Fear is the Key [antikvár]

-Prologue --If you could call a ten-by-six wooden box mounted on a four-wheel trailer an office, then I was sitting in my office. I'd been sitting there for four hours, the earphones were beginning to hurt and the darkness was coming in from the swamps and the sea. But if I had to sit there all night, then I was going to do just that: those earphones were the most important thing in the world. They were the only remaining contact between me and all the world held for me.Peter should have been within radio range three hours ago. It was a long haul north from Barranquilla, but we'd made that haul a score of times before. Our three DC-3s were old but as mechanically perfect as unceasing care and meticulous attention could make them. Pete was a fine pilot, Barry a crack navigator, the West Caribbean forecast had been good and it was far too early in the season for hurricanes.There was no conceivable reason why they shouldn't have been on the air hours ago. As it was, they must have already passed the point of nearest approach and be drawing away to the north, toward Tampa, their destination. Could they have disobeyed my instructions to make the long dog-leg by the Yucatan Strait and flown the direct route over Cuba instead? All sorts of unpleasant things could happen to planes flying over war-torn Cuba those days. It seemed unlikely, and when I thought of the cargo they were carrying it seemed impossible. Where any element of risk was concerned, Pete was even more cautious and far-seeing than myself.Over in the corner of my office on wheels a radio was playing softly. It was tuned in to some English-speal^g station, and for the second time that evening some hillbilly guitar-player was singing softly of the 5