At the far end of the yard, parked directly across the yellow hash marks of Bay 4, sat Vance’s white county cruiser. Its light bar was dark, but the driver’s side door was swung wide open against the gravel.
"He's inside the main corridor," Alvarez said, checking her wristwatch. "He has to walk the length of the loading platform and clear the shift foreman before he reaches the compressor room. You have six minutes before he opens that front tumbler. If you encounter him, do not engage. If he draws a weapon, you back out into the open yard where the truck drivers can see you."
"If I back out without that drive," I told her, opening the rear door, "Sarah gets indicted for corporate fraud by tomorrow morning."
I didn't wait for her reply. I stepped out into the gravel, slipped the steel tool into my coat pocket, and cut through the brush toward the drainage ditch that ran along the rear perimeter of the freight yard.
The cold air tore at my throat as I crouched low behind the chain-link fence. The thrum of the idling diesel engines covered the crunch of my boots on the wet gravel. Fifty yards ahead, the green metal siding of the compressor shed jutted out from the massive concrete foundation of Bay 4, its louvered ventilation intake humming with the steady suction of the exhaust fans.
Through the narrow gap between two gravel trailers, I saw Deputy Vance emerge onto the raised loading catwalk, his heavy utility belt jingling as he moved with purposeful, hurried strides toward the utility door, a heavy steel crowbar gripped tightly in his left hand.
CHAPTER 3: Where The Override Ran Out
The intake suction of the ventilation louver pulled my wool coat tight against my ribs as I dropped into the gravel trench behind the compressor shed. Above my head, the galvanized steel housing rattled with the heavy vibration of forty-ton refrigeration units, their copper lines shivering in rubber brackets. Through the slotted aluminum blades, the interior smelled of warm hydraulic oil, electrical ozone, and damp insulation.
I reached into my pocket, drew the hexagonal steel reset pin Sarah had pressed into my hand, and slid it into the third louvre from the bottom.
The steel pin bit into the latch recess with a dull, gritty click. I leveraged the pin downward. Inside the frame, a spring-loaded retaining dog slipped free with a sharp snap that was swallowed instantly by the thrum of the idling diesel haulers twenty yards away. The lower maintenance panel gave three inches outward, hinge pins groaning on ungreased metal.
Through the narrow opening, the back of the Bay 4 electrical cabinet was directly within reach. It was not a polished server bay. It was a weather-sealed industrial utility stack bolted into raw cinderblock, coated in grease-spotted gray enamel, its rear access hatch fastened with two butterfly thumb-screws meant for refrigeration technicians rather than county deputies.
Across the gravel apron, boots struck the metal grating of the catwalk.
The heavy, rhythmic cadence was unmistakable. Vance had bypassed the dispatch bullpen doors, rounded the scale office, and was climbing the steel stairs toward the exterior service door. The crowbar he held swung against his left calf, the forged iron clinking against the spare magazine pouch on his duty belt with every third step.
I wedged my fingers beneath the lowered flange of the maintenance panel, hoisted myself up into the narrow gap between the concrete footing and the sheet-metal siding, and gripped the twin thumb-screws. The threads were gummed with years of dried road salt and silicone lubricant, biting into the flesh of my thumbs. I forced the left screw counterclockwise until the washer popped, then spun the right. The back plate dropped into my lap.
Inside the dark cabinet cavity, tucked beneath a nest of high-voltage conduits, sat the blue metal enclosure.
A single green light on its face pulsed in steady, two-second intervals: the drive was receiving power from the terminal line, actively mirroring the noon data cycle Sarah had described. A thick, braided high-speed data lead linked the chassis to the switch rack above it, its locking collar fastened tight.
From the other side of the cinderblock partition, the heavy steel door of the compressor room shuddered.
A key scraped against the front brass tumbler. It turned once, jammed against the deadbolt, and rattled fiercely. Vance swore under his breath, his voice muffled by eight inches of masonry. Then came the brutal, ringing impact of the crowbar striking the strike plate. He wasn't waiting for the tumbler. He was forcing the door frame before the yard foreman could walk over from the fuel island.