Roughly three hundred yards away, over an open field of scrub grass and stunted bushes, the remains of an ancient, three-story brick warehouse loomed in the darkness like a ship moored off the coast and silhouetted against a starlit sky. Long ago, like many abandoned structures in the area once an integral part of the steel-making industry, it had fallen into a state of disrepair and neglect marked by hollowed-out emptiness and rows of gaping, windowless holes. The few no-trespassing signs that had been posted were faded and tattered, and instead of the products of iron-ore foundries ready to be shipped to other parts of the country, it now housed rats, mice, pigeons, and the occasional hobo on a freight-hop to anywhere else. Eventually, under the massive onslaught of a wrecking ball, it would be demolished to make way for a business park or a distribution center for a trucking company. For now, as a last reminder of bygone industrial might, it stood silent and alone.
Rick had checked it out earlier, on the first night he had begun work on the cooling tower. He wanted a vantage point, at a safe distance, from which to trigger and view the explosion. But he also wanted to make sure they could get away quickly afterwards. The remoteness of the area made it unlikely that their activity would be discovered prematurely, before they had finished, but the noise from the explosion was sure to be heard. It would carry across the city, in all directions; within minutes every security guard within a two-mile radius would converge upon the area. They could set off the explosion from a location farther down the river, near a decommissioned foundry, or even from a low-lying hill up from the warehouse. But neither spot was near enough to one of the roads leading back to the city, and the foundry itself sat on mudflats.
“Just take your time,” Rick cautioned. “Don’t get ahead of yourself. Stay with me.”
While Jody and Ralph manned opposite ends of a broom handle and let the spool of insulated wire play out behind them, Rick followed at a distance to see that it didn’t crimp or catch on anything along the way. Before leaving the vicinity of the cooling tower, he had tied off a portion to a railroad-switching device so it wouldn’t pull on any of the wires he had rigged up inside the tower itself. Anchoring it to something stable prevented it from being dislodged en route, from the tower to the warehouse, and relieved any concern he had about anything going wrong with the attachments. In a certain sense, the operation required a delicate touch: in order to maximize the explosion, all the connections had to be maintained, and they could only be maintained if none of the wires came loose.
Twenty minutes later, the trio had crossed the open stretch of ground that lay between the cooling tower and the warehouse. The others had already arrived and were there waiting. Tony had set up his tripod and camera and was adjusting the focus for darkness. His friend Mike stood nearby, smoking one of his Nat Sherman gold-filtered cigarettes, and Heidi, Misty, and Carlos sat on the edge of a loading dock along the backside of the warehouse. The van and the two cars had been lined up abreast of the loading dock and fronted the tower like vehicles at a drive-in movie. As though by a tacit understanding of the situation’s gravity, nobody said much or only spoke in low tones.
Rick and the others came into view; Heidi jumped down and walked over.
“It went okay, huh?”
“Yeah, it went okay. Let’s just hope from here on out…”
Rick had Jody and Ralph set the spool down and then he went over to the van and got a wooden detonator out of the back. He brought it over and set it down by the spool.
“Somebody wanna give me a little light here,” he said, kneeling down.
Jody turned on a mag light and stood there holding it. The rest of the group had come up now and, as though they were medical students viewing an operating table procedure, watched intently while Rick set about preparing the last stage of their operation.
First, he undid the two dynamo screws at the top of the detonator. Then he took out a clasp knife and cut the detonating wire free of the spool. He used the clasp knife to cut back a portion of the insulation and exposed two strands of bare wire. He separated the two strands and wound each one around one of the screws. As he snugged down the screws, he gave each wire a slight tug to test for tightness.
“That oughta do it,” he said, looking up.
“We’re all set, then, are we?” Heidi couldn’t quite believe they were on the verge of making their plan a reality, but here they were—moments away from its culmination.
“My friends, this is it. And you are about to see what we came all this way for.”
“I don’t know about anyone else,” Jody laughed, “but I’m pumped!”
“Me, too!” Tony said gleefully, rubbing his hands together.
The same sentiment found expression in an exuberant exchange of high-fives and exaggerated fist-pumps. Carlos let out a couple of whoop-whoops tantamount to an Indian war cry, and one or two of the others laughed out of sheer giddiness.
Extemporaneously, in a gush of emotion, Heidi proclaimed they were about to cross the Rubicon and that they could all be deservedly proud of themselves.
“This is only the beginning,” she said. “There’s still a lot of work ahead of us, but tonight we’ve demonstrated that we’re up to the task.”
As though out of reverential acknowledgment, the heartfelt pronouncement evoked a moment of silence; then, looking at his watch, Rick said, “I hate to break up the party, but let’s get it done.”
“Can we do a group picture first?” Tony asked.
“I think you better hold off on that,” Rick said. “That’s one of those things you can do anytime.”
“But—”
“Rick’s right,” Heidi said. “We can do it afterwards, back at the motel. But you should be able to get a nice shot of it coming down, right?”
