“Just be sure to stay out of sight. I’d stay close to the fence and use the junk piles for cover.”
Thanks for the tip. Wasn’t planning on running through the middle of the thing and yelling at the top of my lungs.
“Anything else?” Sean asked. He kept his snarky thoughts to himself.
Kanu shook his head. “No. I’ll be waiting here for you. If you aren’t here when the time is up, I will leave you. This area isn’t a place you want to be after dark.”
“You’d leave me after all we’ve been through?”
Kanu’s blank stare showed he wasn’t amused by the comment.
“Okay then.”
Sean grabbed his pistol and shoved it in a side holster then covered it with the bottom of his shirt. Next he took the three homing beacons and secured them in one of the side pockets on his pants. Two spare magazines went into his back pockets.
He gave one last look around outside. None of the onlookers they’d seen before were around. The junkyard must have been one of the few places no one hung out.
“See you in a few,” Sean said.
He hopped out of the SUV and trotted across the street, looking both ways to make sure that no one noticed him. The road was still oddly vacant, like a ghost town. Back to his right, another husk of a manufacturing facility stood against the blue sky. All the windows were shattered, the walls covered in graffiti, and the gutters on the roof had rusted.
Sean turned his attention to the fence surrounding the junkyard as he veered onto the sidewalk and kept moving. It was chain-link fence and, judging from its appearance, had been put there at least thirty years before. There were big dents in it, likely from where a vehicle had struck. Some of the supporting poles were rusted or bent. But the outward-tilting barbwire on the top still presented enough of a threat to keep the general public away.
His eyes looked ahead, searching the long metal facade for the opening Kanu had described. He stole a glance back over his shoulder and heard the Toyota’s motor grumble to life. Kanu waved and turned out of the parking spot and back out onto the main road.
Sean didn’t think his ride was leaving. He figured Kanu would circle for a while, maybe find a safer place to park — if there was such a thing in this city.
He pushed ahead, quickening his pace.
There.
The breach in the fencing was just as Kanu described. The chain-link door was technically hanging by two hinges, but the top one had pretty much given up the fight long ago. And as Kanu had said, it was locked with a chain and padlock, with more than enough of a gap to get through for an average-sized person.
Tommy probably couldn’t squeeze through this thing, he thought with a smirk.
Sean gave one last look around the street and ducked under the chain, slipping easily through the space.
On the other side, he found mountains of crushed cars, parts of machinery he didn’t recognize, and components that must have come from some of the old factories around the area. Like the street he’d just left, the junkyard was abandoned, devoid of any activity. He half wondered if the area was contaminated. It was an eerie thing to consider.
Sean had heard of places where chemical spills rendered large portions of cities completely uninhabitable. Most of those stories came from Third World countries much like Somalia. But nothing in the dossier said anything about that, so he chose to believe things were desolate because of the warlords and the floundering economy.
After he reconnoitered the space within seconds of stepping through the fence, Sean darted to the right, keeping low until he reached the first pile of junk. Dead ahead, the fence came to an abrupt halt and was replaced by a concrete block wall. According to the map he’d memorized, the warehouse would be at the other end of that wall, just beyond the far corner.
He sprinted from one junk pile to another until he was only fifty feet away from the corner. The wall was only nine feet high, but he’d need to use something to get over it. That part wouldn’t be the problem. He found a beaten-up ice chest in the pile next to him and carried it over to the wall. It would give him just enough of a boost to reach the upper edge.
Standing next to the concrete barricade, the real issue vocalized itself quite literally.
He could hear men barking out orders on the other side. Engines running on propane — likely forklifts — were zooming back and forth. Once on top of the wall, he’d be a sitting duck.
There had to be a better way in.
Sean went through the overhead view of the warehouse grounds in his mind. The corner where he’d considered going in should have been the best option. But that was based on the notion that the place was not in use, which it clearly was. And — no doubt — the men on the other side were armed and ready to kill on sight.
The wall extended away from the corner in the other direction, but that would lead to the warehouse entrance. A direct entry wouldn’t be any good. Even if he made it beyond the first set of guards, the alarm would be raised, and he’d end up either dead or captured.
He stepped back to the junk pile and into the meager shade it provided. From the second Sean stepped out of the SUV, the sun had started baking him. While his black outfit would help him look more like someone not to be messed with, it was a terrible choice for the blistering Somali heat. Then an idea struck.
He’d been thinking about things too linearly. The odd layout of the walls came to a sort of X at the corners, which was where he planned to go in. But if he scaled the junkyard wall away from the corner and traversed the lip to the other wall, he could switch over and traverse to a point where there was less activity. It would be extremely difficult. It was, however, his best option.
Sean grabbed the ice chest and hauled it five yards away from the corner. He stepped up on the wobbly metal cooler and — after steadying his balance — made the short jump up. His fingers grabbed the edge, and within a second he’d pulled himself up to the top. In a single motion, Sean swung his legs over the other side, and he let himself hang from the wall. He was only a foot off the ground, but if he fell, getting back up would be a tough trick.
In an instant, he saw the small area in which he hung was a vacant lot, surrounded by the warehouse wall, the junkyard wall, and the fence that extended between the two.
So yeah, if I fall here, I may not get back out. Not without a lot of cuts from that barbed wire.
He was only going to get one shot. His fingers gripped the gritty concrete surface. He planted his toes against the wall and started sliding to the right. The corner was close yet so far, and he didn’t hear any indication that he’d been spotted. He shuffled one hand to the right and then the next, using his feet to help redistribute the weight.
In the corner, his forearms were already burning, and he had to make a tricky transition. Sean let go with his right hand and quickly moved it over to the other wall. His fingers grasped the edge, and he started to let go with his left, but suddenly his right-hand fingers slipped on some debris. A surge of panic shot through his body as he felt the ledge slide out of his grip.
Instinctively, he squeezed as hard as he could with his left hand. His torso swung against the first wall, and for a moment he was hanging with one hand. He felt his back muscles on the left side straining. His fingers rapidly lost strength. To compensate, he fired his right hand back up and grabbed the first ledge again.
Now the fingertips on his right hand stung, and he noticed a few specks of red on the gray block.
That’s gonna hurt for a few days.