Chapter Thirteen “Places, Everyone!” #7
Yoko parked in a secluded spot and turned the vehicle around in order to make for a quick exit. She looked at Maggie in the rearview mirror. “Ready?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be!”
Yoko got out of the driver’s seat, and Izzie got behind the wheel. Maggie was right on Yoko’s heels.
“Follow me.” Yoko jerked her head in the direction of their target, approximately a hundred yards away.
She carefully looked ahead of each step to be sure there were no booby traps.
So far it appeared to be clear. They continued in a crouched position until they were against the fence.
Yoko scanned the top. No barbwire. No trip wires.
Yoko formed a stirrup of her hands to boost Maggie up ahead of her.
Once Maggie was on the other side, Yoko scaled the chain-links like an Olympic champion.
Yoko made a circle, indicating Maggie should take photos of the outside perimeter of the vehicle, while Yoko slithered to the second truck. Each started clicking away.
The crunch of approaching footsteps in the gravel made them freeze in place. A bright flashlight preceded a voice calling out.
“Hello? Anybody there?”
Yoko and Maggie quickly slipped under the trucks and hunched behind a wheel of the massive vehicle. The footsteps moved closer, and the voice grew louder.
“Hello?”
Yoko reached around for a rock and tossed it away from where she and Maggie remained in a prone position. The flashlight immediately turned toward the noise of the stone hitting the fence.
“Dang raccoons,” the voice grumbled.
Yoko peered from under the running boards and watched the boots retreat from the area, following the path light.
They waited until they could no longer see any signs of movement, human or otherwise.
Yoko listened carefully for any other disruptions.
It seemed as if they were clear to finish their task and finish it quickly.
They scrambled back to the fence; Yoko gave Maggie a leg up and then followed her to the other side.
They swiftly moved toward the awaiting vehicle, which was already in gear.
The two hopped in the back as Izzie put the pedal to the metal and tore over the rough road surface. They held their breaths until they were well beyond the construction site.
“Woo-hoo!” Maggie cried out. “That was something! I don’t remember the last time I broke into a facilities yard.”
“Weren’t you at that concrete manufacturer in the Caribbean?”
“No. You guys went without me. You never let me have any fun.” Maggie feigned a whine.
“Wasn’t this fun?” Yoko asked as she began to disrobe in the car.
“Alright. I’ll admit it. Yes. But boy, am I pooped.”
“You deserve a good night’s sleep,” Izzie said as she was nearing the Suite Inn. “What’s on your agenda for tomorrow?”
“I hope to get over to see Jeremy again. Find out if he has any more info, or if he’s had another visitor from the sheriff’s office.”
“Good. I’ll keep pumping Regina for whatever information I can glean. But to be honest, I don’t think she has much access to anything other than processing invoices,” Izzie said. “I wonder if Charles or Fergus have figured out a way for me to circumvent the big, red, eye-spy camera.”
“We can log into the mainframe and check when we get back,” Yoko suggested.
By the time they returned, it was two-thirty in the morning. In spite of her jet lag and lack of sleep, Maggie was wide awake.
“See? I told you it was the adrenaline,” Yoko said, grinning. The three women entered Yoko’s studio suite to return their ninja outfits.
“And if you noticed, I did not open my bag of chips, which I shall do right now.”
Izzie opened her laptop and logged into the mainframe. There was a message waiting for her from Charles:
9:27–9:31 a glitch will occur in CCTV system. You have four minutes to get in and out. That is the maximum time before everything goes into lock-down. Including you. Let’s reconvene at 6 am tomorrow. Some interesting developments.
“Oh, boy,” Izzie said, exhaling. “We are having another call early tomorrow morning. Charles and Fergus arranged for a blackout of their security system tomorrow morning.”
“That’s great!” Maggie gave an enthusiastic fist pump.
“But I only have four minutes,” Izzie replied.
“I have total faith in you,” Maggie reassured her.
“As do I, and everyone else in this band of merry people,” Yoko said.
“Thanks. That’s a lot of pressure. Having everyone depend on me.”
“Oh, Izzie. That’s how we operate. Sometimes the whole mission lies with one person doing that one thing that will bring us across the finish line,” Maggie said with total confidence.
Yoko began to upload the photos of the trucks. “There appears to be some paint flecks on the front left bumper of one of them. Maggie, can you find out what color car Jeremy was driving?”
“Sure thing. It would make sense if the truck was oncoming and swerved into him. Someone is going to have to check the trucks in Arizona.”
“Kathryn knows her way around trucks,” Izzie noted.
“Yes, but she will be working in the long-term care unit,” Maggie said.
“Isn’t there a service road?” Izzie asked.
“Yes,” Maggie replied. “We just don’t know where it leads. Yet.”
“I wonder if it leads to their construction or facilities site,” Izzie pondered.
“We’ll get Charles to find an aerial view of the entire property. We’ll have to get either Kathryn or Annie to check them out.”
“Or”—Maggie paused—“Theresa and her little gang of spunky seniors.”
“We don’t want to put them in jeopardy,” Yoko countered.
“I don’t think they’d mind,” Maggie said, chuckling. “Look what they did on their own!”
“True, but let’s find out what’s on this bumper,” Yoko said. “Once the guy with the flashlight showed up there, we had to get out before he came back. I’ll casually walk over and give it a closer look. If someone asks, I’ll say I was checking out the rigs. No harm in that, right?”
“Yoko, you are stealth. You’ll be able to pull it off handily,” Maggie said.
Izzie stretched. “I should try to get some sleep. Four minutes is not very long to hack into a very tight system. See you in the morning.” Izzie folded her laptop.
“It’s already morning!” Maggie’s freckled face grinned.