Chapter 36

Stefan felt Nicki go completely still beneath him. They were well-braced, and despite his misgivings, there was plenty of heft to the steel cage around the gutter. Nicki was right—when this structure had been built, its owners had ensured they'd have no problems reaching the gutter. It was a vertical drop, and the top was probably covered to ensure nothing but water dropped into it, funneled by the slightly slanted roof.

But the night had been interrupted by the sound of a door opening, and the muttered Turkish floating his way was the classic sound of discontent: the nightly garbage run.

"Filthy beasts," grumbled the man over a lit cigarette as he walked with a long swinging gait, hefting trash that appeared to be of considerable weight. He crashed into the brush not fifteen feet distant from them, and his biting commentary followed him over the ridge.

Stefan wasn't worried about the water bottle, but the guard presented a bigger problem. There wouldn't be enough time to scramble up the side of the wall before he got back, and there was no way to tell whether the gutter braces would remain sturdy. If one of them squeaked or scraped, the sound would echo for a quarter mile in the quiet night air.

Nicki trembled slightly beneath him, and Stefan snaked an arm around her, ostensibly to brace her further. But he couldn't deny that he also did it to reassure himself that she was steady, she was safe.

They hung like that for several minutes, but Nicki never once breathed a word, not even a sigh. He smiled against her hair, at once protective and proud. She was so determined to prove her worth, though she'd long since done all she needed to convince him she was an asset on this journey.

An asset he was quickly beginning to need for far more than a successful mission.

A flurry of Turkish started up again from the direction of the ditch, then got louder. Nicki and Stefan waited silently, suspended over the open ground, as the man trudged back through the fence, cursing as he got caught on the bared wires. From his vantage point, Stefan watched as the man pulled out a key and inserted it into the lock of the warehouse door far up the fence line. The guard returned the ring to his belt before he shouldered into the building with two large, empty cloth bags.

The door slammed behind him.

"Go," Stefan said, and Nicki instantly surged forward. The path up the side of the wall was quick, but precarious. After testing it the first few steps, Nicki turned back. "Me first, alone. Then you, and make it fast. You should be fine, but?—"

He didn't let her finish the sentiment, uneasy for any amount of time she spent on the rungs. "Go," he said again. And she went. He waited until she'd cleared the top before launching himself up, using skills perfected with long years of climbing the palace walls to scramble up the rungs. He reached the roof in less than a minute, but he'd felt the sway and jolt of the rungs, the telltale scrape of pressure.

At the top, he lay flat on the roof for a long two minutes willing his heart rate back to normal. "We're not going down that way," he said. "Especially if we have a body or anything heavy to carry."

To his surprise, Nicki didn't fight him. "Agreed." She waited until he looked at her. "That door, I think. The center one. First tier."

He rolled over onto his side, coming up into a crouch. The door she indicated was only twenty feet away, and cigarette butts and empty bottles lay strewn around it. Apparently trash detail didn't extend to the roof.

"Why come out here to smoke?" Nicki murmured. "Seems a risk."

"Like you said, they've been at this a year. And the man we saw today had his phone. Chances are reception isn't good inside the building, so what started as the occasional call when necessary has since become the standard smoke break." He considered his words. "Speaking of, we should probably get through it before the next round. I suspect smoke breaks happen more frequently then technically necessary."

They reached the door, then Stefan picked the lock with a set of tools he fished out of his suit pocket. Nicki remained quiet—not nervously so, however. She didn't look around the rooftop, panicked, but focused on the door, moving up to the balls of her feet when he opened it.

"Me first," he said. "You stay with me until I tell you to stop. Not too fast. Hand on my waist to gauge my direction."

She nodded and then he was through the door, confirming that it locked again behind them. He hadn't been overstating his concern about the gutter. The rungs wouldn't hold them a second time, not without noisy protest. They'd leave by the front door—or whatever passed as the front door of this place.

The landing they were on shunted down two sets of narrow stairs, but a door opened to their right, with more stairs beneath. A window was cut out of the door, and the stenciled markings indicated only "warehouse," in Turkish.

Stefan sidled up to the door and peaked through it. There was an open platform, then another room—more of a perch than anything. He couldn't see much from the angle through the window, so he eased the door open slightly.

He'd been right. There was a short open space along the metal platform, and then an enclosed structure with a windowed door. Through it, he could see a guard staring fixedly at the control panel, paying attention to it and the scene below him, visible through a large window.

Stefan eased the door shut again.

"One more." Stefan went down another flight, and this felt more right to him. The doorway above might lead to a catwalk system or the overseers' rooms, but this was the main floor. He turned, and Nicki was right behind him, her breathing tight, though her gaze was steady.

"Alarm?" she asked, and he shook his head.

"Too much hassle, I suspect." He leaned back and glanced through the window cut into this door. There was a large open space in the center of the room, with junk piled against the walls. At the front of the massive room were two intake garage doors, gleaming in the shadows.

But it was the center of the room that held Stefan's fascination.

There were twenty cells lined up in one long row, each separate from the other. Cell wasn't even appropriate—they were more like kennels. Tall enough for a man to stand in—if he was short. Long enough for a man to stretch out in. Opposite the kennel was a long, narrow utilitarian table and a trash can. At the far end, there looked to be a latrine of some sort, but he got the impression they didn't place too high a regard on cleanliness. The place smelled of fried meat, sweat, and urine even through the door. No wonder the guard had referred to them as filthy animals.

Worse, not all the men were asleep. Some muttered to themselves, some rocked, and some had hunched into tight balls, as if to will themselves away. The noise would cover Stefan's approach to the cages, but not do much more.

There were no visible guards on the first floor. Chances were good there was only the guard on the second floor, safely tucked in his overseers room.

He turned to Nicki and smiled. "I have an idea."