Seven Silent Men (2 page)

“If I find out you're responsible again, you're goddam right,” Krueger answered.

“You really think we're screwing up Jarrel's sign?” Rodney Willis said in disbelief.

“That last time you tried to tap his phones, you blew fuses in a four-block area,” Krueger reminded.

It was curious, on many counts, that John Leslie Krueger noticed the trouble before anyone else on the field. First off, not only was Krueger the only black player on either softball team, he was but one of twenty-two hundred black people in a city of five hundred thousand whites … Prairie Port, Missouri. And the Prairie Farmer Association, on whose office building the giant sign stood, was as vehemently pro-segregationist an organization as existed in the Midwest. Secondly, the local FBI, whose office team Krueger was pitching against, had conducted a long and much disputed investigation of the Prairie Farmer Association and its board chairman, Wilkie Jarrel, but for financial rather than racial malfeasance. Thirdly, Jarrel's battery of expensive lawyers had petitioned Krueger complaining of unauthorized activities by the FBI against their client. Lastly, it had been Krueger who had ordered the FBI to discontinue its investigation of Jarrel and who, on two occasions, had hauled Cub Hennessy, among other Bureau agents, into his courtroom and reprimanded them for violating that order.

“89°” stopped flashing on and off, grew constantly brighter. “8:12
PM
” remained superimposed over the “89°” but suddenly began blinking. Just as suddenly the entire electric display screen went to black. A moment later it was on again with “8:12
PM
” blinking at half strength. The huge sign went black. Stayed black many seconds. Came on again with all one thousand bulbs burning hotter than ever. Blue-white hot. So hot several bulbs popped into smoke. The board faded to black. Came on with every bulb a faint and shimmering red. Went to black. Stayed black.

“Yes, sir, J. L., I sure t'hell wish that was us short-circuiting Jarrel.” Cub shook his head in envy, turned and waited for the other players to reassume their positions … stepped up to home plate and raised his bat and adjusted his stance and watched Krueger's windmill windup begin … anticipated the release and swung away before actually seeing the ball leave Krueger's hand. The bat missed the hurtling white target by a full foot.

Cub Hennessy walked toward the bench, knelt to rub dirt on the grip of the bat, glanced at the grandstand long enough to notice Sissy grimacing at him with that you-can-do-it grimace he had come to know all too well.

He returned to home plate thinking that maybe he should bunt. Problem was, he was a rotten bunter. And even if he got lucky and the bunted ball allowed Rodney Willis to score from second, the Golden Bricks would still be one run behind. No, if you're going to count on luck, he told himself, then go for broke. Try to hit the little bugger right out of the park like you've been trying to do all night.

Cub took a stance slightly higher than before, choking up on the bat. He saw the windmill windup finish its first and second cycle, then as the arm rocketed down for a third time, clenched his teeth and swung the bat forward with all the strength in him. Swung as before, without really having seen the ball released. The sound and feel of his impacting bat told him he had made perfect and mighty contact.

All eyes turned skyward as the soaring softball disappeared into the blackness above the towering poles of arc lights, remained lost for moments, came back into view far, far out and high in center field.

Jules Shapiro gave chase, running with amazing fleetness for an awkward man, overtook the lazily arching ball … positioned himself at a spot he presumed would be in the drop path … held up his glove … as the white ball seemed to hover in space, restationed himself once, then twice, then a third time.

The ball began to plummet. When it was roughly fifteen feet above Shapiro's waiting glove, the lights went off. The ball park was plunged into darkness.

Then, along the nearby riverfront of Prairie Port, from the looming rock-faced palisades in the north to the flatlands downstream, lights began to lower and dim, and many, many of them, whole stretches of them, blacked out.

The time was 8:16
P
.
M
.

BOOK

ONE

ONE

8:17
P
.
M
.

