Page 10 of Clive Cussler The Iron Storm
“We have some apple pie for afters. Can I save you a piece?” She smiled at him. Most women did.
He’d used his looks many times in the service of the cause, but the drawback was that people, women especially, tended to notice him, when all he wanted was anonymity. He’d found indifference worked better than rudeness to retain some semblance of privacy. He turned away from her and declined the offer with little more than a grunted “No.”
Her smile faded and she returned to the kitchen to add his order.
“What were you about to say about the timer?”
“Once you set it, you can’t stop the countdown.”
“Why not? What if there’s a delay?”
“I did it that way in case a worker discovers it before it goes off. Any kind of tampering, like cutting the visible wires or moving the clock’s hands, will set if off immediately.”
Balka thought about that for a moment and nodded. It was a good idea. “And how big is it?”
“Not as big as we’d like, but it can’t weigh too much or a worker could become suspicious when they roll the bags off the truck. There isn’t that much mail coming in from out this way.”
“That was the trade-off,” Fowler said. “Easy to ambush a truck here in the sticks, but the load is far lighter than one coming in from New Jersey or another part of Manhattan.”
“Risk versus reward.”
“It won’t matter anyway,” Fred Fowler said, his eyes glittering again as he moved his head in birdlike bobs. “We don’t need to destroy the building. This is a symbolic strike to show that Washington is losing its sacred trust with the people. My God, governments have been in charge of the mail for thousands of years. Postal service is often the first thing they establish. If we can disrupt it, it’ll show that the control they have over their subjects isn’t as great as they think it is.”
Stan added, “If we’re successful tonight, other cells in other cities will follow our example. We can collapse the whole system.”
Fowler made another gesture and the conversation paused while the waitress, far less friendly than before, doled out their plates of food, asked perfunctorily if there was anything else, and retreated once again.
“The schedule?”
“Marcus timed the truck every night for two weeks. It never varies by more than a couple of minutes and it’s always the only vehicle he sees that early in the morning. This one’s an easy one, Balka.”
No one in the cell knew much of his past, certainly no details of the violence he’d committed, but still they were in awe of his stillness and calm. They recognized that he was dangerous, a coiled spring ready to go off even if they’d never seen such a thing occur. The cell was almost entirely composed of men of words. Stan was a little different. He was a tradesman, good with his hands, who understood the needs of the workingman. But the others were romantic talkers and dreamers who saw the struggle in the abstract. Tonight was the first time the abstract was about to become reality.
Rath suspected the delicate-featured Marcus had faked an illness in order to spare himself having to witness the violence that was forthcoming. Fred was trying to hide that he was a little ill at ease. Only Stan seemed to understand and accept the reality of consequence.
After the meal, they found a secluded lane to wait the several hours before the postal truck carrying mail from eastern Long Island into the city was due. Balka sat alone in his car and dozed. The other two were in Fred’s car. Whenever Rath looked over at them, he saw Fowler smoking cigarette after cigarette. Yes, he was definitely nervous.
About fifteen minutes before the earliest mail truck would pass their ambush spot, the men left the lane and made for their intended rendezvous. It was a lonely patch of the main two-lane road that was hemmed in with trees along both verges. They parked their cars so it looked like they had been in a head-on collision that left most of the oiled dirt lane blocked.
Twenty minutes later, the sound of a vehicle approaching fromthe east cut the silence. Fred crushed a half-smoked cigarette beneath the toe of his shoe. Stan cracked his knuckles. Balka remained impassive.
A few seconds later, as the noise grew, a glow showed from around a bend in the road. It brightened and then turned dazzling as the truck made the turn. The engine beat immediately changed as the driver saw what he thought was an accident. The men began waving down the driver. The six-wheeled truck slowed, its brakes rubbing a little under the sudden deceleration.
He came to a halt five yards short of the “accident” and opened his door as the three “victims” approached.
“You fellas—”
Balka rushed the final couple of steps, twisting his wrist and opening and closing his hand in order to release the blade of his Filipino butterfly knife. The move was oft-practiced and took under a second. He rammed the blade between the driver’s ribs all the way to the knife’s handles, twisting when he felt it stop against the bone. The damage to the man’s heart was instantly fatal and Balka just let him collapse onto the lonely road.
Mostly stoic Stan retched at seeing the amount of blood that had managed to leak from the wound before the driver’s heart stopped. Balka’s knife was slick with it and his hand was half covered. Fred Fowler went very pale and watched in sickened fascination as Rath bent to clean his weapon and himself against the driver’s white shirt. In the glow of the headlights, the stains looked black and as thick as tar.
“This is what the revolution looks like,” Balka said as he stood. “Get over it or get the hell out of it.”
Fred shuddered and managed to drag his gaze away from the dead postal driver.
“Stan,” Balka snapped. “Help me.”
Together they dragged the body twenty yards into the woods and covered up their trail by straightening bent branches and ruffling some shrubs they’d knocked flat. For his part, Fred had gathered his wits and retrieved a large box from the trunk of his car and brought it to the mail carrier’s cargo truck. He set it on the ground and opened the truck’s tailgate. The mail was in large cloth bags fitted inside tubular metal frames that had wheels so they could be rolled around more easily. There were four such hoppers and they were loaded nearly to the very top with letter-sized envelopes and packages.
