Chapter 35

Nicki could barely contain her excitement throughout the departure from the ruins and the obligatory stop for a final drink with the Turkish official. She said all the right things in all the right places, but her mind was jumping ahead to the night that was drawing down.

Stefan had said they were leaving in the morning. That was news to her. She hadn't said goodbye to Josef or his crew—hadn't gotten a chance to tell him about the broken board. But that's what email was for.

Besides, they were going to explore the warehouse asylum tonight. That trumped everything.

By the time they were alone again, back at the villa, she'd considered fifteen different scenarios for the exploration of the warehouse, rejecting each one. In the end, there really was only one option.

Stefan, as she expected, wasn't amused.

"None of the men aboard the yacht are expert climbers, Nicki. That's not going to work."

"Of course it's going to work! And I can tell by your voice, you know it too." she protested. "The place is airtight except for the roof, and no one is expecting us there. Chances are they have some sort of guard sweep of the grounds during the night, especially if that's when they dump the trash. If we go in at ground level, we'll be spotted. Or you'll be spotted, if you go in with your operatives. This isn't about me, this is about getting in the best way."

Stefan sent her a withering glare and she grinned. "Okay, so maybe it's a little about me. But you have to admit, it's the cleanest approach."

"It's the most foolish, certainly." Stefan glared at the sketch she'd mapped out on her tablet. The cliff face wasn't completely sheer, but the concrete walls were. "The warehouse is three stories high. That's a lot of flat surface to cover."

"It would be, except for this little detail."

She went to her bag and pulled out her video camera, scrolling backward. "While you were chatting it up with Omir, I saw this." She held it out to him, triumphantly.

He stared. "It's the corner of the building."

"It's the corner of the building with a gutter," she said. "A reinforced gutter, meant to last through any storm. They clearly weren't interested in fixing anything that high up." She zoomed in closer, and he squinted.

"That is not a solution, Nicki, that's a death trap," he said. "You've already climbed once today—and windsurfed."

He was right, but she pushed his concerns aside. "I climbed downhill and I was on the water for, like, a millisecond." When he didn't say anything, she jabbed a thumb at the screen. "Oh, come on! There's a tree line halfway up and then the gutter and its protection. You know it has to extend the whole way, otherwise, what's the point of a gutter? It's all we need for footholds. Our gear will do the rest."

Stefan looked pained. "None of the men are trained in this type of climbing," he said again.

"Well how many were you planning on bringing? This isn't a police raid, it's recon and maybe a rescue. We go in, we see what we see, and if what we see isn't Ari, we get out. There were only, what, a dozen men who filed back into the building? Less than we thought for sure."

"Less than we thought," he said. "But how many more would be guarding them? If there's any truth to the rumors about them harboring animals in there…"

"Yeah, the more I think about it though, no way. Animals make noise and are just inherently messy—I'm talking food, water, and lots and lots of poop. Take it from someone who grew up in Indiana, there would be visible waste if they were boarding anything with four legs in there."

"Unless they were true creatures of myth."

She snorted. "Yeah, not a lot of those in Indiana. But I'm still thinking that sounds like way too much hassle for a building like that. As for actual guards, it's been a year or more that these guys have been at this. They probably have their routine down cold. I bet they have no more than two guys on the building. Probably only one, and he's probably sleeping. I mean, come on. The workers will be locked up, wiped out. Maybe drugged. That'd make things easier. Especially if they were addicts to start."

Stefan still wasn't on board. "Do you have any experience in hand-to-hand combat? I can't believe I'm asking you that. Never mind. If anything like that happens, you'll be a complete liability. And drugged men—even men caught in a stupor—are dangerous. Too dangerous to take you. No. It's not going to happen."

Nicki nodded slowly. She wasn't going to be foolish, and she wasn't going to disobey a direct order.

But that didn't mean she would simply give up without presenting her side of the story.

"Look, you can go up with Tamas or any of the other guys. But you know as well as I do, I'm the best climber. And if you're worried about bulk, I cut that down by about half, right off the bat. Plus, remember," she grinned, "I'm a specialist at being thrown."

