After John was finished with the map, he offered it to Jared. “Six blocks,” John said without emotion.
Jared glanced at the map and nodded without feeling the need to check John’s work. John stowed the map and they moved on. In less than twenty minutes they were standing in front of the business. It was late in the afternoon, and both Jared and John knew they’d be sleeping either at the business or nearby. The company was called Solar Green and didn’t appear to have been looted in any way. The large glass front of the business was intact, and the doors were closed.
Not wanting to compromise the skin of the building, John led everyone to the rear of the structure. The back side had a large steel roll-up door and a single swinging pedestrian door along with several windows fairly high off the ground. All of these were closed and, on further inspection, locked. The single swinging door was set in a steel doorframe, making it a real pain in the neck to force open. John knew if he were forced to breach this monster in the old days, he would have used explosive breaching charges.
He had no such equipment with him today, so he pulled out his lockpicks and set to working the door’s lock open. The door had only a single lock integrated into the doorknob, which John was thankful for. Had the door been outfitted with an additional deadbolt, it would have made his job twice as difficult. The lock was not a cheap setup, which was going to make John’s work challenging. He first gave the plug a shot of graphite lubricant, endeavoring to loosen all the key and driver pins along with the springs. The smoother everything worked inside the lock housing, the easier it would be to line the pins up with the shearline.
After the lock was lubricated, John turned to the group all huddled around watching him, and gave Jared a what the fuck shrug. Jared knew immediately what John meant. Jared directed Barry to the opposite side of the building, where he could see anyone approaching. Jared next hid the two women and Devon behind a large blue dumpster. After the three were secreted, he took a position on the side of the building they entered on, and glanced back at John for approval. The man was already struggling with the lock, never bothering to look up.
John worked on the lock for fifteen minutes, cursing under his breath, changing lock-picking tools, then cursing more. At the twenty-minute mark, John sat back and pulled out a water bottle. He drank and stared up at the blue sky with its streaks of cirrus clouds overhead. After he drank his fill, John lay back on the hard pavement and stretched his arms out and above his head, trying to clear his mind. He knew the rest of the people were growing impatient with his lack of success with the lock, but none of them had tried picking a lock and therefore knew nothing of the difficulties involved.
John, however, knew all too well how troublesome covert entries could be. Sometimes a lock would succumb to a man’s lockpick tools in seconds, and other times, the stars just weren’t aligned and it took forever to coax the mechanism open. John found that if a lock refused his labors, he would remove himself from the resistant lock and take some time to reflect on other things. After clearing his mind, John would return and many times find the lock much more compliant.
John liked the fact that Solar Green had not been looted, and intended to stay the night inside the building. The glass in the front would not stop someone from entering, but would make one hell of a racket if ruptured. The rear of the building was secure enough that John didn’t think they would have to worry about posting a sentry at any of the doors.
They could sleep in the rear of the building, and if the front were breached, they could fight from the back rooms of the structure. John would work out all the details after he defeated this tiny mechanical locking device that at the present time was getting the better of him.
John lay staring at the sky in the late afternoon sun for a full ten minutes before sitting upright and staring at the door lock. Picking locks was fine as long as you had time and no one’s life depended on a speedy entry. This was exactly why the Special Missions Unit used explosive breaching charges on nearly every single obstacle they came across. They’d blown doors, walls, vehicles, planes—you name it, they’d blown holes in it.
John sighed as he leaned back on the palms of his hands, staring at the lock. He wouldn’t have used explosives today even if he’d had them. He wanted to sleep here tonight, and things that went boom usually were followed by people interested in what the boom was. He didn’t want any additional problems, especially after what they’d all just been through. Slowly John pushed himself back up onto his knees and got back to work.
John inserted the tension tool, applied a bit of pressure, then chose a rake he hadn’t used yet. On the first pass over the pins, he felt the lock give slightly. He wasn’t sure how many pins this lock had, but several of them had reached the shearline and crossed over, the tension tool holding them from returning to their former stubborn positions. John eased off the pressure on the tension tool ever so lightly and gave the pins another gentle rake. The lock turned, allowing the tension tool to be used like a key. Another half second and the door was open.
As John swept all the lock-picking gear to the side,
