Chapter 17 - THE WAREHOUSE AT POINT LOMA
The commercial waterfront near Point Loma was silent at four o'clock in the morning. Heavy rain had begun to mix with the coastal fog, lashing against the rusted iron roofs of the old fish-processing warehouses lining the dark pier.
Inside Warehouse 14, three men in dark civilian clothing sat around a folding table illuminated by a single overhead halogen lamp. High-grade satellite receivers and encrypted radio frequency monitors were arranged across the table, their cooling fans humming softly in the cold air.
A tall, broad-shouldered man with a thick grey beard—the syndicate's field coordinator—looked at his watch.
"Vance is late with the zero-three-hundred check-in," the coordinator muttered, his hand resting beside a suppressed German pistol on the table. "He should have uploaded the secondary telemetry package twenty minutes ago."
"The fog might be delaying the satellite link from Coronado," the second technician replied, adjusting the gain controls on the primary receiver. "The base radar is running on low-power cycles."
The third man, standing near the heavy wooden sliding door overlooking the dark water, stepped closer to the narrow glass window. He pulled a pair of thermal night-vision binoculars to his eyes, scanning the empty pier outside.
"Nothing on the access road," the lookout reported. "No vehicles, no patrol boats, no movement."
"Try the secondary frequency," the coordinator ordered, leaning over the table. "If Vance missed his window, we cut the feed and abandon the site before dawn."
Before the technician could touch the dial, the single halogen lamp hanging overhead flickered once and went completely dark.
The warehouse was instantly plunged into pitch-black shadow, broken only by the dim, red standby LEDs on the electronic gear.
"Power failure?" the technician whispered, reaching for his tactical flashlight.
"No," the coordinator growled, drawing his sidearm in a single fluid motion. "Weapon check. Perimeter doors!"
The three men stood frozen in the dark, their breath visible in the cold air as they listened for any sound against the rusted iron walls.
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There was no sound of breaking glass. No loud breach of hydraulic doors. No tactical footsteps on the gravel outside.
Only the soft, wet sound of a single rain drop hitting the concrete floor inside the room.