“I suppose…”
Heidi turned to Rick. “Where do you want us to be?”
“You can be anywhere you want, Heidi,” he said. “Just remember, we gotta clear outta here right afterwards. There’s not gonna be time to stand around and congratulate ourselves. And I would suggest you leave the vehicles running so we can split without delay. If fact, you might wanna sit in your cars…”
“Good idea.”
Tony took up a position behind his camera.
Proclaiming that he wanted to experience the explosion “up front and personal,” Carlos stepped a few feet away from Rick.
The others moved off to the cars.
Setting the detonator between his knees, Rick unscrewed the plunger. He looked off at the tower. Against a band of pale blue, early-morning light stretched across the horizon, it soared two hundred feet into the air and looked like a tapered cannon barrel pointing straight up at the sky. He held his breath the same way a rifleman might the instant before pulling the trigger; then, as though willing the surge of power to come deep from within himself, he set the plunger in motion.
A second later a muffled boom rippled into the early-morning darkness, and a flash of light burst from the open portal. A concussive wave of air passed overhead, and a cloud of dust mushroomed out from the base of the tower. For an instant the tower trembled and remained erect; then slowly at first, almost gracefully, with its two halves folding into each other, its upper half toppled one way and its lower half the other. The dust cloud, billowing outward and upward, sending out tentacles of smoke and debris, increased in magnitude until, drifting off into the morning darkness, it began a final suspiration.
“Jesuschristo!” Carlos whispered, gazing at the spectacle as though at the birth of a distant star. “That was some explosion, hombre!”
Tony, who had clicked off a series of camera shots throughout the explosion, stepped back from the camera and said, “My God, Rick, the way it fell—it was just so…perfect! Just absolutely perfect!”
“You really did it, Rick!” Heidi called from inside the van. “That was marvelous! A real classic!”
“Yeah, hombre, estuve una explosion muy grande,” Carlos repeated in Spanish and slapped Rick on the back. “You got it done just right, man.”
Rick suddenly stood up. “I’m not so sure…”
“Eh?”
Rick pointed to a stretch of roadway visible beyond the far end of the foundry building, four hundred yards away and to the left of the open field.
A car, its headlights on, had come into view from the opposite side of the foundry; it had stopped down the road leading to the coking plant and the tower. Heidi and the others wouldn’t have seen it at that moment because the group’s cars were parked too far from the end of the warehouse and out of view of the stretch of road Rick could see from where he stood. Tony and Carlos wouldn’t have seen it just then, either, because they were both looking at Rick. And Rick only saw it when he did because, even as the other two talked, he continued looking at where the tower had stood.
“Who the fuck is that, hombre?” Carlos let out.
“It’s not a brass band, that’s for sure!”
“What’s he doin’?”
“How the fuck should I know?”
Heidi got out of the van and walked over. “What’s the matter?”
Rick pointed.
Heidi looked. “Oh, shit! Who do you think it is?”
“Does it matter? Whoever it is, they’re here, and they probably saw everything.”
“How could they not have?”
“Yeah.”
“What do we do?”
“Get the fuck outta here, that’s what! What do you think?”
“You don’t have to tell me twice, hombre—I just left!” Carlos said. He rushed over to his car. “I’ll meet y’all back at the motel!”
“Don’t leave without me!” Tony called out.
“Get your fat ass in gear or I will!”
Tony grabbed the tripod and camera and hurried over to the car.
Mike, sitting on the passenger side, reached back and opened the door for him. Tossing camera and tripod onto the seat, Tony climbed in.
Slamming the car in reverse, Carlos looked over his shoulder and spun back into a sharp turn. He executed a hard clutch, shoved the stick into gear, and accelerated around the corner of the building and out of sight.
Carlos and Tony’s precipitate reaction spurred a like reaction in Heidi. Yelling for the other three, all sitting in Jody’s car, to leave and go back to the motel, she seized Rick by the arm and started pulling him to the van. “We have to get out of here, Rick!” she cried. “Right now!”
“No shit, Heidi!”
Rick had already cut the wires loose from the two dynamo screws; depressing the plunger and giving it a final twist to lock it in place, he picked the detonator box up and followed along behind her, over to the van. “Here, hang onto this—I’ll drive,” he said.
She took the detonator box and climbed into the passenger side; Rick hustled around to the driver’s side.
Jody had gotten out of her car; looking over the rooftop, she asked, “What’s going on?”
Ralph stuck his head out the passenger window.
“Yeah, what happened?”
“We got company,” Rick told them both. “What the hell do you think happened?”
“Where?”
“Where? Does it matter? Just go on back to the motel!” Rick’s peremptory tone was enough.
Without another word, Jody got in the car, backed around, changed gears, and drove off.
Rick got in the van, lit a cigarette, and disregarding a few bumps and loose gravel, with both hands on the wheel, followed close behind.