“Here at last,” said Izzy as he pulled onto the old trail that led to Leon’s trailer and Devil’s Anvil. They had both been there before, and knew what to expect. They slowly drove down the narrow trail toward the mobile home, past it, and toward the mine entrance itself. Dennis Lestage was already there, sitting in a lawn chair, smoking a cigarette.
“About time, boys,” said the ever slothful Dennis, not getting up. “Been here waiting for you for hours now. I’m gonna get overtime for this.”
“How about we do you a favor, Dennis?” replied Izzy. “We won’t tell Leon that you actually said what you just said.”
“And another favor, Dennis,” added Ba’al. “Butt the cigarette.”
Dennis was not one to take orders from anyone other than Leon, least of all these two Paki types who thought they were so much better than everyone else. He tapped another smoke out of his Export A package, and lit it with the butt of the last cigarette. He threw the old cigarette, unextinguished, on the ground. Without moving any further, he flicked the generator button and pushed open the doorway to the mine with the heel of his boot. Then he motioned grandly for them to get started with their business.
“Listen, blockhead. Butt the cigarette,” Ba’al repeated. He was in no mood for jokes. He had just traveled 1,000 miles, and had almost 1,000 more to go. “Why?” Dennis asked, spoiling for an argument.
“Because we’ll blow your ass to hell if you don’t,” said Izzy. He was as tired and cranky as Ba’al. He dearly wanted to say that they had more than four tons of Semtex in the back of the truck, but there was no point in adding it. Instead he pulled out his Beretta 9 mm and pointed it at Dennis. “Butt the smoke, asshole,” he said, with sufficient malevolence in his voice to convince Dennis that this was not the time to draw a line in the sand. Grimacing, he tossed the partially smoked cigarette on the ground and extinguished it with his boot.
Ba’al continued to glare at the Canadian. He didn’t like that someone so stupid and lazy was involved in such an important project. If this were his plan… “Let’s get to work,” he sighed, rolling up his sleeves.
The three of them started unloading the Semtex onto the railway trolley, which was parked just outside the mine. When it had been piled as high as was safe, they started the cart toward the entrance. Ba’al halted the cart just before they entered the doors.
“This is going to be a four tripper, gentlemen. Izzy, stay with the truck. Dennis and I are going to the other end to unload. We’ll be back in an hour or so, tops.” Ba’al didn’t trust the chain-smoking, curious, and monumentally stupid Dennis alone, in such close proximity to such a large volume of high explosives.
“What the hell is this shit anyway?” asked Dennis, pointing to the cellophane-wrapped bricks.
“Same stuff as always, Dennis. Just a new way of wrapping it, eh. Now shut up.”
Catherine pushed the door a little wider, glancing out into the tunnel, and looking first one way, then the other. The space was pitch black, and there was nothing to be seen. She listened carefully, then snuck one foot out the door, wondering what she was going to do once she got out of the marijuana room.
At that moment, she heard the distant sound of a generator starting up. There was a click, and the lights came on again, blinding her.
It took only 30 minutes to get from the north end of the mine to the south end, even though the total distance was more than three miles, and there was an elevator ride in the middle of it. The trip was made in silence, the only noise coming from the iron wheels on the rails. Even with the artificial lighting, the darkness of the mine had always made Ba’al nervous. The coal black walls and low ceilings were a marked contrast to the spacious caves back home, in the Sefid Koh. The whole place had a closed, dangerous quality to it. He’d never dealt with it very well, and looked forward to finishing this part of the trip and being on his way.
They passed through the hexagonal space that served as one of the hubs of the lower tunnels. Ba’al saw Dennis’ nervous stare toward one of the doors and almost asked him about it, but decided not to. Hell with it, he thought. No telling what was going on in the dolt’s brain. On with the task at hand.
At the far end of the tunnel they reached another doorway. Opening it revealed the back end of a five-ton van, similar to the one that they had left parked on the Canadian side of Devil’s Anvil. This new van had been supplied by the Hell’s Angels of the Billings, Montana chapter, as arranged by Leon Lestage.
This van also had a powered tailgate. The usual rail system had been built into the trolley, under a false floor, and the two were able to roll their wheeled pallet easily into the truck. It took less than ten minutes to unload the cargo into the back of the truck and turn around for the next load. The sun was rising as they returned to the Canadian end of the mine, to greet a silent Izzy.
“Load two,” said Ba’al at the north entrance of Devil’s Anvil. “Let’s hustle here.” Without further ado the three of them began loading the trolley with a second load of Semtex, which they managed to do in ten minutes. Ba’al pushed the trolley immediately into the mine, motioning for Dennis to accompany him. Not a second was wasted. Ba’al remembered Yousseff’s theory that the reloading at any point, whether from truck to boat, boat to boat, truck to plane, or anything else, was the danger point, and had to be done with maximum speed and efficiency. Many of the transfer systems built by Karachi Drydock had been designed with this mantra in mind. Speed was paramount.
“Put a little effort into it there, Dennis. With this much money and risk, we’re not going to dawdle. For the next few hours or so, it’s time to actually work,” groused an annoyed Ba’al.
Dennis tried to hide his anger. Here he was, the present custodian of Devil’s Anvil, and this foreigner was lecturing him. “Whatever,” was the only reply he could muster.
They traveled back to the southern end of the mine again, without a second to sit and relax. Dennis’ bones ached, and he longed to rest, but Ba’al’s direct, unblinking stare was unnerving and accepted no excuses.
Corporal Catherine Gray panicked. She had spent the last ten minutes crawling through a ventilation tunnel that was barely big enough to accommodate her body. For 24 hours before that she’d been locked in a room, choking with money. She was dehydrated, stressed, and pig-filthy. And now the lights went on. One of two possibilities. Either someone was coming in the north entrance, in which case she had 15 minutes to hide, or someone was coming in the south entrance, a few hundred feet away, in which case she had a second or two to hide. No point taking unnecessary risks, not with people the likes of Leon and his clan. She darted back into the marijuana room, hoping to God that she wouldn’t be too stoned in 20 minutes to figure out what the next step in this elaborate dance was going to be.
She crawled back into the ventilation tunnel for additional cover. “Indy,” she whispered. “Indy, someone’s coming in.”
“Sounds like it,” came Indy’s hoarse reply. “Stay back. Maybe we can learn something here.”
“Yeah, maybe, but maybe that dolt Dennis has told Leon about us and we’re about to be toasted.”
“If that’s what’s going on, we’ll just have to deal with it. Let’s see what happens,” said Indy. “If I hear them putting a key into the lock, maybe I can scurry through the ventilation tunnel at the last moment. But it’s a last moment thing, Cath. I can’t go in there unless I have to. Just can’t.”