Page 70 of Gunpowder

They parked on the side of the road and walked the last quarter mile to the shopping center. Marie had come with Felix in his car, and Spencer brought Julian in the Lexus. Better to have too many potential getaway cars than not enough. Wren opened his laptop on one arm and took a thumb drive out of his jeans pocket. His face glowed above the screen, his fingers on the keyboard unnervingly loud on the empty sidewalk. He looked up at the building, typed something in, and nodded to Julian. “The security system is disabled.”

“This place is abandoned, why would there be an armed security system?” Blair asked softly, as though Phantom could somehow hear them from the warehouse further up the hill.

“Whoever owns it now probably maintains one to protect it against squatters and vandals,” Spencer said.

Julian crouched down and took two picks out of his lockpicking set. The quiet was making Blair anxious, the silence so absolute that he could hear the tinny scrape of metal on metal as Julian moved the tumblers inside the lock.

A louder snick sounded as the lock disengaged and Julian smiled. “There it is.”

Blair entered first with one of his guns drawn. Felix followed him and went left as Blair went right.

“Empty,” Blair called, his voice echoing in the barren room even as he tried to keep it low.

The rest followed except Marie, who stuck her head in from outside. “I’m going to go get my things from the car and find the entrance to the roof,” she said.

“Yell if there’s trouble,” Felix said.

She nodded and vanished from the doorway. Blair looked around, wondering what used to be there. No signs were left on the windows to give him an idea. Probably a loan company or some kind of office setting, going by the counter in the front and the empty space that lay behind it with plenty of outlets in the walls. Wren went to the other side of the counter and slid down to sit behind it. Blair followed and knelt next to him, putting his weight on his good leg. The last thing he needed was the bad one giving him hell later.

The lines of code on the screen didn’t mean a damn thing to him but they were rapidly disappearing as Wren’s fingers flew over the keyboard. In seconds, only one string of numbers remained. “That’s their signal,” Wren said, and with a tap of the enter key, the screen blacked out.

A new but equally confusing screen opened and he handed Blair three small earbuds. “I’ll give Marie and Julian theirs, you take care of the rest. I’ve already isolated the signal so I don’t jam it along with the security system.” He looked up at Blair. “Time for you to go.”

“Yeah.”

Blair pulled him forward and kissed him hard. His breath hitched as Wren’s thumb stroked over his cheekbone.

“Blair,” Wren said against his lips. “Be careful.”

“I will. I’ll talk to you as soon as we hook up to these things,” Blair said, and kissed him one more time.

Wren was slow to let his hand fall from Blair’s face as they parted. He could say whatever he wanted about not having feelings, but Blair saw the concern in his eyes, illuminated by the light reflecting from the laptop screen. Blair forced his feet to move, to go and join Felix and Spencer by the door. It was everything he could do not to go back behind the counter and drag Wren far, far away from it all, protect him from Phantom and the echo of his father in his nightmares.

“Now or never,” Spencer said.

Julian unlocked the back door. “I’ll make sure Marie has her earpiece before you guys are inside. Go ahead.”

“Careful on the roof,” Spencer called after him.

Julian stuck his head back in just long enough to stick his tongue out. “I’m a thief, silly. I’ve been on plenty of them.”

He disappeared back out of the doorway and Felix led them out the front. Blair looked over his shoulder but he couldn’t see the light from Wren’s laptop over the counter. He didn’t like leaving him there alone, no matter how short of a time it would be. If anything happens, we’ll hear, he reminded himself.

They made the short walk from the shopping center up to the warehouse. A couple of numbers had fallen from above the first bay door, leaving its address a mystery, but Blair bet it had been awhile since the place had seen any legitimate owners. There was graffiti on the outside too old to belong to Phantom. Besides, they had taken too much care in staying hidden to give themselves away like that. Blair pressed his back against the wall next to the narrow door used for staff instead of shipments, the one he had seen the motorcycle rider use the night Wren followed him there. Felix and Spencer split up to check around the sides for anyone keeping watch.

“Nobody outside,” Spencer said, low but audible through the earpiece. “Same plan, Felix?”

Felix came back around and stood on the opposite side of the door from Blair. “Yeah. Me and the kid are gonna go in, you stay out here in case any of ‘em run.”

The access panel suddenly flashed green and both their hands went to their weapons until they heard Wren say in their earpieces, “It’s disarmed. Go.”

Felix nodded to him and pulled the door open. Blair went in first, the 92 drawn, doing a quick sweep from left to right before gesturing forward with his gun. Felix was surprisingly quiet behind him and one long stride put him at Blair’s left again. Blair didn’t wait for a signal as they approached the doorway that opened up into the receiving bay, according to the blueprints. He swung right and Felix did the opposite.

Empty. The only thing in the room were rows of towering steel bunkers, but the shelves were too widely spaced to provide cover. Blair started forward again. He wanted to mention how strange it was to have not ran into anyone yet but he knew his voice would echo under the high ceilings in the mostly barren receiving bay. They cut down the center aisle of bunkers and stopped in the middle of the room. There was a balcony that ran the perimeter of the room with doors that probably went to old offices, again with widely spaced railing that made it easy to see there was nobody on the walkway.

Felix tapped his shoulder and pointed up with his gun. He had his other index finger raised. Watch. Blair nodded. He did, and after a beat, saw a flash of green under one of the doors. He took out his phone, not quite trusting that his voice wouldn’t carry up there with no other sound in the warehouse to mask it.

He sent a text to Wren.

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