Crescent Dawn (Dirk Pitt 21)

“Al,” he said, “I think you’re sitting on it.”

34

NOBODY PAID ANY ATTENTION TO THE TWO MEN DRESSED in faded turquoise jumpsuits walking down the pier with their heads hanging down and carrying an aluminum ladder. They were obviously a pair of crewmen from the freighter returning the borrowed equipment to shore. Only they were members of the crew that nobody had ever seen before.

The men working on the dock were busy securing a crate marked “Textiles” to the crane and paid no heed as Pitt and Giordino passed by. Pitt had noticed the guard on the yacht glance at them momentarily before turning away.

“Which way do we go, boss?” Giordino asked as he stepped off the pier, holding the front end of the ladder.

The illuminated warehouse was nearly in front of them, its open bay door, just a few yards to their right.

“I say we avoid the crowds and go left,” Pitt replied. “Let’s shoot for the other warehouse.”

They turned and walked along the waterfront, passing the narrow stone building. Pitt guessed it had originally been built as a fisherman’s house but now served as an administrative office for the dock facility. Unlike the gunman on the yacht, the man guarding the front door eyed them suspiciously as they passed by the courtyard in front of the house. Giordino attempted to trivialize their presence by casually whistling “Yankee Doodle Dandy” as they passed, figuring the Turkish gunman would be unfamiliar with the tune.

They soon reached the second warehouse, a darkened building with its large waterfront drop-down door sealed shut. Giordino tried the handle on a small entry door alongside and found it unlocked. Without hesitating, he led Pitt inside, where they deposited the ladder against a work desk illuminated by a flickering overhead light. The rest of the building’s interior was empty, save for some dusty crates in the corner and a large sealed container near the rear loading dock.

“That was easy enough,” Pitt said, “but I don’t think waltzing in the front door of the building next door looks as promising.”

“No, that guard watched us like a hawk. Maybe there’s a back door?”

Pitt nodded. “Let’s go see.”

Picking up a wooden mallet he noticed lying on the desk, he walked across the warehouse with Giordino. Adjacent to the loading dock was a small entry door, which they slipped through. They quietly made their way to the back side of the stone building only to find it had no rear or side doors. Pitt approached one of the lower-level windows and tried to peek in, but the blinds had been tightly drawn. He stepped away and studied the second-floor windows, then tiptoed back to the warehouse to confer with Giordino.

“Looks like we’re back to the front door,” Giordino said.

“Actually, I was thinking of trying an upstairs entry,” Pitt replied.

“Upstairs?”

Pitt motioned toward the ladder. “Might as well put that thing to use. The windows were dark upstairs, but they didn’t appear to have the blinds drawn. If you can create a distraction, I could climb up and enter through one of the windows. We can try to surprise them from above.”

“Like I said, surprise is a good thing. I’ll go get the ladder while you work on that distraction.”

As Giordino padded across the warehouse, Pitt stuck his head out the back door and searched for a means to create a diversion. An option appeared in the form of a flatbed truck parked behind the opposite warehouse. He ducked back inside as Giordino approached with the ladder, but then he suddenly looked past him curiously.

“What’s up?” Giordino asked.

“Look at this,” Pitt said, stepping closer to the steel shipping container sitting nearby.

It was painted in a desert-khaki-camouflage scheme, but it was some black-stenciled lettering that had caught Pitt’s attention. Several points around the container were marked, in English, “Danger—High Explosives.” Beneath the warning was stenciled “Department of the U.S. Army.”

“What the heck would a container of Army explosives be doing here?” Giordino asked.

“Search me. But I’d be willing to bet the Army doesn’t know about it.”

Pitt walked to the front of the container and slid across the dead bolt, then swung open the heavy steel door. Inside were dozens of small wooden crates with similar warnings stenciled on their sides, each tightly secured to metal shelves. Near the doorway, one of the crates had been pried open. Inside were several small plastic containers the size of bricks.

Pitt pulled one of the containers out and peeled off the plastic lid. Inside was a small rectangular block of a compressed clear powdery substance.

“Plastic explosives?” Giordino asked.

“It doesn’t look like C-4, but it must be something similar to it. There’s enough here to blow this warehouse to the moon and back.”

“You think that stuff might be helpful in creating a distraction?” Giordino asked, raising an eyebrow in a sly arch.

“I know so,” Pitt replied, resealing the container and handing it carefully to his partner. “There’s a truck parked in back of the other warehouse. See if you can make it go boom.”