69. MAGNETS

G arreth took Tito to the far end of the second table, where ten disks, each no thicker than a small coin, and about three inches in diameter, were arranged on a half-sheet of fresh plywood.

Someone had sprayed these with turquoise-blue paint, then with a faint dusting of dark gray, then with a dull topcoat. Each one lay in its own blur of overspray. The three aerosol cans stood in a row at one end of the plywood. Putting on latex gloves, Garreth carefully picked one up, exposing the perfect round of unsprayed plywood beneath. He showed Tito its unpainted back, bright silver metal. “Rare-earth magnets,” he said, “painted to match the box as closely as possible.” He indicated two printouts, photographs of a shipping container, a dirty turquoise blue. “Once you place one on a flat steel surface, it’s difficult to remove, except with a knife or a thin screwdriver blade. We have ten, but you’ll have a maximum of nine holes to cover. The spare is in case you drop one, but try not to.”

“How do I carry them?”

“They either stick together, almost too firmly to separate, or they repel one another, depending on which way they’re facing. So you’ll use this.” He indicated a rectangle of stiff black plastic, covered with silver tape. A length of olive paracord was looped through two holes, at one end. “Soft plastic envelopes under the tape, one for each disk. You carry it in down the front of your jeans, then hang it around your neck for climbing. Slip them out one at a time as you cover the nine holes. They should cover any spalling completely, as well as sealing the hole.”

“What is ‘spalling’?”

“When the bullet pierces the painted steel,” Garreth said, “it bends the steel inward. The paint isn’t flexible, so it shatters. Some of it vaporizes. Result is bright, shiny steel, visible around the hole. The hole itself is no bigger than the tip of your finger. It’s the spalling that visually identifies a bullet hole, so we have to cover it. And we want as tight a seal as possible, because we don’t want to be setting off sensors.”

“And when they have been closed?”

“You have to find your own way out. The man who’ll take you in can’t help us with that. We’ll go over the maps and the satellite images one more time. Don’t climb until the midnight buzzer stops. When you’ve sealed it, get out. When you’re out, call us. We’ll pick you up. Otherwise, the phone’s only for an emergency.”

Tito nodded. “Do you know that woman?” he asked.

“I hadn’t met her before,” said Garreth, after a pause.

“I have seen posters of her, in shops on St. Marks Place. Why is she here?”

“She knows Bobby,” Garreth said.

“He is unhappy to see her?”

“He’s having a bit of a meltdown generally, isn’t he? But you and I, we have to keep this central to mission, right?”

“Yes.”

“Good. When you go up to the box, you’ll be wearing this.” He indicated a black filter-mask in a large Ziploc bag. “We don’t want you inhaling anything. When you get down from the stack, stick it somewhere it won’t be found for a while. And no prints, of course.”

“Cameras?”

“Everywhere. But our box is in the top tier of a stack, and if everything’s gone right, it’s in a blind spot. The rest of the time, you hood up and we hope for the best.”

“The woman,” Tito asked, concerned by what seemed a serious breach of protocol, “if she isn’t one of you, and you’ve never seen her before, how do you know she isn’t wearing a wire?”

Garreth indicated the three black antennas of the yellow-cased jammer Tito had seen him use in Union Square, further down the table. “Nothing here broadcasting,” he said, softly, “is there?”

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