Clint Faraday Collection C: Murder in Motion Collector's Edition by CD Moulton Page A

people will tolerate only so
much.”
    “ Gina
said he called you his friend and bought you expensive drinks. She
thought you were the most gallant and macho person she ever saw!
You stood up to a person everybody around here is scared of and
made him back down!”
    “ Then
she, also, watches too much of the telly silliness.”
    They were already semi-pals. This made him a
real pal. Later, while driving around the local countryside, Clint
managed to learn that there was a second crusher area near the
silver mine. Julio said there was one truck going out there a lot
that the Russian was driving. He didn’t like that. Foreigners
weren’t allowed to operate equipment as heavy as that truck in
Panamá. He pointed out the little rutted road the truck went up.
Clint acted like it was a little interesting, but said he didn’t
know anything about mining and didn’t want to.
    They went out on a little peninsula where
Clint already owned (thanks to Manny) some property. There was a
large rocky plot for sale, but nobody seemed interested. It was the
plot that caused Manny to buy his – to put an end to the big
development planned on the plot after they could manage to buy the
part Manny bought just before they made the deal. Bummer!
    Clint went back to town about four. He
figured he was able to piece a lot of it together. What he’d
learned about uranium meant a tremendous amount of rock had to be
crushed to get a small amount of uranium. Critical mass wasn’t
much, but he would have to crush and process quite a few tons of
rock to get enough for a bomb.
    Julio never saw anyone but Ivan going out
that road. He was doing it himself. Clint wanted to know how he was
managing it so that he could get away with the thing. He also
wondered if that bunch had already gotten enough uranium out to
make a bomb. That may have been what they were doing when this
started. Wouldn’t the automatic detectors find something like
uranium?
    Not if it was in thick lead containers. That
would be heavy.
    Clint didn’t think they had done that. There
was something else they wanted him to be distracted from.
    Not necessarily! They wanted to keep him on
the Bocas side so he wouldn’t ever learn what this was about and so
that he’d never find the uranium mine. They knew he had set the
silver mine up and that he knew the family there. That meant the
road to the uranium mine went into the back of the property. It was
a very big place and Orlando surely wouldn’t know about it. He
wouldn’t allow it.
    Clint decided he was going to go up that road
to find out what they had and exactly how they were handling
it.
     
    The Mine
    Clint waited until dark, then went by El
Critico to see if Ivan was there. He was.
    Clint could trust Julio so had the taxi take
him to the road. Julio said he could take the taxi up that road so
went in. If anyone asked, there was no fence or gate on that road
so it was legal to go on it. There wasn’t even a sign saying it was
private.
    The road went around a few small hills, then
into Orlando’s property for only a hundred fifty meters or so.
There was the truck and a big pile of crushed rock just outside a
shed. The crusher was inside the shed, which was insulated so that
little sound would escape. There was a radiation suit on a rack.
There were three lead containers, one open and empty, the other two
sealed. From what Clint understood the two containers would mass at
about half critical mass together, judging by the volume in each.
If some was sent out it was probably a shipment of three containers
to make up half the critical mass. All they would need was these
three filled. Clint would see they didn’t ever receive the last
three. He told Julio to go outside, then he put on the radiation
suit. He opened the two sealed containers and took the tubes of
uranium out and told Julio to stay at least twenty feet from him as
he took it into the hole the rock was taken from. He hid the tubes
in a crevice about twenty feet into