Public Enemy

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He pressed the button and the cacophony began. The big door descended, wheels running noisily along the twin metal tracks, and then it was over, and he stood in silence, and darkness. He thought of releasing his grip on the handle of the coffee mug he held; he knew the ceramic mug would shatter, the lukewarm coffee pooling on the concrete floor, never to be swept clean. But he didn’t drop the mug. Instead, he made his way in the semidarkness to the light switch, and in a few seconds the ceiling-mounted rack of fluorescent bulbs bathed the garage in a diffused moon lime glow.

A black Chevy Blazer occupied one side of the garage. Along the opposite wall were rows of fertilizer bags, stacked nearly to the ceiling. Beside the fertilizer stood bags of grass seed and topsoil; two dozen red, five-gallon fuel canisters were pushed against the bags.

The man approached the workbench at the back of the garage. He used pliers, a Phillips-head screwdriver, and a soldering gun to secure a series of contents within seven crimped lengths of narrow brass pipe. This took him about twenty minutes. When he finished, he set the seven devices in a neat line on the bench.

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