by Robert Crais
“You should stay and enjoy the show. You could sit on my lap.”
Fowles grinned.
“I like you, Starkey. Too bad I didn’t know you when you worked the bombs. I would’ve gotten it right the first time.”
He grabbed her hair with his left hand, forced her head back, and pressed the tape over her mouth. She tried to twist away, but he pressed the tape down hard, then added a second piece. She opened her mouth as far as she could, letting the skin pull. She felt the tape loosen, but it didn’t pull free.
The timer was down to thirteen minutes and forty-two seconds. Fowles checked his watch.
“Perfect.”
She tried to tell him to fuck himself, but it came out a mumble.
John Michael Fowles squatted beside her and gently touched her head.
“Save a place in hell for me, Carol Starkey.”
He stood then and went to the door, but she did not see him. She watched the timer, the green LED numbers spinning down toward eternity.
Pell
Coombs and Armus were gentlemen about it. They could have brought him in like just another mutt, but they played it straight. They wanted his gun and his badge, which he had left in his motel, and they wanted to talk to him. He asked if he could meet them at the field office, and they said fine. It helped that Dick Leyton told them that Pell had been instrumental in getting them this close to Mr. Red.
Pell drove back to his motel, got the ID and the big Smith 10, then checked out. He sat in his car for a long time, listening to his heart beat and feeling sweat run down his chest. He did not think about John Michael Fowles, or about Armus and Coombs; he thought about Starkey.
Pell cranked his car and went after her, having no idea what he would say or do, only knowing that he could not let her go this easily. Coombs and Armus could wait.
Pell parked on the street in front of her house, relieved when he saw her car in the drive. Funny, he thought, that his heart beat now with the same kind of intensity as when he was facing a mutt in a life-or-death situation.
When Starkey didn’t answer, his first thought was that she’d seen him approach, and was ignoring him.
He knocked, and called through the door.
“Carol, please. I want to talk.”
He tried to see through the little panes of glass that ran vertically beside her door, but they were crusted with dust. He rubbed at them, looked harder. He thought that she was sitting at the fireplace, but then he saw the tape, and her wrists and the handcuffs. Then he saw the device at her feet.
Pell slammed the door with his foot, and then he was in, going through the door when something heavy hit him from behind and the world blurred. He stumbled forward, seeing flashing bursts of light. Starkey’s eyes were wild. Something exploded brilliantly in his head. A man was behind him, hitting him. The man was screaming.
“You fuck! You fuck!”
Pell clawed out his Smith as he was hit again. He could feel consicousness slipping away, but the Smith came out and the safety went off and he fired up into the shadow above him even as the light bled into darkness.
When Pell came to the door, Starkey tried to call through the tape, whipping her head from side to side. She kicked at the floor with her heels, trying to warn him with the noise. She raked her face on her shoulders, tearing at the tape, and jerked at the handcuffs, letting them cut into her wrists.
Fowles jumped behind the door with the Asp just as Pell crashed through. Pell saw only her, and even as Starkey tried to warn Pell with her eyes, Fowles nailed him with the Asp. Fowles hit him again and again, the hard weight of the Asp crashing down like a cinder block.
Pell went down, woozy and blank. Starkey saw him reach out his gun, that monster ugly autoloader, and then he was shooting, shooting up into Fowles, who flipped back and sideways, then crawled toward her couch.
Starkey raked her face against her shoulders, feeling the tape work free, even as she watched the timer. It was winding down so fast the numbers blurred.
Fowles tried to rise, but couldn’t.
Pell moaned.
Starkey worked at the tape, stretching her jaw and raking her face until finally one end of the tape came free and she found her voice.
Starkey screamed, “Pell! Pell, get up!”
6:48.47.46.
“Pell. Get up and get the keys! Wake up, Pell, goddamnit!”
Pell pushed himself onto his back. He stared straight up at the ceiling, blinking his eyes again and again as if he were seeing the most amazing thing.
