Whiplash

24

Colonel Zsar typically posted a single guard on the road at the edge of town. The man tended to fall asleep around midnight, but Nuri wasn’t counting on that. He drove with his light off — he could see farther with his night visor anyway. When he was about three miles from the village, he throttled back to lessen the bike’s noise.

Just over a half mile away he turned off the road, traveling due south across a fallow field until he came to an old path that wound up the nearby hill. Once used by shepherds for a pasture, the hill was now overgrown by trees eight to nine feet tall. He found a relatively clear spot just on the other side of the crest. There, he and Hera inflated the surveillance blimp, then slowly eased it skyward between the tree branches. Launching it was a calculated risk, but Nuri reasoned that no one would know precisely what it was if it came down for some reason.

With the blimp on station and its video cameras working, Nuri went back down to the field, driving across to a lane used by farm vehicles. A wall of rocks rose on each side of the lane as he drove toward the village, but they were more of an opportunity than a barrier — he planned to hide the bike behind them as he and Hera toured the village buildings.

The milk factory was his next stop. He drove until they were roughly parallel to it, then shut off the engine and coasted.

“All off,” he said as the bike’s momentum finally faded.

Hera said nothing. She’d resolved to say as little as possible the entire night. Clearly, the Whiplash assignment wasn’t going to be big enough for both she and Nuri to work together; she’d work out some sort of transfer as soon as this operation was over.

“We’ll go up this way,” Nuri told her. “There’s a night watchman who patrols at the front of the barn. We’ll go around the back.”

He put his hand on the wall and jumped over, trotting toward a cluster of small houses scattered like fallen grapes between the lane and the road. The sides of the houses were lined with steel panels cut from a dismantled building, pieces of painted Styrofoam, and cut-up shipping crates.

Nuri slid down next to the house closest to the road. According to the Voice, which was monitoring the view from the blimp, there was no one in the front yard of the barn building.

He got up and started moving along the road. His first impulse was to go slowly, to seem natural in case anyone in the houses decided to look out. But his adrenaline got the better of him, and within a few steps he began to trot, and then run.

His speed surprised Hera, who had trouble keeping up. “You’re quick for a runt,” she panted, plopping down next to him at the side of the building.

“Who you calling a runt? You’re a couple of inches shorter than I am.”

She was too out of breath to answer.

Nuri tried pushing the window open but it wouldn’t budge. “I need the tools,” he whispered. “The glass cutter.”

Hera turned around so he could open the rucksack on her back.

He took out the glass cutter and a small suction cup with a handle. After attaching the cup to the window, he got ready to cut a fist-sized hole around it.

“Aren’t you going to check for an alarm before you cut?” she asked.

“They barely have electricity, for crap sake. There’s not going to be an alarm. I’ve been in more buildings here than you have pocketbooks, and I’ve never seen an alarm.”

“How many have guards?”

She was right, and Nuri knew it. He was in too much of a hurry, getting sloppy.

Even though there never were alarm systems in this part of Africa.

Except here: The detector found current near the sill; there was a simple contact system protecting the window.

He cursed under his breath.

“You’re welcome,” said Hera.

“It was a good call,” he admitted.

He’d have no trouble jumping and bypassing the wire, which was part of a simple contact system. But the fact that there was an alarm told him they weren’t just breaking into a barn.

Which was good, and bad — there were bound to be other alarms.

“I’d look for a motion detector in the room somewhere,” suggested Hera.

“Ya think?”

Hera strained not to answer back.

“There it is,” said Nuri, spotting the detector in the corner of the room.

It was about forty feet away, high in the corner, and angled slightly to the side. It might miss the window and much of the nearby wall, but there would be no getting past it to the door. While there were several ways to defeat such a sensor, the position would make it time consuming to do so.

“Let’s look for a better way in,” he told Hera.