The Detonator

by Vincent Zandri

  She screams and pushes back, maneuvering the barrel so that it is suddenly pointed down at the earth below. It’s her finger that’s wrapped around the trigger, but my finger is pressed against hers. I’m too strong for her. I know that if I press her finger against the trigger, the blast will kill us both. But at this point, I don’t care anymore. I just want her dead so that Henry and Ellen will live.

  She feels my finger not just pressing against hers, but pumping against it. Like I have every intention of firing not one, but multiple rounds at once. An action that will overheat the barrel and cause the thermite rounds to explode in our faces. Something Alison herself explained just yesterday during lunch at the Mass Pike rest stop.

  Alarmed, she turns, eyes wide.

  For the first time since Alison Darling has come back into my life, I can taste the fear that oozes off of her.

  Slowly, I form a broad, ear-to-ear grin. “Fire in the hole, motherfucker!”

  I squeeze her finger against the trigger, three times, rapid-fire, while the grossly overheated chrome-plated barrel explodes and while the tree branch that holds us snaps in two.

  Chapter 70

  I fall upward.

  The shockwave and kickback of the exploding gun barrel and the three super nano-thermite rounds exploding in succession at a distance of two hundred vertical feet making us airborne, until a second later, gravity pulls back and we fall once more.

  Fall down.

  Hard.

  Chapter 71

  When I come to, I see only brilliant sunlight.

  A display of radiant orange, yellow, and golden rays that both soothe my soul and warm my entire body. I feel a peace like I have never known before. I am suspended in midair, my body parallel with the ground far below.

  I begin to make out a shape.

  Arms, legs, torso, and a head. Soon the shapes combine to make a singular soul. Patty Darling. She comes to me from out of the sunset. She looks different from the woman I’ve become reacquainted with in my brain over the course of two days and nights. Her hair is no longer mussed up, but smooth and clean and freshly brushed. Her forehead no longer bears the fracture, the skin no longer broken or bleeding. The skin, the flesh, is no longer burnt, but milky, smooth, and healthy, just the way it was when I’d happily run into her at our favorite watering hole, the Eagle Park Independence Club, or at the college cafeteria.

  “Hey, it’s Monday mystery meat, Patty Cakes. Come sit with me and we can figure out what kind of animal they stunned and butchered, together.”

  She’s no longer in her mid- to late forties, but barely cracked her twenties. Like she’s got her whole life before her. She floats or glides before me, almost like an angel.

  “Patty Darling,” I whisper, the words oozing out of my mouth like an exhaled breath.

  It’s over, Ike, she says, her tone pleasant and smooth as silk. I’m going away now.

  “Where are you going?”

  Where we all go one day, silly. You know, the place at the end of the long and winding road. Jeez, Singer, do I have to spell everything out for you?

  “Am I dead?”

  I don’t know. Are you?

  “Come on, Patty Cakes. Toss me a bone here.”

  Just know this: It’s over.

  “What is over?”

  It…this…It’s all over, and here’s the biggie. You ready for it? When she smiles, it’s like the sun’s radiance is being projected through her entire body. I forgive you. Do you understand me?

  I feel my head nodding, as if I’m not the one in control of it.

  “I think I do understand.”

  And with that, her image begins to float back into the sun, becoming one with the light, until it disappears entirely.

  I wake.

  I breathe in, and my head begins to clear. Maybe I’m in bed and this was all a stunningly bad nightmare. But then I peer over my left shoulder, and my heart sinks. I realize I am not lying in bed, but instead, lying on the hard concrete floor of a high-rise. The top floor maybe. The windows have been pounded out, along with some of the beams. All the interior walls have been knocked out, the material discarded, all the flooring peeled away. All that’s left is this empty shell.

  It comes to me then. My precise location. The Wellington Hotel.

  I crane my neck to the right. My heart sinks further when I spot my family. Henry is located maybe fifteen feet away. He’s seated on the floor with his back pressed up against a steel beam that’s been wired with detonator cord and a series of blasting caps. I don’t see any C-4 but that doesn’t mean it’s not inserted into the concrete-encased beam on the opposite side. His torso is attached to the beam with heavy-duty duct tape, while his wrists and ankles are also taped together. His mouth is gagged with the same tape. He is fully awake, his eyes locked on me, like he’s looking for me to save him.

  Located another fifteen feet beyond him is Ellen. She too is duct-taped to a separate beam in an identical manner. Like all the others, the beam is set to blow.

  Looking down at my hands, I see they also are taped together at the wrists as are my ankles. I try shifting them from side to side, but there’s no give in the layers of tape that bind me to my own steel I-beam.

  How the hell did a thin woman like Alison manage to transport us out here? By sheer force of will, she must have found a way to stuff us into her minivan. Even with a bullet wound to contend with, her rage must have been that absolute. Like trying to gun down a crazy man wired out on crystal meth. Or maybe she utilized a piece of equipment like a winch or a come-along.

