by E. A. Darl
Mitch shook his head. He knew about the milk box too. It was only about a foot square. That, my dear, is why you are perfect for this task.” He twisted back around and stuffed the key in the ignition, starting the Mustang once again. “It is time for you to meet Peet.” He swung back out of the rest stop and stepped on the accelerator, picking up speed.
The telephone poles whipped by, blurring into the baked landscape. True to form, the sun popped over the horizon, a blistering red ball of heat that warmed the interior of the car to the point that they rolled down the windows despite the dust. A half hour later, they turned off onto a side road that wound its way along the banks of a dried up river, then took another turning down a dirt lane way. The gravel crunched under the tires as they drove through a short stand of pine trees and out into a clearing, where sat a small stone cottage with red shuttered windows. The land was clear of brush and trees for about a hundred feet in all directions, some of the stumps freshly cut. As the Mustang pulled up in front of the house, the door opened and a man limped out, carrying a shotgun tucked under his arm.
The girls looked at each other and then to Mitch, who leaned out the window and yelled “Peet, it’s Mitch! Put the fool gun away, you dolt.”
Peet scratched at his beard and squinted across the bright space. “Is ‘dat you, Mitch? Seems to me that this be a workday and you should be at work. You got kids with you?”
Mitch opened the car door and stood up, grinning. “Yup, I have kids with me.”
“Well that is fine with me! I love kids!” Peet propped the shotgun against the porch railing and walked down to greet the girls as they climbed out of the car. “I bet you are glad this isn’t a squad car,” he chuckled. “Mitch took me for a ride in his police car once, I wasn’t happy about there being no handles inside.” He caught Avalon laughing at him and winked. “Mind you, it was for my own safety. Not everyone is as friendly as Peet, not anymore.”
Mitch grunted and introduced the girls. “Avalon is on a special mission that should interest you.”
“Oh? How so?” He led them back up the steps and into the dim interior, grabbing the shotgun as he passed, and stashing it behind the door.
Polished pine walls and ceilings greeted their eyes, decorated with the carcasses of a variety of wildlife, a few of which were now extinct. A rare striped black bear pelt hung beside the head of a curly horned elk, shaggy chin hair falling to the floor like a curtain. A stuffed Dodo bird perched on a piece of driftwood, head tilted skyward and beak open in a silent cry. Avalon and Alexa peered at the museum of fauna, awe struck.
Peet grabbed a kettle and filled it with water before setting it on to boil, then gestured for them to sit. He upended a box of crackers into a wicker basket then pulled a block of cheese from the fridge and hacked off a plate of cubes. By this time the kettle was whistling. He poured it into a chipped blue teapot, added a couple tea bags and grabbed four mugs, placing them on the table before lowering himself to the empty chair.
“Now, why are you here?”
Mitch took them all in at a glance. “We need your help to break into the warehouse.”
Peet studied him over the brim of his cup, and then his eyes flicked to the two girls. “You want some fertilizer? You know that stuff is guarded, right? Not just electronic security but armed security, like me.” Mitch nodded. “You would never get in, Mitch. You would be picked up by every camera and sensor in the place, and that is just the outer security. There are places there I have never been allowed to go.”
Mitch nodded again. “I can’t get past the security, but she can.” He nodded to Avalon, who stuffed a chunk of cheese into her mouth then waved with the same hand.
“You want to send her in? Are you mad?”
“No, just desperate.” He filled Peet in on the recent events, the problems at the greenhouse and the collapse of the town should they not find a way to feed the remaining population. “The land is dying. Our way of life is dying. We need that fertilizer.”
Peet listened intently then frowned and looked at the two girls. “She may be a thief, and a good one, but you are sending her into harm’s way. She is only a child.”
“Hey, I am sixteen! I can choose for myself you know.” Avalon’s back stiffened in response to Peet’s words. “I could steal your shorts while you were wearing them, if I wanted to.”
Peet grinned at that and sat back. “Alright, I will help you. But it will not be easy... and I want something in return.”
