Stephen was standing to one side of the shattered windows overlooking the warehouse. "What are you doing?" he whispered.
“Making our own exit,” Liam replied. He pulled his K-Bar from its belt sheath and placed the point against the sheet rock. He pushed with it. The blade slowly sank into the wall. Liam kept pushing until the knife's guard touched the wall. Slowly, he sawed the knife in and out, moving the blade down until he'd cut a six-inch gash in the wall. He slowly pulled the knife out, twisted the blade and pushed it into the wall at the bottom of the gash. He made more cuts at right angles to the first, until he'd cut a six-inch square. He pulled the cut piece out of the wall and looked inside.
The K-bar had gone through two panels of sheetrock, giving Liam a view of the warehouse they couldn’t see from the offices. He could see the stair rail and the steps leading down. Parked near the bottom was a white pickup truck, known locally as a bakkie, with the SeaStar Logo on the door. A lean to his left gave Liam enough of a view in front of the truck to see an overhead door currently closed. He leaned to the right and saw two figures in black crouched behind some forklifts. Liam took note of the propane tanks that powered the forklifts.
He pulled back and stood. "Okay, team," he whispered into his radio. “I have a plan to get out of this—"
They heard and felt a small explosion somewhere near the base of the stairs. The few lights on the warehouse’s floor flickered and died.
"Damn it," Liam said without rancor. "Three, they've cut the power. Clean up your stuff and get ready to move. I'm on my way back."
He looked at Stephen. "They may be using this to mount an attack. Fall back to the middle office and watch the stairs until I get Dani."
"What's the plan?"
Liam inhaled, then his nose twitched as it registered the pungent smell of something burning. He looked around and in his NVGs he caught wisps of what might be smoke.
"You smell something burning?"
Stephen sniffed the air. "Yeah."
"Check out there and see if you see anything burning. I'm going to get Dani."
Liam moved back through the middle office to the one on the end. Danielle had just finished putting everything into her satchel. "Not sure if I got all the data."
Liam stood near the windows and looked out. "How much of the database did you get?"
"Sixty percent, maybe." She sniffed the air and looked around. "Something’s burning."
Liam knelt and felt the floor. "Floor's warm. Go join Stephen."
"What's happening?"
"I think they've started fires in the rooms below us." Liam stood. "We're literally in the frying pan."
CHAPTER NINE
Tanner Wilson wasn't someone to leave his friends and teammates hanging when they were in danger. At the same time, he didn't want to drop clues behind while he and his half of the team went to help the other half the team. Someone had thrown their hat into the ring— assassinated Aswegen — and now had his people under siege.
"One minutes to search the attacker's bodies," he said to Dante and Naomi as they reentered the SeaStar offices. "Just frisk and grab." They nodded and hurried out into the hallway. Tanner followed.
"Hey!" someone shouted.
Tanner turned to his left and saw a young man in the doorway of an office. His clothes were in disarray and he was pale and drawn, but he looked unharmed. Tanner reached in and pulled out his credentials case. "Are you all right?"
"I'll survive." The man was in his early twenties and definitely shaken up, but overall Tanner agreed with is assessment. "Who are you?"
Tanner flipped open his credentials case, showing the young man the forged INTERPOL ID. "Inspector Jackson Thomas. And you are?"
"Duncan Cook. Bookkeeper."
"Any ideas who could have done this?" Tanner looked around at the scene of devastation and death.
Duncan shook his head. "No. We were working late because of the situation with one of our ships, and…." He looked around. "Where is everyone?"
"We don't know, But I suggest you go around and get everybody who can still move out of here. Did you call the police?"
"I didn't, I should, though.” He began fumbling in his pockets for a cell-phone.
"Don’t worry about it. I'll call them. In the meantime, don't touch anything and get everyone you can out of here as fast as you possibly can.”
Duncan nodded hurriedly. "Yes, yes, of course. My God."
Tanner reached out and put a hand on Duncan's shoulder. "Concentrate," he said gently. "You can fall apart later, but right now, there are people who need you to lead."
Duncan inhaled. "Of course. Yes, thank you." He turned and went to the next office and knocked on the door. "Karen? Are you all right?"
Tanner turned back and saw the body of the attacker he'd killed earlier in the office doorway. He went over and knelt next to the fallen assailant. He pulled the ski mask off and saw that the attacker was no older than Duncan. His eyes were open and unseeing. Tanner closed them and swiftly searched the body. There were a few items, marijuana joints, some coins and a few bills. Tanner left them next to the corpse. The wallet had a few cards; an ID that identified the deceased as Rafi Najib, a few business cards, a few scraps of paper, and several photos, probably family. In addition, there was a cell phone, which Tanner pocketed along with the business cards and papers. He rose and moved to the other attacker he'd killed, the one over in the break area.
When he came around the counter, he found the attacker still breathing, though from the amount of blood coming from the nose and mouth, he wasn't going to be much longer. Tanner crouched down, careful to avoid the blood. He pulled the ski mask up to reveal the face. The man was a little older that the other attacker, the beginning of a beard around the jawline. His eyes were distant and blinking slowly.
"Who sent you?" Tanner demanded.
The man muttered, mixing Arabic, English and Afrikaner in a jumble of disconnected words. "Allah… inshAllah … Die Handelaar ….lied to us … ana 'atshaan …. ahtaju tabeeban …."
"Who sent you?" Tanner repeated, but the dying man either didn't hear him or didn't understand.
"Die Handelaar ….Ek is verlore….Ek het 'n dokter nodig—" He closed his eyes, shuddered and died.
Tanner bit off a curse and searched the body, finding the same things that he'd found on the first corpse, including a cell phone. Once he was done, he stood and spoke into his radio. "Two and Three: Are you done?"
"Yes, we're done," Naomi responded. "I also checked the computer room. The network servers are shot all to hell."
"All right," Tanner said, fighting disappointment. "Let's get out of here."
The smoke was becoming noticeable as Danielle and Liam entered the break room. "How are we going to do this?" Stephen asked.
Liam pointed outside the room. "Start a fire fight. I'm going to run from here to the end office, shooting at anything I can. You two stay low until I give you the word. When I do, cut a hole through the sheet rock and get down the stairs. There's a pickup truck there. You can hot wire it, right?"
Stephen nodded. "What about you?"
"As soon as you're at the truck, I'll break off and join you."
"Assuming the floor lasts that long," Danielle said. "I can feel the heat through the soles of my shoes."