Abdoullah had completed his inspection and, together with Shujat, was
loading the crates back onto the small trucks intended to move them
down to the clean room.
"We'll have to adjust the timers very carefully," he was saying to
Shujat, now bent over with him, "make sure they're synched critically
with the trajectory."
The second Pakistani engineer nodded. "Right. So we'll do it when the
trajectory computer runs are completed. That's scheduled for 2200 hours
tonight."
"Sounds good." Abdoullah clicked on his black walkie-talkie, a small
Kenwood, and tried to sound professional. "Firebird Two to Firebird
One. Do you read?"
There was a burst of static, and then Ramirez's voice sounded. "I copy
you, Firebird Two. Any problems?"
"Negative. The items look in perfect condition. We are taking them down
to the clean room now to install the detonators."
"Fine," Ramirez replied. "I'll meet you there." The radio voice paused.
"Incidentally, be aware there is somebody loose on the island who seems
a trifle out of synch with the situation."
"Where is he?" He was signaling for Shujat to come over and listen.
Having a problem or two always made things more fun.
"Probably up at the communications complex on the mountain. So far he's
only been a nuisance, but the matter will have to be resolved. In the
meantime, don't let anything slow down your work. We need to be
prepared for the next phase, including whatever time flexibility we
might need."
Abdoullah did not exactly like the sound of that. He had a troubling
feeling that Number One wasn't exactly telling everybody the whole
plan. He was not a man you instinctively trusted. Who the hell was he.
really. Of course, in this business you didn't necessarily trust
anybody, but still, when you were working together it was nice to think
that everybody was on the same wavelength.
In his view, a lot of questions still needed answering. Like where had
the money come from to mount this operation? The preparations, the
bribes, the equipment and the second chopper, the Sikorsky--the Hind, he
knew, had been stolen --the payments to all the third parties involved.
Everything had required money, tons of it, but the man known as Number
One clearly had all he needed. So how had this character come up with
all those millions of bucks?
His intuition told him that not everybody was going to make it to the
safe house in Malta when the time came. At the moment he had confidence
only in Rais and Shujat. And Rais was a jerk. In fact, he hadn't seen
him since he went out to get the krytrons from the cockpit of the
Sikorsky, but he should be down in the clean room by now. . . .