Little Haifa adjusted the battery-powered light attached to his blue metal miner's hat, hiked up his hip-high yellow vinyl fisherman's boots and splashed forward through the tunnel north of the main cavern; entered and crossed a small grotto; ducked along a low passageway; came out in the improvised command bunker fashioned from a decaying underground control booth of a long-abandoned irrigation and flood-control system. Little Haifa removed his hardhat and checked the first of four television monitoring screens. The bank premises some forty feet above, as expected, were empty … were, as expected, illuminated by soft, low-wattage night lights. The second TV monitor screen offered another view of the ground-level office, a moving view which revealed the two glowing red dots of an operative burglary alarm system. He glanced over at the third screen, saw that the street outside the bank was dark and empty. The fourth screen displayed the front of a massive, burnished-metal, walk-in vault.

Little Haifa clamped on a radio headset … asked into the tiny microphone if the wires in the main cavern were ready to be connected.

Wiggles's voice told him everything was ready for connection.

Little Haifa asked if the scaffold had been rolled away.

The voice of Windy Walt said the scaffold was away.

Little Haifa called for Worm, inquired of Worm if the supply cave had been sealed off with sandbags.

Worm, via walkie-talkie, confirmed that the cave had just been sealed off … that all the supplies were secure within.

Little Haifa asked Rat the condition of the passage leading from the south wall of the main cavern.

Rat said the sandbags were in place just inside the passage mouth, that he was already behind them waiting to be joined by Windy Walt and Worm.

Little Haifa raised Cowboy, wanted to know from Cowboy the state of the tunnel leading into the northern side of the cavern, the tunnel through which Little Haifa had traveled to reach the command bunker.

Cowboy said the tunnel was sandbagged shut except for a narrow opening by which Wiggles could enter.

Little Haifa asked Meadow Muffin to return to the command bunker.

Thirty seconds later, Meadow Muffin, his walkie-talkie in hand, emerged through a steel hatch in the floor of the bunker … announced that the water level of the irrigation tunnel beneath them was three and a half feet lower than it should be, that the water current must be speeded up.

Little Haifa called into the mircophone for Mule. When there was no reply, he called louder.

Mule's voice responded from far off, asked what was so important.

Little Haifa half shouted that the water level and water flow in the irrigation tunnel should be increased substantially.

Mule answered, Gotcha.

The naked light bulb dangling beside Little Haifa's head dimmed. A faint echo of creaking wood and metal rose as the distant water-control machinery activated.

Little Haifa again spoke loudly, ordered everyone but Mule to leave the main cavern and take refuge in their designated shelters with their hardhats on and the hat's miner's light on and hat's plastic visor down.

Cowboy, then Rat, soon were heard saying the order had been obeyed.

Little Haifa told Wiggles to make the final connection and go to his assigned shelter and report in.

Seconds later Wiggles said he was secure behind sandbags and that the connection had been made.

Little Haifa checked the television monitor screens, saw that everything within the bank premises and on the street beyond was normal, announced into the microphone that the countdown was beginning … put his hand on the control switch of the console detonator … began to count backward from 20 to 19 to 18 to 17 … kept his eyes on the monitoring screen showing the front of the walk-in vault … at the count of 6 slowed the cadence slightly … 5 .… 4 ..… 3 …… 2 …….

The detonation switch twisted to “activate.”

A thud shook the concrete bunker but did not move the vault door he was watching on the TV screen. Little Haifa glanced at another monitor. The two red lights of the alarm system continued to glow. He looked at a third screen. No one was on the street outside the bank.

Little Haifa announced into the microphone that the bank's alarm system had not gone off as a result of the explosion … that he would now inspect the results … that everyone should remain in place except Wiggles and Cowboy.

He handed the headset to Meadow Muffin, donned his hardhat realizing he had forgotten to turn off the miner's lamp on its front, grabbed an Army-issue walkie-talkie, ducked out the command bunker and through the short low passageway … recrossed the small grotto … splashed forward through a half inch of water in a long tunnel … passed around a barrier of sandbags piled just within the tunnel's mouth … emerged from the tunnel into a huge underground cavern … a twenty-five-foot-high subterranean chamber of rock and clay illuminated by string after string of suspended, unfrosted electric light bulbs.

