sure the PE had connected by rolling more in his hands before pushing it into the joints as he taped the wood together to make the two square frame charges. He had pushed two iffy-looking Russian flash dets (detonators) into the PE on the opposing sides of each charge, then covered them with yet more PE. Both charges had then been wrapped in even more tape until they looked like something from a kids’ cartoon. It was bad practice using the dets like that, but this was a low-tech job and these sorts of details counted. If the charges didn’t detonate we’d have to leave them, and if they looked sophisticated and exotic it would arouse suspicion that maybe the job hadn’t been done by GIA.
Just to make sure they’d jump to the wrong conclusion, I’d made up a PIRA (Provisional IRA) timer unit to detonate them. They were dead simple, using a Parkway timer, a device about the size of a silver dollar that worked very much like a kitchen egg timer. They were manufactured as key rings to remind you of when your parking meter was about to expire. The energy source was a spring, and the timers were reliable even in freezing or wet weather conditions.
I watched as Hubba-Hubba disappeared around the side of the tanks facing the sea with his squares of wood and left me to sort out the OBIs. I heard the clunk as the first frame charge went onto the tank, held in place by magnets. He was placing them just above the first weld marks. Steel storage tanks are maybe half an inch thick at the bottom, due to the amount of pressure they have to withstand from the weight of fuel. There is less pressure above the first weld, so the steel can be thinner, maybe about a quarter of an inch on these old tanks. The frame charges might not be technically perfect, but they’d have no problem cutting through at that level, as long as they had good contact with the steel.
I heard the magnets clank into position on the second. He was doing everything at a walk, just as we had rehearsed. This wasn’t so that we didn’t make a noise and get compromised, but because I didn’t want him to run and maybe fall and destroy the charges. We’d only made two, and I had no great wish to end this job hanging upside down in an Algerian cell while my head was on the receiving end of a malicious lump of two-by-four.
I laid the green safety fuse alongside the OBIs that I’d placed in the sand three feet apart. The safety fuse between each OBI would burn for about a minute and a half, just like when Clint Eastwood lit sticks of dynamite with his cigar. A minute and a half was just a guide, as it could be plus or minus nine seconds — or even quicker if the core was broken and the flame jumped the gaps instead of burning its way along the fuse. That was the reason why I hadn’t connected the fuse in advance, but kept it rolled up: if there was a break in the powder it could be too big a gap for the flame to jump, and we’d have no detonation.
Once an OBI was ignited by the fuse it would burn for about two and a half minutes. That meant that as soon as the first one sparked up there would be about another minute and a half before the next one did. Which meant two of them burning together for a minute, and by the time the first had burnt out, the third would be ignited, and so on to the fourth. I needed the sort of heat generated by two of these things burning at once to make sure the fuel ignited.
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
