The Young Spy (Book One)

Chapter 20: Into The Lion's Den

"Come on, dude." Swift tries to reason, "They've been working with Edmund for more than ten years, right?"

"I get that," Lars interjects. "But they're not that close, y'know. Worth a shot, though."

"That's what I thought."

Swift halts the car completely after stopping next to the curb, in front of presumably a retail warehouse. On the other side of the street, is the abandoned warehouse Audrey was talking about. It wasn't at all looked abandoned. The lights are still on and it looks to be in a stable condition. Swift looks at the warehouse's exteriors. No wonder people said it's abandoned. The metallic walls were slowly rusting away from the edges. If there was no light coming from inside, he would consider it as a haunted building. He parked the car on the other side knowing people inside the warehouse, if there are any, would hear a car coming.

Swift turns off the car and picks up his phone from the dashboard. "Okay. I'm at the place. I'll talk to you soon." Without waiting for another response from Lars, he just hangs up.

He exits the car and goes to cross the street carefully not to walk into a car's trajectory and get run over. As soon as he steps onto the curb, he pushes himself quickly, now off the street. Strangely, there isn't much of anyone walking the same curb as Swift. The pedestrians mind their own business, making Swift practically invisible. Who knows what their reaction would be if they see a seventeen-year-old wearing a tuxedo wandering the streets this late? He stumbles upon a tall wall. Walking across the curb and going to the side, he eventually finds an entrance, where he could fully see the warehouse. He walks into the warehouse grounds, his brown dress shoes stepping into some dirt, soiling the sole. He approaches closer and closer to the entrance until he stops.

Okay. First step: Find a way in... Aha. Swift didn't have to scan the warehouse completely to figure out where the entrance is. The door is right there, unknown if it's locked or not. He just had to ascend two to four steps of stairs before he does. But he rethinks his strategy before he could go further. He knew whoever was inside obviously isn't welcome to a random person just walking in, so he had to come up with another strategy. Still staring at the warehouse, Swift walks to the side until he no longer sees a wall. Turning by the corner, he notices a couple of construction scaffoldings that top each other, reaching the warehouse roof. Wouldn't you know, it leads up to two windows on the slanted part of the roof, the near one open. He smirks. Bet I could use that to get up there.

Swift takes no time making his way up to the scaffolding, climbing a wooden platform. The nearer he gets to the window, the more he hears faint voices coming from inside the warehouse. He jumps again to a second wooden platform above the first one, and now he's right next to the window.

"Mind repeating all of that? Except this time, simplify it." Swift hears a man's voice demand. He continues by looking through the window, where further inside the large warehouse he sees four middle-aged men gathering around in a circle, a suspended light bulb hanging above them. The window he looked through seems to lead into an elevated platform higher than the floor the four mysterious men are on.

"What, you didn't hear all of that? Even though you've been standing right next to me this entire time?" The group's leader says with a raised voice, higher than his usual low and commanding voice. He glares at his colleague, who stands at the other side of the stack of plastic blue crates they call a makeshift table, one they had to make to lay their plans on.

"Oh, no, I got all of that. I just wanted to make sure I didn't miss any important details about this job, excluding our strategic moves that you delicately crafted because I wrote them all down." The caucasian man says, holding up a notepad and pencil.