see how she looks grown up, and tell her that her ma is dead. That's all. I want to make sure she's alive.'
'we're trying to locate her for you.'
'You keep telling me that.'
'What need would you have for money here? Ies safe. Now go back and sit down, Brother. You're doing fine here. Don't spoil it.'
'Suppose I decided to leave anyway.'
They looked up at me. Brother Alvor had eyes like dry pebbles. Brother Persival said, '`Then we'll bury you beside Brother Nicholas and say a prayer over you. And make do without you.'
I know the truth when I hear it. I went back to the other table. The others were finishing. They looked at me with curiosity, but asked no questions.
They resumed their conversation. Chuck was being the instructor again. Topic, thermite pencils. 'Remember, they maintain a temperature of twelve hundred degrees Fahrenheit for ten minutes. They aren't like the older ones we had. Those were too complicated. You twist this end one full turn, and that breaks the seal so that the acid starts to eat through the barner. It will take two hours to eat through, plus or minus ten minutes. Remember, the secret is saturation. A team of four can start at a designated point in the heart of a city, and each head out in a different direction like the spokes of a wheel, on foot. The cover story is the distribution of pamphlets. Each team member can carry and distribute two hundred pencils. You've read the list of preferred types of locations. You walk ten blocks out from the primary target area and fLen, a half hour later, walk the circumference of an imaginary wheel, building a circle of future fire around the heart of the city. In that way you can trap most of the fire fighting organizations between the two ilres, and also we're told that this dispersion is the most effective way of creating a fire storm.'
He was still talking when I walked out.
218
13
On Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, the last three days of the year, I tried to find out everything I could about the area. I located everyone's quarters and realized there was room for twice as many. Haris told me there had been more travel trailers, and what was now the warehouse had been a bunkhouse, capable of accommodating a hundred and fifty.
The one time I had looked into the warehouse, I had seen, in the light of the small bulb near the door, towering stacks of crates and boxes. It seemed to be much more than these few people could use or carry.
On Monday I learned by accident of one deadly item they were warehousing. It was obvious I had no chance to get in there. I happened upon Ahman out behind the small mess hall, where the grass grew tan and coarse. He was backing away, looking intently at the grass. I did not see what he was looking at for a few moments, and then I saw it, a cylinder about three feet high, three inches in circumference.
'Hard to see it?' he asked. 'I've been trying different ways of painting it. The damn things came through all shiny. I striped this one green and brown, vertically. It seems to work the best. Kind of wavy lines, like the grass.'
I wallred toward it with him. 'what is it?'
'It's a little rocket.' Vhat does it do?'
'It does what rockets do, Brother. It goes whoosh-b~m.'
Thanks a lot.'
He hesitated, then said, 'It's on a spike, see? You shove it into the ground at a little slant. You find a good place, a half mile from the end of a runway. Then you pull this top cap off and throw it away. Then you unscrew this little cap down here near the base. Then you push this little switch, and from then on you make no loud noises, Brother. It is an acoustic trigger. A loud noise, like a jet going over low, closes the circuit, and that ignites the propellant and it comes out fast. Little vanes snap open. It's a heat-finder. Little heat-sensitive guidance sys
The Green Ripper tem. It will pick right up to a thousand meters a second, which is somewhere around two thousand miles an hour. It has a four-mile range and it'll hit the hottest thing it can find, which will be a jet en- gine, and it's got enough muscle to blow off a wing or a tail, whatever. They come six in a case, labeled kitchen equipment, and we've got ten cases. It's a low-risk operation. The best way is a telephone company truck. You always see them off on back roads, and you never think twice about it.'
'Commercial airports?'
'We certainly couldn't get close enough to military ones even if we wanted to.'
'Where are they made7'
'It doesn't say. The instructions come in six languages.'
I hoped I did not look as shaken as I felt. If only one out of every six ignited and hit a target, it would be the worst airline disaster of all time. 'Ladies and gentlemen, we are on our final approach to San Francisco International Airport. Please put out all cigarettes and make sure your seat belts are fastened and your tray tables are in an upright position. It has been our pleasure serving you, and we hope you will fly...' team.
He picked it up gently and, holding it so as not to smear his paint job, carried it off toward the warehouse. I went back into the mess hall. It was my turn on the food detail. I stared at the supplies and couldn't decide what to have. I felt queasy.
I jumped a foot in the air when somebody 'lapped me on the behind. It was Stella, back from her morning wars, grinning, showing a lot of uneven teeth. And smelling faintly of cordite.
'Frey, you got bad nerves, Brother Tom.'
'books that way.'
'I should come on by tonight and relax you. But, come to think of it, well have to make it another time. I'm on the gate midnight to dawn. What's the matter with you? You act down. Is anything wrong?'
'No. Everything is just peachy. Help me figure out what to cook up.'
'Get out of the way. Let me see what we've got. Boy, there isn't much. But there's two less for lunch, and Brother Persival and Brother Alvor will be back later on with fresh supplies.'
'Who's down on the gate??'
'Brother Sammy, I think.'
'Should somebody take something down to him?'
'He can eat after he's relieved.'
'I don't even know who runs the duty roster.'
'Brother Chuck? mostly. Unless Brother Persival wants something done different. Have you been studying your book?'
'The Loving Heart? It sure isn't easy reading.'
'You can say that again. You know, there are parts I have to skip every time.'
Vhat I was thinking, if I could read some of it
The Green Ripper into a tape recorder, one of those little ones I saw, I could learn it faster.'
'Oh, I can get you one of those. We've got two in our trailer. And lots of empty tape. Want it right now?'
'Why not7'
She gave me a warm look and a loving smile and went trotting off, leaving her pack, weapon, and belt in the corner of the kitchen area. I moved close enough to it to see that the Uzi clip was full up. They get used to having you around. Good old McGraw. He's getting plenty of exercise, enough food. We've got his money and we're supposed to be hunting for his daughter. Keep an eye on him, of course, but nobody is exactly worried about him.
I had tried to give myself another advantage too. During the field exercises I had tried to keep going when it called for endurance, but I had dogged it when it was something calling for quick. I had blundered around when the order was for silent approach. When we ran the improvised obstacle course, I arranged to finish almost last every time. In unarmed combat, I let the men drop me with a certain amount of fuss and trouble. I was rounding off into top shape, putting on a nice edge. As I clumsied along, I studied each of them to see their flaws. Barry was muscle- bound from too much body building. Haris was very quick but without adequate physical strength. Sammy was too wildly energetic. He didn't plant himself for leverage, and he tried to move in too many directions at onch Ahman was quick and strong and crafty, once he had made up his mind, but he was prone to fatal hesitations. Chuck was the best of them, without a weakness except perhaps a tendency to exhibit more grace than was required, to turn his best profile toward an imaginary camera, to leap a little higher, spin more quickly than the exercise required.
Stella came back with a little cardboard box, silver-colored and battered, and repaired with tape. The Olympus Pearlcorder and accessories were in a jumble inside the box, along with extra tapes and batteries.
'everybody will have to use one when we get the assignments,' she said. tow?',
66You have to memorize every word of your assignment, and you have to be able to start anywhere, in the middle, toward the end, anywhere. So what you do is read it onto the tape, and then before you go to sleep and when you wake up, you play it and say it right along with yourself, over and over and over. It has to be so much second nature that you don't have to think about it when you go out on an operation. They're very, you know, compiete. You will get off at the corner of Main and Central. You will wale quickly north on Main on the right-hand side of the street. When you get to the bus stop at the southeast corner of Main and
The Green Ripper
Pearl, you will wait there until precisely fourteen hundred hours. You will turn and enter the
