by Wesley Cross
23
“I know you’re not supposed to speak badly about the dead,” Kowalsky said, looking at the storage space. “But what in the actual hell?”
“What’s wrong?” Watkins asked.
“What do you mean, what’s wrong? This.” Kowalsky stuck his finger and pointed at the clutter. “When a dying man tells me, everything is there and points me toward his journal, I expect it to have, you know, everything. Not to send me on a wild-goose chase, deciphering coded texts and rummaging through a pile of junk.”
It didn’t take long for Chuck and his partner to crack the simple Caesar cipher. All they needed to do was to take one word from the text and start shifting letters to the same number of positions until the result made sense. First, they would shift letters by one, then by two, and kept going. They didn’t have to go far—the key was number seven: letter A became H, letter B became I, and so on. But the text didn’t give Kowalsky what he had been looking for. If anything, it created more questions than answers.
The text was divided into two parts. The first, bigger part had a fairly detailed description of the factory. There were two main buildings. One of them Nikko cryptically called “the energy building,” and the other “the assembly shop.” The site was also surrounded by a cluster of small warehouses and support facilities, and it had its own power plant. Kowalsky recalled from the journal that the place extensively used solar power as well. That and the fact that Nikko’s notes mentioned a specialized system that helped to keep the sand away was in itself a clue.
Considering that Nikko fled through the port in Morocco, it stood to reason that the factory was hidden somewhere in northern Africa, and placing it in a desert made sense. The Sahara was the logical choice. The only problem was the Sahara was the world’s largest desert that covered most of northern Africa. Without knowing where to look, finding something hidden in the area almost as big as the entire United States would be impossible. Even assuming that Nikko didn’t travel too far before he got to Tangier, it left too much territory to cover.
The second, smaller part of the text contained an address for a storage unit in the industrial part of Brooklyn and the code for the combination lock. Irritated, but still hopeful, Kowalsky, with Latham in tow, drove to the address the next day first thing in the morning and opened the storage unit. To their dismay, the small place was filled to the brim with a random collection of books, documents, trinkets, housewares, toys, and other knickknacks. A few posters and signs hung on the wall, giving the place the feel of a college dorm room.
“I don’t think this is his stuff,” Kowalsky said, looking around the small cubic space. “Look at all these things. It looks like somebody robbed a flea market.”
“But the code worked,” Latham protested. “Who else can this belong to?”
“I don’t know.” Kowalsky shrugged. “Maybe somebody asked him to look after this. The guy hasn’t lived in New York six months and came here with just clothes on his back. There’s no way he’d accumulated this much junk in such a short time.”
“What do we do?”
“The only thing we can do.” He sighed. “Methodically comb through this pile until we find something.”
“All right.” Latham walked into the center of the room and looked around. “Any idea on how to sort this?”
“Start with housewares and all the little things,” Chuck said and pointed his chin at the few boxes in the corner that had papers sticking out of them. “I’ll go through the documents first, see if anything shakes out.”
They set to work. While Watkins was doing his best to find some order in the number of seemingly unrelated items, Chuck got acquainted with the contents of the boxes.
The work didn’t bother him. It wasn’t the first time he had to go through a pile of junk, looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. If anything, leafing through the pages of old family albums, casserole recipes, and teenage love letters was not much of a chore. He had to dig through much less pleasant collections of items early in his career as a cop.
After two hours, they sorted through the entire contents of the storage space, which was now neatly arranged on the floor in a few long lines, but found nothing of value.
Kowalsky took a wooden stool from the corner, put it in the middle of the room, and sat down on it, looking at the rows of items like a general inspecting his troops.
“Now what?” Watkins said. “Looks like a dead end to me.”
“Perhaps,” Chuck said as his eyes scanned the storage space one more time. He felt his lips stretching into a smile. “Perhaps not.”
“No?” Watkins turned around on his heels. “Did I miss something?”
“What did I tell you when we came here?”
“That you don’t like chasing wild geese? I don’t know, I don’t walk around writing down everything you have to say.”
“I said that if the man tells me I can find everything, then that’s what I should be able to find.”
“Still don’t get it.”
“There.” Kowalsky pointed to the wall. Between the poster of a punk-rock band and a framed picture of a vintage motorcycle hung a small rectangular sign. It was a pink window plaque from a lingerie shop, with a naked woman holding a bundle of strategically placed shopping bags. On the right side of the woman, it said 50-70% OFF in bold, black letters. On the left, in the same font, the message read EVERYTHING MUST GO. “You get it, Latham? Everything must go.”
“No way.”
He got up from the stool, walked to the wall, and took off the sign. Then he slowly turned it around, showing his partner the back side of the plaque. A small USB drive was secured to the corner with duct tape. “Jackpot.”
24
The two vehicles were parked across the street from the massive garage that straddled the entire block between Edward L. Grant Highway and Cromwell Avenue. The U-shaped three-story building housed the bulk of Engel’s prized car collection, including the Gurney Nutting Speed Six coupe, a 1930 Bentley commonly known as the Blue Train Bentley.
