Without taking his eyes from the bomb, dissecting every part of it to see if there were some flaw he could detect, J.B. listened while Jak left the building and told the others to take cover. He heard them move back in the otherwise silent night, and only when their footfalls told of a sufficient distance did he move.
His hands steady in the lamplight, J.B. took one of the wires joining the chron and the plas-ex, and straightened it out so that he could see how much slack he had to play with. The wire stretched for six inches, and he could lay it on the flat metal surface of a valve plate. He then took his Tekna knife and steadied the wire as it lay flat. This was something he had to do quickly and cleanly. He had no wire cutters, so he had to use the whetted blade of the Tekna to slice through the wire in one swift cut.
There could be no second chance, no opportunity to take a second cut.
J.B. was suddenly aware of the quiet around him, and the sweat that was gathering on his forehead and running toward his eyes. It was now or never, before the slightest glimmer of nerves or doubt caused his rock steady hand to waver.
With his jaw set so tight that he could feel his teeth grind together, J.B. sliced with the Tekna. The wire cut clean through in one move, and the blade scored on the metal valve plate.
He could hear the ticking of the chron, could hear the in-time pounding of his heart and the blood that coursed through his veins, could hear the silence around and running through these as he was aware of one thing and one thing alone.
The bomb hadn’t gone off, and he was still alive.
The Armorer slumped slightly, and then, drawing a deep breath, he sliced the other wire and threw the chron across the room. He examined the plas-ex, thinking that it would come in useful after he had ascertained whether or not it had been stolen from the site’s stocks. And only then did he call the others.
THEY COLLECTED the horses and rode back to sec camp after checking for any traces that could be found. Jak retrieved the chron from where the relieved Armorer had thrown it, and it told them nothing, being just part of an old wrist chron that was battered and dust gritted. The plas-ex didn’t come from the work site, as they immediately checked the types of plas-ex in the store area. Not only was it of a different type, but also the store showed no signs of breaking and entering. The tracks of the wag could have been from any vehicle, and headed off to the road where they would be lost. There were also no signs that the fuel tank of the wag had been hit. At least a trail of lost fuel would suggest a chance of catching up with the saboteur.
Ryan reported the matter to Myall, who checked it in with Baron Silas via the radio. When he asked why they hadn’t used their handsets to call for assistance, Ryan told him simply that no one could have arrived in time to help, a point the sec chief had to concede.
Their patrol ended in the knowledge that they had stamped their authority on part of the camp and had thwarted another attempt to sabotage the refinery, but were still no nearer finding out who was responsible.
Although the odds were getting better on it being an outside job, as J.B. had suspected. If so, it was then a matter of who or why.
Something it would be hard to answer as long as trouble continued to distract them within the camp.
THEIR NEXT PATROL was the following evening, and they had spent the day resting and maintaining their arms before getting in a little more practice on the horses. Mildred was still worried about Dean’s allergy, and after he had spent some time on horseback during the afternoon she had him in their sleeping quarters, stripped and laid out on one of their makeshift beds.