“Should I advance?”

“Not yet.”

He heard his radio click once.

He began a slow shuffle, pretending to struggle with the bag. He switched the strap to his left shoulder to free up his right hand and began mumbling to himself, mixing in some foul words. No more than thirty feet away, three men stepped onto an elevated loading dock, lit cigarettes, and stared like caged gorillas.

He hoped the smeared face paint would enhance the act. “Spare ’nee change?”

The voice hissed an expletive, then, “Get lost, pendejo.”

Perfect. He didn’t respond and kept going. The dim light kept them from seeing the wire leading up to his ear. If they changed their minds and approached, he’d have a fight on his hands. Although he could easily handle them, sooner or later their absence might be noticed and all bets would be off.

“Quick thinking, Nate. They buy it?”

“So far,” he whispered. He continued his snail’s pace, feeling three pairs of eyes bore into his back and the duffel bag. “I’m almost to the corner.”

Without looking back, he rounded the corner and hurried toward the cover of a big rig  parked on the curb. “Harv, wait one. I’m going to make sure I’m not being followed. Sixty seconds. Grangeland, your location?”

“I’ll be at the fishing boat in ten seconds.”

He gave her a click.

He ducked deeper into the shadow of the truck’s cab and kept his eyes on the corner.

A car approached from the west.

The shadows cast from the truck’s wheels moved in a sweeping motion from left to right as the car sped past.

The smokers from the alley didn’t appear.

He crossed under the streetlight and entered the alley leading to the warehouse. Half a minute later, he was flat against the warehouse’s northern wall.

“Harv, I’m in place. I’ll contact you from the roof.”

“Copy.”

“Grangeland?”

“Copy.”

Nathan pulled a grappling hook with twenty feet of knotted, half-inch nylon rope from the duffel and coiled the rope. The bag also contained a small car battery, an inverter, two compact DVD players, two disks, and seventy feet of coaxial cable. His front pockets contained all the tools and parts necessary to splice into a coaxial line.

He moved to the midpoint of the north wall and swung the grappling hook. It caught on the parapet. He tested its anchor. Firm. Next, he tied the end of the grappling hook’s rope to the strap of the duffel bag. Once on the roof, he’d be able to haul the bag up.

Scaling a vertical wall by rope required strength and skill, especially near the top, but he’d done this exact kind of climb more times than he could remember. It took him less than twenty seconds.