The Icarus Agenda

'Do you know who the other guard is?' asked Evan harshly.

'No.'

'Suppose you can't kill him, either?'

'Why is it a problem? I am a strong fisherman from El Descanso when there are boats that will hire me. I can bind him myself—or bring back another compañero for us.'

The second option was not to be. No sooner had the limping Emilio reached the dirt road at the side of the helipad than the south guard came running down. As they drew closer there was a brief exchange in Spanish, then suddenly a vocal eruption from one of the two men and it was not the fisherman from El Descanso. Silence instantly followed and moments later Emilio returned.

'No compañero,' said Kendrick, not asking a question.

'That snarling rata would claim his mother is a whore if the policia paid him enough!'

'“Would,” as in the past tense?'

'No comprende.'

'He's dead?'

'Dead, señor, and in the grass. Also, we have less than thirty minutes before the light comes up in the east.'

'Then let's go… your friend is bound.'

‘To the dock? To the boats?'

'Not yet, amigo. We have something else to do before we get there.'

'I tell you it will be light soon!'

'If I do things right, there'll be a lot more light sooner than that. Get the gasoline and pick up the tree clippers. I can't manage much more than what I've got.'

Step by agonizing step, Evan climbed the narrow dirt road behind the Mexican until they reached the island's immense, fence-enclosed generator, the bass-toned hum assaulting their ears to the point of painful vibrations. Signs of ¡Pellagra!…Danger! were everywhere, and the single gate to the interior was secured by two huge plate-locks that apparently took the simultaneous insertion of keys to open. Limping around into the darkest shadows of the floodlights, Kendrick gave the order while handing Emilio the wire cutters. 'Start here, and I hope you're as strong as you say you are. This is heavy-gauge fence. Slice an opening, three feet's enough.'

'And you, señor?'

'I have to look around.'

He found them! Three iron discs screwed into concrete thirty feet apart, three enormous tanks, cisterns for fuel, supplemented by banks of photovoltaic cells somewhere which no longer concerned him. Opening a disc required a T-squared hexagonal wrench, its upper bars long enough for two strong men on each bar. But there was another way and he knew it well from the desert tanks in Saudi Arabia; an emergency procedure in the event the caravans of fuel trucks forgot the implement, not uncommon in the Jabal deserts. Each supposedly impenetrable disc had fourteen ridges across the top, not much different from the manhole covers in most American cities, although much smaller. Hammered slowly counterclockwise, the circular vaults would loosen until hands and fingers could reach the sides and unscrew them.

Kendrick walked back to Emilio and the near deafening island generator. The Mexican had cut through two parallel vertical lines and was starting at the ground level base. 'Come with me!' said Evan, shouting into Emilio's ear. 'Have you got your hatchet?'

'Pues si.'

'So do I.'

Kendrick led the Mexican back to the first iron disc and instructed him how to use the towels from the electronic cabin to muffle the blows from the blunt ends of their hatchets. 'Slowly,' he yelled. 'A spark can set off the fumes, comprende?'

'No, señor.'

'It's better that you don't. Easy now! One tap at a time. Not so hard!… It's moving!'

'Now harder?'

'Christ, no! Easy, amigo. As if you were cracking a diamond,'

'It has not been my pleasure—’

'It will be if we get out of here… There! It's free! Unscrew it to the top and leave it there. Give me your towels.'

'For what, señor?'

‘I’ll explain as soon as you get me through that door you're cutting in the fence.'

'That will take time—’

'You've got about two minutes, amigo!'

'Madre de Dies!'

'Where did you put the gasoline?' Kendrick moved closer to be heard.

'There!' replied the Mexican, pointing to the left of the 'door' he was cutting.

Crouching painfully in the shadows, Evan tied the towels together, tugging at each knot to make sure it was secure until he 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—’

'¿Cómo?'

'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, señor. 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!'

'¿Cómo?'

'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.