had a single ten-foot length of cloth. His body aching with each twisting movement, he unscrewed the top of the petrol can and drenched the string of towels, squeezing each as if it were a dishcloth. In minutes he had a ten-foot fuse. His knee now boiling, his ankle swelling rapidly, he crawled back to the fuel tank dragging the towels at his side. Straining, he prised up the iron cover, inserting three feet of fuse and moving the heavy disc off centre so that a flow of air would circulate throughout the black tank below. Backtracking, he pressed each towel, each leg of his fuse, firmly in the ground, sprinkling dirt over each, but only 'dusting' them so as to retard the speed of the flame from base to gaseous contact.
The last towel in place, he stood—wondering briefly how long he could stand—and limped back to Emilio. The Mexican was pulling the heavy-gauged cut-out section of the fence towards him, bending it up to permit access into massive, glistening machinery that through the dynamo-electrical process converted mechanical energy into electricity.
'That's enough,' said Kendrick, bending over to speak close to Emilio's ear. 'Now listen to me carefully, and if you don't understand, stop me. From here on everything is timing—something happens and we do something else. Comprende?'
'Si. We move to other places.'
'That's about it.' Evan reached into the pocket of his mud-encrusted jacket and withdrew the torch. 'Take this,' he continued, nodding his head at the hole in the fence. 'I'm going in there and I hope to hell I know what I'm doing—these things have changed since I installed them—but if nothing else I can shut it down. There may be a lot of noise and big sparks—’
'?Como?'
'Like short bolts of lightning and… and sounds like very loud static on the radio, do you understand?'
'It is enough—’
'Not enough. Don't get near the fence—don't touch it and at the first crack, turn away and shut your eyes… with any luck all the lights will go out and when they do, shine the torch on the opening in the fence, okay?'
'Okay.'
'As soon as I get through to this side, swing the light over there.' Kendrick pointed at the last of his knotted towels protruding out of the ground. 'Have your rifle over your shoulder and hold out one for me—have you got the cap you took from the first guard? If you have, give it to me.'
'Si'. Here.' Emilio took the cap out of his pocket and handed it to Evan, who put it on.
'When I'm clear of the fence, I'll go over there and strike a match, setting the towels on fire. The second I do that we get out of here to the other side of the road, comprende?'
'I understand, senor. Into the grass at the other side of the road. We hide.'
'We hide; we work our way up the hill in the grass, and when everyone starts running around, we join them!'
'?Como?'
'Twenty-odd personnel,' said Kendrick, checking his pockets and removing the two tins of fuel, replacing them in his trousers, then ripping the coat off his back and the tie off his neck. 'We're only two of them in the dark, but we'll be making our way over the hill and down to the dock. With two rifles and a Colt .45.'
'I understand.'
'Here we go,' said Evan as he awkwardly, painfully bent down and picked up the rubber-handled tree clipper and a machete.
He crawled through Emilio's opening and rose to his feet, studying the whirring, life-threatening machinery. Some things had not changed, they never would. Above on the left, bolted into a fifteen-foot-high tar-covered pole, was the main transformer, the shunt wires carrying the major load of power to the various offshoots, the cables encased in rubber conduit at least two inches in diameter to prevent seepage from water—rain and humidity—which would short-circuit the load. Ten feet away on the ground and diagonally opposed above the two black squat main dynamos were the grid plates, whirling maniacally on flywheels on top of the machinery, changing one field of energy into another, protected by a heavy latticework of wire and cooled by the air that had open access. He would study them further but not now.
First things first, he thought, moving to his left and extending the telescopic tree clipper to its full height. Above in the floodlights the saw-toothed jaws of the long instrument gripped
