It sounded like someone shouting a warning, or giving orders. And, more interesting still, it sounded American.
The noise had come from the west, farther along the mountainside. She could see the ground drop off sharply ahead. Well, she couldn’t see it at all, but she knew the contours now.
Ordinarily she would have circled around the voices and continued on her way, but she was curious. She decided it was best to identify the speaker, make sure they were just mountain climbers and that no one was in any danger and then move on quietly.
She moved quickly through the snow, each step squeaking. She carefully stepped towards the sharp drop, planning to negotiate her way around it, but she stopped in her tracks when she caught sight of what was far below.
It was a temporary camp, and it looked new.
But this was no ordinary camp. Nasira couldn’t help but notice the security perimeter. She dropped to her stomach, removed her ruck and searched for her binos. She wriggled forward, slowly, until she had just enough space to get a visual. With the magnification of the binos she was able to identify a silver half-pipe shelter that wrapped around a dome-shaped structure. It looked like a donut. The half-pipe was large enough to drive a tractor through, and the dome tent was the size of an Olympic swimming pool. But what lay inside, Nasira did not know.
The perimeter of the base was fringed with coils of razor wire, except for one entrance. And she could already make out three pairs of soldiers in white camouflage. Their attention was focused on the entrance. They watched people in white, baggy uniforms walk out of the base. On closer inspection, Nasira realized they were wearing contamination suits with hoods and visors removed. Some of them carried crates, others shiny black bags.
The soldiers in white carried M4 carbines. There had been no effort to camouflage the carbines for the snow, although it did make her wonder if there were surveillance and sniper teams in the forest or higher on the mountain.
Yeah, time to get the fuck out of here.
But the core of the base drew her. She didn’t know how to describe what it was doing, but it riveted her attention. It burned.
Her fingers started to shake. She balled them into fists.
What the hell was happening?
She calmed herself. Thought it through. Tried to figure out the many possible explanations for this base. But her mind wandered to the rear of the perimeter. A part of her had already planned a way inside.
Hypothetically, of course.
If she were to go in, there was a door at the rear of the half-pipe. Her hand touched the belt around her waist. The knife wasn’t the only thing she carried. She had lockpicks too, and a door like that would only take a minute, maybe two.
Without patrolling sentries, it could be done with minimal risk. The soldiers at the front seemed fixed in position. But inside the base was high risk. She had no idea what was in there. The chances of being seen once she was inside increased from ten percent to fuck off don’t even think about it percent.
It was a real stupid idea.
And she was already moving. Behind the ridge line, out of view. Through a finger of forest. Her breathing quickened as she padded through the snow. She knew the fall of the land before she placed each step, so she never tripped or misjudged the depth of the snowfall.
That’s coming in handy, she thought.
And then she was there. At the rear of the base.
No sentries.
Just the razor wire and a large empty space between the wire and the base. She fished for her multitool from her ruck and snipped through with just four cuts. She held her boot over the final coil before it could retract along the fence. She knew she couldn’t leave sign of her entry. If they found the village they might interrogate Lucia. She didn’t want that.
She stepped through the gap in the razor wire and unthreaded paracord from one of her boots. She used the paracord to draw the wire back together. So close that it looked intact from a distance.
Her boot was tight enough that she could still walk on it, but she moved carefully through the deeper patches of snow, trying not to accidentally lodge it and have to make the rest of her trip with a missing boot.
With no sign of sentries on either side of the base’s rear, she moved in a direct line for the door. If there was a surveillance or sniper team watching from above there weren’t too many places for them to position themselves. She’d checked as she moved into position. But if they found a position to surveil then she was about to get sprung. And she had only her knife. So a confrontation with any carbine-wielding sentries was not high on her to-do list.
She reached the door and, mouth open, listened for a moment. There was no point scrambling to get inside from a sniper. If there was one, she’d be dead by now. And rushing this was not a great idea. When she was satisfied she couldn’t hear anything in her vicinity, she inserted her rake lockpick — the one with three triangular bumps — and used her other lockpick’s end, which doubled as a torque wrench.
She started raking and in two strokes she’d seated most of the pins. She used the rake lockpick to feel out each pin, slowly working her way from the end towards the front of the lock, testing each pin and lightly guiding it out of the shaft. With each seated pin, she felt the lock turn just a fraction more.
Footsteps.
Squeaky footsteps.
They were coming from around the donut curve of the base. The stride was purposeful but not too purposeful. They weren’t looking for someone, but they did seem to be patrolling. Well, one of them was. She couldn’t hear a second set of boots in the snow. Any moment now, the sentry would see her and have enough distance between them to drop her where she stood, or capture her. Either wasn’t ideal.
She worked hard on the second last pin. It felt seated but the door was still locked. She could move away from the sentry, work her way around the base. But she would soon run into another sentry. It was open ground out here in the snow.
Her only way out was through.
Last pin.
The footsteps squeaked closer.
Nasira’s eyes were on the edge of the base. Her fingers worked independently of her vision. She tried to listen to the pins, to hear the last pin seat. To hear the click as the lock turned.
She heard the sentry sniff with a runny nose.
Her hands were shaking.
Not now, she thought, not fucking now.
She almost lost grip on the rake lockpick. The footsteps were very close now. The sentry was one, maybe two steps away. adrenalin iced through her.
Click.
The lock turned.
She palmed the lockpicks, stepped inside and looked down to notice she was missing a boot. She spotted the boot in the snow behind her. She opened the door, just wide enough to reach out, and plucked the boot. She pulled the door back in quickly, then slowing as the door reached the frame and — painfully slowly — closing the door with the handle turned. She released the handle last, very slowly.
Then she held her breath.
The footsteps moved towards the door.
She reached for her knife, positioned herself beside the door. There was no one around her, no one to see her. She didn’t move.
The footsteps continued past.
She waited a moment and then exhaled.
The half-pipe tent was surprisingly bare, lined with white vinyl and two continuous strips of fluorescent lights. It was like a fridge in there. Microwave-shaped heaters were suspended from various points in the ceiling, but they weren’t turned on. She exhaled again and saw her breath curl in the air.
Along the sides of the half-pipe she could see tiny rectangular windows. She kept under them as she moved through. One side allowed her to look out into the snow, and she didn’t want to be spotted by a wayward sentry. The inside looked in to the dome-shaped center.