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“Yeah. It really works.”
“You’ve moved one of these before?” Schultz asked doubtfully.
“I’ve moved a bunch of them,” Fischer said.
Fischer turned to Enrico Rodríguez, who was somewhat awkwardly, if not comically, holding his shotgun in one hand and an upright vacuum cleaner by its handle in his other. Fischer took the vacuum from him and found a power outlet.
There was a thin, foot-long hollow wand attached to the vacuum cleaner hose. Fischer pulled it off, then turned on the vacuum and carefully lowered the now-large, open end of the hose into the SIGABA.
There was a rattling in the hose as the machine sucked up the popcorn. It didn’t take long to get most of it out, and then Fischer put the wand back on the hose and used that to suck out what was left from among the vacuum tubes and rat nests of wiring in the cavity.
“I’ll be a sonofabitch,” Schultz said again. This time he didn’t apologize.
“Now let’s see what happens when we plug it in,” Fischer said.
Dorotea handed him a power cord.
“One-ten or two-twenty?” Fischer asked.
“Two hundred twenty volts,” Schultz answered for her.
Fischer threw the voltage-selector switch on the side of the SIGABA device, then made the connection.
“You better stand back, Chief. Sometimes there’s a flash fire,” Fischer said seriously.
Schultz looked at him in disbelief but took a step back.
Fischer pushed the main power switch.
There was a hum, but no fire.
Fischer smiled at Schultz, who, smiling, shook his head.
A row of dials slowly came to life.
Both Fischer and Schultz examined them carefully.
“Jesus, better than I thought,” Fischer said thoughtfully.
“You don’t have any juice on the DC feed to the secondary oscillator,” Schultz said.
“Oh, hell!” Fischer said, then added, “But no problem. I’ll just say the magic words!”
“The what?”
“Mumbo jumbo, fish boom bah,” Fischer intoned, and with his index finger tapped the dial that showed no indication of power. The indicator needle leapt to life and indicated twelve volts DC.
“If that didn’t work, I would have kicked it. That usually works,” Fischer said. “But sometimes I have to use a hammer.”
“You’re a real wiseass, aren’t you?” Schultz said, smiling.
Fischer shrugged. “I’m a Signal Corps second lieutenant. It goes without saying.”
“It’s working?” Frade asked.
“If I hadn’t watched it myself, I wouldn’t believe it,” Schultz said. “Okay, Fischer. Fair’s fair. If that popcorn is your idea, you’re one clever sonofabitch.”
“Call me ‘Len,’ ” Fischer said.
