Chapter 24 Darren #2
“Have you eaten anything?” Darren asked, grabbing a cup and filling it with coffee.
Aiden threw him a sidelong look. “I don’t think I could, even if I felt like it.”
The knot of nerves in his own stomach made Darren doubt he could either, so he decided not to insist on food for now. They could pick something up on the way back to the Maine after they’d retrieved Sara’s ring.
“I wouldn’t mind stopping by a barbecue place after…” Aiden put forth, clearly on the same page. “We could pick something for the rest as well.”
The way Aiden said we had that warm sense of belonging worm its way back into Darren’s chest. It overwhelmed him and he didn’t know what to do about it and so he reached out and covered Aiden’s hand with his.
The contact grounded him, made all those feelings that wanted to flood out of him bearable.
“Barbecue sounds good,” he agreed and squeezed Aiden’s fingers before letting go so they could finish their coffees.
Thirty minutes later, they boarded the warehouse shuttle from the shuttle stop a few blocks away.
It took them to the industrial ward of Atlan and dropped them off at the facility’s automated security checkpoint, which the rest of the night shift was slowly trickling through.
Queuing up behind a woman that loomed a few inches above both of them, Darren scoped their surroundings, recognizing most of the staff from the files they’d obtained from Tim.
When it was his turn at the scanner, he looked at the camera without removing his glasses, tensing only for the couple of seconds it took the device to check him and play the confirmation beep.
Aiden was next, and he too breezed through security with no one being the wiser.
The two of them knew the layout of the site and inner building by heart, so it wasn’t hard to blend in with the rest as they ambled toward the offloading zone where Sammy and Danny usually worked.
A woman in her sixties with an immaculately styled bob cut who Darren recognized as Mariam Green even stopped them to chat, praising them both for being on time for once, before proceeding to cheerfully boast about her daughter’s academic achievements.
The passion with which she spoke reminded Darren of Nan’s fondness for Nyle and he let her blabber on, smiling discreetly when Aiden encouraged her with probing questions.
“You two are really giving it your best today.” Mariam sniggered once they’d taken care of the first cargo load. “What have you done to the real Sammy and Danny?”
Aiden stiffened at the comment, and Darren wasn’t far behind either. If she worked with the two men on a regular basis, then chances were she knew them well enough to be able to tell that the people she’d been working alongside for the past two hours were neither of them.
“Nothing,” Darren chuckled, waving her off.
Straightening her back, Mariam cast her gaze across the expanse of conveyer belts carrying square crates and packages from the offloading point on the level below to a system of openings along the inner wall.
The rest of the interior was made up of looming steel beams interspersed with racks of stacked crates and boxes that Darren assumed were used to store whatever cargo didn’t immediately leave the warehouse.
Mariam noted something down on her tablet and squinted at Darren.
“No, no. There is something different about you today,” she insisted, scanning him from head to toe.
When she’d done it twice, she clapped her hands.
“Oh, I got it! It must be this new hairdo, I bet. It really opens up your face. And it’s an attractive one, let me tell you. ”
Shaking his head, Darren played along, feeling Aiden’s amused gaze even if he had his back to the man. “What can I say? I thought I’d finally put myself out there a bit.”
“Then maybe I should have you meet my Ana,” she said, leading them to a control terminal.
“If she is as lovely as you are, I’d be more than happy to oblige.”
“Oh, you.” Mariam smacked Darren gently on the back and keyed in a few commands on the console’s screen, letting through the next batch of containers.
Unlike the previous ones, these were tall and slim.
They were also individually packed rather than squished together in tight-fitting outer packaging like the loads they’d overseen so far.
Curious, Darren hovered behind the woman, peeking over her shoulder at the terminal as more items made their way along the conveyor belt.
“Hey, Mariam, can you get the details for this load?” Darren asked, his interest piqued.
There was just something strange about the way this batch didn’t seem to follow the packaging conventions of the earlier ones, and since he and Aiden had some time to kill, he decided it was a mystery worth solving.