  I want to scream, Get us out of here! But there’s not a damn thing God or anyone else can do for us. We are as doomed as this old hotel. Doomed as the concrete, brick, and mortar that is about to implode under the destructive force of hundreds of pounds of TNT, C-4, and nitroglycerin charge.

  I make out footsteps, then the figure of someone exiting a stairwell.

  Alison.

  She makes her way slowly past Ellen, offering my wife a casual if not friendly smile. Then offering the same smile to Henry while bending at the waist, she gently, almost lovingly, kisses him on his balding head. It’s like she’s the sister he never had.

  Finally she makes her way to me. When she reaches for the gag on my mouth with both her hands, I can see that the thumb and index finger on her dominant hand have been blown away, leaving only bloody stumps. For certain, she took the brunt of the exploding revolver. Using both her hands, regardless of the severe injury to her fingers, she somehow manages to take hold of both ends of my gag, ripping it away.

  I don’t feel the sting of the pulled away tape. I only feel the desire in my soul which screams at me to kill this woman and save my family.

  “Now, is this the perfect ending for Ike Singer, Master Blaster, or what?” she asks, her eyes wide and bright. She’s still dressed in that tight black outfit, her left side bleeding through a thick bandage cobbed from a formerly white towel and some of the same gray duct tape. She’s trying her best to appear happy, but I can see that her face is chalky pale and that she’s lost enough blood to cut her life short by sixty or seventy years. But that does nothing to stem the hatred I have for her right now.

  One thing is for certain. Alison, wounded or not, is resourceful. Getting us into the van is one thing. But how the hell did she manage to drag us all the way up here?

  Out the corner of my eye, through one of the wide window openings, I see that she used the temporary construction elevator, which has yet to be removed from the building, telling me the morning’s scheduled detonation has indeed been postponed in light of the IEDs that have been exploding inside Albany all night long.

  “I thought I was already dead,” I say, my words feeling like they’re tearing themselves from the back of my throat, as if the skin is shredding.

  “The explosives saved our lives,”
she says. “The nano-thermite rounds blasted us back up onto the mountain. Can you imagine our great fortune?”

  “The explosives,” I say. “They giveth and they taketh away. So how them fingers treating you?”

  “Now, for the first time in history, nano-thermite charges will implode this building,” she says, ignoring my question. “Perfect really, when you think about it, Ike. Because isn’t this what you and my father always desired? To achieve the perfect true implosion?” Raising her hand, she makes a sweeping gesture with her arm, as if bringing attention to the many concrete-covered vertical beams that support the floor. “Take a good look. You see any C-4 or nitro charges strapped to the horizontal and vertical beams?”

  I don’t want to play her game. But as a Master Blaster, I can’t help but look. I’ll be damned. She’s right. There are no conventional explosives to be found.

  “The place is wired with nano-thermites. What used to require hundreds if not thousands of pounds of high-grade explosive now takes just a few ounces of super nano-thermite charge. This will be the first structure in history to undergo a true implosion using the explosive of the future. Too bad you and the fam damily won’t be around to witness the future, Ike.”

  Craning my neck, I’m able to make out Henry, the boy’s eyes wide. I see Ellen too. Her wet eyes reflect his same fear.

  “Alison,” I say. “I know how badly you want your revenge against me. For what happened with your mom. But it has nothing to do with my family. Please do the right thing and let them go.”

  She winces from the pain in her side, her left hand pressed against it. For a moment, I think she might even pass out. Reaching around back, she unclips something from her utility belt. It’s a remote-control electronic detonator box. What I recognize as a “Hot Shot” computerized detonation system. The fire-engine red, heavy-duty plastic controller with its red and black buttons is far different from the one her father utilized when he tried to kill me sixteen years ago, in one important aspect. Rather than rely on the charges to explode at their own, relatively slow pace, the new system is able to minimize the delays between the detonation stages, speeding the entire process up, making it more violent and precise. The “Hot Shot” fits perfectly into the palm of her one good hand.

  “You wanted a perfect true implosion,” she says, her eyes forlorn, distant. “And all I wanted was the perfect family. But you took that away from me.”

  What I want to say to her is this: “Fuck you, you no good psychotic bitch…This isn’t about me or an affair I conducted over the period of a single night with your mother. This is about your craziness, plain and simple. In your messed up mind, the entire world has screwed you over and now you want to destroy it all. Every damn bit of it.”

  But considering the lives of my family are at stake, I say this instead: “But look at what you’ve accomplished, Alison. You’re an explosives expert. You’re a professor. You’re on your way up in the world. You should be proud, not angry or sad.”

  She nods, staring down at the controller. Appearing now, from out of the rising sun, two helicopters. Both of them black Hueys bearing the red, white, and blue eagle crest logo of the Department of Homeland Security. Their rotors chop intensely through the air. But somehow, Alison doesn’t seem to hear them.

  “Listen, Alison,” I say. “There isn’t much time. The police will be here any moment and they’re liable to do something bad to you.”

