by Sarah Lovett
Another voice—something familiar about its soothing tones—suggested she continue taking in oxygen, they were almost done, they’d have her out of there in a New York minute.
Yes, please, and thank you.
Perhaps the robot’s specific vibration had traveled through the floorboards with enough force to affect physics. Or maybe the arrival of Shorty initiated the slightest shift in Sylvia’s body—with the same result.
Whatever. The bomb’s metal heart began to tick.
Sylvia’s eyes grew wide. Had she imagined a soft voice somewhere in the world murmuring, Oh shit?
Shorty’s neck lengthened by six inches. One camera eye tipped toward the floor, the other swung around on the smoothest hydraulics to stare down the bomb.
The truth was unavoidable, the hand on the clock face was clicking off seconds: forty-eight, forty-seven—
“Help,” she called out.
Thirty-one, thirty, twenty-nine—
From somewhere in the house a muffled male voice responded, “We hear you, Sylvia. Hang on, don’t move, we’re coming in.”
Eighteen, seventeen, sixteen—
She groaned, her body tensing so hard her muscles cramped.
“Get ready to roll!” Someone barked out the command.
Seven, six, five, four—
It all happened in an adrenaline haze. Responding to instinct she crouched, Shorty reversed direction, and a heavily muscled person in a space suit and helmet tackled her, knocking the air from her lungs. She felt herself flying backward, hitting the floor—she was crushed beneath two hundred pounds of armor and a bomb shield. She squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the explosion.
The shrill sound of an alarm filled her ears—
The sound ran down to a bleating whine.
Then a hiccup. Another.
No explosion.
Just silence—and the breakneck beating of her heart.
She caught the harsh ventilated breathing of her savior, tasted the metallic bite of body armor, but all she could see was a blurry face behind a plastic helmet. A disembodied voice said, “We’re still here.”
After an interminable time, she heard footsteps, careful and light, someone tiptoeing across the floor.
“Kudos, Dr. Strange.”
Sylvia pushed, and the saint in the bomb suit rolled to the side, releasing her from imminent asphyxiation. She sat up, instinctively pulling herself together; she shook dust from her hair, brushed dirt from her shirt. No bones broken, definitely dazed. She was still alive.
She saw something flash—again and again—and she shuddered, gazing up at the man she knew only as a distinctive voice: Professor Edmond Sweetheart.
“The bomb?” Her throat was so tight she had to repeat the words twice.
“First, let’s get you out of here,” Sweetheart said, shaking his head as he pocketed a tiny digital camera. “I’m feeling vulnerable, even though . . .” His eyes were on the explosive device as he reached out, offering her a smooth hand. She accepted and felt herself lifted to her feet.
She whispered, “A hoax?” Then louder. “A goddamned fucking hoax bomb?”
“Maybe a goddamned fucking hoax bomb. Maybe. It won’t be Dantes’ first.” Still he stared at the bomb nesting between floorboards, but he nodded, echoing her words with his rich dark baritone. “They’ve got to make sure the area’s clear. They can’t do that with us standing here.” He rubbed something white between his fingers. Dust. The house seemed to be coated with fine powder, as if someone had split open a bag of Betty Crocker flour.
She swayed, bouncing against Sweetheart, feeling his arm steady as a ballast. “Shit.”
He gripped her firmly—but not roughly—bringing her to ground. When both her feet were rooted, she took him in: he was somewhere between thirty and forty-five, some strong mix that included Polynesian ancestry, medium height, gleaming blue-black hair pulled from high cheekbones, incredibly smooth skin, dark brows, and fiercely probing eyes. She focused on his mouth, which was generous even when he wasn’t smiling, and he wasn’t smiling. He looked angry—as angry as she felt. Oddly, his size registered last.
Sweetheart weighed at least 250 pounds.
Their eyes met, held; hard to say who would’ve looked away first.
Simultaneously, they both turned their heads, drawn by the strident tones of a man wearing a dark FBI jacket and cap. The Fed addressed the space between Sylvia’s eyes where executioners aim their weapons: “Evacuate the premises. Immediately. This area has not been cleared.”
