After it turned dark, they let themselves through the gate to the dirt parking lot that connected with Lynch’s Petoria warehouse. Juna had made a copy of the key to the gate’s padlock earlier in the week. Weecho was on his cell with Alexey. 

“He’s out making a run,” Weecho said, looking over at the dock where Lynch’s Donzi was usually tied up. “This’ll get away from us if we don’t move now. DEA could be out there waiting for him, come here and seal everything off. Seal us out and we’re back to nowhere.” He’d be back to nowhere, hustling for third-string photo gigs. 

“DEA isn’t waiting for anyone but you,” Alexey said. “They’re circulating your picture.” 

“What are you talking about? Who gave them my picture?” 

“Somebody else on that patrol boat had a camera. Probably used their phone.” 

Great. “Then all the more reason to move now.” Weecho realizing he sounded like Juna did earlier, when she was laying this out for him back at the loft. “That laptop is leverage,” Weecho said to Alexey. “Your whole show could be riding on this.” 

“Don’t make it sound like some mercy mission for me,” Alexey said.  

“It’s for all of us. One hand washes the other.” Or something like that. 

“If you’re pulled in…” 

“I’m on my own. I get it.” 

Silence. 

“I’ll let you know how it goes,” Weecho said, and shut off. 

Turned to Juna. “All of a sudden I’m the bad guy.” 

“Then let’s get moving.” She started to turn. 

“Juna?” 

“What?” 

It striking him as strange she wouldn’t ask why he was the bad guy. 

“What?” she said again, edge in it now. 

Maybe she was nervous, maybe it was the bad karma from the Jet Ski thing, but something was definitely off. They’d hardly talked on the way out in the train, after she’d gotten his yes to the plan. 

He shook his head. “After you.” 

She took him around Lynch’s blue SUV parked by the building’s freight entrance. Stopped at a drainpipe, looked up, bent down and picked up a coil of rope she’d left there earlier for the occasion. Looped it around her shoulder and grabbed the drainpipe with both hands. 

“Think you can do this?” she said. 

“And chew gum, too.” Tone letting her know he’d done his share of creative entries.                     

Juna ignored it, started pulling herself up hand-over-hand, calling back over her shoulder. “Wait till I’m on the roof, then come up. The pipe can’t hold both of us.” 

“Fine,” he said, and watched her go up.  

When she swung her leg over the coaming, Weecho took hold of the pipe and started climbing. At the top he slipped, tried to grab hold of something, lost his balance and was about to go over when Juna caught the back of his jacket and pulled him onto the roof. 

A dent in the machismo, but he managed to mumble thanks. 

Got himself together, stood there and looked around – city lights across Jamaica Bay, landing lights coming into JFK… They should’ve brought a picnic. 

“Over here,” Juna said, turning toward an A-frame skylight. They went over and looked down, could see the building’s storage area, the shelves of pet supplies. Saw their first problem, too: The truck driver from the crash, Crotty, was right below them, talking with three hard-looking men, Arab-looking, dressed in jeans for the street.          

“What’s this?” Weecho said. 

He could see Juna frowning in the uplight. 

“They brought them in off a boat couple days ago,” she said. “I thought they’d be gone by now.”   

It was starting to look like her plan had some gaps. 

“Lynch’s guy down there,” Weecho said, remembering that Juna had first seen Crotty before any of this started, outside the warehouse on Newtown Creek. “He keeps popping up on you.”  

Juna kept staring at the men, distracted. 

Weecho turned to her. “Hello?”  

“He’s gonna get popped himself, he’s an asshole.” 

She turned and stepped over to another skylight. Weecho followed, looked down into Lynch’s cramped, unlit office. 

“The laptop’s in the safe,” Juna said. 

“You’re positive you got the right combination?” 

“I wouldn’t have us up here if I didn’t.” 

She’d snuck up on Lynch one morning, stood in the door to his office when he was opening the safe, acted like she was there to ask a question in case he turned around. She saw him punch in the numbers on the touch pad, memorized the four-digit sequence. She backed away when he yanked the safe open and he never knew she’d been there. 

 “When’s Lynch due back?” Weecho said. 

 “If Crotty’s still here, likely he’s out by himself.” 

“Meaning what?” 

“It’s probably a short run.” 

“Well then, like you said, we better get moving.” 

Juna took a roll of duct tape out of her hoodie pouch and started tearing off strips. The idea was to stick the strips onto the skylight glass so they could break through without shattering it and causing a racket. Then they’d uncoil the rope through the hole and lower themselves into the office. “Like that art heist in the movie,” she’d said. 

Except there was another problem. 

“This is Plexiglas,” Weecho said. “It won’t break.” 

“What do you mean, won’t break?” 

“Just that. Too thick. Unless you want to go at it with a sledge hammer or crowbar. So the whole town and your friends down there can hear you. Or we can try jumping on it.” 

“Shit.” 

“Exactly.” 

Juna stared down into the office. “We have to do this.” 

“Well then come up with a way. I want it as much as you do.” 

He watched her concentrate, could see she wasn’t going to let herself get shut out. He checked the skylight to see if maybe it could be lifted. No way. 

They went back to the other skylight, the A-frame, and looked down. The three Arab guys were helping Crotty move some boxes. Crotty bent down and picked something up from under a workbench. Weecho looked closer, could see it was a glue trap that a mouse was trying to unstick itself from. Crotty pulled the mouse off and dropped it into a glass tank sitting on the workbench, the tank full of snakes.    

