Either way, he was confident the cargo truck was inside those walls, hopefully still laden with its precious promethium load.
Storm checked the time on his iPad. It was ten minutes after 10 P.M. There was still activity inside the walls: lights on, men talking to each other, vehicles moving around. He tried counting the number of distinct voices he could make out. There were perhaps eight.
That didn’t count men who were still inside the main house or any of the other buildings he had seen on Google Earth. But it gave him some sketchy idea of the odds facing him: eight to one, at least. Probably more like twelve to one or sixteen to one, thinking that some number of men — including the leaders — were likely to be inside.
Storm hunkered down behind a tree just outside the wall, down the street from the entrance gate, where he could see but not be seen.
There was no question in his mind he had to move on the compound before sunrise. Yes, he could plan a better operation if he had a full day to do reconnaissance. But giving the terrorists an extra day — during which time they might attempt to move the promethium, or shoot down more airplanes, or create other unimaginable mayhem — was out of the question.
He would just have to go on what he had, which was not much. Eight distinct voices. A compound with several buildings. An as-yet-undetermined connection to the larger network of the Medina Society.
Then, from behind his tree, Storm watched something he did not expect: the odds kept improving. As the hour grew later, men were leaving, one by one. Some of them were men he had shot earlier in the day — they had the telltale bandages on their shoulders. Others were uninjured.
Either way, they all followed a more-or-less similar pattern. They went to the main gate and announced themselves to the man in the guard shack. The guard came out with a key ring, selected one, and unlocked the gate. There was no automatic gate lift. He held it open for them as they passed through, then closed it behind them.
Some left on bicycles. Others walked to their cars, which were parked near the walls, in the neighborhood. It was like watching factory workers at the end of a shift, heading back home.
Maybe this was one of the Medina Society’s tricks: never stay assembled in large numbers for very long.
Or maybe there was still a horde of men holed up quietly inside, and this was barely more than a slivering of the force Storm would soon have to face.
At eleven o’clock, there was a changing of the guard. The new man received the AK-47 like a baton in a relay. The man being relieved went to his car and drove off, just like the other men had. There was a routine feeling to what Storm was seeing. This had happened many times before.
By midnight, the exodus had stopped. All told, eleven men had departed. Storm waited another hour anyway, just to see what might transpire. Nothing did. Silence had settled onto the compound.
Sometime after one, with a quarter moon struggling up from the horizon, Storm rose from his hiding spot and prepared for his assault.
It was one man against…well, he was about to find out.
WHILE THERE WERE ANY NUMBER of vulnerable points along the wall — mostly places where trees had grown tall enough to allow easy scaling and where the razor wire could have been clipped open — Storm decided to go in through the front, past the guard shack.
It just made sense. He would have to deal with the guard eventually: if not on the way in, then on the way out. There was no sense in procrastinating.
Dressed in his black clothing, Storm moved in the shadows toward the shack, which was lit by a single, dim bulb in the ceiling. The little building was elevated on concrete blocks and had a window that slid open, allowing the guard to be on eye level with entering trucks. Next to the window, there was a closed door with stairs leading up to it.
From inside, Storm could hear a small television. The volume was muffled, but it was tuned to what sounded like an infomercial. If that didn’t qualify as a cure for insomnia, he didn’t know what did. And yet the guard appeared to be awake.
The setup presented problems. Storm couldn’t risk using his gun. The noise would alert the troops inside that something was happening. And while there were quiet ways of dealing with the guard, they all involved physical contact — which was impossible when the man was high up in the shack, protected by a door that was more than likely locked.
He was now across the narrow street from the shack, still shrouded by trees. Behind him was a new house being framed, which gave him an idea. Retreating quietly into the construction site, he eventually found what he was looking for: a scrap piece of two-by-four, about three feet long, not unlike a Louisville Slugger.
Storm departed the house from the side, which allowed him to circle in behind the guard shack, where he wouldn’t be seen. He then shuffled silently up to the corner of the shack, sucked in a lungful of air, and pursed his lips.
What came out was an imitation of a Jameson’s Finch. It was more than just passable. It was, if Storm said so himself, spot on. He paused, took another breath, then unleashed another chorus of the bird’s optimistic, cheery song.
The television inside the guard shack suddenly went mute. Storm grinned, then whistled again.
There was a creaking sound as the door to the shack opened. Storm could hear one foot being put on the top tread of the stairs. He tweeted as if he was the happiest Jameson’s Finch that ever lived, then cut it off.
Now there were footsteps coming down the small flight of steps, and the gritty crunch of feet walking on a sidewalk that was covered in a light layer of sand. The guard was moving as if he was looking high and low, and left and right for the bird.
Storm chirped one last time, to give the guard a final fix on his location. He gripped the two-by-four in both hands and raised it behind his right shoulder. The guard had now zeroed in and was rounding the corner, sure he was about to see a Jameson’s Finch that would bring him great good fortune.
Instead, it brought him a headache. The moment the guard appeared, Storm swung the two-by-four with all he had. Its flat side connected just above the man’s ear with a percussive thud. He fell as if every bone in his body had turned to putty.
Storm was ready to give him one more shot, but it wasn’t necessary. The man was out. Storm took the guard’s AK-47 and draped its strap over his own torso. Then he grabbed the guard under the arms and dragged him quickly back into the shack. There was no rope or tape inside, so he yanked the cord out of the back of the television, using it to bind the guard’s wrists behind his back.
The guard was wearing a turban, which Storm hastily unwrapped, exposing a matted mess of curly dark hair. Storm tore the garment into three strips, using one part to gag the man, another to secure his legs, and a third to tie the leg restraint to the hands, trussing him up like a Thanksgiving turkey.
It was not, to be sure, the most secure binding Storm had ever devised. But it would take the guard some time to get out when he came to. Storm planned to be long gone before that happened.
Storm’s final act before exiting was to take the key ring off a hook by the door. He approached the gate, which was as tall as the wall on either side of it and made of wrought iron. It was secured by a thick bolt that went deep into the ground.
He was impressed. A tank could have gotten through. But any other vehicle wouldn’t have been able to get enough speed on the narrow street to ram it open, nor would it be able to gain the proper angle to hit it head-on.
That said, the gate was no match for the thin piece of metal now in Storm’s hand. He slid the key into a well-oiled lock, which slid easily. Storm lifted the bolt, squeezed through a narrow opening in the gate, then left it ajar — enough that it wouldn’t impede his exit, if that exit had to be speedy; but, hopefully, not enough that anyone inside would notice.