It took a few more rounds of arguing after that, but in the end, Nicki won.

Within two hours they were at the base of the cliff, where the trench emptied out over the shallow stream. Nicki experienced a twinge in her chest as she remembered how freaked out she'd been as she'd stuck her landing too hard there, but she resolutely patted her full water bottle hooked to her belt as a talisman. This morning's drop was a lifetime ago, it seemed. Now all she had to do was climb up, hand over hand. It wasn't far.

Nicki had climbed in the dark before, and the Ala?ati night was perfect for it, the moon shining full and bright through the jungle. Fortunately, the climb up the wall of the warehouse would be partially covered by trees. They wouldn't be on the open section of the wall for long.

The first leg went quickly enough. She scaled the rocky outcrop ahead of Stefan, adrenaline carrying her up most of the way. She'd need to conserve her energy, but as she'd said to Stefan…the second half of the journey was downhill. That tended to be faster, if not easier.

When they were both at the mouth of the ditch, Stefan leaned down to her ear. "Quiet. If they're on a trash run, they'll hear us. We need to get to the cross-fence line and over. Stealth over speed."

She nodded and he tapped her shoulder. When she looked up, he dropped his head further, taking her mouth in a hard kiss.

"I'm going first," he growled. Then he was past her.

It was a good thing they were opting for stealth, because speed was almost nonexistent. They crawled forward under brush and over roots, Nicki's tight black tights and close-fitting jersey a welcome layer between her and the thorns, sticks and rough bark they slithered by. It took nearly two hours to cover the tenth of a mile to the warehouse wall—including fully a half hour to scale the fence and climb down and over through the tangle of trees and rock and long-ago construction debris, now caught in the side of the mountain like a future dig site waiting to be unearthed.

Now Stefan reached out and tried the metal framework around the gutter. It was marginally sturdy, threaded through with vines. There was no way to tell what was keeping it to the wall—metal fastenings or organic ties. "I don't like this," he muttered.

Nicki pulled her water bottle free and took a slug. She was thirsty—too thirsty for the amount of water she'd consumed already today. Stupid nerves.

"We'll go up the tree as far as we can, then I'll switch over," she said. "It's three stories, Stefan. If it's not going to work, we'll try to skirt to the front and get in that way."

"Now you're open to another alternative?" Stefan's exasperation was plain, and Nicki rolled her eyes.

"You know as well as I do that if there'd been another way to do this, you would have already come up with it. It's the roof or nothing, Stefan. It's not like there was a ladder leaning up against the near side of the wall. We have to get up there and we have to go quickly, or it'll be freaking dawn already and they'll file the men out for the morning shift. You know I'm right."

"You're right," he scowled at the gutter. "This looks flimsy as hell."

"It'll hold." Nicki's confidence soared with each passing second. They were here, which was the game. Getting in had been a secondary goal after ensuring that she was along for the ride. She was finally in the fray, doing something that mattered. Before Stefan could object further, she turned to the tree. "Boost me up?"

He reached for her at the exact moment she went to reattach her bottle to her belt—and jarred the thing loose from her fingers.

"Oh!" Nicki gasped as the bottle dropped through the trees, wincing with every bounce and clatter. Beside her, Stefan glared.

She gave him a game smile. "Look, we couldn't find that bottle again if we tried. Trust me, they won't either," she said, but her throat already felt too tight.

Before he had a chance to respond, she turned and shimmied up the tree. They moved through the foliage a good fifteen feet before the branches became flimsier and unsubstantial. Taking the nearest one, she swayed toward the wall, trying the nearest gutter brace. It held.

"They don't make them like this anymore," she whispered.

Stefan moved up behind her, his chest flush against her back. His thin suit may have been engineered to keep him from getting cut up, but it was form-fitting, and the touch of his broad chest and abs against her back almost made Nicki's eyes cross. Then his next words really did make her catch her breath.

"Don't move," he whispered. "There's someone below us."