“What?” asked Mitch.
“A piece of the action.” He grinned, his smile gaping and displaying a missing front tooth. “I want some of that fertilizer.”
Mitch nodded. “Fair enough. Let’s plan our assault.”
Peet grabbed a notebook and a pen and they all bent their heads over the sketch of the factory grounds. They planned for hours, and well into the night, examining and discarding plans, fine-tuning their approach. A plate of sandwiches appeared and disappeared as they munched on egg salad and homemade sourdough. Finally, just before midnight, he closed the binder with a snap. “We have a plan! Now, everyone off to rest.”
As Avalon’s eyes drifted closed on the narrow cot she shared with Alexa, her last thought was it would be a miracle if I survive! Somehow it did not scare her, rather she felt strangely excited about the raiding of the facility, as though she was finally doing something important. That night she dreamed about her parents, and this time they were alive, unlike her dreams of old.
Chapter 9
For Mom & Dad
MITCH HANDED THE BINOCULARS to Avalon, who grunted her thanks. A rock was digging into her side, and she shifted slightly, but did not sit up. They had crawled up the rise of the scree-filled hillside to the ridge, hidden by the shadow of a great boulder. It was tilted at such an awkward angle, it looked ready to fall on top of them at any moment, but it had probably sat that way for a thousand years, forever poised on the brink. The shade was cool and the shadowy environs kept the eyes of the binoculars from flashing with reflected sunlight. Even so, they flattened themselves into the dirt and counted.
“Ten. There are ten patrols, and they repeat their pattern every ten minutes,” said Avalon.
“Eleven,” corrected Peet. See the guard there? ”He pointed to a wooden guard booth. “You cannot dismiss him because he sits in the gate hut. He sits on the alarm button and is only a radio shout away. In fact, he is the first one to fool.”
Avalon swung the binoculars to the hut and studied it for a moment. Whitewashed, it had sliding windows and a tin roof. Rolling gates sat in front of it, controlled by a button within the hut that operated a chain drive. The top of each gate was wrapped in curling barbed wire, which glinted in the bright sunshine.
“I would not attack that gate. That would be stupid,” said Avalon.
“Correct,” said Peet. “What do you see as the weakest point in the perimeter?”
“There, where that maple tree overhangs the tin roof, at the back side of the building. I would climb the tree and drop down onto the roof.” Avalon handed the binoculars to her sister, who peered at the guards, counting them off.
“Very good. That is what I thought too. Not only does the tree’s canopy hide you from the cameras and sensors, but also the guards are watching for a ground assault. Anyone wanting to steal fertilizer would come with a truck, so they man the boundaries.”
“Yes,” said Mitch, “and they ignore what is happening above.” He craned his neck, searching the surrounding vantage points. “There, see that tree?” He pointed to a low spreading jack pine that towered above its younger cousins. “I bet that would give the best vantage point of all.”
“On it!” said Avalon and she slid back down the scree slide to the base in a fall of stones, and then ran off at a half crouch along the gully floor. Reaching a point where she lined up with the pine’s trunk, she scrambled back up the hillside on hands and feet, keeping the tree between herself and the warehouse. She swung into the lower branches and cli
mbed the tree. Not a branch stirred due to her light weight. Avalon climbed to about forty feet in the air, and then stilled, eyes sweeping the compound.
The warehouse was a facade. The three story high metal walls were topped with a flat roof that ended abruptly to expose a circular cut in the roof through which protruded a series of glass domes. To disguise it from aerial surveillance, the domes were cleverly tinted to look like puddles on the flat roof, but from her angle, she could distinguish the octagonal planes of the individual sheets of glass. Why do they have a greenhouse hidden away inside of the warehouse? It must have something to do with the fertilizer testing, but why hide it? She lifted the binoculars that hung from a strap around her neck and peered through the lenses at the scene below, scanning the facility. Cameras were mounted at the corners of the building, swiveling from right to left, to pan across the no-man’s land from the gate to the side of the building. Metal scanning and x-ray machines were set up at every gated entrance, and vehicles were automatically scanned as they passed through the tunnels to reach the compound. Once through the machines, the trucks were met with another rolling metal gate, wrapped with frost fencing, topped with curls of barbed wire. Guards did a visual inspection of the trucks, swiping under wheel rims and around door frames. For what, she could only guess. The occupants were made to exit the vehicle and were searched bodily before being permitted to re-enter the cabs of the trucks and pull ahead to the loading docks on the west side of the compound.
