heater, put the large glass cooking bowl inside it, poured in enough water around the bowl so that it would sit in the pot without floating, half-filled the bowl with ethyl alcohol and then ignited the burner.
While the alcohol heated, Stratton stirred the acid-mercury mix with a wooden spoon. When the ethyl was warm, he carefully poured the mix into it. Within a few seconds it began to bubble and froth while giving off thick white fumes whose colour changed to red and then back to white again in a short space of time. Solid particles started to form in the liquid and when it stopped bubbling he poured it into the third pot, which contained several gallons of water. Using the sieve, he filtered out the particles, placed them back into the glass bowl that he had cleaned out, added some more ethyl alcohol, poured it all back into the sieve and then ran water through it to clean it. Once the fulminate had fully dried it would be ready for use.
An hour later he had all seventy of the three-inch lengths of narrow plastic pipe lined up, each with one end twisted and heat-sealed and stuck into the ground. Their open ends were uppermost. Next came the laborious task of placing a teaspoonful of fulminate into each. Once that was done Stratton cut the fine wire into six-inch lengths, quickly heated the middle of each length over the gas flame and then stretched it, being careful not to break it. He bent each in two at the thinnest point to form a hairpin, which he then inserted into the end of each pipe so that it was buried in the fulminate. Epoxy glue was then dropped into the end to seal the wire and the fulminate inside. Now all that was required was another test.
Stratton used the same location as for the RDX test of the previous day since it appeared to be in a stable state. He walked down the shaft while unreeling the rest of the length of wire and carrying the deton ator and a small piece of RDX. The aim of the test was twofold. He needed to prove that the circuit would explode the fulminate and that the fulminate would in turn detonate the RDX. The problem was that he would not be able to tell if the RDX had blown unless he used a bit more than in the earlier test. The mercury fulminate would, of course, be far less powerful than the RDX alone. Still, a little more RDX than before was required to make sure. He would just have to take the risk that he might bring down the shaft’s ceiling.
Stratton moulded the hazelnut-sized piece of RDX around the end of the detonator, attached the wires and walked back to the initiation point. He touched one of the wires to one end of a small battery. Then, after a final check around him, he put the flashlight on the ground between his knees so that he could grab it quickly and touched the other wire to the opposite end of the battery.
The explosion rocked the shaft and when chunks of the rock ceiling began to fall around Stratton he grabbed the flashlight and sprinted away as the tunnel collapsed where he had been crouching. He did not stop until he had reached the main junction. Dust was falling everywhere and for a moment, as he made his way to the exit shaft, he thought that he had overdone it. But as the rumbling ceased so did the apparent imminent threat of a serious collapse. Nevertheless, he decided to go outside for a bit of fresh air and give the old mine a few minutes to settle in case.
Stratton did not need to inspect the detonation point as it was evident that the RDX had exploded. After a bite to eat he went back into the main cavern to find everything covered in yet more dust but otherwise in good shape.
Using the spike tool on his knife he made a hole in the bottom of each sandwich box, pushed a deton ator through it into the RDX and applied some glue to hold it in place. The final stage was to attach a battery and receiver to one end of each wire – leaving the other end free until the moment of placement – tape it all up into a neat package, and place each device back inside its original cardboard box, making it look completely innocuous. Soon the thirty-two home-made claymore mines were ready to go.
Stratton took another short break in the sunshine before returning to the mine with a hammer and a dozen spike nails which he hammered into several of the wooden supports. The next task was to make a length of explosive cord, which he had never done before. But he understood the theory. Taking the can of latex he poured a good amount into the glass bowl. Then he unreeled a hundred feet or so of the thousand-foot reel of string and pushed it into the tacky white liquid. Beyond the latex he placed an open bag of RDX and slowly drew the latex-wet string through it so that the explosive crystals stuck to it. As the string got longer he looped it back and forth from nail to nail, hanging it like a washing line. He placed another hundred feet or so in the bowl along with more latex and repeated the procedure until all the string had been coated and was hanging across the nails to dry.
The final job was to fill two dozen of the freezer bags with all but a couple of pounds of the remaining RDX. Then he moulded them into sausage shapes, made a hole in one end of each, pushed a detonator into it, attached a receiver and taped them all up into separate bundles.
When the string, or explosive cord as it now was, was dry Stratton rolled it back around the reel. Then he was done, as far as the cooking and preparations were concerned. He felt quite good about what he had achieved. He picked up the freezer-bag charges, took them out to the pick-up and checked his watch. It was nearly three p.m. and although he was almost ready to go he decided not to leave the mine until dark. He’d spend what was left of the daylight going over the construction plans once again.
He retrieved the blueprint rolls and file from the cab, sat out-side the barn in the sun and went through the engineer’s folder that contained details of all the companies involved in the construction of Skender’s building. There was still one major part of the plan that he had not yet worked out: how to get into the building to plant the explosives.
Hobart was seated at the back of the Falcon 10 charter aircraft, Seaton across the aisle from him, when the stewardess stepped out of the cockpit holding a phone on the end of a long cord and handed it to him. ‘A call for you, Mr Hobart,’ she said.
Hobart took the phone and put it to his ear. ‘This is Hobart.’
‘Sir. Hendrickson here. We have some developments. We just picked up a report off the police net from the SCSN, that’s the California Seismic Network operating out of Pasadena. Two small unscheduled explosions were recorded at a location east of Bakersfield.’
Hobart sat forward in his chair. ‘When?’ he asked.
‘One was yesterday at 4:35 p.m., the other a couple of hours ago. The SCSN didn’t report the first explosion but when the second occurred in the same location they called it in.’
‘Where?’
‘An area called Twin Oaks about thirty miles east of Bakersfield. The map shows an abandoned mine at that location.’
‘Okay. Listen to me. I want you to get an HRT unit mobile a.s.a.p. towards that location, understood?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I’m gonna land at Bakersfield airport – what’s its name?’
‘Em – Meadows Field, I think.’
‘That’s it. Meadows Field. I’ll meet you there. And I want a bird in the air but I don’t want it over the mine. You got that? And don’t forget my vest and my gun.’
Hobart got out of his seat, carrying the phone, and went to the cockpit. A few minutes later he returned to his seat, looking pensive.
Seaton was watching him and Hobart felt obliged to include him in the loop.
‘We’re landing in Bakersfield. Stratton’s using an abandoned mine to make his explosives. We’re gonna stop your boy before he gets to LA.’
‘He’s not my boy,’ Seaton said. But he read the FBI man’s meaning, whether it was deliberate or not. Hobart wasn’t a fool and it didn’t take a genius to work out that Stratton had arrived in LA knowing nothing about Sally’s murderers. Then, after a brief visit to a friend in the CIA, he’d come back to LA and taken them out. ‘For what it’s worth,’ Seaton said, ‘I told him not to do it and to take the legal route.’
‘
‘But then there was no legal option, was there?’ Seaton went on, as if he had read Hobart’s thoughts.
‘What would you have done?’ Hobart asked.
‘If my wife had been murdered by scum who were above the law? Well, tell you the truth, I’d like to say I would have done the same, but I don’t honestly know. It takes more than just the will to do something like that. You’ve got to have the ability. Not sure if I have that. What about you?’
‘Me? I sure as hell don’t have the ability. The reason I wouldn’t is because I’d know there was someone like me who was going to stop me.’
