Whiplash

28

Leaning up against the wall of the barn building, just out of the view of the video camera he’d discovered, Nuri decided he had two options. One was to put everything back the way he’d found it, and return tomorrow with a better plan. The other was to press ahead. That made the most sense, but he wasn’t sure how to defeat the camera without being detected.

He looked up at it. It was small, with a cable running from it. There was no way to tell if it was even working. The barn was very dark, but even a cheap low light camera would pick up an image. He had to assume that it did work and was being monitored.

“What if we climb up in the rafters?” he said, more to himself than Hera, who was right behind him on the other side of the wall.

“And then what?” she asked.

“I’m not sure. But this place is too well-guarded to ignore.”

Nuri pulled himself up between the posts. Set about sixteen inches apart, they would have been a tighter squeeze for a taller man, but he had little trouble.

The beams running across the ceiling were just as close, but walking across felt much more dangerous — a slip was going to hurt, even if he didn’t fall all the way through.

Hera started up behind him.

“Wait,” he said in a stage whisper. “Put the wall back if you’re coming.”

“Put the wall back?”

“In case the guard comes.”

“How the hell are we going to get back out?”

“Tighten two or three of the screws from the inside. We’ll undo them.”

“That won’t work. The panels attach from the outside.”

“Then you’ll have to stay outside. You have to put the panel back. The guard may come around. I don’t need you here. It’s all right.”

Hera slipped back through the posts and put the panel back in place. Meanwhile, Nuri worked himself about halfway down the room, crawling along the rafters. The factory was divided into a large work area to the right and a much smaller section of rooms to the left. The work area was open. There were machines in the large room, sinks, large drying machines, and a bagger.

There weren’t, however, any more video cameras. Or any other security devices, for that matter. He looked back at the camera he’d gotten by. It was aimed directly at the hallway.

Why watch there and not the larger room? It seemed to be protecting the rooms in the back — yet they were empty.

Nuri took it for granted that Colonel Zsar knew little if anything about security systems, but whoever had installed this one had. So the camera had some reason to be there, as did the window and room alarms.

“Hera, go around the back and make sure there’s nothing in any of the rooms there,” he whispered over the Voice’s radio circuit. “I’m confused.”

“That seems to be a constant state.”

Nuri worked his way over the rooms, which were covered by a Sheetrock ceiling. One had a large fan vent in the middle. Deciding it must be a restroom, he was about to move on when he noticed two different sets of wires running from the fan unit — a power wire and a smaller, stranded wire, the type typically used in an alarm unit.

“Look for a bathroom,” he told Hera. “See if there’s anything — I don’t know. Unusual.”

Hera had to bite her lip not to say something nasty in return.

“I can’t find the bathroom,” she told him after a moment. “It doesn’t have a window.”

Which explained the need for the fan, but not an alarm.

There were other things the wire might have belonged to, such as a thermostat, but Nuri was stuck on the idea of an alarm. He checked the wire, found current, then examined the fan, carefully unscrewing the upper housing. A motion detector was mounted just below the fan unit.

Why would anyone want to know if someone was taking a leak?

He decided to put his own bug into the unit. He took out a fresh stick of gum and began chewing furiously, then put a small piece on the back of the bug. As he hunted for a place to put it, the Voice told him two men were approaching the building.

“Armed, coming from the rebel camp,” added the computer.

“Hera. Someone’s coming.” Nuri flattened himself on the ceiling. “Rebel soldiers. Be careful back there.”

“Where are they?”

“On the road. Just be quiet.”

“Are they going in the building?”

“I don’t know. Probably not. They’ve never had a shift change at this time before.”

But the men were guards, and were coming for a new shift. Colonel Zsar had taken his best men with him to the meeting, replacing the guards at the barn and the village. Had Tarid not been there, the colonel might not have even bothered to post another guard, but the Iranian would have had a fit if he’d found out.

To make the dull duty more palatable — and in hopes of actually keeping them awake — Colonel Zsar divided the normal shift. The two soldiers spotted by the Voice through the blimp’s feed were coming to replace the men on watch.

The men went to the side door of the factory, talking and laughing loudly enough that Nuri could hear them quite clearly, even before they began shouting to wake the guard, who’d fallen fast asleep less than an hour after coming on duty. It took a few shouts before they rousted him; they found that hilarious rather than troubling. When he finally woke and let them in, they claimed they had just left his wife and suggested he look for evidence in nine months.

Nuri listened to the Voice’s translation, which was flat and without humor. When they were done joking, they asked if he’d seen anything, which for some reason elicited a new round of laughter. Then they told him to go home to his wife and “sloppy seconds.”

The Voice confessed that it could not find the proper definition of the slang term.

As he listened, Nuri slipped across the rafters to the edge of the open area, planting a video bug in a position where it could scan nearly all of the front room. He placed another one to cover the hallway, then slipped back over the bathroom area, pressing himself down and trying to breathe as softly as he could.