To try to gain entrance from ground level was suicidal. She raised the binoculars to the tar and gravel rooftop. She scanned from side to side and saw no presence of any form of security. Clearly, they did not believe that anyone would go to the effort of breaking in from the roof, or they believed that the roof was not accessible, so therefore did not bother to defend it. She had to admit, other than the one tree that hung partially over the roof on the north side, there was no other approach short of a helicopter. Avalon zoomed in on the tree. Broad branches and a heavy canopy of leaves screened the interior from view. The branch that she was most interested in dipped to about ten feet above the rooftop. It would be a long drop, if her weight did not bear the branch down. A well-placed grapple would give her the exit she needed, though, and like a squirrel, she could be back over the fence in seconds flat.
Across the rooftop, ventilation sheet metal crisscrossed the surface like a series of rodent burrows. These burrows connected to square mechanical units. She counted off the units and made a mental map of their locations. Satisfied that she had memorized their locations, she shimmied back down the pine and ran back to the group.
Out of breath from her run, she panted, “I counted eight roof top units and sixteen places where the shafts disappeared into the complex.” She picked up a stick from on the ground and began to draw out the rooftop, marking the greenhouse as a large oval, the units and tracing lines for the ductwork. “There is a greenhouse in the middle of the complex. You cannot see it except from the air. I think what we want will be located there.”
Peet nodded in agreement. “Before I was hired on as a guard, when the government took over the building, I was in maintenance with the old cannery. They did not want any former employees working inside the facility and brought in their own people. Probably pre-screened or transferred from some other facility. Anyways, those of us who were not originally government were placed in lesser jobs out of the center of the operations. I do not know what they are doing in there other than making fertilizer. They keep the central section under the tightest of security. Where this green house is now located, was the quality testing labs of the cannery. That area is serviced by its own dedicated and independent HVAC system. It would be this one, here.” He jabbed a crooked finger at a series of lines running to the edge of the dome. “If you were to enter the shaft here,” he placed an X on the unit, “it would take you right into the secured portion of the facility.”
“What will she find when she gets inside?” asked Mitch.
“I do not know. We will suit her up in some protective clothing and a mask before going in, but Avalon,” Peet frowned at Avalon. “Girl, you need to understand that whatever is inside that facility can kill you. You will not know what the chemicals are, so gloves stay on and keep the mask in place at all times. Do not touch your eyes, keep your goggles in place and do not remove them for any reason. Get your sample and get out.”
Alexa’s hand found its way to hers and linked fingers. She squeezed hard, fear in her eyes. Avalon squeezed her back. “For Mom and Dad?” she asked, looking to her sister for confirmation. Alexa nodded. “For Mom and Dad,” she whispered back.
Chapter 10
Storming the Warehouse
AVALON TUCKED THE EARPIECE into the canal of her ear and dragged her hair back over it, while Peet pinned the mic to her shirt. Mitch waited impatiently while they positioned the equipment, and then whispered into her ear. “Test. Can you hear me ok?”
Avalon nodded and whispered back, “Loud and clear.”