“Damnit, Pell, we’ve got six minutes, this thing is gonna explode! Come over here.”
Pell pushed onto his side and blinked some more, then rubbed at his face.
“I can’t see you. I can’t see anymore. There’s nothing left but light and shadows.”
Starkey’s blood drained. She knew what had happened. The fight had finished the work on his eyes, caused the damaged retinas to separate and fold away, severing their final fragile connection to the optic nerves.
She felt herself hyperventilating and forced herself to hold her breath, to stop breathing just long enough to get herself under control.
“You can’t see, Jack? How about up close? Can you see your hand?”
He held his hand in front of his face.
“I see a shadow. That’s all I see. Who hit me? Was it him?”
“You shot him. He’s on the couch.”
“Is he dead?”
“I don’t know if he’s dead or not, Jack, but forget him! This bomb is on a timer. The goddamned timer is running down, you understand?”
“How much time do we have?”
“Six minutes, ten seconds.”
Not enough time for the police to respond. She knew it was the first thing he would think.
“I can’t see, Carol. I’m sorry.”
“Goddamnit, Jack, I’m handcuffed to this fucking fireplace. You get me loose and I can de-arm that bomb!”
“I CAN’T SEE!”
She could see the sweat leaking from his short hair down his face. He rolled onto his side and pushed himself up onto his hands and knees. Facing away from her. Across the room, Fowles tried to rise once more, failed, and whatever life was left seemed to drain from him.
“Jack.”
Pell turned.
She forced her breathing to even out. When you work the bomb, you stay calm. Panic kills.
“Jack, quick now, okay? Turn toward my voice.”
“This is pathetic.”
But he did it.
6:07.06.05.
“Straight ahead of you is twelve o’clock. Fowles is at eight o’clock, right? Just across the room. Maybe fourteen feet. He’s on a couch behind the coffee table, and I think he’s dead. The keys might be in his pockets.”
She could see the hope flicker on his face.
“MOVE, damnit!”
He crawled, two knees and a hand, the other feeling ahead for the table.
“That’s it, Jack. Almost at the table and he’s right behind it.”
When Pell reached the table, he shoved it aside. He found the couch before Fowles’s leg, then walked his hands up the legs to the pockets. Fowles’s shirt was wet, and the blood had soaked down along his thighs. Pell’s hands grew red as he worked.
4:59.58.57.
“Find it, Jack! GET THE DAMNED KEYS!”
“They’re not here! They’re not in his pockets!”
“You missed them!”
“THEY’RE NOT HERE!”
She watched him dig in both pants pockets and the back pockets, then run his fingers around Fowles’s waist just as he’d frisk a suspect.
“The socks! Check his socks and shoes!”
She searched the room with her eyes, thinking maybe Fowles had tossed the keys. You didn’t need keys to lock handcuffs; only to remove them. He had never intended to remove them. She didn’t see them, and it would only be wasting time for him to feel his way around the room searching for something so small.
>
“I CAN’T FIND THEM!”
Fowles moaned once, and shifted.
“He’s still alive!”
3:53.52.51.
Her eyes went back to the flashing timer and watched the seconds trickle away.
“Is he armed? Does he have a gun?”
“No, no gun.”
“Then forget him! Five o’clock now. Come around to five o’clock.”
Pell continued ripping at Fowles’s clothes.
“JACK GODDAMNIT DO IT! FIVE O’CLOCK!”
Pell turned toward her voice.
3:30.29.28.
“The door’s at five o’clock. Get out of here.”
“No.”
“Romantic, Jack. Very romantic.”
“I’M NOT LEAVING YOU!”
He crawled toward her, covering the ground without concern for obstacles, veering far to the right —
“Here.”
Changing course to find her foot, barely missing the device, then walking his hands up her legs.
“Talk to me, Carol. You’re handcuffed to what?”
“An iron fire grate. The frame is set into the bricks.”
