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The Company
Time: May 19, 2009.
Place: On the road to NYC.
Last Event: Heading to NYC.
The group hits NYC early on May 19 and claims the hotel reservations made by Chaturvedi. The plan? Spend two weeks healing training injuries, getting to know each other, and of course practicing as a jazz combo ("Sharkmeat"). Between May 19 and June 2, each team member gets a little time alone, outside band practice:
• Anabel shops for clothes and keeps trying to dress up Wen.
• JB spends most of his time around the suite, healing up and writing songs.
• Vinnie is feeling fine after the first week, and gets out to enjoy the city – which includes shopping for ingredients that he uses to cook for the others.
• Wen appears to be hung up on pop culture . . . and eating. She does, however, play along with Anabel's attempts at dress-up.
• Zhang doesn't seem to sleep much at all, and spends huge amounts of time working out and running.
The evening of June 1, Sharkmeat has its first live performance! They play a few songs at a little basement jazz club on open mike night. It's hardly a prestigious gig – and the audience is light – but it goes well.
Early on June 2, Chaturvedi calls JB. He says that the Company wants the squad to go back to the Blackline facility, enter the offices covertly, and find out what's going on there. He indicates that the team's earlier intel agreed with Company suspicions regarding "certain activities." Chaturvedi doesn't elaborate, but hints that this is bigger than Blackline – a lot bigger. He urges the group to be subtle and careful.
JB does a little research and finds a crummy motel that's near enough to the Blackline camp that the group will be under an hour from the place but far enough away that nobody is likely to spot them. Then the squad hits the road, with Vinnie at the wheel of the truck. They stop to buy gas at a small service station, where they pay cash for a decrepit station wagon that's sitting in the parking lot with a sign in the window, for use as a disposable ride. Vinnie hastily cleans this up, and then he and JB set out in the truck, while Zhang takes the rust-bucket on the road with Anabel and Wen.
It's early evening when the group reaches the motel, which truly is a fleabag establishment. They spend some time discussing what to bring on their intelligence-gathering expedition. The decision is that they'll bring all the B&E gear and surveillance equipment, and pistols, but leave the heavy weapons and explosives locked in the truck. Once it's dark, they pack their kit bags and pile into the station wagon.
Vinnie drives, and makes good time. Soon the group is within a short hike of the Blackline facility, where they pull over, unload, and hide the car in the brush. Wen proves to be uncannily good at this. With that done, they shoulder their kit bags and head into the bush, where Wen again proves remarkably at home.
By 2300 hours, the squad has reached the woods at the south edge of the clearing around the Blackline compound, perhaps 200' away and essentially out of sight of spotlights and cameras thanks to the natural cover. They stealthily set up scopes, mikes, and cameras, and then camouflage their position, these activities hidden by brush and darkness. The Agents soon have a serviceable observation post overlooking the fenced-in offices at the west end of the facility.
Preliminary observations reveal that the fence ranges from 10' to 12' tall, with a course of barbed wire along the top. There are six guards patrolling inside, aided by bright lights and cameras, but no dogs. Each man wears a tactical vest and carries a Ruger SR-556 rifle – an eminently serious weapon. Beyond the guards are two one-storey structures: a low office building with an antenna farm on the roof, and a taller warehouse or garage.
The plan is to observe the camp for approximately 24 hours, preparatory to infiltrating the following night. This goes well. Late on June 3, the team members pool the following data:
• JB has analyzed the patrols and camera placement, and found a "blind spot" where there's a 90-second opening that a speedy intruder could exploit.
• JB has also sized up the guards and concluded that they're likely ex-special operators, and U.S.-trained.
• Vinnie has looked over the security setup. He suspects that the fence is "smart" and possibly contact-sensitive, and notes that all the exterior doors on both structures have keypad locks.
• Anabel has observed that the guards are mostly focused away from the security gate, probably because it's nigh-impenetrable. She feels that a distraction there might well take men off their patrols and widen the window JB identified.
• Zhang has made a list of all the best climbing and hiding spots, and noted the existence of a vent atop the garage that might be a way in.
The consensus is that most of the security budget was spent on the perimeter – probably on the reasonable assumption that a costly fence, barbed wire, cameras, and expensive, dangerous-looking guards would allow interior security to be light. This would permit those who work there to go about their business with few security-related inconveniences. Thus, infiltrators who get past the perimeter should be able to operate relatively easily inside.
The next part of the plan is to have Anabel create a distraction at the front gate, Vinnie and Zhang infiltrate, and JB and Wen observe and coordinate. Zhang indicates that for his part of the plan, he'll need a pole. Vinnie finds him a suitably pole-like sapling back in the bush. Then Anabel hikes back to the car. She leaves behind all of her gear but her phone, so that she can believably pass as a lost driver and not have anything on her that would give her away as a spy.
When Anabel calls in that she's on the road, Vinnie and Zhang begin their long, slow belly-crawl to the fence, covered in camouflage and dragging their equally camouflaged gear. Anabel stays on the phone, while Vinnie and Zhang wear secure radio sets with throat mikes. All three remain in constant contact with JB and Wen at base, who let everybody know who is doing what.
Anabel soon shows up at the gate and gets the guards' attention with a well-timed backfire and stall. She rattles off a ditzy story about being lost on her way out to meet some friends, and of car troubles – and it seems to work! After a few bats of her eyelashes, she has a couple of guards checking under the hood of her car. When Wen sees that the guards are thinned out, she tells Vinnie to move in.
Vinnie wastes no time. He whips out his tool kit and runs a very professional bypass on a small segment of fence – nothing that would hold up to close visual inspection, but enough, he hopes, to allow a quick climb. Then he hits the shadows again and waits for the next opening.
Anabel arranges this, too. Still playing dumb and sexy, she manages to convince the guards to break protocol and let her use the restroom inside the office. This further disrupts security, and buys Vinnie and Zhang another window in which to act. As soon as Wen hisses "Go!", Zhang hops up, pole in hand, and pole-vaults the fence! He lands quietly on the far side and dashes for the shadows. Vinnie catches the pole and hides it in the weeds.
As soon as Wen tells Vinnie he's free to move again, he tosses an empty kitbag over the barbed wire above the bypassed fence segment and scrambles over. He snatches back the bag and runs to Zhang's hiding spot. Zhang has already scrambled up to the garage roof, and leans down to help Vinnie up. Shortly, both men have quietly stolen up onto the roof.
Vinnie and Zhang examine the vent that Zhang saw from afar, and see only a simple anti-tamper switch by way of security. Vinnie bypasses this easily. Zhang then removes the grill with practiced ease, and sees that only an electric fan stands between him and the room beneath. In the room are piles of cargo, covered with tarps . . . and two more guards. After a brief radio discussion, it's agreed that the infiltrators should move in.
Vinnie disables the fan. When one of the gate guards enters the room to get tools for Anabel's car, Zhang and Vinnie take advantage of the distraction to drop down onto the tarp-covered pile beneath them. They do this as quietly as possible. One guard appears to hear a noise, but then sees that the fan isn't running and states, "Ah, crap. The fan shorted out again. That's what I heard."
Meanwhile, Anabel is still in the posh executive restroom, taking forever to "freshen up."
To be continued . . .