The Detonator

by Vincent Zandri

  I pull the knife back out.

  “The doors are wired to blow if we open them,” I point out.

  Her eyes blink rapidly. “It’s like I said, isn’t it? Alison must have set the whole house to blow.”

  “But if I can defuse this charge, we can use this opening to exit the joint.”

  “But you can’t see the bomb,” she says. “How are you going to defuse a bomb you can’t see?”

  I cock my head over my shoulder. “With a little luck. And some divine Providence.”

  I ask Ellen to shift her position all the way to the opposite corner of the basement.

  “If this charge ignites,” I add, “the blast will go outward, but it will still be pretty bad inside this stairwell.”

  “Be careful,” she says, setting her hand on my shoulder, then sliding it off before retreating to the opposite side of the old, dimly lit basement. Her touch sends a shockwave through my system. A good, welcome shock. Something only Ellen is capable of producing inside me. It means she still cares, regardless of what’s happened. Regardless of my meaning nothing to her.

  Using my knuckles, I begin to tap the underside of the steel panel, the noise sounding hollow, indicating to me that no obstructions are pressing down on it from the opposite side. I keep on tapping until I come to the center where both panels join together to form a joint. That’s when the hollow sound disappears and the tapping becomes muted.

  “That’s it,” I say. “That’s where the mini pipe bomb is. A small metallic electronic cigarette device filled with nano-thermite charge, just like the ones I defused in Albany. Christ, she could have carried a bunch of these e-Go sticks around undetected in her purse and still leave room for her wallet and makeup.”

  Shifting myself to the far right of the Bilco doors, I once more shine the Maglite up through the crack between door and frame, spot the first wire. I slip the blade once more through the slit-like opening, search for a second fuse wire. Starting at the bottom, I slide the knife upward, careful not to cut anything unnecessarily…something that might accidentally trip the detonator.

  When I find the second wire, I shine the light on it. Then, opening up the small scissors on the Leatherman, I poke them through the opening, find the first wire, and cut it. Without hesitation, I once more find the second wire, and cut that too.

  Sweat runs down my brow, into my eyes.

  Shooting a look at Ellen, I can see that both her hands cover her face, only her wide, stressed out eyes visible.

  “So far so good,” I say. “I’m gonna open the door now.”

  Unlatching the interior opener, I push up on the right-hand metal panel, and rise up out of the basement.

  Chapter 51

  A small strip of duct tape secures the mini but lethal e-cig pipe bomb to the left-hand panel. There’s a remote control fuse still attached to it. If Alison is watching me right this second, she could easily evaporate me with the simple flip of a switch. But she’s either not watching me, or she’s not ready to kill me yet.

  If I were a betting man, I’d go with the latter.

  Carefully pulling the taped bomb off the door, I cradle it in both my hands as if it were as precious and fragile as an injured chick, and sprint toward the tree line one hundred feet or so across the flat back lawn. I set the charge down in front of an old oak tree so I’ll know where to recover it later, then about-face and make my way back to the doors.

  That’s when I find Ellen, standing at the landing of the Bilco door staircase.

  “What now?” she asks.

  “We remove these doors.”

  She shakes her head. “I’m not following you, Singer.”

  “You correctly pointed out that we won’t get very far going after Henry on foot. That means we have only one other choice.”

  “We take the Suburban.”

  “Exactly. But first, we bomb-proof the shit out of it.”

  Using the hacksaw, I cut the two metal doors at the hinges, carry them to the Suburban, which is still parked by the now smoldering remnants of the old barn. Opening up the trunk, I run a length of common wire from the vehicle’s twelve-volt battery to its undercarriage.

  “You’re building a tank,” Ellen says.

  “I’m tack welding these plates under the Suburban so that we don’t get our asses blown off should we run over a landmine.”

  “You’re serious,” she says, her lips parting to make a smirk. “Land…mine.”

