The final job was to fill two dozen of the freezer bags with all but a couple of pounds of the remaining RDX. Then he moulded them into sausage shapes, made a hole in one end of each, pushed a detonator into it, attached a receiver and taped them all up into separate bundles.
When the string, or explosive cord as it now was, was dry Stratton rolled it back around the reel. Then he was done, as far as the cooking and preparations were concerned. He felt quite good about what he had achieved. He picked up the freezer-bag charges, took them out to the pick-up and checked his watch. It was nearly three p.m. and although he was almost ready to go he decided not to leave the mine until dark. He’d spend what was left of the daylight going over the construction plans once again.
He retrieved the blueprint rolls and file from the cab, sat out-side the barn in the sun and went through the engineer’s folder that contained details of all the companies involved in the construction of Skender’s building. There was still one major part of the plan that he had not yet worked out: how to get into the building to plant the explosives.
Hobart was seated at the back of the Falcon 10 charter aircraft, Seaton across the aisle from him, when the stewardess stepped out of the cockpit holding a phone on the end of a long cord and handed it to him. ‘A call for you, Mr Hobart,’ she said.
Hobart took the phone and put it to his ear. ‘This is Hobart.’
‘Sir. Hendrickson here. We have some developments. We just picked up a report off the police net from the SCSN, that’s the California Seismic Network operating out of Pasadena. Two small unscheduled explosions were recorded at a location east of Bakersfield.’
Hobart sat forward in his chair. ‘When?’ he asked.
‘One was yesterday at 4:35 p.m., the other a couple of hours ago. The SCSN didn’t report the first explosion but when the second occurred in the same location they called it in.’
‘Where?’
‘An area called Twin Oaks about thirty miles east of Bakersfield. The map shows an abandoned mine at that location.’
‘Okay. Listen to me. I want you to get an HRT unit mobile a.s.a.p. towards that location, understood?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I’m gonna land at Bakersfield airport – what’s its name?’
‘Em – Meadows Field, I think.’
‘That’s it. Meadows Field. I’ll meet you there. And I want a bird in the air but I don’t want it over the mine. You got that? And don’t forget my vest and my gun.’
Hobart got out of his seat, carrying the phone, and went to the cockpit. A few minutes later he returned to his seat, looking pensive.
Seaton was watching him and Hobart felt obliged to include him in the loop.
‘We’re landing in Bakersfield. Stratton’s using an abandoned mine to make his explosives. We’re gonna stop your boy before he gets to LA.’
‘He’s not my boy,’ Seaton said. But he read the FBI man’s meaning, whether it was deliberate or not. Hobart wasn’t a fool and it didn’t take a genius to work out that Stratton had arrived in LA knowing nothing about Sally’s murderers. Then, after a brief visit to a friend in the CIA, he’d come back to LA and taken them out. ‘For what it’s worth,’ Seaton said, ‘I told him not to do it and to take the legal route.’
‘Yeah, but you gave him the explosives anyway,’ Hobart wanted to say. But he chose not to.
‘But then there was no legal option, was there?’ Seaton went on, as if he had read Hobart’s thoughts.
‘What would you have done?’ Hobart asked.
‘If my wife had been murdered by scum who were above the law? Well, tell you the truth, I’d like to say I would have done the same, but I don’t honestly know. It takes more than just the will to do something like that. You’ve got to have the ability. Not sure if I have that. What about you?’
‘Me? I sure as hell don’t have the ability. The reason I wouldn’t is because I’d know there was someone like me who was going to stop me.’
‘You don’t think Stratton knows that? The way he sees it, he spends most of his adult life doing exactly this kind of work for our side and when he needs help all his supposed colleagues can do is hunt him down so that they can kill him like a dog.’
‘Well, maybe he should’ve asked,’ Hobart said. Then he immediately regretted the pointless comment. Hobart had had every intention of putting Leka and Ardian away for the murder one day. But then, Stratton wasn’t to know that. ‘Anyhow, no one’s gonna kill him – if we can help it.’
‘Stratton’s not planning on spending the rest of his life in a cell, I can tell you that much about him. He’s playing for keeps on this one. He owes Josh everything and the kid’s gonna collect, one way or another.’
‘Whose side are you on, Seaton? Maybe you should tell me now because you’re no good to me if you’re on his.’
‘We both know you’ve got me over a barrel, Hobart. Don’t worry. If it comes down to it, I’ll take my thirty pieces of silver,’ Seaton said, hating the words as soon as they’d left his lips. But what he’d said was true and there was no point in denying it even to himself. He’d done more than most would have done for Stratton – too much, in fact. Maybe Stratton was in this hole because of what Seaton had done to help him but the guy would have found another way to get even if Seaton had baulked. He would have discovered the truth somehow and come back. That was who he was. And now that Josh was at stake this was more than just another mission. Stratton had more incentive than he’d ever had in his life and he was going to see it through.
Seaton looked out of the window. It was still light, the sun dropping ahead of them. Half an hour later the plane crossed the California state line and the stewardess announced that they would shortly be landing at Meadows Field.
Hendrickson was on the tarmac when the Falcon came to a stop. He told the FBI driver to close on the aircraft as the door opened and the gangway unfolded to the ground.
Hobart was first out and didn’t waste a second getting into the car, Seaton climbing into the back beside him.
‘An HRT unit is on its way to Twin Oaks,’ Hendrickson said as he got in beside the driver and the car pulled away. ‘They’ll wait for us short of the mine if we don’t catch up with them before that,’ he continued, glancing over his shoulder at Seaton, wondering who he was and hoping that someone would introduce him.
‘The cops?’ Hendrickson asked.
‘Standing by to put in roadblocks if we need ’em. They have the vehicle description and are looking for an English guy approximately thirty-five years old.’
‘Where’s the bird?’ Hobart asked.
‘Should be in the area any time.’
‘I want it way on the edge of the area. The chopper’s job is pursuit in case he makes a break for it.’
‘The pilot’s been briefed, sir,’ Hendrickson said as he pulled out his notebook and turned on a reading light above him. ‘Some other reports that came in during the last hour. Alan’s Chemicals, where Stratton bought his nitric acid. They think they’re missing several bottles of mercury metal and a two-gallon can of latex solution.’
Hobart looked at Seaton. ‘What’s he need latex for?’
Seaton shrugged. ‘Beats me.’
Hendrickson looked between Seaton and Hobart, sensing something odd there between them. ‘I collated all industrial-related robberies over the last forty-eight hours in a radius of two hundred miles,’ Hendrickson continued. ‘We got a twelve-ton digger taken from a building site in Rosedale this morning, a bunch of power tools last night from a warehouse in Mojave, but that was by a couple of guys. A model store in Simi Valley reported a hundred receivers and batteries taken last night—’
‘What kind of receivers?’ Seaton interrupted.