Stealing Silence(14)
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 climbed 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.”