Sweetheart loosened his grip on Sylvia’s shoulder, asking, “Ready for this?” She nodded, following him across the room without delay. She couldn’t wait to evacuate the damn premises.
The federal agent, walking with a heavy stride, stayed directly behind her; Sweetheart took the lead.
Retracing earlier steps, she exited the house through the back door. Searing midafternoon sunlight slapped her face. Squinting into the glare, she saw a scene transformed. Two fire trucks, a squared-off bomb squad truck, LAPD squad cars, obtrusively neutral federal vehicles—and corresponding personnel—occupied the previously semideserted street. The asphalt had been turned into a temporary parking lot; the vehicles partially blocked the view of the several dozen residents who had gathered on the lawns of their sixty-year-old homes. Another hundred feet along the street, at the intersection, sawhorses barred access to curious pedestrians. As Sylvia scanned the scene, a TV news crew pulled up in a van, the logo advertising the network affiliate.
A day for crowds and live broadcast news coverage.
She took a slow, deep breath, simultaneously lifting her thick auburn mane of hair from her neck. Using her right hand, she fanned her face; the cooling effect was minimal, but the physical action helped ward off the shakes.
Apparently she’d walked right into a hoax—literally—but officials were taking no unnecessary chances on what was turning out to be a busy bomb day. A tech strode past, carrying what she thought might be disrupter—either that or some missile-type projectile. Another fully suited bomb squad member followed with a leashed and hyperalert shepherd.
Someone, a passing human shape—Agent Purcell—handed her a cup of coffee. She clutched the disposable cup, unaware that her fingernails were digging crescents into Styrofoam. “Thanks.” She was grateful her teeth didn’t chatter. The aftershocks were beginning to register. The beverage was bitter, sickly sweet, lukewarm—the best thing she’d ever tasted.
Sweetheart covered the seventy feet from house to chain-link fence and reached the gate first. His physical effect was overwhelming, but oddly comforting. He stepped aside, ushering her through the opening. Detective Church appeared from nowhere.
Without thinking, Sylvia walked up to the man and gave him a hug; a soft white powder rubbed off him, dusting her skin. “Thanks,” she whispered.
Church made some embarrassed noises, then asked, “You all right?”
“Yeah. You?”
“Getting there.” Detective Church nodded toward Sweetheart. “Keep an eye on this guy—he’s predictable as nitro—a free agent—one of those smart SOBs who answers questions for Quantico. When he’s not basking in his ivory tower, that is.”
Sweetheart’s eyebrows tilted sharply.
“And obviously,” Church added, straight faced, “since he’s worked in the Middle East, he must have connections in the CIA—and the NSA. Without Sweetheart’s profiling system, that asshole Ben Black would still be blowing shit up.”
“—the hell did you think you were doing—” A male voice rose and fell, and Sylvia looked over in time to see Special Agent Purcell in the process of being dressed down by a superior. She felt a tinge of sympathy. From the corner of her eye, she noticed Detective Church backing away too casually, moving toward the house.
“Where are you going?” Sweetheart asked.
“Got a hunch to check out,” Church called over his shoulder.
“Funkspiele,” Sweetheart said, now that he and
Sylvia were alone.
“I’m sorry?” Sylvia returned her attention to the professor.
“Funkspiele—German for ‘radio games.’ Dantes likes to play.” Sweetheart’s eyes didn’t flinch under the glare of the sun. “So do terrorists in the Middle East. They use false signals to throw intelligence off track.”
“So, the question: is he messing with us, or with M?” Sylvia’s dark brows disappeared under wild strands of hair. Her eyes widened, monopolizing her face. “Maybe both.” Her cheeks had lost all color except for the smudges of dirt and dust.
“Either way, he wins.” The professor was studying her. “He gets attention, and he feels he’s in control.”
“When I was in the house, I noticed something on the device.” Sylvia frowned. “Some message on a small piece of paper—in Italian”
“I saw it. From Dante Alighieri’s Inferno. The theme continues.” He pulled something from his pocket—a fold of paper—and offered it to Sylvia.
