In spite of good intentions, Carter found it hard to concentrate on the task at hand.
It had taken a good part of the day to get the lab cleaned up, even with some of the other guys lending a hand. Carter had a feeling he'd have been better off doing it alone. Although the lab appeared more often than not to operate on the basis of total chaos, he actually had it very precisely organized, using a system that was more instinctive than rational, but which worked for him. Nobody else had a clue how it worked. So he'd spent most of the afternoon rearranging things that had been put in the wrong places. Even now, he had a vague sense that something wasn't quite right about it.
It didn't help, knowing Staller had been in here the day before. Even if he hadn't touched anything, he'd probably had a good look round, and Carter could just picture the contempt with which he would have viewed the apparent disorder.
Of course, how the lab was maintained was no business of Staller's. But Carter still felt sick when he thought about it. If the major needed anything more to justify the opinions he'd been throwing around, he would have found it right here.
Maybe I should fix it up better. The thought came to mind even while Carter was getting his materials together. Because of the difficulty in obtaining some standard ingredients on account of wartime shortages, he had devised a couple of recipes of his own for home-made smoke bombs. He'd made them so often that he could generally put his hands on the right chemicals without even thinking about it. But last night's mistake, and Staller's remarks about it, had brought him up short.
He knew he wasn't incompetent, but maybe he'd gotten careless, which was almost as bad.
"In fact, it's probably worse," he said aloud.
"What's worse?" asked Kinch, from the entrance. Carter hadn't noticed him there, and he jumped, and dropped the crucible he'd just picked up. "Sorry, didn't mean to scare you," added Kinch.
"Yeah. Sure." Carter picked up the crucible, and inspected it for damage.
"You okay?"
"Fine. I'm fine," replied Carter. The crucible wasn't cracked. He put it down, and began rummaging amongst the clutter on the workbench, avoiding Kinch's eye. "What d'you want, Kinch?"
"Just checking how things are going," murmured Kinch.
"Haven't started yet." Carter looked at his watch. He'd been down here for nearly an hour and had nothing to show for it. "Had to finish clearing up," he added, by way of excuse.
"Uh-huh," murmured Kinch, glancing around at the mess. "You sure you don't need a hand with getting everything straight?"
Carter gave him a puzzled look. "I already finished that."
"Okay, if you say so." Kinch came over to the workbench. For a couple of minutes he stood watching while Carter worked.
"Is there something you want, Kinch?" said Carter at last.
Kinch leaned forward, resting his elbows on the edge of the benchtop. "Yeah, there is. I've been thinking about last night."
"What about it?" Carter murmured, looking sideways at him.
There was a long pause before Kinch replied. "Staller told us he'd been poking round the place. He said he'd just looked in here, but he didn't touch anything. What if he did?"
"You mean...?"
"I mean, what if that accident wasn't an accident?"
Carter sighed. "It was an accident, Kinch. You want to know exactly how I fouled up? I forgot what I was supposed to be doing, and started making explosives instead of smoke bombs, and the mixture was all wrong, so up she went. That's all."
"Okay. Only it seems like Staller's spent his whole time here trying to undermine you with the colonel," said Kinch. "I just wondered if maybe he helped things along a little."
"He wouldn't know how," replied Carter, with a scornful sniff. "The guy doesn't know enough chemistry to mix a drink, let alone set up an explosion. Unless he used dynamite, which he didn't."
"You're sure?"
"I can tell the difference, you know," Carter flashed back irritably. "Just by the smell of the stuff, I can tell. Plus it's a completely different kind of blast, would have done a lot more damage. You set off dynamite in here, nobody would be walking out." After a moment he added, "Anyway, since when did I need any help to make a mess of things?"
"You're not that bad, Carter." Kinch straightened up, frowning. "I still think I should tell the colonel Staller was down here. I meant to last night, but with one thing and another, it slipped my mind."
"You mean, because I blew up the lab?"
"There was a lot going on," Kinch replied evasively. After a moment, he added, "I guess if Staller had done anything, he wouldn't be dumb enough to admit he'd been in here."
He contemplated the thought, then put it aside. "I better get back to the radio. You sure you don't need anything?"
Carter grunted distractedly, without looking up. Taking that as dismissal, Kinch left.
As soon as he was out of sight, Carter stopped what he was doing, his mind seizing on the new ideas Kinch had left behind. The suggestion that Staller might go beyond mere criticism, that he might even sabotage Carter's work, had come as something of a shock. But he didn't buy it, he knew how it had happened. Anyway, there was no reason why Staller would want to do something like that. He had nothing to gain by it, and it didn't seem possible that he'd jeopardize his mission, and the safety of his agent in Düsseldorf, out of simple malice.
