TURKISH DELIGHT by Barry Faulkner (learn to read activity book .txt) 📕

on the four numbers that had been hit the most times. I had the numbers, but in which order? I hoped the numbers 1 and 9 were there – they were. It’s a known fact that people use birthdays when setting alarm codes, and the person who set this one would have been born in the twentieth century, so would use 19. The other two numbers were 7 and 8. I keyed them in, got it right first time: 1978 – well, thank you and happy birthday whoever you are. The bleeping red light on the keypad turned green, and I hoped the same had happened on the gatehouse board.

I called Gold. ‘All clear, I’m in.’

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Thank Heaven for that, thought Gold as the message hit her earpiece. She’d been playing try and touch my tits with the guard, who had an arm through the gate slats as she proffered a breast and pulled it away after the slightest of touches, giggling like a drunk girl. Luckily the guard was late middle-aged and wasn’t very nifty.

‘You’re a naughty man,’ Gold slurred at him. ‘I’m going home and maybe I’ll come back tomorrow. What time do you get off?’

‘Eight in the morning, come back then.’ The guard’s speech was shaking with hope.

Gold gave him a wave and wandered off out of his view and back to her car. ‘Jesus, Ben – the things I do for you. I hope there’s no CCTV of the gate, or my tits will be all over social media in no time,’ she said to herself as she reinstated her bra.

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CHAPTER 8

I knelt by the side of the door as my eyes got accustomed to the dim light. The place seemed much bigger inside than it had looked from the outside. The floor was covered in wooden crates of all sizes, the smaller ones stacked halfway up to the roof, the large ones resting on pallets for easy movement by forklift truck. Four forklifts were parked up along the wall from me, their batteries being charged through wall plugs. There didn’t seem to be anybody about – no noise, no movement between the crates. Time to take a closer look for Woodward. I took out the mobile he’d given me, turned off the automatic flash and moving slowly between the crates, I took pictures of the labels stuck on them. I reckoned there was enough light for them to be read; they weren’t in English, some looked to be in an Eastern European language and some Middle Eastern.

The sound of voices sent me hitting the floor between two large crates. What the hell, how had I missed people being here? I hadn’t missed them – they weren’t here on the floor, they were upstairs. In a far corner at the back of the warehouse a steel staircase led up to an office perched on a mezzanine platform. The office door was open and light flooded out; the windows to the office were covered inside with blinds, so no light would have shown before. I breathed a sigh of relief; I could have been caught lock stock and barrel. I kicked myself for being so lax. I could have been seen from up there, but the office had been hidden from my sightline from the door by stacked crates. I stayed prone on the floor, listening; I counted four voices, not speaking in English and the metallic clanking said they were coming down the staircase. I pulled out my gun. If I was discovered here, a hands up and ‘sorry’ wouldn’t keep me alive, no way. I screwed the silencer onto the barrel.

The footsteps down the staircase had stopped, and the voices were moving farther away from me through the crates towards the front of the warehouse. That was a relief. A door slammed shut. I was on my own – or was I? I’d thought that before. What if there was somebody else left up in the office? I peeped up from behind the crate. The office was in darkness, but the door was shut so who knows what was inside? I’d better alert Gold.

‘People have left the warehouse – could be Rambart. Four of them.’

‘I’ve got them, four including Rambart – he and one other getting into his limo. Looks like they are leaving, the other two staying. I’ll follow.’

‘Okay, I’m going to have a look around. I’ll call you on the mobile when I’m out.’ The comms would only pick up for half a mile, so Gold would soon be out of range.

I looked at the steel staircase leading from the floor up to the office; I would be in full view of the whole warehouse going up it and an easy target. Fingers crossed there weren’t any other people around that might come in and see me. I moved through the crates to the bottom of it and started up, quickly but silently. At the top I crouched by the door and listened – the rule was you listen for three minutes, as on average a person will move within three minutes. After two I was satisfied I was alone. The door didn’t have a keyhole – that spelled danger; could be it takes a key fob to open it like a car, could be it has a magnetic close and once that breaks an alarm operates? Only one way to find out.

I pushed it open quickly and stepped inside, crouching with my gun held steady with both hands in front of me. The office was empty, no alarm was sounding, and no CCTV was watching from the ceiling or walls. I decided not to turn the light on and flicked on my head torch and began a search of the desk drawers. Lots of legal looking papers in a foreign language. I clicked away with Woodward’s camera. There was a safe in the corner, but