Or maybe not even Peruvians. Alice thought the brujo might be living here alone, might have used up all his sacrifices. But they couldn't count on that.
The sea gate loomed in front of Ben, roll-down slats of stainless steel in tracks set into the stone walls of the tunnel. They'd had to guess the gauge of metal, then doubled it for margin. Ben nosed his dinghy up against the steel and cut his motor. Now for some acrobatics . . .
Cut a hole big enough for the Maria, that was the question. The answer rattled at Ben's feet, lengths of shaped charge for cutting steel, same explosives they used for those spectator sport "implosions" like demolishing a casino in Las Vegas. He lifted one, ten feet of metal trough loaded with touchy chemicals, held it against the gate, and slapped duct tape over it to hold it in place. Up one side, across the top as high as he could reach on the crest of the swells, down the other, down under water, six pieces, sixty feet of lethal technology. Heavy lethal technology.
And then he hoisted a five-gallon bucket up on the prow and grabbed handfuls of clay, heavy blue-gray "marine" clay as sticky as a Mafia loan shark, and plastered gobs over the shaped charges. Tamping, to force the blast through the steel. Ben sweated, holding the dinghy against the gate, bobbing up and down with the swell, slapping away at high explosives with both hands. He hoped that stuff was as stable as the books said it was.
One bucket of clay, two, three, the dinghy rode higher and bounced around more, and he was done. He rinsed his hands in the seawater, cold seawater, dried them, and opened a padded box. These things, now, nobody ever said they were stable. Blasting caps.
Ben concentrated, thinking each step through before lifting a finger. This was the point where the terrorists sometimes scored an "own goal" as the lingo put it, blew themselves up with their own bomb.
It'd be nice to do this on solid ground. The dinghy bobbed under him, up and down, in and out, and he had to time the swells and surges. Ben felt sweat beading his forehead, and it wasn't from manhandling the charges or the mud.
Gently, gently with the detonators, he slid one into each side of the arch he'd made, redundancy, unrolled the waterproof fuses and taped them to the gate until they met in the middle, and taped them together there. Didn't want to use electric caps, radio control, anything fancy. Didn't know what electronics gear hid behind the gate, ready to induce trace currents through any little wire antennas he unreeled. KISS engineering, "keep it simple, shithead."
He pulled out his belt knife and split the end of each fuse, broke a couple of kitchen matches, and imbedded the heads in each split end. Old quarryman's trick, he'd actually learned it from Maria's grandfather. Made for sure ignition.
Then he let the dinghy bob away from the gate and sat down, running his light over the whole job, checking details. All that, while bouncing up and down in a small boat. Fun way to spend an October afternoon.
It looked right.
Ben edged the boat back in under the center of the gate, next to the joined fuses, pulled out a butane lighter, and flicked it. It lit. Would be typical if he'd gotten this far and couldn't light the fuse. That was why he had spare lighters, and more kitchen matches, and even a spare set of blasting caps and fuses. Belt and suspenders. If you have a backup, you probably won't need it. If you don't . . .
The match heads flared, and red flames spat bitter smoke out from under them, both of them, the fuse cores burning. Ben twisted the throttle and turned, headed out at the highest speed the little trolling motor could make. The fuse length should give him plenty of time to get clear, but sometimes they burned fast. Plenty of gravestones and one-armed quarrymen to prove it.
Then he was out into daylight, and turning to one side of the slot so any stray bits would fly past him into the cove, noting that the Maria also rode to one side, and he kept counting his one-Mississippi two-Mississippi for the seconds. A dull boom echoed over the cliff above, rolling off the far side of the cove, and Ben grinned. Dan was having fun, too. Sometimes things worked out slicker than a smelt.
The water bounced under him, out of phase with the swells, something went crump! deep in the tunnel, and small chunks sprayed smoking out of the tunnel mouth, splashed, and sank. Ben groped around under his seat, pulled out a gas mask, put it on, and headed the dinghy back into the tunnel.
They didn't have time to wait for the fumes to clear. He needed to see how well they'd calculated those charges, check for loose rock and depth of channel and all, check clearance for the Maria. Smile at the cameras.
That damned girl didn't belong in this. At least she didn't show any signs of getting seasick. Physical guts and mental guts. Give him time, he might trust her.
If she earned it.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Alice sank back into leather upholstery, eyes shut, allowing herself to relax and turn all systems off. She'd been running flat-out for eighteen, twenty hours, bad wreck up on the Federal Road, ambulance EMT and then drafted into a double shift as ER and ICU nurse when the hospital got caught short.
After that, she'd crawled back here to the House to find Caroline waiting with a very twitchy Jane. She felt wiped, muscles
