Waking Wolfe

by S L Shelton

  “Just talking to myself,” I replied absently—totally true.

  She wore the same thing she had the night before, with the exception of a fresher t-shirt. I realized that both of us had been wearing the same clothes for a while, and mine were starting to get a little ripe. If she was going to be smelling fresher, it would only be polite if I did as well.

  I took another bite of pastry before taking my turn in the bathroom for the first shower I’d had in a while. It felt good to let the warm water run over my tight muscles though awkward trying to keep my chest and shoulder burns from getting wet. When I was done, I asked Kathrin to hand me my bag through the bathroom door.

  While I was changing and re-bandaging my ribs, she sat on the floor outside the bathroom. “What are we going to do?” she asked.

  “I figure that most of the gunmen go outside when the SUV shows up for resupply each day,” I replied as I smoothed a fresh bandage over my burns. “There is a manual release on the overhead garage door. If I can get the couple of remaining bad guys away from the release with a distraction, I can come in on the other side and drop that door…effectively trapping the bad guys outside.”

  “What about the ones who stay inside?” she asked.

  “That’s the tricky part,” I replied. “The ones doing the loading seem to leave their weapons inside. It’s a gamble, but if their guns are close enough to the manual release, I can grab one and get the last two guys.”

  “You could shoot someone?”

  Good question, I thought.

  “If I have to, I guess I won’t have any choice,” I said with more confidence than I was feeling. “But that door dropping will cause a commotion. With all the weapons inside, I might be able to cut a couple of the security team loose to help. I’m hoping that when they see an opportunity, some of the other hostages will jump right in.”

  “But you aren’t counting on that for your plan, are you?” she asked.

  “No. If I have to, I’ll deal with the two inside myself. Once they’re down, the only way back in for the others will be through the side doors,” I said, carefully slipping my shirt over my bandages, “and I’ll have their guns. If they try to come back in, I’ll shoot them as they come through the door. They’d be smarter to just hop in the SUV and make a getaway.”

  “Good plan.”

  “Thanks,” I replied sincerely as I came out of the bathroom.

  “It just seems strange.”

  “What does?” I asked.

  “They have resupply, transportation, shelter, arms, hostages, a flatbed with a livestock container,” she mused. “But why no surveillance, alarms, daytime guards?”

  “I’m not one hundred percent sure, but it seems the warehouse was supposed be a temporary stop,” I replied. “Judging by the empty food and water cases, they had only planned on being there one or two days, tops.”

  She nodded her agreement with my observation.

  “The daytime guards would draw attention from across the cove,” I said. “Don’t forget that there’s a hotel, a factory, and other businesses there. I think they had no plan for a delay. Cameras and alarms would take planning and installation—not something you do if you were only planning on staying out of sight for a few hours.”

  “Makes sense,” she said. “But I would have carried wireless cameras with me.”

  “You’d make a better criminal than they would,” I muttered.

  She shot me a sly grin. “Maybe when this is over, we should consider a career change,” she said, barely containing her laugh.

  “I have a hard enough time sleeping as it is,” I replied. “I wouldn’t want my conscience keeping me up at night as well.”

  “Good point,” she said with a knowing grin.

  There it is again, I thought. That flash of “I know something you don’t and I think it’s funny that you don’t know it too.”

  “Can you get some ice from the machine down the hall?” I asked.

  “Ja,” she replied as she grabbed our ice bucket off the dresser. While she was down the hall, I finished packing our items into my shoulder bag and her backpack.

  It was 10:35 a.m. Time to head back to the warehouse.

  **

  The communications issue from the night before was remedied with a simple purchase of hands-free, earbud-style headsets for the phones. We would stay in constant communication rather than relying on texting.

  By 12:15 p.m., I was on the path behind the warehouses, and Kathrin was looking like a lunchtime lounger in the park while she watched the security camera video feeds from my iPad.

  “How am I looking on the water side?” I asked.

  “All clear,” Kathrin replied into my headset.

  I walked along the edge of the fence all the way to the water. I looked around discretely before slipping down over the bulkhead and then back up onto the ground on the other side of the fence.

  “That was good,” Kathrin said into my ear. “No one noticed.”

  Walking as if I belonged there, I made my way back to the compressor shed to peek through the louvers.

  Once I was satisfied that nothing had changed from the previous night, I walked to the edge of the building and peeked around the corner toward the gate side… It was all clear.

  Good, I thought. As long as these guys stick to their routine, I have a good chance of ending this crisis today.

  “Okay,” I whispered as I got back to the compressor shed. “I’m going in.”

  “Be careful,” Kathrin replied.

  Climbing through the opening in the wall the way I had done in the dark, I was careful not to make any noise. Once in, I peeked through my peephole and saw the hostages and their captors in pretty much the same locations they had been the night before.

  Several of the abductors were sleeping in corners around the warehouse, some with hats pulled over their faces. It would be perfect if those fellows were the ones to stay behind when the SUV was unloaded, but I couldn’t count on that.

