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just a guide, as it could be plus or minus nine seconds—or even quicker if the core was broken and the flame jumped the gaps instead of burning its way along the fuse. That was the reason why I hadn’t connected the fuse in advance, but kept it rolled up: if there was a break in the powder it could be too big a gap for the flame to jump, and we’d have no detonation.
    Once an OBI was ignited by the fuse it would burn for about two and a half minutes. That meant that as soon as the first one sparked up there would be about another minute and a half before the next one did. Which meant two of them burning together for a minute, and by the time the first had burnt out, the third would be ignited, and so on to the fourth. I needed the sort of heat generated by two of these things burning at once to make sure the fuel ignited.
    I opened the Tupperware lids of the OBIs and fed the safety fuse over the exposed mixture in each of the boxes. They were now ready to party.
    Hubba-Hubba was looking over his shoulder as he moved slowly backward toward me, unreeling another spool of fuse wire as he went. This was now connected to one of the frame charges via two detonators. It wasn’t the same kind of fuse I’d been using. This was “fuse instantaneous,” which goes off with the sound of a gunshot because the burn is so fast. There’s a little ridge that runs along the plastic coating so at night you can always distinguish it from the straightforward Clint Eastwood stuff. He cut the fuse from his spool without a word, and went back to do the same with the second charge.
    The PIRA timer unit would initiate the fuse instantaneous, which would burn at warp speed to a four-way connector, a three-inch-by-three-inch green plastic box with a hole in each side. I didn’t know what the small worn-out aluminum plate stuck to its base was called in Russian, but that was the name I knew it by. All this box did was allow three other lengths of fuse to be ignited from the one—Hubba-Hubba’s two lengths of fuse instantaneous to the two charges, and my safety fuse for the OBIs.
    Hubba-Hubba was now unreeling the fuse instantaneous from the second charge back toward me as I took the safety fuse and cut it from the reel six inches back from the first OBI, making sure the cut was straight so the maximum amount of powder was exposed to ignite it in the four-way connector. I then pushed the end of it into one of the rubber recesses, giving it a half-turn so that the teeth inside gripped the plastic coating. Hubba-Hubba placed the two fuses instantaneous next to me and went to help Lotfi.
    I cut his two lengths of fuse in the same way before feeding the lines into the connector as the sound of Lotfi’s rubber mallet hitting his chisel filled the air and the navigation lights of a jet miles up floated silently over us.
    I checked the three lines that were, so far, in the connector to ensure the three lines into it were secure before cutting a three-foot length of the ridged fuse instantaneous and placing it in the last free hole. This was the length that went to the timer unit, a three-inch-thick, postcard-sized wooden box.
    Then, as I lay on my stomach and started to prepare, a vehicle drove along the road from the direction of Oran.
    The noise got louder as it came around to the base of the peninsula. I could tell by the engine note and the sound of the tires that it wasn’t on the road anymore, it was going cross-country.
    Shit, police.
    I heard a torrent of Arabic whispers from the other two a few yards away. I got their attention. “Lotfi, Lotfi! Take a look.”
    He got onto his knees, then slowly raised his head. Instinctively I checked that my Makharov was still in place.
    I got up and looked over their heads. The vehicle was a civilian 4x4, heading for the house. The headlights were on high beam and bounced up and down on the garage doors set into the compound wall. As it got closer to the building the driver sounded the horn.
    Shit, what