Elephant Song - Smith Wilbur. Страница 44

Now he pulled a soft balaclava cap of dark wool over his head.  He strapped a small nylon bag around his waist that contained the few items of equipment which he had selected from the tool-box.

Bolted to the Landcruiser's roof were two light aluminium extension ladders that he carried for laying as corduroy when negotiating soft sand or deep mud.  They weighed less than seven pounds each.  He carried both of them under one arm as he set out across the weed-choked wasteland towards the depot.  He kept off the road, well back amongst the scrub.

The plot had been used as a rubbish dump.  There were piles of garbage. A broken bottle or jagged piece of scrap iron could cut through the canvas and rubber boots he wore.  He picked his way with care.

Fifty feet from the fence he laid down the ladders and crouched behind a rusty car body.  He studied the depot.  There were no lights burning in the warehouse, no floodlights illuminating the fence.  That seemed odd.

Too good?  Too easy?  he asked himself, and crept closer.

The only light was in the guardhouse at the front gate.  It gave him sufficient back lighting with which to examine the fence.

He saw at once that it was not electrified, and he could discover no trip-wire for an alarm system.

He moved stealthily to the corner-post at the rear of the property.

If there were an infri alarm system, the eye would be mounted here.

Something white gleamed on top of the post, but on closer inspection he realised that it was the bleached skull of a chacma baboon, and he grimaced.  He felt vaguely uneasy as he went back to fetch the ladders from where he had left them beside the wrecked car.

Back at the corner of the fenced area, he settled down to watch for a guard making his rounds.  After half an hour he had convinced himself that the fence was unguarded.

He moved in.  The quickest and safest method of entry would have been to use the wire-cutters, but if possible he wanted to leave no trace of his visit.  He extended both ladders to their full length.  Then steeling himself for the squeal of a hidden alarm, he propped one of the ladders against the concrete corner-post.

He let out his breath when no alarm sounded.

Carrying the second ladder, he scaled to the top of the fence.

Balancing on the top rung, leaning backwards to avoid the offset barbed wire on the summit, he swung the spare ladder over and inwards.

He had intended lowering it carefully on the far side, but it slipped from his grip.

Although it fell on grass, which cushioned the impact, the sound was like the report of a .  357 magnum in his own ears.

He teetered on the top of the ladder, his nerves screwed tight and waited for a shouted challenge or a shot.

Nothing happened, and after a minute he breathed again.  He reached into the front of his clothing under the polo-neck jersey, and brought out the roll of foam rubber which he used as a pillow when sleeping under the stars.  It was an inch thick, just enough to pad the top strand of barbed wire.  He spread it carefully over the top of the fence.

He took a firm grip between the spikes of the wire with his gloved hands and rolled smoothly over, dropping nine feet to the lawn on the far side.

He broke his fall with a forward somersault and crouched low, listening again, peering into the darkness.

Nothing.

Quickly he set up the second ladder against the inside of the fence, ready for a speedy retreat.  The unpainted aluminium gleamed like a beacon to catch the eye of a patrolling guard.  Nothing we can do about that, he told himself, and crossed to the side wall of the warehouse.

He slipped along the wall, thankful for the darkness, and reached the corner.  He crouched there for a minute, listening.

Somewhere far away a dog barked, and there was the distant sound of a locomotive shunting in the railway yards.  Apart from that, nothing.

He glanced round the corner, and then crept down the long back wall of the warehouse.  There was no opening here, except for a single row of the skylight windows very high up under the caves of the saw-backed roof, at least thirty feet above him.

Ahead he made out a small shed in the gloom.  it was attached to the rear wall of the warehouse, but its roof was much lower than that of the main building.  As he approached it, he became aware of a faint but foul odour, like guano fertiliser or untanned hides.

The smell was stronger as he circled the shed, but he thought little of it.  He was studying the shed.  There was a downpipe in the angle where the shed's wall joined that of the main warehouse.  He tested the pipe with his weight, and then went up it easily, hand over hand.

Within seconds he was lying stretched out on the roof of the shed, looking up at the row of skylights in the main wall now only ten feet above him.  Two of the panels stood open.

From the bag in the small of his back he brought out a coil of nylon rope and quietly tied a Turk's head knot in one end to give it weight.

Balancing on the peak of the shed's roof he flicked the rope out and then got it swinging in an easy circle.  With a snap of the wrist he shot the weighted knot upwards.  It struck the jamb between the two open panels and then dropped back in a tangle around his shoulders.  He tried again with the same result.  At the fifth attempt the knot dropped through the open skylight, and immediately he tugged and it whipped back and made three natural turns around the jamb.  He pulled back hard and the wraps held.  Keeping pressure on the line he began to climb.

He used the rubber soles of his canvas boots for purchase against the unpainted asbestos wall, and went up with the agility of a monkey.

He had almost reached the windows when he felt the end of the line start to unravel.  With a sickening lurch he dropped back a foot and then it held again.  Daniel gathered himself and lunged upwards.  A gloved hand over the bottom frame of the open skylight steadied him.

He hung thirty feet above the ground, his feet kicking and slipping against the wall and the steel frame cutting into his fingers, even through the glove.  Then with another convulsive effort he flung his right hand up and got a double grip.  Now with the strength of both arms he was able to draw himself up smoothly and straddle the frame of the skylight.

He took a few seconds to catch his breath and listen for any sound from the dark interior of the building, then he unzipped the bag and groped for the Maglite flashlight.  Before he left the hotel room he had screwed a red plastic shade over the lens.

The shaft of light which he shot downwards was a discreet -ruby glow that was unlikely to attract attention from outside the building.

Below him the warehouse floor was piled with towers and walls of packing cases in a multitude of sizes and shapes.  Oh no!  he groaned aloud.  He had not expected such abundance.  It would take a week to examine all of them, and there were four other bays to the warehouse complex.

He flashed the torch-beam down the wall.  The corrugated cladding was fixed to a framework of intricately welded angle iron.  The frames formed an easy ladder for him to reach the cement floor thirty feet below.  He swarmed down and switched off the flashlight.

Swiftly he changed position in the darkness.  If a guard was creeping up on him he wanted to confuse the attack.  He crouched between two cases, listening to the silence.  He was about to move again, when he froze.

There was something, a sound so small that it was just within the range of his comprehension, he felt it with his nerve ends rather than truly heard it.