Doctor Fung and Dan Barrister

Gold River Munitions Factory, 17th February 1942, 10pm

Dan couldn't believe how lightly the factory was guarded after dark. Even with production increased for the war, there was no night shift, and the security consisted entirely of two men at the gatehouse and two more patrolling the perimeter fence. The latter seemed not to have noticed the hired car parked on the road near the maple trees. When the light from their torches had gone out of sight, Dan and Doctor Fung got out of the car. Dan slung a rope over a branch that jutted out over the fence. He climbed up, along the branch and down the trunk. The Doctor threw the bag containing their tools over the fence, and Dan caught it. The Doctor then followed Dan's route to join him.

"You sure this is a good idea, Doc?" Dan said. He could barely see his outstretched hand. The sky was clear, but the moon was new. The factory had no lights on, and the road had no streetlights.

"I believe it to be no worse an idea than many to which you gladly consented at the time."

"That wasn't what I asked."

They made their way to the administration building. Dan kept watch while Doctor Fung picked the lock of the back door. No alarm sounded when he pushed the door open. They waited a few minutes for the sound of guards running this way. When they heard none, they went in and clicked on their torches.

Even though he knew the building had been occupied only a few hours ago, the dark echoing silence made it seem more foreboding than many of the windswept mountains or abandoned temples Dan had explored with the Doctor. He had to force himself not to jump every time the beam of his torch glinted off something metallic or he heard a sound he couldn't identify.

They stopped outside a door that said Records. As the Doctor went to work on the lock, Dan figured out what had him so on edge. He'd been in any number of offices over the years, but almost all had been well-lit, full of people and noise. This place gave him the creeps because he knew what it was supposed to be like.

The Doctor shoved the door open. "Close the blinds," he told Dan. "Keep your torch low."

Dan moved past crowded rows of tall filing cabinets to the far wall. The room had no windows. He relayed this fact to Doctor Fung.

"Good," said the Doctor. "That will make our search faster." He flipped the switches by the door, momentarily blinding Dan with the light. When Dan had stopped blinking, the room seemed no more welcoming than before.

"What exactly are we looking for?" Dan asked.

"Anything that will give us a clue as to the whereabouts of the missing explosives, or in whose possession they now reside."

"How do we know they haven't just been stolen?"

The Doctor chuckled. "My friend, do you believe that Mr Winterton would not have leapt at the chance to blame their absence on someone who was operating without his authorisation or knowledge?"

"He didn't think it was sabotage that some of the shells had their explosive charge padded with sand," said Dan. He scratched his ear. "Say, you don't think someone just screwed up, do you? The Army orders, I don't know, a million shells, and the factory orders enough metal to make the cases, but they only order ingredients to make enough explosive for nine hundred thousand. Then, rather than admit the problem and send nine hundred thousand shells and say they'll send the rest as soon as they can, they try to cover it up."

"That is certainly a possibility," the Doctor replied, "and it is one we should consider while searching. But I think it more likely that the explosives exist and have been given to Mr Garibaldi in payment or part payment of Mr Winterton's gambling debts."

At the courthouse yesterday afternoon, the Doctor had discovered a case against Winterton from last year. His ex-wife had sued to force him to resume alimony payments, which had stopped in 1938. The date was close to Garibaldi's prosecution for running a casino. Doctor Fung had guessed that Winterton had been a patron of the casino and had run up debts he couldn't pay. Faced with owing more than he had to two people, he'd chosen to stop paying the one who wouldn't murder him for it. Then Mrs Winterton had sued, and her lawyers had threatened to have Mr Winterton declared bankrupt. Mr Winterton had settled the case by agreeing to pay the outstanding alimony plus interest. Whether he had actually done this, Doctor Fung had been unable to discover, but the absence of any further litigation suggested that so far, he was keeping his word. That presumably left him short on his payments to Garibaldi. Rather than kill him, Garibaldi had, Doctor Fung guessed, agreed to accept explosives instead of money. That probably meant he was planning a job that involved blowing up something big. If Dan and the Doctor could find out where the explosives had gone, that might give the police a chance of thwarting Garibaldi's plan.

The first thing was to find the delivery notes, which recorded the places where trucks leaving the factory had gone to, and what they had taken there. Doctor Fung soon discovered these, occupying the front half of a top drawer. He gave half to Dan, and they took their papers to a desk in the middle of the room.

Dan doubted the explosives would've been sent directly to Garibaldi, or to an address in an obviously seedy part of town. The Mafia generally didn't make that kind of stupid mistake. Most of the deliveries had been to Army bases. More recent ones tended to be to the naval base at San Diego, going straight out to the war in the Pacific. Dan imagined himself manning one of the guns that fired these shells, frantically trying to bring down a Jap dive bomber before it could release its deadly payload against him and his comrades. He imagined the shells failing to damage the aircraft, and everyone being torn to pieces by the bomb blast. He did his best to push the thoughts aside as he carried on leafing through the papers.

When they had finished checking the delivery notes, they had three addresses that were not obviously military installations. The deliveries to those had all started after the court case, and the quantities tended to be small—​one truck at a time, instead of three or four to the military. The notes were vague as to what was actually being delivered, either using a mass of abbreviations or referring to a purchase order from the customer.

"Now," said Doctor Fung, "we look for the purchase orders and invoices that correspond to these notes."

"The Mafia won't have sent a purchase order," Dan replied, "and Winterton would know better than to send them an invoice." He paused. "Oh."

The Doctor gave him a knowing smile.

Dan stepped towards the filing cabinets. "Maybe we should find the other paperwork for a genuine delivery first, just to test your theory."

"You'll do no such thing," said a voice from the door.

Dan turned to see a sweating Mr Winterton pointing a gun at them.