Helen and Max drove a minivan to the location first, taking their spot right after midnight. An hour later, Connelly brought in the semi-trailer and squeezed it in at the hydrant behind them and shut off the lights. Martin, who couldn’t fit in the cabin, stayed in the container box.
“The last crew is leaving now. There are four guys. I can see them heading for their cars in the employee lot. Two of them are getting in one car. You should see three cars coming out.” Chen’s voice sounded in Connelly’s earpiece. “There’s still going to be one guard on the first floor, but the rest is empty. Just alarms.”
“Sounds good,” he replied. “Keep the channel open.”
He slid lower in the driver’s seat to make sure his silhouette wouldn’t be spotted by chance. A minute later, the garage door, wide enough to let through three cars abreast, slid open, offering a view of the rows of vintage cars.
A bright-red Ferrari Enzo came out first, followed by a black Audi RS 6 Avant and a white Honda NSX-R. The street for a moment sounded like a racetrack and then the cars sped away, roaring through the neighborhood.
“I’m sure the neighbors love them,” Schlager said on the radio. “How much longer should we sit here, Mike?”
“Let’s give them ten minutes. After that, it’s your show. Are you sure we’ll be able to start it?”
“We are,” Helen said. “There’s a wall with keys in the guard’s office, and all cars are fully loaded and operational. I skimmed the video recordings from the security cameras. They take them for small drives now and then, including the Bentley.”
“All right then, let’s wait. By the way,” Schlager said. “It’s fantastic.”
“What is?”
“The story behind the car.”
“I did not know there was a story,” Connelly said.
“You’ve never seen the painting by Terence Cuneo?”
“No,” Connelly sighed, “I don’t even know who he is. If there
was an art class between calisthenics and the demolition class, I must have missed it.”
“He was a prolific English painter,” Schlager said. “Painted all kinds of things, but most people know him for his pictures of engineering projects, especially the railway. And at some point, he started adding a small mouse to all his paintings, sometimes difficult to find. Some people enjoy looking for them in his works. Anyway, there was a famous painting of a neck-to-neck race between a Bentley and a train.”
“Nope, haven’t seen it, but go on.”
“There was an overnight express train that shuttled between Calais in the northern France and the resorts along the Cote d’Azur. The train was called Le Train Bleu. A lot of Brits used that train, most of them wealthy, and some car manufacturers started racing the train and then if they beat it, use it for ads.”
“I take it this car won the race?”
“Legend has it that Bentley didn’t want to do it the way everybody else did. They wanted to prove, once and for all, that there was no competition worthy of the manufacturer. Instead of racing the train along the same route, they would start at Cannes and make it all the way to London before the train would arrive in Calais.”
“How would it get across the Channel?” Helen asked.
“A ferry. Which took over an hour to get there, putting them at a disadvantage from the start. And there was another almost eighty miles to drive from the port to London. They got a flat tire, but they made it to London on a spare right before the train pulled into Calais.”
“Nice.”
“Yeah.” Schlager laughed. “The French got pissed and fined the company for racing on public roads and even banned it from the next year’s auto show in Paris.”
“Now I feel good about stealing it from Engel,” Connelly said, “but I guess I’ll feel bad about delivering it to Flores. That guy doesn’t deserve it. All right, people, let’s do it.”
“Helen,” Schlager said. “Do your magic.”
Connelly could hear keyboard clicking as he watched the garage door, waiting for it to open. A minute passed and then another.
“What’s going on?”
“Not sure,” Chen said. “I overrode the system, but the gate doesn’t respond and I can’t see why.”
“Something is happening,” Schlager said. “The guard stood up and is staring into the monitor. Something’s wrong.”
Connelly opened the door, jumped off to the sidewalk and jogged across the street, keeping behind the cars parked on the other side of the street.
“The guard is definitely onto something,” Schlager said again. “He’s up and out of the office and going for the garage door. We are missing something.”
Connelly pulled one earpiece out and listened. There was a grinding sound coming from the building across the street. “Shit. You are opening the door, but something must be blocking it, because I can hear the motor straining and that’s probably what the guard is hearing too.”
“He’s by the door now and is placing a call. And now he’s running back to the office. I think the op is about to be blown.”
Another sound caught Connelly’s attention and as he turned, he saw Martin climbing out of the back of the trailer. “Where are you going? Go back in the truck.”
The cyborg ignored him and headed for the garage, his heavy metallic steps loudly echoing through the empty street. Two flashes, one split second after the other, came out of his shoulder weapons slots and two giant holes appeared at each lower corner of the gate. A moment later, it screeched as the mechanism pulled whatever was left of the door up, opening the entrance to the garage. Martin turned around, moved his shoulders up and down, and walked back to the trailer at the same measured speed.
“Did he just…shrug?” Schlager’s voice came through Connelly’s earpiece. “Holy shit. I’m pretty sure he shrugged.”
“There were deadbolts holding the door,” Chen said.
“Let’s go,” Connelly barked. “We don’t have all day. Max, go get the keys. I’ll take care of the guard.”