But those things he'd been saying, that was a whole different matter. Carter had felt sick, every time he thought about them. Maybe he had gotten the whole thing wrong. Staller must have felt pretty cheap, when he found Carter here, and realized what Hogan thought about the whole situation. Maybe he thought that by making Carter look bad, it would make his own actions look better. Or maybe it was just spite. Either way, it looked like Kinch wasn't falling for it, and Colonel Hogan hadn't, either.
After a while, Carter got back on with his work, still mulling over this new point of view. He fetched the big glass jar of nitrate from its place in the glass-fronted cabinet along the back wall, where he kept the more volatile materials. There was scarcely room for it on the workbench, but he managed to push a few things aside to clear a space for it.
It still didn't seem right, somehow. Staller was a smart guy, he must know Hogan wasn't going to go for it. So maybe the explosion yesterday had really scared him. Carter, measuring out the white powder into a beaker, gave a soft, malicious snigger at the idea. At least he'd given the guy something to worry about.
He reached for the flask where he'd already mixed the other ingredients, went to pour it into the beaker – and froze. Then, very carefully, he put the flask down, on the other side of the workbench.
He'd just nearly done it again. In fact, he'd nearly done something much worse. The white crystals in that beaker were not potassium nitrate, but something considerably less stable, something they'd swiped from a chemical lab a few months ago, and which he was still experimenting with. If he'd added his special fuel-moderant mixture, the reaction would have been immediate and violent. Even the fumes from the mixture might have been enough to set it off. That wasn't so bad, though. What made it worse was that the jar from which the stuff had come was still sitting open on the workbench. The first reaction might have been enough to set that off as well. And if that had happened…
"Oh, boy," muttered Carter. He tried to pick up the beaker, to put the powder back into the jar, but his hands were shaking too much. He closed his eyes for a moment, and took a deep breath, trying to steady his nerves.
"Carter…?"
He almost jumped out of his skin. He hadn't realized Mills was at the entrance to the lab.
"You okay?" he added, looking at Carter with wide, startled eyes.
It took Carter a couple of seconds to find his voice. "For Pete's sakes, Mills, why'd you sneak up on a guy like that? You want to cause an accident or something?"
"Sorry, I just…" Mills' voice trailed off, as he caught sight of the big glass jar on the bench. "Uh…Kinch told me to come and see how things were going."
"Well, they'll go a lot better if you guys don't keep coming in and bothering me," Carter snapped.
"Yeah, right. Sorry," said Mills again. He hesitated, then added, "Are you using that?"
Carter felt himself going red. "You got a problem with it?" he asked.
"Well…well, it's pretty volatile…" Mills broke off again, flushing in turn. He might not be as competent a chemist as Carter, but he knew a fair bit for an amateur, and he'd been in on some of Carter's experiments with the new compound.
"You saying I don't know what I'm doing?" Carter straightened up. Even if he had messed up again, no way was he admitting it to Mills, anyway.
"No," replied Mills after a pause. "I'm just saying, there's safer ways to make a smoke bomb."
"Okay, when it's your turn to make 'em, you can make 'em any way you want," said Carter.
Mills took a step backwards. "Sure," he murmured uneasily.
An uncomfortable silence ensued. Neither of them was sure what to do next. Mills was clearly deeply apprehensive, not to mention scared, but he made no move towards retreat. It made things awkward. Carter had no intention of backing down, but going ahead with the mixture would be suicide. He moved a few things around, trying to look busy, hoping Mills would take the hint.
"You don't have to stick around here, you know," he said.
Mills shrugged, trying to appear relaxed, and failing. "I don't mind," he replied, not taking his eyes off the jar of white powder.
"Well, I do." Carter pushed a tripod to one side, and it fell to the floor. "I'm trying to work here, you sure aren't helping. You know what, pal? You're starting to give me the creeps, hanging around all the time."
He spoke at random, too desperate to get Mills out of the lab to think about what he was saying, or how it sounded. But Mills' eyes snapped towards him, wide and startled. He tried to speak, then closed his mouth, shaking his head in disbelief. Then without a word he turned and left.
He stopped a little way along the tunnel, and leaned against the wall. For a couple of minutes he just stayed there, breathing hard, his lips occasionally twitching as he fought down his anger. That had hurt, and from Carter of all people, had been completely unexpected.
Then from behind him he heard Carter's voice, nervous and tentative. "Hey, Mills? Look, buddy, that crack I just made…"
Mills straightened up, and turned to answer. But he never got the words out. Likewise, he never saw the flash of light from the lab. All he was aware of was the shock of concussive force which threw him to the floor, and the deep, almost elemental wave of sound that filled the tunnel. Instinctively he curled up, covering his head in a desperate bid to protect himself
The vibrations died away into a shocking silence. Slowly, Mills lifted his head, blinking as dust and grit got into his eyes. The air was thick with it, he couldn't see more than a couple of feet. Carter wasn't within sight, nor could Mills hear any sound from him. But he heard something else, as if from a great distance - the low rumble of collapsing earth, from somewhere in the tunnels.