Given the lack of detailed information on this new group and their agenda, it was entirely possible that the CIA may have simply goofed when it came to thinking this warehouse was a viable target and Lennox and the other SEALs would be sitting here all night twiddling their thumbs.
“Guys,” Kirk’s voice came across the radio, interrupting his thoughts. “I’m on the second floor on the east side with a clear view of the surrounding neighborhood. It’s dead quiet out here. There isn’t even a light turned on within a mile of this place.”
“View from the roof is the same,” Darwin said. “I got eyes to the north and Simon has the south. This entire part of town seems empty—too empty. If I didn’t know better, I’d say that the locals know something is about to go down and have cleared out.”
Lennox had been in enough war zones to know exactly what Darwin was talking about. Locals always knew when insurgents were up to something. He threw a glance Colt’s direction, seeing similar concern mirrored there.
“That’d only make sense if this warehouse is the target,” Lennox said. “Which means there was a legitimate reason for the CIA to put us here.”
Colt shrugged. “I’m not sure how it helps us. We still have no idea when these people might be coming or what they’ll be looking for once they arrive.”
“Well, since we have some time, maybe you and Colt could look around the warehouse and see if there’s something in here besides consumer electronics,” Simon suggested. “Just to satisfy our curiosity.”
Lennox exchanged glances with Colt, who shrugged.
“Might as well,” his friend said. “It’s not like we’re doing anything better right now.”
They split up and started moving around the dark warehouse, the shelves and crates appearing in shades of green through the lenses of Lennox’s night vision goggles.
After ten minutes of opening up DVD players and video games consoles, Lennox pulled the shrink wrap off the corner of a pallet filled with unmarked cardboard boxes. Expecting more of the same, he got a surprise when he didn’t find more DVD players or games. Instead, the box contained cellophane wrapped bundles of powder. The exact color was hard to determine through the NVGs, but Lennox assumed it was white. Heroin probably—maybe cocaine. Looking through the next box on the pallet, he found more of the stuff, and then more in the next shrink-wrapped pallet, and the one after that. He didn’t look any further. There were a lot of matching pallets.
Lennox’s head spun as he tried to understand what this discovery meant. How could the CIA not know about this many pallets of drugs? And if they had known, why hadn’t they told him and the rest of the SEALs?
“Guys, I think I found the reason we’re here,” he said over the radio. “There are pallets after pallets of drugs here—heroin maybe. Hundreds of kilos of the stuff.”
“Okay,” Colt murmured as he walked over to Lennox. “Now that we know, what do we do? Destroy the stuff or guard it? Because I’m not so keen on that second option.”
“Whatever we’re going to do, we need to decide quickly,” Simon told them. “I’ve got a convoy of four vehicles coming our way from the south, including two large flatbed trucks. Unless they’re picking a DVD for date night, I’m pretty sure they’re here for the drugs.”
“Dammit,” Lennox muttered, pulling out the burner phone the CIA had provided and shooting a quick text to Joe. Not thatit would help. Even at this time of night with no traffic, it’d take the SOG team at least thirty minutes to make across the city.
Screw it.
“We’ll set an ambush using the drugs as bait,” Lennox said over the radio. “Simon, you stay on the roof and keep us updated on what our bad guys are doing. Once we make contact, you’re responsible for anyone still outside the building. And no matter what else happens, don’t let those trucks go anywhere.”
“Copy that,” Simon replied.
“Kirk. Darwin. I need you two down here on the back side of the warehouse, facing the big roll-up doors,” Lennox said. “On my signal, Colt and I will hit them from the right while you guys hit them from the front in a standard L-shaped ambush. Hopefully, they’ll panic and run right back out the door and into Simon’s sniper fire. The goal is to keep them from getting the drugs out and taking at least one of them alive.”
Nobody seemed to have anything to add to the plan—or a problem with it—so they all started moving in silence. Lennox and Colt took a position behind the heaviest shelving they could find, while Kirk and Dawson did the same to the left of their position.
Around him in the darkness, Lennox could hear the sounds of magazines being released and reseated and rounds being locked and loaded. In the tight confines of the warehouse, with the metal shelves and all the boxes, it was going to get loud in here when the shooting started.
“Vehicles are thirty seconds out,” Simon said softly over the radio. “These guys know exactly where they’re going and they don’t seem worried about anyone being here.”
“They’re probably aware that the security for the warehouse has abandoned the place,” Darwin said. “Hell, they may have even dropped the rumor, ensuring that it happens.”
A few seconds later, Lennox heard the loud drone of a couple big diesel engines coming closer, followed almost immediately by the clanking of metal on metal as the front gates opened.
“One of the trucks is backing up to the warehouse doors now,” Simon told them. “The good news is that there’re only about a dozen guys. The bad news is that they look like they know what they’re doing. They’ve all got top-of-the-line tactical vests and weapons, scouts are already rolling out to check the perimeter, and a man disappeared into the building across the street carrying a sniper rifle. When I start shooting, he’s going to be all over me.”
“Crap,” Lennox murmured.
He’d known they’d be outnumbered in the coming confrontation but hoped having Simon in an over watch position on the roof would balance out the odds. The other sniper pretty much screwed that plan.
“Darwin, change of plans,” Lennox said, needing to make this happen quickly if he was going to do it at all. “I need you back on the roof ASAP in a position to deal with that sniper as soon as Simon flushes him out. When you’re finished, I need you back with Kirk. He’s going to be manning his leg of the ambush alone until you get back.”
“Copy that,” Darwin responded, disappearing into the depths of the warehouse without a sound.