She opened the quartered page to find a carefully rendered map. It consisted of concentric circles, descending in size, and numbered consecutively from one to nine. Points of interest had been labeled: Dark Wood; River Acheron; Limbo; Gates of Dis; River Styx.
“The original map of hell. It’s yours to keep. It might come in handy.” Sweetheart extended his index finger and tapped the third circle. “We are here,” he added, dryly. He glanced back toward the house. “That quote you saw—it’s from the third canto.”
Sylvia followed his gaze, then refocused on him, on eyebrows that could belong to the devil. “Can you translate the Italian?”
His eyes traveled her way, absorbing, registering, as if she weren’t quite human. “A group of angels rebelled—and were cast out—”
“They fell past earth, into hell,” she said impatiently. “I know the story.”
“Then you also know they were banned from heaven in order not to tarnish its perfection. And some were not admitted to hell, so that hell could not claim victory over their souls. So they remained in limbo—lost, wandering.”
“And the quote?” Sylvia asked, gazing at the map of hell. “‘ . . . with the caitiff choir of the angels, who were not rebellious, nor were faithful to God; but were for themselves.’”
“The faithless,” Sylvia murmured.
Before either of them could add anything, the house exploded.
Cockie Lockie the sky is falling.
Nursery tale
12:36 P.M. Initiation sent out shock waves like a violently blossoming flower whose roots extended through the main charge, rupturing molecules and causing a chain reaction that ended with mass explosion. As an encore, shaped charges directed secondary shock waves from basement to attic. Their impact was amplified by the gases that had extruded from the stacked bags of plain white flour below ground.
At that instant of detonation, it seemed as if the entire city had exploded into the stratosphere, only to fall to earth again like hard rain. There was a deafening blast, followed immediately by a lesser boom and a quaking rumble. The ground shook, small suns imploded around a black hole, a searing wind sent the world spinning.
Wood is organic, as easy to mutilate as human flesh. The metal shrapnel from the pipes and additional hardware splintered, descending with shards of wood and glass to penetrate matter and inflict damage.
The explosion—the shrapnel—sent everyone instinctively diving for cover. It bombarded Professor Edmond Sweetheart with small branches from the olive tree. It peppered Sylvia Strange with bullet-sized gravel. It smacked a chunk of plaster into the forehead of Special Agent Purcell.
All hell broke loose.
Emergency personnel raced into action; a reporter got the story of her life when her network’s well-placed television minicam captured the bomb and its aftermath for live feed and replay; rescue workers scanned the scene, accounting for the living, searching for the dead.
12:41 P.M. From the corner of his eye, Sweetheart saw Sylvia Strange where she’d hit the ground fifteen feet away. She struggled to her feet and moved unsteadily toward the ruined house.
He covered the distance, blocking her way. She stared at him as if he were a massive tree; he registered the look of numb disbelief on her face.
“Where are you going?” he asked, already steering her toward a clear space on the curb.
“People might be hurt.” She swiped at a burning scrap of wallpaper as it drifted to earth. The air was dense with particles—wood, plastic, ash. “I feel sick.”
“You’re in shock, Dr. Strange. Let the emergency response team do their jobs.”
All around them, fire, medical, and law enforcement personnel were coordinating their actions. Two EMTs had unloaded gurneys from the ambulance; the four-inch tires spun across asphalt, metal ball bearings clacking.
Hoses fed from the fire trucks toward the remains of the house now in flames; a firefighter shouted orders to his crew. Twenty feet away, a uniformed street cop tended to several casualties. Sweetheart saw Special Agent Purcell following an EMT toward the bomb site.
Sweetheart heard Sylvia’s question, “Do you see Purcell and Church?” through the din of voices, sirens.
“Purcell just walked by—uninjured.”
As he let go of Sylvia’s arm, she swayed, reaching for solid ground. “I need a ride back to MDC, to Roybal,” she told him slowly. She was obviously straining to regain her concentration. Sweetheart imagined she was troubled by the same high-pitched tone that was ringing inside his head. His ears ached, his skull felt as if it had contracted against his brain, but he knew the unpleasant symptoms were transient. He and Strange had been extremely lucky—luckier than some of the others.
