As a rack of shells clattered past him, Slakberg's thin lips curled back in a smile of satisfaction. "Poor fools," he muttered, "they think they are working for France." He rubbed his hands and turned away. "But for Germany—and they don't know it."
He crossed the factory yard to the power house and entered its semi-darkness, peering about. No one was in sight, but at his low whistle a figure emerged from behind a dim hulk of machinery and came toward him. It was the chief electrician.
Slakberg bent toward him with a leer. "How's the safety contrivance working?" he asked. The electrician stared at him for a moment and then laughed.
"Oh you meant the sparker—to blow up the plant?"
"Careful," warned Slakberg, "and only if necessary, always remember that."
"Certainly, I know that, only if necessary," the electrician repeated as though the words were part of a lesson he had been compelled to memorize. "As long as we can keep the plant running along the lines it is running now, everything is fine—that's right isn't it?"
"Quite right, but if anything happens, any trouble blows up and Von Papen says the plant must go, we must be prepared."
"You can count on me." The electrician held out an instrument resembling the spark plug of an automobile. "This is all we need. I've connected a dead wire in the loading room to this switch. If the plant is to be blown up, all that will be necessary will be for me to put this plug in a light socket in that room, then come back here and throw the switch. The minute the switch is thrown a streak of fire will shoot out from the spark plug. It will ignite the explosive dust with which the room is filled. The factory will be blown to pieces."
Slakberg smiled appreciatively. A moment later he left the power house. The building in which were the offices stood some distance from the factory. He followed the gravelled pathway to his office and there, after closing the door carefully, went to the safe and pulled out a roll of blue prints. They were the specifications for the shells now being turned out by the factory. To him they meant the destruction perhaps of the French Army. He started nervously from his revery as an office boy entered.
"Mr. Slakberg, Mr. Marquis wants to see you and says for you to bring the plans."