His hands slid across her body, jumped to her arms and found her right hand, felt over the cuffs and her wrist to the iron frame. He gripped the frame with both hands and pulled, his face going red. He swung around and wedged his feet against the wall and pulled even harder until the veins bulged huge and swollen in his face.
“It’s solid, Jack. The bolts are set deep.”
He grabbed across her and tried the other bar. She found herself, strangely, growing calm. She wondered what Dana would say about that. Acceptance? Resignation.
Pell’s voice was frantic.
“A lever. Maybe I can pry it out. There’s gotta be something I can use.”
“The Asp.”
The Asp had rolled against the far wall. They lost almost a minute as she directed him to it, then back. He wedged it behind the rail and pulled.
The Asp bent at its joint, useless, and fell free.
“It broke.”
Pell threw it aside.
“Something stronger, then! A fireplace poker! A log!”
“I DON’T HAVE ANY OF THAT, PELL!! THERE’S NOTHING IN MY GODDAMNED HOUSE!!! I’M A ROTTEN HOMEMAKER!! NOW GET OUT OF HERE!”
He stopped then, and looked toward her face with eyes so gentle and open that she felt sure he could see.
“Where’s the door, Carol?”
She didn’t hesitate, and loved him for going, loved him for sparing her the final three minutes of guilt that she had caused his death, too.
“Behind you, seven o’clock.”
He touched her face, and let his fingers linger.
“I did you wrong, Carol. I’m sorry about that.”
“Forget it, Jack. I absolve you. Hell, I friggin’ love you. Now please go.”
He followed her leg down to the device, cradled it under his arm, and began navigating toward the door.
Starkey realized what he was doing and screamed in a rage.
“GODDAMNIT, NO!!! PELL, DON’T YOU DO THAT!!! DON’T YOU KILL YOURSELF FOR ME!!”
He crawled for the door, carrying the device under his left arm, moving well right of the door as he’d lost his bearings.
“You’re doing me a favor, Starkey. I get to go out a hero. I get to die for the woman I love. That’s the most a guy like me can ever hope to do.”
He bumped into the nester tables, lost his balance, and dropped the bomb. She could see the lights in the timer blurring.
As he fumbled to pick it up, Starkey knew that he was going to do it. He was going to carry the damned thing outside and blow himself to hell and leave her in here to carry the weight of it just as she’d done with Sugar, and then, only then, her eyes filled and the only possible way to save them both came to her.
“Pell, listen.”
He had the bomb again and was feeling for the door.
“Pell, LISTEN! We can de-arm the bomb. I know how to de-arm the fuckin’ bomb!”
He paused, and looked at her.
“How much time?”
“I can’t see it. Turn it to the right and put it on its side.”
2:44.13.12.
“Bring it over here, Jack. Let me look close at it, and I’ll tell you what to do.”
“That’s bullshit, Starkey. You just want to die.”
“I want to live, Pell! Goddamn you, I want to live and I want you to live, too, and you’re wasting time! We can do this!”
“I CAN’T SEE!”
“I CAN TALK YOU THROUGH IT! Pell, I’m serious. We’ve still got a little time, but we’re losing it. Bring it over here.”
“Shit!”
Pell followed her directions until he was next to her, breathing hard and sweating so much that his shirt was wet.
“Put it on the floor. Next to me. A little farther away.”
He did as she said.
“Now rotate it. C’mon. I want to see the time.”
1:56.55.54.
“How long?”
“We’re doing great.”
She once more forced herself to hold her breath. It reminded her of the first time she had walked a bomb, and then she remembered that it had been Buck Daggett who’d been her supervisor that day, and who had told her the trick of holding her breath as they had buttoned her into the suit.
“Okay. Now turn it over. Lemme look at the bottom.”
“I got no clippers. I got no pliers. I think I have a knife.”
“Shut up and let me think.”
You make choices. The choices can haunt you forever, or they can set you free.
