Inside the heavy steel timber-frame workshop, illuminated by four suspended fifty-watt incandescent bulbs, sat the 1947 Indian Chief.
Thomas had the front wheel clamped into an industrial steel machining vise. His hands, calloused and steady, held a high-precision oxy-acetylene micro-torch, its blue-and-white flame whistling softly in the cold air. Beside him stood Agent Vance, an ultraviolet optical scanner humming in his palm, while First Sergeant Donald Ray stood guard behind the timber sliding doors, his tactical carbine slung ready across his chest.
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"Watch the heat on the mounting bracket, Thomas," I murmured, leaning over the rear fender with an aerosol can of cold-quench coolant. "My dad used forty-forty lead-tin solder along that baffled seam. If the metal hits four hundred degrees, the internal wax seals on the parchment will liquefy."
Thomas nodded, his goggles reflecting the blue cone of fire.
With surgical, breathtaking precision, the fine tip of the torch traced the seam where the auxiliary reservoir joined the heavy steel frame.
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