Directly on the other side of the metal fence were several relatively ordered rows of cars, packed so closely together the men could barely fit between them. Ed used hand signals to spread the squad out to either side, and they moved cautiously forward.
Past the orderly, rusting hulks the yard opened up. There were random heaps of debris, everything from sand to chunks of asphalt to slabs of concrete. The junkyard itself was paved in asphalt, or at least had been, once. Now, nature was slowly reclaiming it, and patches of waist-high weeds and grass poked through frequently, with the occasional sapling.
The moon wasn’t up yet, which was both good and bad. After another hundred yards the random piles ended and there were abandoned semi-trailers without cabs, scattered with no apparent pattern, left to slowly collapse atop their rotting tires. The squad moved through the trailers slowly, listening, checking underneath them, in no hurry.
Less than one hundred feet past the last trailer was the junk yard office. It was a squat, one-story building, white with fading red trim. They could see a closed rolling metal door and one pedestrian door flanked by windows, most of which seemed broken.
The men of Theodore paused in the shelter of the trailers, using their wheels as cover, and stared at the building. Ed pulled out his binoculars and glassed the front of the building, but didn’t immediately see anything. He was keenly aware of Renny, three hundred yards behind him, looking through the scope of his powerful rifle.
He was just about to signal the men to approach when Early, on one knee beside him, tapped Ed’s leg, and pointed at the building. Ed squinted. There was some sort of moving orange glow inside.
The glow resolved itself into the wavering flame of a candle being carried by a man. In the dark, with their eyes adjusted to the night, the flickering sphere of light from the candle was bright enough for them to see the man clearly as he walked to the side door of the building and opened it. He had no visible weapon, and nothing in his hands but the candle, although there were binoculars hanging from his neck. Ed raised his rifle and braced it against the side of the trailer, putting the glowing reticle on the man’s chest as he stood in the open doorway, staring in their direction.
Ed was sure the man couldn’t see them—it was too dark, and they were in dark clothes and mostly hidden behind the big tires of the trailers. And yet the man lifted a hand and waved them in. “Come on in and get a roof over your heads,” he said, loudly enough for them to hear him clearly. He took one step backward so the candle was not beyond the roof line, and waited.
Ed growled in his throat. “Stay here,” he murmured so quietly only Early could hear him, and the man nodded behind his M1A, which was trained on the candle bearer.
Using hand signals to direct his men, Ed and the remainder of the squad slowly approached the building from three sides. Ed didn’t recognize the man when he drew close. He was in a plaid shirt and blue jeans and if he was carrying a weapon it was concealed.
The man waved them on again and backed a few steps into the building, then turned and walked away from them, unconcernedly turning his back on half a dozen armed men. Quentin was in the lead and followed the bobbing light from the candle, which did a decent job of illuminating the nearly empty building. George was behind him, grunted “Fuck this,” and turned on the light mounted on the handguard of his carbine. The 600-lumen beam seemed as bright as a nuclear blast inside the building, and as he swung it about he was able to quickly scan the big repair bay. He kept the beam low so he didn’t shine it out the front windows.
The candlebearer led them around a corner, and there in a smaller room, formerly an office, was another man sitting on a folding lawn chair, a second candle at his elbow. The second man was in a t-shirt and jeans, no weapons visible, and raised a hand to shield his eyes from the glare of George’s weapon-mounted light.
“Jesus, there goes the night vision,” he said cordially. He did his best to look past his hand at the members of Theodore crowding the doorway. “You guys looking for the family reunion?” he asked.
“Who are you?” Quentin asked.
“The welcome wagon. You want to shut that off? Maybe use a handheld or something that’s not quite as bright as the sun?”
Ed produced a small handheld tactical flashlight and clicked it on as he nodded to George. The 25 lumens of his handheld seemed pitiful illumination after George extinguished his light, but it was still more light than the two candles were putting out, and after waiting a few seconds for their eyes to adjust, the room still seemed reasonably well lit.
“There some reason you’re sitting in here?” Ed asked the two men, neither of whom he recognized. Both of them were in their early thirties and seemed in good shape.
“It’s the only spot with a view,” the man in the chair said pointedly. “The thinking was most if not all of the invited guests would take a look around the neighborhood first and stop by here before heading in, see what they could see. And that’s pretty much been the case.” He peered at their faces. “Nobody was due tonight. Are you early, or late? No, wait, don’t tell me. Early. You seem the cautious type.”
“You don’t,” George said. “You don’t know who we are, and you’re sitting here with no weapons.”
“Looking innocent as the wind driven snow,” the man agreed. “No guns, no armor, just the sweet love of Jesus in my pretty blue eyes.”
“Aardvark,” Ed said abruptly.
The man in the chair smiled. “Buckaroo,” he responded. Ed relaxed significantly at the correct codeword response, and nodded. “We’re all friends here, Bill,” the man in the chair called out loudly.
“Roger that,” the men of Theodore heard from somewhere behind them. A few turned to look, but saw nothing.
“I’m Conrad. This is Seattle,” the main the lawn chair said, indicating his partner. “Bill’s our guardian angel, back there behind some tires, just in case you weren’t dogsoldiers but rather miscreants. He has both armor and a gun, but a sweet disposition.”
“Miscreants?” Quentin said.
“Ne’er do wells?” Conrad tried. “Blackguards? Hooligans? How about rapscallions, that’s a good one.”
“Fucking English teachers, I swear,” the man known as Seattle said. “How about I take you to see Uncle Charlie?”
Both Ed and George jerked at his comment. “He’s here?” Ed said in surprise. Nearly five years decoding messages from the man but he’d never actually met him. Ed, in fact, suspected that “Uncle Charlie” was several people, just a code name for some intelligence cell inside ARF command.
“This is all hands on deck,” Seattle told them. “You’ll see.”
“We just gonna walk across the street?” Weasel said.
Seattle wiggled his eyebrows at them and moved to the rear of the small room behind Conrad and his lawn chair. He pulled a section of dirty rug and a warped sheet of stained plywood off to the side, revealing a hole in the concrete floor. “Not exactly,” he said.
The men of Theodore stared at the rough-edged black oval in the floor. “There’s a ladder,” Seattle assured them.
“I’ll go,” Ed announced. He turned to George. “Pull Early in and post him at the door where Renny can see him.”
“You had a sniper covering your approach? Excellent!” Conrad exclaimed.
Ed carefully followed Seattle down the ladder and disappeared from sight.
“Villains!” Conrad said cheerfully. “I’ve always loved that word. Sounds better with a British accent, though. Ooh, how about knave?”