  The compressor seemed to be holding air—according to the gage anyway. I could only pray the motor would start when I wanted it to. I reached behind the machine, unplugged it, and then flipped the power lever back and forth a couple of times to ensure it worked freely.

  It seemed everything moved the way it was supposed to, so I reached into my bag and pulled out the insulated pouch containing the ice. I paused and tried to judge the temperature of the shed, but I was having hot flashes from the nearly constant flood of adrenaline—my best guess was that the sun was keeping it very warm in there.

  I placed an ice cube on the switch base, flipping the lever over to rest on it. If it was as warm as I thought, it shouldn’t take long for the ice to melt.

  I was watching the activity, or lack thereof, through the hole. My eyes kept drifting back to Barb. She was in the same place she had been the night before.

  This is your fault, Scott Wolfe. The playback of her voice looped in my head.

  She was awake now, talking quietly to her father and the ambassador’s daughter. She was smiling, touching the girl’s hand.

  I heard the click of the lever behind me. Six minutes and twenty-five seconds.

  I retrieved another ice cube and repeated the experiment.

  There was a lot of activity around the entrance of the cargo container. Two men were carrying boxes and cases of water into it. One carried a stack of ratty-looking cargo blankets, and then another one followed behind him. Something was going to happen soon.

  “Kathrin,” I whispered into my headset.

  “Here”

  “Turn the shoe company camera around to face the road leading to the warehouses,” I whispered. “Focus it all the way down the road. I want as much advanced warning possible.”

  “Ja,” she said. Her usual chatty nature had been replaced with no-nonsense communication—clear, precise, and clipped. She had really taken to this line of work. There might be a job for her with the BND, the German Foreign Intelligence Service, in t
he future. She truly seemed to enjoy this.

  Click. The lever engaged. Six minutes, thirteen seconds.

  I set it up again before returning to look through the hole. It was after one o’clock now, and the SUV could be pulling up at any time. A knot was forming in my stomach and I was frantically checking and rechecking the locations of the guards. I mentally noted who was sleeping and awake, where the weapons were sitting, who seemed most awake, who seemed most tired, least disciplined, most disciplined etc.—any hints or clues that might help.

  My mind, unbidden, provided what data it could.

  The average human body requires seven and a half to eight and a half hours of sleep to remain optimal. Stress increases the need for sleep. Loss of one and a half hours of sleep can result in a thirty-two percent reduction in waking alertness, impaired memory, and cognitive and information-processing ability. Extended periods with reduced sleep can result in reduced immune efficiency and the increased desire for nicotine, sugar, sex, or other dopamine-releasing surrogates.

  I heard something. The yard tractor was starting up. I looked in the direction of the machine and saw one of the armed men driving it in a tight circle toward the front of the warehouse.

  Click. The lever engaged. Six minutes and twenty seconds.

  As soon as the tractor had finished turning the trailer, the armed men started ushering hostages through the doors of the cargo container.

  Oh, shit, I thought.

  “I see the SUV,” Kathrin said into my ear.

  “The plan is changing,” I said, trying to run a new flow chart, but there were too many unknown variables for me to create a logic flow that was useful.

  “Why?” she asked, a note of panic in her voice.

  “They are moving the hostages into the container. It looks like they’re leaving,” I said, a tinge of anger in my voice. Anger at myself for not getting here a day sooner, anger for not coming up with a plan that I could have acted on last night.

  I had to wing it. It was getting pretty clear that I would not be able to free the hostages right now.

  Calm yourself, my other voice whispered in my ear.

  “There is another car coming,” Kathrin said. “Gray sedan.”

  The garage door was opening as the last of the hostages were herded into the cargo container.

  “The black SUV has arrived at the gate,” Kathrin said. “One of the men motioned for it to come inside.”

  “What about the car?”

  “The sedan is coming through now too… They’ve stopped outside the gate.”

  “Shit.”

  “Three of the men from inside the warehouse just put their rifles in the back of the SUV and then got in the sedan.” She added a few seconds later.

  “What are they doing?” I asked.

  “They’re driving away.”

  “Kathrin,” I called.

  “Here.”

  “The fence on the back of the warehouse,” I said as I pushed myself from the floor.

  “Yes?”

  “I need your phone and the tape. Go now! Run!” I said desperately as I pulled the fan from the opening in the side of the shed.

  “On my way,” she replied.

  I could hear her heavy breath in my ear and then her footfalls on wooden planking as she ran down the path across the bridge.

  I hopped out of the hole in the wall and ran to the fence just as she came into sight around the corner of the path. She was running full tilt, her legs making long strides, her arms pumping furiously up and down. She arrived at the fence, winded and red-faced before tossing the phone over the top to me.

  I pointed at the bag she had slung on her shoulder. “Tape,” I said in an elevated whisper.

  She reached into the bag, pulling out a roll of heavy-duty utility tape before tossing that over as well.

  “Get out of sight,” I said as I turned and ran back to the compressor shed.

  I pulled the louvered vent back into its opening behind me and jammed a rusty nail into the space between the frame and the vent to hold it in place. My heart was pounding in my chest, and I had to take a deep breath to help calm my mind before I lowered myself back to the floor in front of my peephole.

