Chapter 27 - The Grain Silo Trap
The abandoned grain elevator stood like a rusted cathedral against the violet evening sky. Decades of rust had streaked its corrugated steel walls, and wild brambles choked the perimeter fence. The access road was cracked concrete, overgrown with crabgrass and littered with broken beer bottles.
Damon approached from the south, moving through the drainage ditch parallel to the railroad tracks. His boots made no sound against the wet gravel. He wasn't using night vision yet; his natural night vision had adapted over thirty minutes of deliberate darkness acclimation.
At fifty yards, he halted beneath the skeleton of an overturned railcar.
There were three vehicles parked near the base of the central silo: two black SUVs and a tactical transport van with blacked-out rims. Infrared illumination glinted faintly off the van’s roof—an omnidirectional thermal camera sweeping the yard in a continuous 360-degree rotation.
Damon dropped prone into the mud. He knew the sweep timing of that exact sensor package: a four-second blind spot every twenty-two seconds as the turret completed its cycle.
He counted down in his head. *Three... two... one... go.*
Damon sprinted low, covering twenty yards in four silent seconds, diving behind a concrete loading ramp just as the camera's invisible laser swept across the gravel where he had been standing.
Inside the silo, a halogen work light illuminated the cavernous, hollow interior.
Damon unclipped his titanium knife, keeping the suppressed carbine tucked tight against his chest. He slipped through an auxiliary maintenance hatch, stepping into the dust-scented interior.
Standing beneath the harsh glare of the halogen light was a tall, broad-shouldered man in a black wool trench coat. His hair was cropped gray, and a jagged scar ran from his right ear down into his collar. Beside him stood four private military operators clad in sterile black tactical gear, armed with submachine guns held at low-ready.
The scarred man lit a cigarette, the flare of the match illuminating cold, dead gray eyes.
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"You’re late, Damon," Kowalski said into the empty air, not turning around. "Seven years late."
***