  “Yeah, Ellen, landmines. And we’re going to need protection against them.”

  “Those doors won’t attach themselves, Ike.”

  “Little known fact about car batteries,” I say, lying down on my back, the first of the surprisingly light, but full-metal Bilco door resting on my chest. “You can MacGyver them as an impromptu tack welder.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “Google it sometime, you don’t believe me.”

  I touch the edge of the plate with the wire. It produces a spark and then a constant stream of high energy heat. Enough to weld the corner to the metal undercarriage. Making sure to keep my eyes closed the entire time, or risk burning the retina, I perform the delicate task by touch and feel rather than rely on sight.

  Ellen adds, “You really think Alison has managed to plant landmines around the house…out in those woods even?”

  “We heard that cop cruiser until we didn’t hear it anymore. That means it pulled into the driveway and came into contact with something that blew it away without warning. My guess is a landmine. An IED of some kind that was hidden from view. Ergo, a landmine…homemade, of course.”

  “When the hell would she have time to plant mines?”

  “My theory is this, El. She’s been keeping tabs on me for a long, long time. Maybe for more than a decade. She’s always wanted to exact her revenge. But just a simple stab in the back, or maybe a bullet to the head, wasn’t going to be enough for her. She wants drama. High drama. Something not too far gone from the napalm-furnace explosion and fire she rigged to kill Patty. Her own mother. Something that maybe even mimics some kind of trauma she endured as a kid way back when. Who the hell knows what motivates a psycho killer? And when she got involved in high explosives, especially super nano-thermite technology, she figured she finally had access to the resources that could create the supercharged high drama she wants. No more messing around with burning old garden variety materials like C-4. No more screwing around with implosions that offer up some drama, like light shows, rock ’n’ roll music blasted over huge speakers. Christ, even crazy daredevils walking tightropes over an imploding tower. No, this is different. In terms of high drama explosive scripts, this one could very well win an Oscar.”

  “High explosive excitement,” Ellen says. “Is that it? Sounds like the tag line to a cheap B movie. And it also reminds me that you really fucked up big time when you decided to fuck the woman whom I once called my best friend.”

  Me, tacking the other end of the panel, then starting on the other corners.

  “If only I could take it back. But I can’t. And remember, Alison obviously knew we’d be away all last week, not to mention precisely where we were going. So my guess is she had the run of the place, inside and out, for an entire seven days and seven nights. So who knows what the hell is buried all around the house. Who knows the hell that’s about to blow up in our faces. This is a long planned murder and she holds the upper hand.”

  I start on the second plate, positioning it under the middle of the vehicle, and the gas tank.

  “Why would she go through all this?” Ellen says. “Why take this kind of chance? Doesn’t make sense to me unless she wants to die herself.”

  “I really don’t know, other than she feels confident enough to pull it off. And maybe she does want to die. But one thing is for certain.”

  I slide out from under the Suburban, stand, pul
l the wire off the battery, close the hood.

  “What’s for certain, Singer, aside from my broken heart?”

  “She doesn’t want us dead yet. Because if she did, we’d be dead already.”

  “That’s encouraging.” Then, extending her arm, pointing at the Suburban’s undercarriage. “So that’s it? That’s our bomb-proofing?”

  “It’s enough to deflect the blast from something conventional, like C-4. But if she comes after us with thermite charges, which she’s sure to do, we’re doomed even if we’re riding inside an Abrams tank. Still, at least the Bilco doors will provide some semblance of nominal protection.” My eyes peering out beyond the smoldering barn into the dark woods. “But then, we’re not quite done yet, either.”

  I head around the back of the house, go down into the basement where I grab two sets of tire chains from two separate six-penny nails pounded into a four-by-four post. I carry them out to the driveway with me. Setting each section of chain in back of each of the four tires, I then get behind the wheel of the Suburban, fire it up, and back the tires onto them. Exiting the vehicle, I fix each of the chains around the tires.

