He repeated the process four more times before reaching the top of the corner post, where his next obstacle hovered near his face: a menacing coil of razor wire.
For this he resorted to another item from the gear bag, withdrawing a folded fire blanket and shaking it open by a corner. The fiberglass cloth unfurled below him, and after tightening his hold on the chain link, he flung the flame retardant material up and over the concertina.
Adjusting the fabric over the wire, he carefully pulled himself atop it, holding the camera post with one hand to steady himself as he felt the wire sag beneath his considerable weight. Reilly was no incredible fan of heights, and reasoned that the delicate crossing twenty feet over the concrete below would have made anyone second-guess their resolve. Nonetheless, he mustered the composure to blow a kiss at the nearest CCTV camera lens before lowering a leg down the other side, where he probed for a footpeg. Once he found it, Reilly transitioned his bodyweight to it and began his descent.
The process was considerably faster than climbing up had been. Reilly simply had to keep his boots parallel to the fence, gripping the chain link for stability as he lowered himself down from peg to peg.
Finally he alighted on pavement inside the perimeter fence, then darted to his next piece of cover in the form of a row of shipping containers stacked four high.
He arrived at the corner and peered around the side, seeing that the thirty-foot-wide expanse before the next row of containers was free of wandering dock workers. At the sound of jangling chain link behind him, Reilly glanced over his shoulder to see Cancer ascending the fence crossing setup with Worthy in pursuit.
Returning his attention to the task at hand, Reilly slid around the corner and knelt at the base of the container beside him, searching for the first available forklift pocket in the metal.
Procuring a wireless internet travel router from his bag, he slid it into the forklift pocket and then situated a wireless camera in the gap, just enough that the lens was exposed to the empty row between containers.
Then he transmitted in a whisper, “Camera One, in position.”
“Signal is weak,” Ian replied. “Try moving the router closer to the edge.”
Reilly slid the device closer to the camera before Ian spoke again.
“We’ve got signal—shift the camera ten degrees to the right.”
Reilly obeyed, making a miniscule adjustment to the angle only to hear Ian scold, “I said ten degrees. Come back halfway.”
The next adjustment hit paydirt, with Ian confirming, “Keep it right there. That’s perfect.”
Running footfalls approached behind him, ending when Cancer stopped and knelt.
“You good?” Cancer asked.
“Yeah.”
“Then cover Worthy.”
Reilly left Cancer alone to evaluate the next leg of their movement, returning to the corner of the container stack in time to see Worthy setting foot inside the fence, removing the lowest footstep from the chain link and stashing it in his bag before racing to join them.
The fire blanket was gone, leaving the concertina at their crossing point looking surprisingly unmolested—it had been compressed a bit relative to the remaining wire spanning the top of the fence, but only a pinpoint examination would reveal that.
Worthy slowed his run, and both men fell in at Cancer’s backside as he transmitted, “Entry team inside the perimeter, beginning movement down Route Red.”
“They’re clear,” Ian said. “Unfreeze CCTV Four through Eight, and Ten.”
Sitting beside him in the media van, David relayed the command to Duchess, who was pulling the strings for this little venture all the way from Virginia.
“Raptor Nine One, unfreeze CCTV Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, and Ten. Entry team proceeding down Route Red at this time.”
Duchess transmitted back, her voice tinny over the speaker box. “Copy all, restoring feeds. Stand by.”
Ian checked the computer screen to his left, scanning the series of boxes representing gridded subdivisions of CCTV camera feeds. Four were on the camera post that Reilly, Cancer, and Worthy had just climbed alongside, while another provided peripheral coverage of the crossing point. The footage on all three was identical to what the live operators in Gradsek’s security control room were watching at that moment.
There was the faintest change in the quality of light, a minor flicker that was hardly noticeable unless you were watching for it: the result of the feeds being restored to real-time. The clocks in the corner of each had never stopped ticking—a slick piece of work for which he could take no credit.
Port complexes like Duniya covered a massive amount of real estate, with the ground subdivided between companies that often had their own security—and in Gradsek’s case, that meant fences like the one their entry team had just negotiated.
But not even Gradsek had the manpower to have guards along their entire perimeter at all times. They could have, of course, if they hired and trained Nigerians for pennies on the dollar by international standards—but foreign oil companies universally refused to hire local labor. It was one of the chief grievances of vigilante groups like the Niger Delta Avengers: multi-billion-dollar companies polluted the inland water supply, exterminating the livelihood for riverside fishing communities while refusing to employ the newly jobless masses. It was a recipe for a thriving trade in illegal oil siphoning and piracy, and that was exactly what had occurred and would continue to with no end in sight for Africa’s largest economy.
For Ian and his team, however, the disparity spelled opportunity. Gradsek relied on roving patrols to secure its facility, paired with an extensive system of building sensors and alarms and backstopped by internal and external motion sensors. Since all were controlled via a wireless digital interface, they were no match for CIA hackers clearing the way for the entry team.
A greater challenge was the CCTV network being manned by live operators. And despite the CCTV system being closed circuit by definition, the Agency technicians were nonetheless able to find a way to bypass it. The key was the Gradsek CCTV system’s use of online streaming cloud backup, which provided a vector for Agency hackers to access system administrator privileges on the DVN server. From the comfort of their office in Langley, Virginia, they could now selectively freeze camera feeds on cue without disrupting the entire network.
But the CCTV cameras were justifiably focused on monitoring the perimeter, leaving vast swaths of the facility itself outside Ian’s remote purview. As with their recon in the Sambisa, the team hadn’t come to Nigeria prepared for a clandestine penetration—and to ensure a roving patrol or random dock worker didn’t stumble upon the team as they departed, they’d had to bridge the gap using an unorthodox solution that came into play now for the second time that night.