“Tell me what you see, Carol. Describe it.”
“We’ve got a black Radio Shack timer fastened on top of a transluscent Tupperware food storage container. Looks like he melted holes in the lid to drop the leg wires. Typical Mr. Red … the works are hidden.”
“Battery pack?”
“Gotta be inside with everything else. The top isn’t taped. It’s just snapped on.”
She watched his fingers feel lightly over the timer, then around the edges of the lid. She knew that he would be thinking exactly what she was thinking: that Red could’ve built a contact connection into the lid that would automatically trigger the explosive if the lid were removed.
You make choices. The choices can haunt you forever, or they can set you free.
“Open it, Jack. From the corners. Just pop up the corners. Slow.”
She could feel the sweat creep down from her hair.
Pell was blinking at the Tupperware, trying to see it, but then he wet his lips and nodded. He was thinking it, too. Thinking that this could be it, but that, if it were, neither of them would know it. A ten-thousandth of a second was too fast to know much of anything.
1:51.50.49.
Pell opened the lid.
“Loose all four corners, but don’t lift the lid away from the container. I want you to lift it just enough to test the tension on the wires.”
She watched him do as she instructed, sweat now running into her own eyes so that she had to twist her face into her shoulders to wipe it away. She was blinking almost as much as Pell.
“I can feel the wires pull against whatever’s inside.”
“That’s the explosive and the initiator. Is there play in the wire?”
He lifted the top a few inches away from the container.
“Yeah.”
“Lift the top until you feel the wire pull.”
He did.
1:26.25.24.
“Okay. Now tilt the container toward me. I want to see inside.”
When Pell tilted the Tupperware, she saw the contents slide, which was good. That meant it wasn’t fastened to the container and could be removed.
A squat, quart-sized metal cylinder that looked like a paint can sat inside with the end plug of an electric detonator sticking up through the top. Red and white leg wires ran from the end plug to a shunt, fr
om which another set of wires sprouted up through the lid to the timer, and off to the left to a couple of AA batteries that were taped to the side of the can. A purple wire ran directly from the batteries to the timer, bypassing the shunt, but connecting through a small red box that sprouted yet another wire that led back to the detonator. She didn’t like that part. Everything else was simple and direct and she’d seen it a hundred times before … but not the red box, not the white wire leading back to the detonator. She found herself staring at these things. She found herself scared.
“Tell me what to do, Carol.”
“Just hang on, Pell. I’m thinking. Lift it out, okay? It looks like everything is taped together in there, so you don’t have to worry about it falling apart. Just cup it with your hands, support it from the bottom, and lift it out. Put it on the floor.”
He did as she instructed, handling it as gently as a lace egg.
“Can you see it okay?”
“Fine.”
1:01.00.
0:59.
“How’re we doing with the time?”
“All the time in the world, Pell.”
“Are we going to be able to do this?”
“No sweat.”
“You don’t lie worth shit, Starkey.”
With the bomb sitting openly on the floor, she could see the connections and wiring more clearly, but she still did not know the purpose of the tiny red box. She thought it might be a surge monitor, and that scared her. A surge monitor would sense if the batteries had been disconnected or the wiring cut and bypass the shunt and the timer. It would be a built-in defense trigger to prevent de-arming the bomb. If they cut the wires or pulled the timer, the shunt would automatically fire the detonator.
Her heart rate increased. She had to twist her head again to wipe away the sweat.
“Is there a problem, Carol?”
She could hear the strain in his voice.
“No way, Pell. I live for this stuff.”
Pell laughed.
“Jesus Christ.”
“Wish He was here, pal.”
Pell laughed again, but then the laugh faded.
“What do I do, Carol? Don’t lose it on me, babe.”
She guessed that he could hear the strain in her, too.
“Okay, Pell, here’s what we’re looking at. I think there’s a surge monitor cut into the circuit. You know what that is?”