He ran across the street and positioned himself by the corner of the entrance, its scorched concrete still warm after Martin’s blast.
“Don’t shoot and you won’t get harmed,” he yelled as he moved into the garage, swinging a .50 caliber rubber bullet Walther T4E revolver. Two shots rang out from the garage, barely missing his head. Connelly rolled on the ground and moved behind the rear tires of a sky-blue Shelby Cobra 427 Roadster. “Stop shooting, I said.”
Another shot dinged the floor a few inches away from the tire, sending sparks in all directions. Connelly swung out of his shelter and shot the guard in his stomach before he could pull the trigger again. The man grunted in pain and collapsed to the floor.
Connelly ran to him, keeping him in his sights, and kicked the Glock out of the guard’s hand. Then he placed him in the cuffs from the guard’s own utility belt. “All clear.”
“Is he okay?” Schlager ran past him, heading for the office.
“He’s fine,” Connelly said, propping the man up and sitting him against the wall. “I’m fine too, thank you for asking.”
He heard a revving engine and a moment later, a dark-green coupe with slick helmet wings rolled into his view, a pair of large round Zeiss headlamps illuminating the road ahead of it. Schlager, his mouth open in an ear-to-ear smile, waved to him from behind the wheel.
“So much for Le Bleu,” Connelly said to himself, looking at the car. “It’s green.”
“Isn’t it a beaut, though?”
“Roll it.” He stepped aside, letting Schlager through. “We have to get it out before Engel’s boys return.”
He jogged behind the car as it drove out of the garage and then watched it roll up the ramp that Martin had lowered.
“Can we keep it?” Schlager said, cracking the door open and looking up at him. “It’s gorgeous.”
“No, and make sure it’s secured to the floor, so it doesn’t slide into Mr. Inconspicuous here,” Connelly said, nodding at Martin.
“Can I sit in it while we are driving it to the plane?”
“No.”
“Please?”
“Get out.” Connelly laughed, patting him on the shoulder and heading for the cabin of the truck. “Pull up the ramp and lock the door. We have to go. But when Engel is no longer around, I’ll bring it back to you, I promise.”
25
“Who the hell are these guys?” The radio crackled into Connelly’s ear. Another explosion shook the building. The three-story base of covert operations for Orion that personnel christened Langley was under another attack. “We haven’t even moved in yet. I’ve never seen anything so brazen.”
Connelly ran down the long hallway, trying to stay away from the windows. The thick bulletproof glass was holding up against small arms fire, but judging by the sounds, small arms weren’t the only things hitting the building.
“Meyers, sitrep,” he barked into the mic as he reached the stairwell and bounded up the stairs, skipping two steps at a time.
“Two teams. One APC is hitting us from the north. And what looks like a dozen fighters on foot are laying cover on the eastern entrance. One more thing.”
“What is it?”
“They are all wearing Black Arrow uniforms. I can see the same markings on the APC, too.”
“Wait, what? You’ve got to be shitting me. Hang in there. I’m going to the roof. I have a few toys up there.”
Connelly reached the top of the stairs, climbed the ladder terminating at the ceiling, and slammed his palm into a biometric reader. Steel blades rotated out, revealing an opening to the roof, and he climbed out, keeping his head down. The two security domes on the roof stored some of the heavy equipment Connelly had saved, and the one on the farther side had an eight-point-four cm Carl Gustaf recoilless rifle. Its armor-piercing rounds could level the field against the armored personnel carrier.
He was halfway across the roof when the shooting stopped.
“
Hey boss?”
“What’s happening, Meyers?” Connelly headed for the concrete barrier and risked a glance outside. The armored vehicle was heading away from the building and a few seconds later, disappeared behind the trees.
“They are retreating,” the voice said into his earpiece. “Unclear why.”
“I can see that.” Connelly stood up and looked at the parking lot in front of the eastern entrance. There was no sign of enemy combatants there either.
“I don’t hear any chatter on any frequencies either. They all went silent. Total blackout.”
“It doesn’t make any sense,” Connelly said, looking around the perimeter and still not seeing any movement. “Unless—shit.”
“Boss?”
“Everybody down, now,” he yelled, switching his radio channel to general broadcast, and sprinted back to the roof access door. “Incoming.”
He saw a silver streak across the sky in his peripheral vision and then a giant hand picked him up, threw him across the roof, and planted him face first into the barrier on the other side of the building.
The power of the impact knocked the wind out of his lungs. Connelly sat up and spat blood as the world around him dimmed. He blinked hard a few times and the colors gradually returned to his vision. Something creaked underneath and the ground beneath him shifted, sending Connelly sliding back across the roof. He spread his arms wide, looking for something to grab onto, but his fingernails only scraped on rough concrete without slowing him down. He slammed into the barrier, bending his knees to lessen the impact when the roof stopped sliding.
“You okay, chief?”
“Peachy,” he said. It came out hoarse. “How’s everyone else?”
“Still assessing. Are you still on the roof?”
“Yep.”
“Can you get down?”
