Ever since Joey Silva went to jail, Philly DeSimone has been heavily guarded.

Part of it is just being smart and careful; a person in Philly’s new position never knows when someone might take a shot at him. Certainly there are enough people Philly has wronged in his life. And while Joey doesn’t seem to realize that Philly is responsible for his current plight, Philly can’t be quite sure of that.

The other part is that Philly has an interest in it appearing that he is in danger, since from the beginning he’s wanted the appearance of a possible war between Tartaro and Joey Silva. Might as well continue that deception.

But on this morning, Philly left without his guards, because he did not want anyone to know where he was going. He was meeting Nick Saulter at a storage facility in Lyndhurst, where he had been storing the explosive device since getting it from the courier.

Philly would have preferred not to be so directly involved, but he’d had no choice. He was the only one who had met with the courier, and who had received instructions on how to set the device. He hadn’t trusted that to anyone else, mainly because no one else in his organization besides Nick knew about this.

He hadn’t regretted that decision. This way no one other than Nick could ever talk to the cops about him, and that would be dealt with after this was over. He knew that Nick believed his pay for doing this job would make him wealthy for the rest of his life, and that was actually true.

What Nick didn’t know was that his life was going to end before the day was out. Philly did not come this far to leave any loose ends.

Nick was waiting for Philly at the storage facility, and they went inside. Nick was already wearing the beard and glasses that would serve as enough of a disguise to make him impossible to identify if the security cameras successfully photographed him. He brought with him the shopping bag from Cara’s Village, a toy store inside Paramus Park, that he had gotten during the last rehearsal.

Having the device in that bag would make it even less likely to attract attention, since many shoppers would have similar bags. It was made of a heavy plastic, strong enough to carry the device, but not quite strong enough to withstand the impact of the explosion. A bag made out of steel wouldn’t be nearly strong enough for that.

Philly didn’t need to teach him how to set the device, because he was going to do that himself. That presented the tiniest of risks; the device had a cell phone number, and only Philly knew that number. But if someone, anyone, happened to dial a wrong number in the next few hours and reached that device, it would not go well for whoever was standing nearby.

But the odds against that wrong number were worth bucking, if the alternative was Nick having to set the device. Nick was not the brightest guy in the world, although there was no one other than himself that Philly would have trusted to do the job.

Philly put the device in the bag, and again went over the instructions. The restating of the plan was probably unnecessary, since it was to be done exactly the same as the rehearsals. But Philly wasn’t taking any chances.

Nick was to arrive at twelve thirty, go up to the food court and order two hamburgers, fries, and soda at the counter, and take it all to a table near the center. He would put the bag under the table, and at twelve fifty he would leave.

The bag would remain under the table, and Philly would leave his jacket draped on the seat. He would also leave one uneaten hamburger on the table, as well as half of the drink. It would appear to anyone that he had gone off, probably to the bathroom, and was coming right back.

The chances of anyone thinking otherwise and reacting within those ten minutes in a manner to avoid the explosion were infinitesimal.

The whole process at the storage facility took about fifteen minutes, and Philly and Nick left and drove off in their separate cars. Nick carried the bag very carefully, and laid it gently on the seat on some pillows. He knew that it would take the phone call to set it off, but why take chances?