Mitch picked up a dark grey disposable coverall, shaking it out as he approached Avalon. Avalon could see none of this, for they had decided to approach the warehouse under the cover of darkness. They were camped out beneath the maple on the north side of the complex. Reaching her side, Alexa handed her a small knapsack. “It is packed with everything you need. A coil of finely twisted rope here,” she touched a flap on the side, “some emergency flares here, although I wouldn’t be shooting those off from the roof, everyone can see it there, right? There is also a flashlight, a small acetylene torch, some firecrackers and a lighter. Oh and some pepper spray. I thought of that one.” She grinned at Avalon, who grinned back. Neither girl wandered alone without pepper spray hidden somewhere on their body. It had been an early lesson learned and had saved them from harm so often, that they automatically included it in any package they were carrying. “There is also a first aid kit. It’s not much, some bandages and a strip to use as a tourniquet if needed.” Her face fell at the thought. “You are not going to need it,” she said fierce tone that matched her glare, “because you are going to be very careful.” They embraced, then Mitch cleared his throat noisily and they broke apart.
Peet handed her a piece of paper. She took it but did not unfold it, as she couldn’t read it in the dark. “What is it?”
“It’s the floor plan of the facility, at least to the wall of the second security checkpoint. I know you are going to go in and out of the secured area and not wander about, but it’s always handy to have a backup, just in case. In that worst-case scenario, the only way you are getting out of that facility undetected is via the garbage chutes, so if you cannot get out the way you go in, then head for the south end of the facility. We are timing your movements here. You should be no more than an hour getting in an out. We only need a small sample, so do not take more than you can handle. It should all fit in the backpack, understand?”
Avalon nodded but didn’t say anything. Her nerves were kicking into overdrive. Heart racing, she didn’t trust herself to speak. Mitch shook out the grey jumpsuit and she stepped into it, pulling it up over her clothes and zipping up the front.
“There is a mini camera embedded into the hood. It will show us everything you see. If you need help identifying something stare directly at it,” said Peet.
Alexa held out the backpack and Avalon slipped her arms through the straps, clicking the latch across her chest. It was a bit tight with the suit underneath. She pulled the hood over her head and slipped her hands into the gloves that velcroed onto the wrists. The goggles were attached to the hood and ready to slip into place when she gained the interior of the facility. She retained her sneakers, as they gave her feet the best protection, and shoved her slippered feet into the toe less interior.
Mitch placed a hand on her shoulder as she straightened. “In and out, Avalon. I do not want anything to happen to you. We will be in constant communication. No one around you will be able to hear you. Keep the camera on at all ti
mes. We will be an extra set of eyes for you.”
Avalon nodded. Her mouth was dry. “Water?”
“In the side pocket.” Mitch tugged the water bottle out, cracked it open and handed it to her. She took a long drink, screwed the lid back on and gave it back to him. He secured it back in her pack.
“It’s time.”
“Wish me luck!” and ran for the maple, where a rope dangled from a lower limb. Whispered echoes of “Luck, Avalon!” and “Be careful!” followed her, and reaching her ear through the earpiece was Mitch’s clear command. “Take your time and be sure of your surroundings. That was your only error at the last greenhouse.” A soft chuckle reached her ear and she stuck out her tongue over her shoulder at Mitch, even though she knew he could not see her.
She grabbed the rope and began to pull herself up the knotted length until she reached the upper limb. Swinging a leg over the limb, she sat for second then pushed her feet under body and stood up seeking the next limb and the next, climbing until she reached the target branch. From this far up, she couldn’t see the ground below and the leaves obscured most of the compound. A searchlight from a guard tower swept the compound on a regular basis, pausing occasionally. She knew it was manned and not an automated spotlight. It meant one guard at least was checking manually for any movement out of the ordinary. The light swung to the opposite end of the compound and she shimmied out onto the branch, ignoring the slight shake of the leaves. As she came to smaller new growth, she bent it down and continued moving along the length.
At the three quarter point along the length of the limb where a thick side branch expanded the canopy, she pulled out her length of knotted rope and tied it around the secure join, looping it over the fat knuckle before lowering it to the roof below. She watched it disappear but could not see where it ended. If it did not reach the entire way, she would just have to drop the remaining distance. Avalon swung onto her belly then lowered her legs until she felt a knot beneath her slippered toes. She gripped the knot then lowered herself until she was gripping only the rope and moved quickly down its length.
