hidden by the surrounding jungle; choose one of these to
land on. Well, that iss easy.

"The spillway iss about midway in Gatun Dam: its channel has been cut
through a hill. You come along the side of this channel right up close
to the spillway--close, remember!--and leave the box there. The range
of the rays, you know, iss two hundred feet: set them to fire one
minute after you leave the box. They will destroy the seven gates of
the spillway and also part of the dam and the hydro-electric station.
Gatun Lake will then empty itself; the canal will be half drained; the
power will be gone--it will take half a year to repair it all. The
ZX-1 can fly up to the east coast, thanks to Zenalishin's
fumbling--yess; but these American fleets are massed in the Pacific;
they will have to go around South America to reach the Atlantic--and
that will take weeks.

"And in that time the Soviet has crossed the Atlantic uncontested and
has paralyzed the heart of America, her eastern states. Ah, it iss
magnificent!"

* * * * *

But Kashtanov's thoughts were elsewhere. Peering hard at the chart, he
said:

"I have a minute to get clear, eh? Well, I can do that; but won't the
water sweeping through from Gatun Lake after the spillway is wrecked
catch me?"

"No. You run up the hill the spillway channel is cut through; it iss
high ground, and the golf course iss on high ground. No one will see
you coming or going, naturally, and the box iss not big enough to be
noticed at night. The noise of its equalizers will be covered by the
water coming through the spillway. It iss--what they say?--fool-proof.
You cannot fail, Kashtanov. And--" he broke into swift-flowing, liquid
Russian, his swarthy face lighting up, his arms waving, one of them
slapping the other's back.

"Stop the dramatics," said Kashtanov, "and speak in English. I've
worked so long in America, Russian is hard to understand. Time to
begin?"

Istafiev glanced at a watch on his wrist. "A few minutes. Look you."
He went to a side locker in the room, opened it, hauled out with both
hands a box of plain dull metal, and put it on the table. It was
larger than the one Chris Travers had seen on the ZX-1, but otherwise
similar.

"A double charge of nitro-lanarline iss in this," murmured Istafiev
complacently. "Imagine it, when released! You know the working well,
do you not? Yess. Well, I put it in the plane, ready." He stepped to
the hut's single doo