Wiggles and Cowboy, both in hardhats, stood beside a portable scaffold pointing up. A large segment of rock ceiling had been blasted away. Lying exposed above was mangled and shattered concrete … the concrete floor of the building overhead.

Wiggles limped rapidly forward on a gimp leg, pulled the portable scaffold out and around. Held it firm. Little Haifa shed his fisherman's boots and climbed the scaffold to the ceiling, began pulling at the shattered concrete. It fell away more easily than expected. If his calculations were correct, the bottom of the vault would be four to five feet up. What bothered him as he continued tearing down debris was that the vault hadn't budged one mite during the explosion. This could mean the concrete floor was thicker than the estimated four to five feet. It could mean there wasn't any vault or vault room directly above. Or bank.

Little Haifa signaled for assistance. Cowboy, in black-and-white snakeskin riding boots, ascended the scaffold and with pick and electric drill attacked the more resistant portions of concrete. Little Haifa soon learned his error. Two and a half feet up, not four or five, a metal surface was struck. A hard metal surface.

Little Haifa raised his walkie-talkie and proclaimed he was right on target, that he had reached the bottom of the vault. He checked his wristwatch and saw that it was 9:17
P
.
M
., then repeated the time into the radio and added they were slightly ahead of schedule and should be done with the job and out on the river well before 12:30. He told Meadow Muffin to use the command bunker's powerful radio transmitter to let Mule know everything would now proceed as planned. He ordered Windy Walt and Worm and Rat, who were waiting in the sandbag-shut passage on the southern side of the cavern, to exit out of the opposite end of the passageway and prepare the platform in the irrigation tunnel for their impending getaway … turn on the lights and stake out the four areas of embarkation and open the equipment cartons.

More concrete was chopped and drilled away. The exposed bottom surface of the metal vault expanded to a roughly three-foot-by-three-foot square. Little Haifa took up the electric drill, inserted a diamond bit and began boring up into the hard alloy overhead.

Eleven holes were drilled before Little Haifa and Cowboy descended the scaffold. Cowboy and Wiggles went and waited in the southern passageway. Little Haifa entered the partially sandbagged storage cave, emerged carrying a small wooden rack containing eleven vials of nitroglycerin with attached fusing … holding the rack of volatile explosives as steadily as possible, he reclimbed the scaffold ever so carefully.

Ever so slowly, so cautiously, the first vial of nitroglycerin was removed from the rack and raised and slid into an angular hole drilled in the metal overhead … sealed in by plastic and with its connecting fuse exposed and dangling. The second vial was inserted in the next slot and sealed with its fuse dangling. Another hole was filled and sealed. Then another.

When the final vial was in place, Little Haifa gathered the eleven dangling fuses, twisted them into one central cord and attached the cord to a master fuse already suspended from the ceiling which trailed down the twenty-five feet to the cavern floor below.

Perspiring, Little Haifa descended the scaffold, plunked onto the ground, raised his walkie-talkie, ordered Meadow Muffin to take a final check, listened as Meadow Muffin said all four television screens showed conditions at the bank premises to be normal.

Little Haifa asked for a progress report from the loading platform in the irrigation tunnel.

Windy Walt said all the physical chores had been seen to but that there was trouble with the water level in the tunnel … that the water was three and a half feet lower than it should be … a good three and a half feet below the platform … that the water flow seemed far weaker than was advisable … dangerously slow.

Little Haifa ordered Windy Walt and Rat and Worm into the main cavern, then walkie-talkied Meadow Muffin and told him to tell Mule to totally cut off the supply of water to the Sewerage Department's secondary mains and anywhere else … to concentrate only on the main irrigation tunnel … to divert all the water he could into the main irrigation tunnel.

A minute of silence elapsed before Meadow Muffin's voice emitted from Little Haifa's walkie-talkie saying Mule said it was dangerous to cut off the water to the Sewerage Department's secondary mains … that if he did, Sewerage Department officials would see that something was wrong … would see that someone was tampering with the water controls of the city.