Stone Junction

the pressure/temperature alarm grids are on the outside of the vault, with the exception of the floor and door.’

‘I remember that,’ Daniel broke in, ‘but what I don’t remember is how I attach myself to ceilings.’

‘A suction cup the size of a dinner plate will hold eight hundred twenty pounds.’

Daniel wrinkled his nose. ‘You mean like a toilet plunger?’

‘In form, but of superior design and materials. We have allies who can engineer the unusual on short notice. I brought it with me, in fact, so you would have ample opportunity to practice.’

‘Okay,’ Daniel said, ‘so I’m stuck to the ceiling with a suction cup.’

‘Actually, it’s attached to a harness; you’ll be in the harness.’

‘Like a spider dangling on a silken thread. I like that. So, what next?’

‘You gently attach a charge of plastique to the inside of the locking mechanism – it’s both combination and double-key – and set the timer, depending on this variable: the position and protection of the Diamond. If it doesn’t seem adquately protected – I’ll give you some guidelines later – you pick it up with another suction cup, this one double, molded back to back, and you attach it to a predetermined position on the ceiling, where, based on the calculations of our physicists, the blast will have the least chance of damaging it.

‘When the Diamond is secured, you vanish again, go back into the tunnel outside the vault, reappear, don a protective mask, and shoot two small canisters of nerve gas up the tunnel. It should deeply reassure you that Charmaine considers the gas among her finest work. A single whiff almost instantly paralyzes the voluntary nervous system, immobilizing the victim. It is also odorless and disperses quickly and evenly. Moreover, it penetrates every known gas mask. Yours, of course, is fitted with neutralizing filters. One thing I admire about Charmaine is her policy of never releasing a toxin until she develops a neutralizing agent. By the way, she calls this nerve gas Medusa Seven.’

‘That’s nice,’ Daniel said. His tone was decidedly neutral.

‘It will take about thirty seconds for the gas to incapacitate all guards. Immediately after you fire the gas, you disappear. The charge should detonate within four minutes, blowing the door. You step inside the vault, reappear, grab the Diamond, and run up the shaft and around to the west side of the mountain. There, Eddie LaRue will pick you up in his helicopter, fly you to a waiting car on a nearby county road, and you’ll drive away to meet me in El Paso, where you and I alone will decide what to do with the Diamond. After examining it, of course.’

Daniel said, ‘I have questions.’

‘You should.’

‘Why not knock out the guards before I go down the tunnel? That way if I come unsuctioned or drop the Diamond or something and set off an alarm, the guards are already incapacitated?’

‘A number of reasons,’ Volta said. ‘First, if you find something awry and have to abandon the mission, we don’t want it known that an attempt was made. Secondly, because of the tunnel’s pitch and the fact that heat rises, there’s a noticeable upward draft, which would substantially slow or possibly prevent the nerve gas from reaching the third or fourth checkpoints. This way, if you do set off any alarm, you can simply vanish and walk through the mountain to your pickup site.’

Chastened that he’d missed those points, Daniel said less aggressively, ‘But the charge will set off the alarm regardless, right?’

‘There is no way to remove the Diamond from the vault without opening the vault, and no way to open it without setting off the alarms – short of defeating the alarm system itself, which is virtually impossible. Though we may attempt it if all else fails.’

‘And when the alarm sounds, there’ll be jet fighters and a horde of marines on our ass in fifteen minutes. You have to expect roadblocks.’

‘If the timing goes right, you have an excellent chance of getting away undetected. All they have is an alarm. They have to cover every direction, while you know exactly where you’re going. Further, the truck will have a place to hide the Diamond, and you’ll be provided an identity and an alibi. So will Eddie in the helicopter, who will be attached to an actual film crew, a second unit shooting sunrises for Axel Koch’s newest epic, Roper Man.’

‘Is this Eddie LaRue the Low-Riding Eddie I’ve met?’

‘Yes. My apologies – I assumed you knew.’

‘Don’t you have doubts about my abilities to deal with explosives after what happened to my mother? Maybe I’ll break down, choke.’

‘The way to conquer fear is by facing it. I obviously have confidence in your courage or I wouldn’t have introduced you to vanishing.’

‘But you did consider it?’

‘Naturally.’

‘What about the fact that they’ll know the vault was blown from inside?’

Volta smiled. ‘That’s my favorite part, Daniel. All loss should be instructive. In this case, perhaps we’ll help expand their rather narrow conception of reality.’

Transcription:

Denis Joyner, AMO Mobile Radio

Hello, baby. I bet you were just twirling along, looking for a solution for these springtime, no-bang blues, and you got this paradoxical precipitate instead, the DJ himself, the ol’ Dharma Jewel, and now you can’t decide if I’m the Real Dazzling Item or just another Rhinestone Cowboy jacking his jaws to soothe the circling coyotes and keep the moon afloat on the dark waters of the human soul. All day you faced, the barren waste, without the taste, of water: cool – clear – water. Parched. Shrunk to the nut. Well, you’ve made it to the Last Mirage; welcome to the waterhole. Drink deep and sail on refreshed, real as the diamonds on your grandmother’s wedding ring, real as the ineluctable weirdness that whips us all around the circle, real as a sun-ripened grape about to get pressed. I’ll stay