Armed with heavy-duty wire cutters, I clip the fence enough so I can bend the loose section out far enough for me to slip inside. I close this “trapdoor” behind me and carefully position the cut ends together so that unless someone carefully inspects them, the fence appears normal.
I quickly skirt to the space between the two huts and pause to map out my plan of attack. I want to hit the administrative building, especially Basaran’s office. I’d also like to get inside the Tirma office and see what I might find in there. Finally, the big warehouse and steel mill must hold some secrets. It will be a busy night.
I decide to begin at the end of the complex near the lake — the Tirma building and Basaran’s office — and then make my way back this way. The key is to stay in the shadows. My uniform is embedded with photosensors that detect and let me know how much light falls on me. When I switch on the OPSAT meter, I can see exactly how invisible I really am. At the moment I’m at thirty-two percent. It’s very luminous throughout the compound, and my only screens are the broad shadows of buildings, cast by the floodlights. Walkways between buildings are so bright it’s like daylight.
The corner periscope comes in handy here. I use it to look around the corner of the hut and determine that the walkway is clear. I scan the pole supporting a floodlight and don’t spot any cameras. I go for it.
I run across the walkway and stop at the next building, my back to the wall. I then inch around to the next corner and repeat the process. I count six buildings between my goal and me. It goes smoothly until I reach the fifth building. The periscope shows two guards in the walkway, smoking and talking. I have to find a way to distract them, so I take the SC-20K off my shoulder and load it with a diversion camera. If I wanted to, I could set the camera to also trigger CS gas, but I don’t wish to leave traces of my presence if I don’t have to. The main thing is simply to get the guards out of the way.
I load the gun and aim at a building directly in line from where I am, some fifty yards away. I check to make sure the suppressor is fitted correctly, take a bead, and squeeze the trigger. The soft pfft! sound blends with the night breeze and is unheard by my two buddies. Through the scope I see that the sticky camera adhered to the upper part of the building’s side — a little low — but it will have to do. I sling the rifle back over my shoulder and tap the OPSAT to activate the diversion device. There are a variety of sounds in the menu that I can pick, from animal noises to a recording of “Alexander’s Ragtime Band.” I decide on a static white noise, one that’s loud enough for them to hear. They’ll think it’s a malfunctioning loudspeaker and go over to investigate it. I hope.
Sure enough, the two guards look over at the sound. They mumble to each other and then walk in that direction. Hurrah. Now’s my chance. I inch around the corner, and the light meter on my OPSAT goes up to the danger area. I’m in full sight. I run to the sixth building on my route, exposed for approximately eight seconds. By the time I’m there, the guards have reached the diversion camera and are probably wondering what the hell it is.
The path is clear for me to scoot across the road and small parking lot to the Tirma building. It’s very different from the rest of the structures in the compound. The two-story Tirma building seems to have been designed after an American Colonial house, something you’d see in a middle-class New England neighborhood. It’s made of wood, is painted white, and has two fat columns on opposite sides of the front door. Instead of a number to mark the building’s location, the word TIRMA is displayed on the molding above the door. Very strange.
I slink around to the back of the building, where there is less chance of being spotted. Luckily there’s no lighting back here. I can look out across the vast lake and see the town square marina about a mile along the shore. The wind coming off the lake is icy cold.
There’s a back door, presumably used as an emergency exit, and a couple of windows on the ground floor. I try the windows first, but they’re both locked. It’ll have to be the door. Once again my lock picks are useful, and I’m able to open the simple bolt lock in six seconds.
I’m inside the building, in a room that’s apparently used for putting stuff that doesn’t fit anywhere else. There are stacks of folding chairs that I guess must be for big meetings. I see shelves full of office supplies and a bunch of boxes beneath them. There’s a soft drink vending machine here, too.
This room leads to a hallway that shoots straight to the front door on the other side of the building. I listen carefully for any signs of occupation and hear nothing. I move on and see that the hallway connects to a large conference room, complete with a big-screen television and A/V equipment, and another room that appears to be a social parlor. They must hold fund-raising cocktail soirees in there. The largest room on the floor contains samples of the various goods that Tirma sends out for relief. I figure the complete stock is stored elsewhere on the campus, in one of the storage sheds or a warehouse. These include medical supplies, dried food, water bottles, grain, and articles of clothing. Besides a couple of modern bathrooms there’s not much else on the ground floor, so I quietly ascend the staircase to the second. The place is furnished with thick carpet, even on the stairs. My movements are relatively silent except every now and then the wooden floor creaks beneath the carpet. That can’t be helped.
Upstairs I find four offices. One is obviously for support staff — there are three desks, computers, filing cabinets, a copy machine — what you’d normally find in an office. The other three offices are probably for administrators of the charity organization. In one of them I find a lot of company literature printed in several different languages — pamphlets and brochures explaining Tirma’s purpose and goals. I take a handful; some are printed in English, some in Farsi, some in Turkish, and some in Arabic. I place these in my Osprey and move on.
The other two rooms are executives’ offices. I boot up the computers in each room and spend a little time at them. I don’t need any security passwords, and I’m able to browse through the files easily. I’m unable to find anything suspicious, even when I search for the names Tarighian, Mohammed, Mertens, or Zdrok.
For all intents and purposes, it appears that Tirma is a legitimate charity organization.
I make my way out of the building and exit through the door I came in. The next stop is Basaran’s office, inside the building that’s a couple of doors down. This one’s going to prove more difficult. It’s very well lit and I’m sure the security is stronger. There may be people inside. I stay in the back and dart to the next structure — the employees’ cafeteria — and then the next… until I’m looking at the main administrative building where I met Basaran earlier. There are no guards in the back, but I know that at least one is patrolling the front.
The back door has a keypad lock. I’m betting that the same code is used throughout the building, so I punch my OPSAT to recall the sequence I noted earlier. I press the buttons 8, 6, 0, 2, 5 and the door unlocks. I know there are surveillance cameras all over the place, so I open the door just a sliver and use the corner periscope to peek inside. Sure enough, there’s a camera trained at the door.
If I wanted to I could take it out with the Five-seveN pistol, but that would only call attention to the fact that someone had been in the building. I’d rather get around it another way. The camera appears to be a standard off-the-shelf model that continuously records, but only if there’s sufficient lighting in the room. There has to be a switch just inside the door — I maneuver the periscope until I see it, then reach my hand in quickly and flick off the lights. I then enter the room and shut the door. With my night-vision goggles I can see fine, but the camera is recording nothing but darkness.