I opened the Tupperware lids of the OBIs and fed the safety fuse over the exposed mixture in each of the boxes. They were now ready to party.
Hubba-Hubba was looking over his shoulder as he moved slowly backward toward me, unreeling another spool of fuse wire as he went. This was now connected to one of the frame charges via two detonators. It wasn’t the same kind of fuse I’d been using. This was “fuse instantaneous,” which goes off with the sound of a gunshot because the burn is so fast. There’s a little ridge that runs along the plastic coating so at night you can always distinguish it from the straightforward Clint Eastwood stuff. He cut the fuse from his spool without a word, and went back to do the same with the second charge.
The PIRA timer unit would initiate the fuse instantaneous, which would burn at warp speed to a four-way connector, a three-inch-by-three-inch green plastic box with a hole in each side. I didn’t know what the small worn-out aluminum plate stuck to its base was called in Russian, but that was the name I knew it by. All this box did was allow three other lengths of fuse to be ignited from the one — Hubba-Hubba’s two lengths of fuse instantaneous to the two charges, and my safety fuse for the OBIs.
Hubba-Hubba was now unreeling the fuse instantaneous from the second charge back toward me as I took the safety fuse and cut it from the reel six inches back from the first OBI, making sure the cut was straight so the maximum amount of powder was exposed to ignite it in the four-way connector. I then pushed the end of it into one of the rubber recesses, giving it a half-turn so that the teeth inside gripped the plastic coating. Hubba-Hubba placed the two fuses instantaneous next to me and went to help Lotfi.
I cut his two lengths of fuse in the same way before feeding the lines into the connector as the sound of Lotfi’s rubber mallet hitting his chisel filled the air and the navigation lights of a jet miles up floated silently over us.
I checked the three lines that were, so far, in the connector to ensure the three lines into it were secure before cutting a three-foot length of the ridged fuse instantaneous and placing it in the last free hole. This was the length that went to the timer unit, a three-inch-thick, postcard-sized wooden box.
Then, as I lay on my stomach and started to prepare, a vehicle drove along the road from the direction of Oran.
The noise got louder as it came around to the base of the peninsula. I could tell by the engine note and the sound of the tires that it wasn’t on the road anymore, it was going cross-country.
Shit, police.
I heard a torrent of Arabic whispers from the other two a few yards away. I got their attention. “Lotfi, Lotfi! Take a look.”
He got onto his knees, then slowly raised his head. Instinctively I checked that my Makharov was still in place.
I got up and looked over their heads. The vehicle was a civilian 4x4, heading for the house. The headlights were on high beam and bounced up and down on the garage doors set into the compound wall. As it got closer to the building the driver sounded the horn.
Shit, what was happening? My information was that no one would be moving in or out of the house tonight. George had said that when we hit this place Zeralda would definitely be in there. He’d assured me the intelligence was good quality.
The wagon stopped and I could just about hear some rhythmic guitar music forcing its way out of the open windows. Was the int wrong? Had the target just arrived, instead of coming in yesterday? Was this another group of pals come to join in the fun? Or was it just a fresh batch of Czechs or Romanians with bottle-blond hair being ferried in for the next session? Whatever, I wanted to be in the house for no more than half an hour, not caught up directing a cast of thousands.
I watched as the garage shutter rattled open. I couldn’t tell if it had been operated electronically or manually. Then the vehicle disappeared inside and the shutter closed.
We got back to business. With the timer unit in my hand and the bergen on my back, I climbed over the bung, feeling more than a little relieved.
The other two were still attacking the wall and Hubba-Hubba seemed to lose patience, kicking it with the flat of his foot to free a stubborn block.
I opened the top of the timer unit and gave it one more check. Basically it consisted of a fifteen-yard length of double-stranded electric flex coming out of a hole drilled in its side. Attached to the other end was a flash det, a small aluminum cylinder about the size of a third of a cigarette, that fitted over the fuse instantaneous. To keep it in one piece in transit, I had rolled up the flex and put a rubber band around it. Inside the box there was a twelve-volt battery beside the Parkway timer, the small rectangular type with the positive and negative terminals on top and next to each other. Both items were glued to the bottom of the box.
Soldered flat onto the timer unit was a small panel pin, protruding like a minute hand beyond the dial of the Parkway. It was no more than half an inch long, and had been roughened with emery cloth to make a good electrical contact. Also soldered onto it was one of the two strands of flex that came into the box. Another panel pin, which had also been emery-clothed, was sticking out from the bottom of the box, between the Parkway timer and the battery at the 0 on the Parkway dial. That, too, had a small length of wire soldered onto it, leading to the negative terminal of the battery. The other strand of flex was soldered directly to the positive.
The Parkway wasn’t set, so I’d pushed a wedge of rubber eraser down over the vertical pin to stop the two making contact. If they did, it would complete the circuit and initiate the flash det.
I lay there for another ten minutes or so until the other two had finished. It would have been a bit quicker if I’d gone and helped, but you never, ever lose control of the initiation device until you’re ready to leave the area. I wanted to know that every second we were by the tanks, the eraser was still covering that panel pin. The faint sound of Al Jazeera floated through the air. I could feel the wetness of my clothes cold against my skin now that I’d stopped moving.
It was time to connect the flash det and the timer to the device. I held up my hand and showed the boys the wooden box. They knew what was about to happen, and got up and left for the cut in the fence line. I knelt down by the fuse instantaneous to fit the flash det, checking the eraser was still in place before feeding the fuse into the small aluminum tube. I made sure the fuse end couldn’t get any farther inside, so it would initiate, then taped the whole bunch in place. There was a crimping tool that would have done the job much better, but it had to look low-tech.
I then unwound the wire from the elastic as I climbed back over the bung. This was very bad drill. I had connected the initiation device to the charges and was climbing about: if I dropped it, I’d turn the whole job into a gang fuck as the charges took out the tanks as well as me. But hell, this was the only way to do it tonight as far as I was concerned.
I lay as flat as I could in the sand, even forcing my heels down, with the extended wires running over the bung, before removing the top of the box.
To arm the device, I turned the Parkway dial to 30. Then I gave it another one or two minutes for luck, all very high-tech stuff.
I let go of the dial and could hear the ticking as the spring began to unwind. I had tested this unit over and over again and, give or take five seconds, it was always on time over the half-hour. The panel pin that was attached flat to the dial had maybe an inch and a half to travel before connecting with its vertical twin.
All that remained was for me to take off the rubber wedge and replace the wooden lid on the timer unit so no dirt could find its way between the two pins. I joined the others. All being well, fragments of the timer unit would confirm that tonight’s devastation was the work of an old and bold ex-muj who’d been up to no good. It would just underline what the security guy told them.