“We need to get those people out of there,” Juna said. 

“And do what, walk in?” 

“Yes.” 

He could see she was into Plan B. 

“Come on,” she said, and headed back for the drainpipe, them shinnying down separately into the parking lot.  

When Weecho hopped off, Juna said, “Give me your socks.”  

“My what?” 

“Hurry up.” 

Normally a person would ask what another person would want with their socks, but normal wasn’t what tonight was about. Weecho sat down to take his socks off, saw Juna go over to Lynch’s SUV and unscrew the gas cap. 

He gave her his socks, pulled his Nikes back on. Juna tied the toes of the socks together, fed one end into the gas tank, dunking it down in there to soak up some gas. 

Nodded toward the freight door. “They’re not about to hang around for the fire guys and cops,” she said. “We’ll get about five minutes.” 

“And this just popped into your head.” 

“You said come up with a way.” 

“I didn’t say turn pyromaniac.” 

At best, Weecho thought, this was going to be primitive. Also thinking how a gas tank had been his introduction to Lynch, when the man torched that Mercedes. Now it was Lynch’s own car about to go off.  

“Give me a match,” Juna said. 

“I don’t have a match.” 

She looked at him like he’d just blown the whole deal – How could you not have a match? 

She looked around, frustrated. Peered through the window of the SUV. Tried the door. Unlocked. She yanked it open, popped the lid on the glovebox, rooted around and pulled out one of those little Bic lighters. Held it up to Weecho – See? Like he’d been hiding it from her.   

She was about to flick the lighter when Weecho stopped her and pointed to the gate.   

“If they’re going to want to get out of here,” he said, “that should be open.” Nodded toward a pickup truck that was probably Crotty’s. 

They’d left the gate closed but not locked when they came in, with the padlock in place so it looked secured. Weecho ran over, unhooked the padlock and swung the gate open. 

When he ran back, Juna flicked the lighter, touched the flame to the end of the gas-soaked socks. The flame caught and Juna backed away.   

“Over here,” she said, and pulled Weecho toward the canal. They ducked around the corner of the warehouse, went along the narrow dock to a window where they could see what was going on inside. 

Crotty was standing by a coffee maker, pouring himself a cup, Weecho thinking the three Arab guys looked like they might want to make him their first hit. Crotty was taking a sip when the gas tank blew. Ka-WHOOM!    

“The hell was that!” Crotty yelled, coffee flying when he spun toward the freight door. 

Weecho and Juna looked toward the parking lot, saw sparks and burning fragments fly, hissing when they hit the water.  

Looked back through the window, saw Crotty and the three Arabs flinging up the metal freight door, confronted by the flaming SUV. The Arabs backed off, looked around – not the martyrdom they’d signed up for. Crotty yelled for them to follow him, raised his arms against the flames, led the race out the door. 

Weecho eased back along the dock with Juna, keeping low when they got to the lot. He could see the four men silhouetted against the flames, yelling to each other, moving fast. The three Arabs jumped into the crew cab. Crotty slid behind the wheel and hit the ignition. Cranked a one-eighty in a cloud of dust, fishtailed away from the burning SUV, the pickup disappearing out the gate. 

Weecho said, “Let’s go.” 

He ran with Juna through the freight door, across the storage space, just ahead of another explosion – WHUMPF! – from the SUV. They outraced the fireball that rolled through the door, flames torching the stacks of cartons and pet supplies. When they got to Lynch’s office, the door was locked. Weecho gave it a kick. Another kick. On the third try the frame splintered and the door flew open. 

Out of the dark leaped the growling Rottweiler bitch he’d forgotten about.   

Juna jumped in front of him and grabbed the dog. “Easy, girl, good Precious.” The dog recognized her and calmed down, Juna making nice from a supply of treats she’d thought to bring along.   

Weecho hit the lights and Juna brushed past him, dropping to her knees in front of the safe. She focused on the electronic keypad, went to punch in the combination. 

“Stop!” Weecho yelled. 

Juna spun around. Weecho crouched down next to her and took a close look at a metal canister wedged between the front edge of the safe and the wall. He pointed for her to take a look, her face getting puzzled when she stared at the thing, this canister with something like a tube sticking out of its rounded cover. 

“What is it?” 

“I’m guessing it’s an anti-personnel thing.” Weecho remembering Lynch’s pitch to Gatchel on Yoon’s yacht. Saw Juna still looking unsure. “Your basic bomb,” he said. 

“That’s what I… How the f…” 

“Keep still,” Weecho said. “You didn’t know he did this?” 

“Of course I didn’t. He must leave it for… shit.” 

For whoever breaks in and gets past the dog. Like, for instance, Juna. The safe itself being strong enough that it could take the explosion, the killing being done by the bomb’s fragmentation – nails and bolts and other crap packed inside. 

Weecho got down at floor level, could see there was a wire leading from the safe, where there was probably a sensor, to what looked like a primer cartridge, that tube thing, sticking out of the canister’s cover. Touching the bomb itself wasn’t likely to set it off. The impulse would come from the keypad, or from opening the safe’s door. Slowly, deep breath, Weecho reached for the primer cartridge. 

Juna frowning. “You know what you’re doing?” 

“I’m all we’ve got.”