She and Janet would each carry one bomb at a time. She pulled out a pair of heavy-duty Atlantis travel cases on wheels, flipped open the tops, and signaled Janet to help with the placement of the first heavy round pipe, weighing in at eighty pounds. It was crammed with TNT, nails, and a twelve-ounce detonator.
Zipping up the first suitcase, they immediately repeated the process with the second and then hurried across the road. Once they reached the edge of the sidewalk, they grabbed the handle on the travel case and carried it over the decorative bark, setting it down in front of a hinged door. Two days earlier she and Janet had cut the lock with heavy bolt cutters. It had not been replaced. She zipped open the case and winced at the sound. In the utter silence it unnerved her. She looked around, saw no one, told herself to relax, and with Janet's help removed the pipe.
Janet held the door while Corey slid the pipe under the building. When they had repeated the process three more times, it was 11:15 p.m.
Once under the building with all four of her creations, she and Janet had to wrestle them to the intended location.
With a maximum of three feet under the building and in some areas only two, they had to struggle to get to the spot she had previously marked. Although the building was old, it had obviously been replumbed in recent times. The pipes were shiny copper and covered with modern insulating material. Little pieces of string affixed to these pipes led her to the chosen spot. At 11:30, after returning to the trapdoor for the third bomb, Corey decided to take a quick peek outside. Quietly she opened the door. And froze.
Two men stood on the sidewalk. She tried to hear, but they spoke in low tones. She made herself go to work anyway.
Returning to the bombs, she and Janet placed them in a perfect square about six feet apart. Although she might not have them located directly under Dan's chair, she was pretty certain she was under his office. Using copious amounts of duct tape, they managed to fasten the pipes in place. From each pipe a telephone cable protruded. Each cable was quickly plugged into a cable connector, then the cables fed into a central terminal that sat on the ground. Satisfied with her work, Corey activated the computer in the junction box and they each headed for the trapdoor with a travel case.
Gradually Corey opened the door. Five feet in front of them, a man watched the street. Something was wrong. The building was being watched. Probably a meeting with important people. And in the middle of the night. While she was pondering these things, she saw a car drive up. Instantly she recognized Dan Young's truck. Out stepped Maria Fischer and Dan Young.
"I'll be damned,'' she whispered to Janet. Maybe it would be easier than she thought to kill them both at once.
It was to be a midnight meeting in the conference room at Dan's office. Although bizarre, the desire of the Japanese for privacy without accidental intrusion by other attorneys seemed reasonable. There was a bone-chilling moment when Dan and Maria were told in a phone call that there would be five bodyguards surrounding the building. It was all very mysterious.
Dan and Maria arrived at 11:55. They entered through the front door, turned on some lights, and walked to the conference room.
At that moment there was a knock.
Dan left the conference room with Maria following. Three men waited at the door. The leader had a dignified bearing and Dan knew that he was in the presence of a powerful man. Wearing a long camel-hair coat against the cool of Palmer, the older man stepped over the threshold, followed by the other two. The second in line also wore a suit, whereas the younger man wore a black knit turtleneck. His eyes seemed everywhere and nowhere.
"I am Yoshinari Asaka, the chairman of the board of Kuru, the parent corporation of Amada. This is my lawyer, Kashi Nagura, and this gentleman, Shohei, looks after us."
"I am pleased to meet you," Dan said, shaking Yoshinari's hand and noticing the firm grip. "This is my fiancee, Maria."
Maria stepped forward and shook Yoshinari's hand, then followed Dan, shaking hands with the other two.
"This is new?" Yoshinari inquired, looking pointedly at Maria's diamond engagement ring.
"Yes, very," Dan said.
"Hard times winnow the heart, do they not?"
"Yes," Maria said, "they certainly do."
"May I take your coat?" Dan offered, appreciating the perfectly appointed blue pin-striped suit with hand-painted tie underneath. The lawyer looked anxious to get started. They walked to the conference room, where they all sat down. Yoshinari nodded to his lawyer. The younger man nodded his respect and began.
"We have recently discovered substantial irregularities in Amada. According to our sources, Kenji Yamada had discovered a means of manufacturing fuels from wood fiber. As an example, using the known technology it would cost thirty-four dollars per barrel to make crude oil. Using the method discovered by Kenji's scientist, it could be done for twelve dollars per barrel. Now, you probably wouldn't make crude oil, you'd make methanols and other fuels, but to make the point I'm using crude as an example.
"The implications if it worked are profound. With all the havoc in the Middle East you can imagine the value of this discovery. The only problem was that Kenji's new process used a special catalyst that created a dangerous effluent- dangerous enough to change the brain chemistry of the hoary bat subspecies that lived in the caves. They were storing the toxic by-product in a large plastic tank in the mine when it ruptured and made the pool that you saw. They left it there with the idea that they would develop a means of converting it to something useful or neutralize it. Then you came along."
"Why were they shooting the bats?"
"They had two major problems. First they had stumbled onto a new deep forest subspecies that would retreat to caves as well as tree hollows and the like. Any such subspecies would be a fascinating find for biologists who would start coming around. We think that compounding the problem, insects from the contaminated creek were affecting the bats' brains, particularly the area of the brain known as the cingulate gyms in humans and the area that corresponds to the prefrontal cortex. There is increased activity in the former and decreased activity in the latter, according to records we found at the compound. In a human it could result in suicidal behavior. In bats it causes them to fly around in daylight. And this would bring enormous scrutiny on the compound and might lead to discovery of the contaminated water- not to mention the cave.
"At first they thought it was just exposure to fumes from the cave. But after they thought they got all the bats from the cave, they were still having the problem. Unfortunately, they probably killed the man who was working on the issue when he discovered the contaminated water and the insects. Made it look like a heart attack.
"Of course they had the more serious problem. The effluent is lethal to humans, and it had made its way into the creek. They had a theory that if you went downstream far enough it would become sufficiently diluted so as not to kill anybody-at least immediately. Try telling that to your press and government officials."
"Who stole the money from us?" Dan asked.
''Amada Chief of Security Hans Groiter, working through a woman by the name of Corey Schneider. And that's what this is for." The old man nodded and they placed the briefcase on the table in front of Maria. It was the one Dan had given her. Dan popped open the latches, and it was full of bills that looked exactly as he had packed it.
"We found it in the vault at the Highlands lab. But one hundred thousand had been taken by the thief, Corey Schneider. We've replaced the money she stole."
"Who was her accomplice?"
"A dead man. Our people will be turning his body over to authorities after we are on the plane."
"Why did Amada do it?"
"They had discovered a large natural-gas deposit under the lower Highlands. Their methanol-manufacturing process could be greatly enhanced by the natural gas. But a railroad company owned the mineral rights and wouldn't sell. Added to that, they had a mine full of toxic effluent. The last thing they wanted was a government purchase of the Highlands."