutter and rotating it back and forth, forcing the sharp teeth to bite deeper into the steel mesh than they were designed to do. He had to switch hands frequently as they tired from the strenuous effort, the handles digging deep into his palms. He paused each time the cutter snipped through a wire link, shaking the fence, making sure the noise wasn’t raising any alarms on either side. Thirty minutes later Jack had managed to cut a hole big enough for him to scoot through. He just wasn’t sure what to do next. There wasn’t anyplace to hide on the other side. His only choice was to make a run straight for the building and hope there weren’t any guard dogs or security men hiding in the shadows. He saw evidence of neither. He wished he had a pair of NVGs to scope out the area, but why would he, since this was an easy, no-risk, white-side mission?

He asked himself again, What the hell am I doing? If he got caught, there’d be hell to pay. And there was still the distinct possibility that the warehouse wasn’t even a Dalfan property.

But his gut.

His gut.

Jack double-checked behind him to make sure the shipyard guards were still out of sight, then crawled through the fence and dashed across the empty yard, racing for the nearest wall of the warehouse, careful to keep his face down and away from the cameras he’d spotted on the corners of the roof.

His pulse raced and his breath shortened as he sprinted the two hundred yards, expecting to hear gunshots or snarling dogs at every step. But he hit the corner of the building without raising any alarms.

So far, so good.

Jack caught his breath and glanced around again. Thanks to the bright sodium lights, he could see across the compound behind him, and all along the loading dock in front of him. Nothing.

Strange.

Whatever work they were actually doing in the building was clearly not being done at night. That was a lucky break for him.

Jack leaped up onto the loading dock and ran past the first rolling door, testing it with an upward tug of his hand, but it didn’t budge. He dashed to the next two doors and tried them as well; both were locked down tight. The fourth door was bolted shut as well, but on the other side of it was a regular-access steel door at the top of the stairs leading down from the dock to the asphalt. He glanced around again to make sure he wasn’t in the line of sight of any cameras, then tried the doorknob, hoping against hope it would open.

It didn’t.

Shit.

Jack knelt down by the round steel knob and examined the simple key lock, then scanned the yard once again to make sure no one was watching him. He reached into his front pants pocket and pulled out two large heavy metal paper clips he’d borrowed from his office-supply drawer at Dalfan earlier in the day.