  “Now,” I say, “we need to pay a visit to the cruiser that was blown up in the driveway. There will be some tactical gear stored inside it that will offer us protection.”

  “On a road that could be mined.”

  “But at least we’re somewhat protected now, if it is.” A glance at my watch. “We’re down to one hour. We need to go.”

  She nods, climbs into the passenger seat of the Suburban.

  I slip behind the wheel, shift the tranny in reverse. Then, shifting it into drive, I motor around the farmhouse turn-around and, while keeping the speed at an even ten mph, traverse the dark driveway in search of whatever died out there earlier.

  Third Stage

  Chapter 52

  She’s wearing violent death. It’s wrapped around her narrow waist in the form of a utility belt, while crisscrossing her chest are two black leather bandoliers. The belt supports a fighting knife and other necessary tools for fighting a war. It’s also able to hold one dozen thermite rounds while the bandoliers hold one dozen rounds apiece, making for a total of thirty-six lethal super nano-thermobaric pistol cartridges. Experimental prototypes which (when in a lab-controlled setting) are capable of generating a concentrated high-temperature explosion not found in any other short-barrel compatible round on the face of the earth. A round topped off with a bullet that, because of its atmospheric-air-triggered explosive, creates its own blast wave.

  The bullets are the first of their kind and a tribute to the possibilities of nanotechnology. Big bangs can now come in very small packages. Something she has already demonstrated to downtown Albany with something as silly and trendy as an e-cig, and something she fully intends on demonstrating to Ike Singer tonight while he attempts to rescue his old boy.

  She sits atop the Polaris all-wheel drive Sportsman quad at the edge of the Thatcher State Park cliff edge, feeling the thunderous vibrations of its idling 78 HP high-performance engine (an engine powerful enough to tow a railroad car) throbbing up through her sex, past her flat stomach, and into her chest cavity. Just one more inch forward, and she would most certainly drop the three hundred feet to the jagged rocks below.

  But she feels no fear. She feels only an energy she hasn’t felt before in her young life. Explosives are not about destruction. They are all about control. A person who can harness hell-on-earth at will, will ultimately make any man or woman her slave. Tonight, Ike Singer will most certainly become her slave. Her bitch.

  Right now, however, Ike will assert his own control. He will fight back against the terror. He will fight to win. That’s the kind of man he is. It’s one of the reasons why her mother loved him for as long as she did. But he’s climbing an uphill battle and surely he knows this. As she folds the night vision scope over her left eye, she spots the burned out barn, and something just beyond it that’s moving away from the farmhouse.

  “Where are you going, Ike?” she says, pushing the scope up and away from her eye. “Don’t you know there’s no escape? Don’t you realize that no police or emergency medical technicians or even Pope Francis himself will be coming for you tonight? You see, they will be way too busy. Way too panicked. Way too overwhelmed with the explosive calamity that is about to tear through this city of thieves.” She giggles happily, proudly. “If they thought those three little nano-thermite IEDs were a major problem tonight, imagine the heartbreak when they discover they were only an appetizer to the main meal.”

  The explosions will be like nothing they’ve ever scene or heard. They will come from an explosive that in some cases, is smaller than the circumference and thickness of a George Washington quarter. The explosive is odorless, undetectable, and entirely untraceable prior to its detonation by remote control. If Albany believes the morning’s implosion of the Wellington Hotel is going to be the biggest, loudest, most pyromaniacal display of fireworks ever to grace the city, they will want to be awake for tonight’s festivities. One major explosion for the next couple of hours. With the new technology at her disposal, she need not be located within a mile of the IED like she would if dealing with the average IED set to explode inside an Afghan market or a crowded street corner in Paris. Now she can detonate the charge from a comfortable distance of ten miles if necessary.