He started toward the cluster of LAPD and federal agents just as Sylvia said, “I’ve got to talk to Dantes.”
“Bad timing.” Sweetheart pivoted with a shake of his head. “I told you, you’re in shock.” He pressed his fingers lightly to her forehead as she sank down on the curb. She opened her mouth, closed it again. Her skin was freckled with red welts left by gravel.
Sweetheart studied her, taking in the intelligent eyes with their dark yellow fireflies, infinitesimal and prehistoric, trapped deep in amber. The stubborn set of her jaw. The wide mouth.
She hadn’t made the connection yet. Dantes had played her perfectly. He’d used her to hurt other people—and through that dark bond, therapist and inmate were joined in an unstable synergetic relationship. She was no longer just the catalyst, she was part of the formula. And this was only the beginning.
“I need to talk to Dantes,” she repeated.
He said, “Dantes may not need to talk to you. For the moment, you’ve served your purpose. You found a bomb.”
Sweetheart saw the stricken expression on her face. He looked away. Already he could smell the scent of charred flesh on the air.
She clutched her knees, and whispered, “He’ll talk to me.”
“The FBI won’t let you see him. Not until they’ve had their go.” Sweetheart stood over her like a massive cloud blocking the sun. His face was smudged with dirt; one cheek was beginning to show the first signs of bruising; a sprig of an olive branch extended from his muddled hair. Behind him smoke billowed from the ruin of the Beaudry Street house.
“Look what’s gone down during the past six hours,” he said sharply. “At the moment, the Feds are rethinking your involvement. At any level.” He was silent for a moment before he added, “Dantes used you, Dr. Strange.”
“Something went wrong,” she said, shaking her head sharply. “It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.”
The professor closed his eyes; his voice held a brutal edge. “How was it supposed to happen?”
She swallowed, tasting faintly metallic dust. “I need to know if Dantes set me up.”
“Set you up?” Sweetheart’s tone was harsh, and his mouth turned down in distaste. “This isn’t about you. It isn’t about Dr. Strange. Leo Carreras wanted you as an opening act, a warm-up for Dantes. You
had the right credentials. And I’ll hand it to Leo—he was right about you. But the stakes just got a whole lot bigger—and they got bigger according to John Dantes’ plan.”
“I can’t believe he planned this—” She broke off, silenced by the deafening drone of a low-flying LAPD helicopter. A small plane passed over in the wake of the chopper. Sirens were almost drowned out by the sounds of engines.
“You thought he wouldn’t betray you?” Sweetheart cut in, shouting to be heard as the helicopter circled away toward the freeway. “You believe you’re immune to his lies?”
“No.”
But he knew she did believe that. She’d been seduced by the aura of the big case and by the fantasy—however subliminal—that she would be able to connect with John Dantes in a way that no one else could. Sweetheart understood that kind of vulnerability.
Reaching out slowly, he offered his hand. As he helped her to her feet, his fingers registered the cool smoothness of her skin.
“Beware of Dantes,” he said. Antipathy hovered around him like a menacing shadow.
“How can you be so certain there isn’t another bomber with his own agenda?” she asked. “What if Dantes took no part in the Getty bombing?”
“M and Dantes are conspirators.” Sweetheart’s voice was brittle, the richness burned away like singed velvet. “The link is in the data. It will be in the forensic comparisons, in the explosive agents, or the mass spec readings, or the linguistic analysis. It’s already in their shared cosmology—Dante Alighieri’s hell.”
Sweetheart’s smile was hard and cold. “I’ll find our mad bomber—our obsessive, middle-aged fuckup with the double-breasted suit buttoned at the collar. And he’ll be best friends with John Dantes. This is Dantes’ work—the fact he’s behind bars means absolutely nothing.”
Sylvia knew men ran drug empires from inside; they “walked the man,” ordering executions; they directed coups d’état—
“Dantes sent you here to die, Dr. Strange.”
The voice belonged to Special Agent Purcell. She was trembling, and her eyes were dark and accusing. She seemed to struggle for breath. “Church was inside with two other guys from the bomb squad when it blew. They’re going to airlift him to UCLA.”
