Bonard was waiting in the jeep outside the door of The Ruddy Jug as I appeared. "Get in," he said. "It's quite a drive."
I sat beside him, not talking much, as we headed for the ranch. I smiled inwardly as we passed the place I'd stopped to ask directions. This time, as we approached the Circle Three, the yard was floodlighted and the place was active. I felt the tenseness of my muscles as we wheeled into the yard and I took a deep breath. This is no time to get stage fright, old boy, I told myself. I got out and Bonard led me into the ranch, past the parlor until I was, once again, inside the study with the big cases of marine objects lining the walls. Behind the big desk, green eyes looked out at me from under auburn hair — cool eyes, that took in every detail of the man that stood before her. Mona Star got up.
"None of the others who've worked with us has ever met me," she said coolly. "You expected a man, of course."
I didn't have to fake the amazement in my eyes. Not because it was Mona, but because of her role. I was primed to see her, or Lynn or Judy, but in their womanly roles, not as top man. And I couldn't fit her basic feminine sensuality with The Executioners.
"I guess I am surprised, ma'am," I said sheepishly.
"Now that you've met me," Mona said crisply, "let's get the details worked out at once." She was eyeing me with a very penetrating stare and I was tensed, ready to make a break for it if the whole bit came unglued. But it stayed together as I passed her inspection. The somewhat oafish, slouching brute standing before her would not be her cup of tea, I knew.
"You wanted a woman to celebrate with," she said to me, coldly. "Business before pleasure, Mr. Anderson. You can do your celebrating after the job is done. Who knows, I might even celebrate with you."
She threw me a fast smile. The gorgeous bitch. She was tossing a little added incentive to the poor, dumb bastard before her so he'd do his damnedest to get the job done right I smiled back eagerly, and let my tongue roll across my lips. I let my eyes devour her big, deep breasts hungrily. It was a good act, and that part of it wasn't hard.
"Now here are the details of your job, Mr. Anderson," she said. "We know that they've begun to pour the dam. Today, they did the whole bottom section. Tomorrow they'll pour the center section, going horizontally across from left to right. Now, of course, the cement is held in place by the wooden molds until it hardens, which will take days yet. There's no night shift at the dam, except perhaps one or two watchmen. You'll be driven there at once and a half hour after you're there, a truck will drive up. The truck will be carrying bags of clay and limestone, exactly like those they're using to make the cement for the dam. But the mixture in these bags is very special. When it's poured into the cement mixture it will look like what they are using and act like what they are using. But it contains a powerful disintegrating agent When the cement is set, with this material in it, it will begin to disintegrate from inside. Our calculations are that within two weeks after the dam is scheduled to be opened, a major section will collapse and cause a tremendous flood."
"And you want me to see to it that these special bags are mixed in with the regular mixture of ordinary clay and limestone," I finished for her.
"Exactly," she said. "You will take the bags from the truck and intermingle them with those other sacks waiting to be made into cement. It's as simple as that, Mr. Anderson. Twenty-five thousand dollars for a night's work is pretty good pay, don't you think?"
"Yes, madam," I said humbly. "Yes, indeed."
"Now please go with Mr. Bonard," she said. "This must work like clockwork. We want the bags in your hands so you can mix them in with the others."
I nodded to her and started after Bonard who led me to the jeep. I sat quietly during the ride to dam. The whole operation was so simple and so neat it was foolproof. But I was making plans of my own as the jeep roared through the night. I had two things to do and I couldn't fail at any or I'd fail in all. I had to stop the operation and nab some of them as proof in order to nail Mona. I didn't dare try to grab Bonard and pump more information from him. It would be only one more piecemeal victory and I needed a total victory now.
As I rode two very disparate thoughts crossed my mind. One, that the tall Chinese I'd seen during my first visit to the ranch had stayed out of sight, although he was very much around, I felt sure. Second, that I was glad the eyes I'd seen when I entered the study at the ranch had not been smoke-gray. Nobody, but nobody, had ever called me a sentimentalist, yet I was glad. Damn her smoke-gray eyes and young-wise face, I said to myself. They got to you — to me.
The jeep had crested the top of a hill and I found myself looking at the tall outlines of the scaffolding of the dam. Bonard drove through the litter of construction work — pipe and boards and steel plates and small hand trucks. Finally he halted before a tall scaffolding that extended from the wooden molds into which the concrete would be poured.
"You can wait here," he said. "You know what to do when the truck gets here." I wished to hell I did know what to do, I said to myself as I nodded and he drove away. The network of scaffolding loomed up above me and I made a fast survey of the area in the little time I had. Sledge hammers, saws, shovels and boards lay around the place. At the end of the dam scaffolding, two huge machines stood on top of double rails. They were moveable cement mixers and I saw the conveyer belt stacked with bags leading up to the machine. On the top, where the belt turned back on itself, there was a platform large enough for two men to stand on, open the bags as they came up and pour their contents into the huge mixer. The conveyer belt was where I was to intermingle the identically marked bags with the special mixture.
But I couldn't let those bags get near that conveyer belt. It would be a grim joke indeed if I cracked the operation, but they had their disaster anyway, as their disintegrating mixture found its way in with the regular mix. I examined the huge mixers and saw the rollers they were on led left and right along the dam. Moreover, I found the set of levers that controlled their operation electrically. One moved the machines along the double tracks, the other controlled the direction of the long, funnel-like opening out of which the cement poured. An idea formed in my mind as I saw the headlights approaching. A small open-side truck emerged from behind the headlights and I stayed beside the levers. Stepping into the beam of the headlights, I waved them to stop under the huge cement mixer at the right.
The driver stuck his head out of the truck window. "Want them unloaded right here?" he asked gruffly.
"In a minute," I said. I stepped back into the shadows and yanked the first lever marked "Release." The grinding noise of the cement mixer as it turned over inside the huge framework split the night and I said a quick prayer. I was counting on the mixer having a fair amount of unpoured cement still inside it. I pulled the other lever and swung the long funnel over the truck and in relief I saw the rush of thick, heavy, gray substance pour down the funnel, looking like some giant's morning porridge. It began to cascade over the truck and its bags of the special mixture. With a bellow, the driver leaped out of the cab, getting a load of wet cement on his head. I stepped forward, Wilhelmina in hand.