  I saw two of the men closing the door on the cargo container, latching it before one of them locked it with a heavy-looking padlock. The rest of the guards started getting into the SUV with the exception of the one man who was driving the old, beat-up yard tractor, who was backing it up to the hitch on the trailer.

  I tensed myself for action, bracing for an opening to make a dash into the warehouse as the SUV pulled out through the big doors. I wished Kathrin could tell me how far the SUV was pulling ahead, but I now had the prepaid phone she had been using. I’d have to chance it.

  As the SUV moved clear of the large overhead door and down the ramp, I placed an ice cube under the lever of the compressor switch before reaching behind the machine to plug it into its electrical outlet. As the tension continued to work its way up my spine like fingers trying to choke me from behind, I dropped back down in front of the hole for one more quick peek—the cargo container was rolling toward the overhead door, towed by the yard tractor.

  Go, I thought to myself, but after a second I still hadn’t moved. “Go!” I said aloud, needing to hear it before my legs would respond.

  I pushed the door open and then crept forward, looking to see if I could spot the SUV. It drove slowly down the road and then stopped beside a freight crane next to a set of train tracks at a dock for river barges.

  The man on the tractor had his back to me, slowly towing the trailer with the cargo box through the large overhead garage door and down the concrete ramp. I ran over to the back of the cargo container and tugged on the lock in the fleeting hope that it might not be latched.

  Wishful thinking.

  I pulled a long length of the sticky, heavy-duty duct tape from the roll, attached it to the phone, and then reached through one of the slots used to lift the box with a forklift. I stuck it securely to the inside edge, and then pulled off a second and a third piece of tape to make sure it would truly stick.

  The trailer was slowing as we passed beyond the opening of the door before banging to a rough stop. I looked around the corner of the box and saw no one on the tractor.

  Shit! Where’d you go?

  He was coming around the other side to close the garage door, I suspected. I hopped down off the back of the trailer and then slipped under it just in time to watch his legs pass.

  I accidentally drug my toe while moving further under the trailer and made a scuffing sound.

  You didn’t hear it, you didn’t hear it, I thought, trying to will my thoughts into reality. After all, the engine of the tractor was running.

  He paused.

  I wasn’t going to be that lucky. If I came out from under the trailer on the other side, the men from the SUV would be able to see me. I watched as the man’s legs passed only a few inches from me, next to the rear tires.

  He stopped again, bending to look under the trailer as my hand tightened into a fist and my body went taut, preparing for a strike. Suddenly there was an incredibly loud and horrible whine, like a metal rake pulled across a chalk board, followed by a loud thrumming and clacking.

  The compressor! I thought, relieved, as the man jerked upright before running in the direction of the noise, withdrawing a pistol from under his jacket as he went.

  I rolled back out from under the trailer and then hurried quietly across to a pile of pallets that were stacked near the wall opposite the compressor room. I watched the man yank the door open, pointing his gun into the small room. After a second he flipped on the light switch in the dark room as he leveled his gun at the source of the noise. He walked in and then, reaching down he flipped the switch on the compressor.

  It rattled once more in noisy protest before going quiet.

  He emerged from the room as he brought his finger up to smell and then taste.

  The water from
the melted ice, I realized.

  He wiped his hand on his pants and looked around the warehouse slowly.

  A voice called to him from outside, making him pause at the entrance to the compressor room. The voice called again, louder, more insistent. “Da. Da, da, da!” the man yelled. He re-holstered his pistol before pulling the garage door closed and then exiting the warehouse through the door facing the gate.

  My chest collapsed as I blew out the stress in a big sigh of relief, watching the door close. Outside, I heard the tractor rev up and then heard it and the trailer with the hostages lurch away from the closed door. I hopped from my hiding spot and ran back to the compressor room. Hooking my fingers over the rafters on the shed, I launched myself through the vent hole, kicking the louver out with my feet, and then I ran around to the back corner of the warehouse. There I crouched at the corner and watched the activity by the crane, further down the street.

  One of the men started up the crane as I looked around behind me and to both sides to see if I could spot Kathrin. The roar of its diesel engine blocked out the other noises in the area.

  “Where’d you go?” I muttered before I saw the tip of her head peering out from under the wooden stairs on the dock side of the platform in front of me. She looked back, seeing me at the corner, and then motioned me to come to her.

  I looked beyond her toward the group by the crane and saw that their attention was on a railcar that was being pushed along the tracks running along the water’s edge by a small gas-powered vehicle. Taking the brief opportunity while the bad guys’ attention was elsewhere, I ducked down low before darting over to the stairs and then dove under next to her. She stared at me for a second, waiting, listening, when I suddenly remembered we still had a video feed.

  “My iPad,” I said in a whisper.

  She quickly pulled it out of her backpack and handed it to me before I pulled up the video feed. Zooming the camera in on the dock area where the crane was, I began scanning the faces of the men. As the feed was shifting, Kathrin crawled around to my side so she could see as well.

  “That was tense,” she said quietly.

  “You’re telling me,” I replied, taking another deep breath after realizing I was holding it again.