Glancing at the slowly moving cylindrical-shaped items, Mariam flicked through various submenus, pulling up an itemized manifest labeled ‘LQ-OXNT2’.
“Mariam, do you know what this ‘LQ-OXNT2’ stands for?” Aiden, who was next to Darren and peering at the screen from the woman’s other side, took the question from his mouth.
Mariam raised her shoulders. “All I know is what’s on the manifests, same as you. Though…” she paused, thinking. “If you boys had spent less time sneaking out to smoke, you’d know it’s one of our regular loads.”
“Good thing we are reformed then,” Darren said over a chuckle, wiggling his eyebrows.
“About time,” she agreed, grinning. “Let’s finish up here and head to the staff room. Break’s about to start in five.”
“You go ahead. Danny and I will double-check the numbers,” Aiden insisted with one of those fake smiles Darren couldn’t mistake for real anymore.
She cocked an eyebrow at him. “Well, I won’t say no if you offer.” After smoothing out her overalls, she gave them each a pat on the shoulder. “You keep this up and I’m sure the disciplinary committee won’t fire your asses.”
Once the woman was out of sight, Aiden hunched over the terminal, lightly tapping away at menus with his slender fingers. “Darren, look.”
Even in a situation like this, the use of his first name didn’t fail to send a thrill down his spine, making Darren envision all the ways he could make Aiden cry it out in pleasure.
But now was not the time for daydreaming, so he shut his fantasies down before they’d had the chance to distract him any further.
Pressing against Aiden’s side, he focused on the displayed data.
According to the records, this sector handled mostly cosmetics like soaps, shampoo and oils, though a few times a month a shipment of a few tons of ‘LQ-OXNT2’ seemed to make it through as well.
Like today, it usually happened during the night shift, and when he checked historical data, the manifests seemed to be perpetually vague, lacking information about destination, purpose and breakdown of loads.
Tapping his earpiece to turn it on and connect to the long-distance secure frequency Nyle had set up for this mission, Aiden said, “Hey, any idea what ‘LQ-OXNT2’ might be?”
“A few,” Nyle replied in his chiming voice. “We’re cross-checking a couple of things. In the meantime, you two should head down to the sublevels. I’m inside their surveillance system and things look quiet.”
With Nyle remotely overwriting the real-time surveillance feed, their only concern on the way down to the power room was the occasional security guard they came across.
Fortunately, the cargo racks littering every available space offered plenty of cover and hiding spots, letting them avoid detection.
What made them hit a dead end, however, was the reinforced blast door they found once they reached the marked location.
The blueprints had suggested a utility room that they’d assumed was a staircase, but clearly, they’d guessed wrong.
“Nyle, can you get this open from your end?” Darren called over the comms.
There was a short and tense pause. “Negative. I can’t even get a read on any of its systems. This means it’s most likely an old model, separate from the central network. You’ll have to figure out a way to open it yourselves.”
“I don’t think it’s on the local system either,” Aiden supplied, frowning at the hacking device the blond genius had given them. “I can see the back-up power supply for this floor, but nothing else.”
“Hmm… Then it’s probably mechanically operated. You’ll need a physical key or…” Nyle snorted. “An industrial-grade cutter which you don’t have either.”
“Maybe I can pick it?” Darren suggested as he studied the door. He couldn’t see a conventional keyhole though; instead, there were two sockets on each side of the steel monstrosity that he guessed were used to unlock and operate it. “I think I see the control points.”
“Can you describe them?”
“There’s two, one on each side of the door. They are built into its frame, about a meter above the floor, and are about as big as my fist,” Darren explained, trying to remember if he’d ever encountered a door with this kind of mechanism. He reached the conclusion that he hadn’t.
“That would be them, yes, but I have no idea where the keys could be…” Nyle made a rumbly noise of exasperation. “Darren, I think you might need to find a different way to get in. But, on the bright side, that confirms we were right about the vault’s location.”