Instead they ran right up to the fence. And beyond. And the fence, instead of being the secure barrier that Keith had seen night after night for so many years, now bore a large hole. The snow around it was trampled and messed up. The moment made him dizzy. Hyper-aware, but also confused, his mind pulled in all directions at once. The protocols he’d written and practiced for a compound breach swam into his mind, but they seemed distant, unreal paper exercises. He felt disbelief, a part of his brain still clinging to the idea this was part of Miguel’s joke. And then the anxiety kicked in. He was suddenly aware of the hood he wore, and how it restricted his vision to just the world right in front of his face. He turned, swinging the light behind him, back towards his truck and the dark buildings beyond, but there was no-one there. Just two trails of footprints. His own, brand new, leading out to the fence, and the other smaller set, heading into the compound. But as he looked he had to turn his back to the fence, and he felt its threatening darkness. He swung the light back, illuminating the cut steel of the hole.
The words of his protocols finally prompted action. He got on the radio, keeping his voice low, and using the codewords he insisted that all security personnel learned for just such an occasion as this. But Miguel didn’t know them, or refused to believe him. He had to resort to swearing at the man.
“Check all the camera feeds. There’s a six-foot hole in the fucking fence! Oh and call the cops. Tell them to get someone out here right now.” He slipped the radio into his pocket, and for the second time in his security career, he drew out his gun.
He may not have ever fired the weapon – a Glock semi-automatic pistol – within the compound, but he practiced with it every month, and the familiar weight of it felt comforting. But the grip of it felt wrong, through the wool of his gloves, and he ripped them off, discarding them into the snow without even realizing it. His mind was tunneling now, the shock and fear he’d felt falling away, leaving only anger and a need for action. A growing rage that his domain had been violated. He moved fast back towards his truck, careless of obliterating his own tracks, but avoiding those of the unknown intruder, as if that might alert them to his presence, whoever they were.
When he reached his truck he hesitated. A moment of decision.
Keith had long told his wife that his job was not dangerous. There was nothing worth stealing within the compound, and he was a visible deterrent, required by over-the-top environmental regulations. And his employers had made clear that if anyone did break in, they expected him to alert the police and monitor the situation from the safety of the secure control room. There were insurance considerations. Nobody wanted heroics.
And yet, his many years of service had left him emotionally attached to the place. So now it came to it, there was no real question he would act to defend it. He barely paused at all, just long enough to clamp his flashlight shakily alongside the barrel of the Glock so that he could fire into the pool of yellow light. Little white clouds of his own breath obscured his view. The snow no longer looked beautiful, it looked threatening, giving cover to an unknown adversary. He tightened his grip on the gun. He followed the footprints towards the buildings.
The prints came to a wall, and then split, going both ways. For a second he couldn’t make sense of it, then he worked out the intruder must have gone one way, and then changed their mind, coming back and going the other. Meaning they were either to his left or his right. He looked down, trying to read the tracks, but he was no God-damn Indian. He guessed right, towards the entrance to the main building. His hands shook – the cold, he thought as the Glock rattled against the flashlight. Ten steps on and he saw something, not a man, but smaller. He swung around, checking the area around him to be sure no one was sneaking up on his blindside. Nothing. He turned back. What was that thing? A backpack? He came closer.
Keith felt the blood rush around his body. It was almost thrilling. His feet seemed to float over the snow. It was a backpack, placed in the doorway of the generator room, which had a kind of open porch, so that there was less snow here. Even so it had a fair covering, and he reached down to brush it off, surprising himself by how cold it was. Where the hell were his gloves?
Twice a year the firm sent him on courses where they ran scenarios – the protocol for a protest beyond the fence, what to do in the event of power outage, an incursion by boat into the buoyed-off area – that one happened often enough in the summer when the tourists were around. But what to do if someone cut through the fence and left their backpack against the generator room door? They hadn’t done that one, which meant Keith was left to make his own decision. But by then, unknown to the big security guard, there was no right decision. By then he was being watched. A figure had rounded the corner forty feet away, cloaked by the darkness, as the big man played his light over the bag. He went to pick it up, finding it heavy. The security guard hesitated now, he pulled out his radio again.
Away in the darkness, the other figure raised a hand. The screen of a mobile phone lit up softly, its brightness set to