  Pulling her smartphone from its nylon holster, she selects the dial application, thumbs the nine-digit number that will initiate the timed explosions, the first one to commence in exactly ten minutes. The location of the explosion will be discriminate (nothing carefully planned or designed is ever indiscriminate), and it will shatter the security and pride of the Empire State capital. The white marble that makes up the Family Court building constructed over a century ago is about to go BOOM BOOM, Out Go the Lights!

  In her head, it’s 2001 again. She sees foster father David coming for her through the woods. She sees he’s got his gun gripped in his hand. She sees the flash of the muzzle before she hears the shot. She senses the bullet whizzing past her head. Somehow, he knows exactly where to aim the gun, shooting not to kill, but to frighten. Picking up a rock from out of the soft earth, she awaits him…

  “Stop,” she says aloud, trying to transport herself back to the present. “Concentrate, woman.”

  Clearing her head of her memories, she turns the quad around, cocks her left wrist, giving it the gas. Rear tires spitting dirt, she speeds in the direction of the Thatcher State Park entrance, and the cross-country trail that leads through the apple orchard, over the rushing white water of the Vly Kill, and eventually to the Singer property.

  A property set to blow as soon as she issues the command.

  “But not yet.”

  She is God. She is the devil. She is an explosive force like no other.

  “Let the detonation games begin,” she says aloud. “Let them begin not with a whimper, but with a bang.”

  Chapter 53

  I don’t turn on the headlights until the tall stands of trees block us on both sides. The white LED headlamps light up the gravel as it passes under the chassis. Something on the surface of the road sticks out at me. Something that might not have registered if I wasn’t looking for it.

  “You see the discoloration there in the headlights.” Arm and index finger extended like a pointer. “That pale, egg-shaped coloration in the dirt. I’ll bet dollars to donuts that it’s a buried IED.”

  “You mean another e-cigarette vaporizer filled with explosive?”

  “Maybe. Or maybe just the naked explosive applied to the gravel. Come into direct contact with it, and it blows. That’s how unstable it is.”

  Braking the vehicle, I pull around onto the shoulder and up onto a short berm-like bank of vegetation-covered gravel. The big vehicle bucks and sways, but I’m able to get around the discolored spot.

  I take it slow, eyes f
ocused on the road immediately ahead of me. Road showered in LED light, every stone and every pebble suddenly taking on new meaning. I can almost hear Ellen’s heart beating in her chest. Her bruised heart. She sits stiffly, slightly forward, her hands clenched in white-knuckled fists, her big brown eyes peeled to the road along with mine.

  “There,” she shouts. “You see it. Another circle of white dirt.”

  I’ll be damned, because she’s absolutely right. This section of gravel is located closer to the left shoulder of the long driveway, which means I turn the wheel to the right. I take it slow, hands tightly gripping the wheel, finger bones feeling like they’re about to burst out of the skin. Every inch of ground covered making my pulse beat faster, my breathing more shallow. I’m used to explosive devices and what it takes to control them. But what I’m not so used to is their having total control over me. It’s as if my nerves are rubber bands stretched to the breaking point. At any given second they will snap, and the entire world around me will go up in white-hot flame.

  Turning the wheel to the left, I enter back onto the road. I catch my first glimpse of the police cruiser then, its engine block blown out along with its windows and windshield, its doors blasted wide open. It looks like it’s been hit by a tank round.

  There’s a body lying a few feet away from the passenger’s side door, my headlights shining on the uniformed officer’s legs which are twisted and pretzeled in ways God and nature never intended. From where I’m standing, he looks more like a broken doll than a human being.

  I can’t help but pick up a little speed as I cover the remaining twenty or so feet to the vehicle. When I’m within a few feet of the cruiser, I stop, throw the tranny in park, leave the engine idling.

  “Wait here, El. If something happens to me, take the wheel, turn the truck around, go back home. Get in through the basement. Don’t touch anything in the house. Just wait for help to arrive. You understand? After a while, the cops are going to come after their missing cruiser and the cop it belonged to.”