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He then started the rental car, drove it to the tractor, opened the hood, and connected the jumper cables. The tractor started almost immediately, which Marion interpreted as a good omen. He set the throttle at fast idle.

He then put the satchel with the partially constructed devices in the utility trailer, and then, in four trips into the house, took the garbage, the shortwave equipment from Radio Shack, and most of the tools from the table and loaded it into the trailer. Finally he went into the bedroom and took the detonators from the dresser. He wrapped each very carefully in two socks, one outside the other, and then put the padded detonators in a tin Saltines box.

He took two pillows from the bed, and carried them and the Saltines tin box with the detonators to the trailer, where he carefully laid the Saltines box on one pillow, covered it with the second pillow, and then put the bricks on the upper pillow to keep it in place.

Then he disconnected the jumper cables from the tractor, got on it, and drove off between the stunted pines. He drove very carefully, so there would be no great risk of somehow, despite all his precautions, setting off one of the detonators.

When he reached the garbage dump, he decided that the first order of business was making sure the shortwave transmitter and the receivers worked. He had tested them in Philadelphia, but electronic equipment didn't like to be bounced around and it was better to be sure.

He dug out the Saltines box from between the pillows, and carried it carefully two hundred yards into the pines as a safety precaution. Then he returned to the garbage dump and carefully rigged the test setup.

When he pressed the key on the transmitter, the capacitors that he had installed in the receiver where the speaker had been began to accumulate electrical energy and then discharged. The 15-watt 110-volt refrigerator bulb Marion had installed where the detonator would ultimately be glowed brightly for a moment. There would be more than enough juice to fire the detonator.

He disconnected everything, in the interest of safety, walked back into the pines, and took one detonator from the Saltine box. He went back to the garbage dump and carefully slipped the detonator into one of the double blocks of Composition C-4. He taped this, except for the leads, into place with duct tape.

Then he carried this down into the garbage dump, to one of the lockers, and propped the door open with his shoulder as he inserted the device, then hooked the receiver up to the exposed leads.

He then closed the locker door, put a quarter in the slot, removed the key, and climbed up out of the garbage dump. He got back on the tractor and drove what he estimated to be two hundred yards away, and then stopped. Carrying the transmitter with him, he walked fifty feet from the tractor and then turned on the Radio Shack transmitter.

He depressed the key. Nothing happened.

Kaboom!

Marion smiled.

TEN

Staff Inspector Peter Wohl, wearing a faded green polo shirt and somewhat frayed khaki trousers, both liberally stained with oil spots and various colors of paint was in the process of filling a stainlesssteel thermos bottle with coffee when his door buzzer went off.

He went quickly to it and pulled it open. A slight, olive-skinned twenty-four-year-old was standing there, dressed in a somewhat flashy suit and obviously fresh from the barber.

"Hello, Hay-zus," Wohl said. "Come on in."

"Good morning, sir," Martinez said.

"You pulled your car in the garage?"

"Yes, sir."

"I just made coffee. Will you have some?"

"Thank you, please."

Wohl gestured for Martinez to have a seat on the couch under the oil painting of the naked Rubenesque lady, took two mugs from a kitchen cabinet, carried them to the coffee table, fetched the thermos, and sat down beside Martinez on the couch.

"So how are things at the airport?" Wohl asked with a smile.

The question had been intended to put Martinez at ease. It had, Wohl saw, almost the opposite reaction. Martinez was almost visibly uncomfortable.

"I'm not pushing you, Hay-zus," Wohl said. "You've only been out there a couple of weeks. I don't think anybody expected you to learn very much in that short a time."

"Yes, sir," Jesus said, then blurted: "I think I figured out how I would get drugs, or for that matter anything else, out of there."

"How?"

"For little packages, anyway. Coke. Heroin. Are they still trying to smuggle diamonds, jewels, into this country?"

I really don't know, Wohl thought. That's the first time jewelry has come up.