  She giggles.

  “Like kill me?” she says. “Look at me. Look at my side. I’m already dead, Ike.”

  She raises the controller, places a finger apiece on the two trigger buttons. The black one for charging the detonator cord snaked all over the walls and beams of this old hotel, and the red one for firing off the blasting caps and, ultimately, the main thermite charges.

  “You’re not dead now. You give up right this second, they will get you to a hospital, and you will have the best help available. Trust me, I work with these people. I can help you. We can help you, Alison.”

  I watch her hands. She presses the black charge button.

  “Oh sweet Jesus no,” I whisper.

  The charges placed all around us, above us, and beneath us release an ominous hum as they come alive.

  “Alison,” I say, my mouth having turned so dry I can hardly form the words. “Don’t do this.”

  “It’s all that’s left to do. It’s the way I planned it. The way I wanted to control it.”

  The two choppers come closer until they begin to hover in place. A siren sounds, indicating the building shoot is about to commence. I look over my shoulder at Henry. He remembers the stages leading up to a blast. The final countdown, the “All Clear” signal, the “Fire in the hole” shout-out, the charging of the detonators, the siren, and finally the blasts in rapid, staged, timed succession. The destruction. The implosion.

  Henry knows he’s going to die now. Something he has been anticipating for a long time. What he didn’t anticipate is his mother and father joining him. What the hell. Maybe in the end it’s better that way. That we all go together.

  “You can change the plan,” I insist. “Just take your finger off the charger. Just remove it, and we can all walk on out of here.”

  She purses her lips, shakes her head. “You don’t understand, Ike. I will be walking out of here. And then they are coming to take me away. To a new country where I will be a new woman, with a new name. I will be looked upon as a hero.”

  I have no idea what she’s talking about, or what she means when she says she will be walking away a hero. Only moments ago she said she was already dead. The blood that seeps out from multiple wounds is the proof.

  All I know is that the hum from the charging detonators is getting louder with each passing second. I also know this: there’s a beam of red laser light originating inside the closest chopper. The laser light comes from a high-powered rifle that is now aimed at her back.

  “Alison,” I say, knowing that if they start shooting and fail to kill her instantly, she will press the Fire trigger. “Let go of the charger. Let go and we can all go home.”

  A muzzle flash is followed immediately by a short sharp crack, and a piece of Alison’s left breast blows out. Her eyes go wide. Not like she’s been shot. More like someone nudged her while walking past her on a busy street.

  She takes a step forward, wobbles, unbalanced. The linear beam of laser sighting, which isn’t visible outside the building but only on the darker inside, once more finds its target. A flash, a crack, and a portion of her shoulder collapses in a spray of blood and bone.

  She’s still standing when she looks me in the eye, says, “Mother loved you very much. So. Very. Much.” Then, working up a painful smile. “Boom, boom, Ike. Out go the lights.”

  She collapses into a neat pile of blood, flesh, and bone, but not without pressing the red FIRE trigger as her final parting gift.

  Chapter 72

  The siren screams.

  The blasting caps begin their rapid-fire detonation simultaneously on both the lowest and the highest floors, making the building tremble and rattle on its foundations. Alison’s body has fallen right beside me, the utility belt that surrounds her narrow waist only inches from my hands. But they might as well be a mile away.

  From where I’m seated, I spot the eight-inch knife attached to her belt. If I can reach the belt, I can make a grab for the knife, cut away the tape that binds me along with the tape that binds my family. It’s possible we can make it out of the hotel. Make it out via the concrete stairwell while the blasting caps blow, only moments prior to the big blasts that will destroy the bearing beams, undermining the structural support of this old concrete structure.

  But I need to get my wrists free. Now.

  The blasting caps now detonate on the intermediate floors. Above us and below us. I struggle with my hands. Feel the bones in my wrists bending, breaking, a
s I struggle to pull free.

  Then, a snap in my left wrist.

  For a brief second, I feel my head spin. I’m sure I will pass out. A scream works its way up from my gut, while a searing hot pain shoots up and down the nerve bundle in my arm. I must have initially broken the wrist during my battle with Alison on the cliff face…when we fell hard back onto the solid, flat mountain surface. Now the break has gone from bad to severe. But the break, and the lubricating blood from the broken skin, turns out to be a blessing. Because it allows me to pull my hand free of the tape.

  Swallowing my pain, I grab the knife from her belt, cut the tape that holds me to the beam. I scream against the electric pain, but I have no choice. I must free my one unbroken wrist or die. When the job is done, and I haven’t passed out, it’s time to cut my ankles free. But at least this time, I can use my good hand. Standing, I sprint the fifteen feet to Henry, cut him loose.

  The blasting caps on the floor below detonate. One after the other. Rapid-fire succession. Shaking the old ten-story building like it’s caught in a tornado.

  I lose my balance, feet flying out from under me.

  I fall. So does Henry. The knife is knocked out of my hand. It slides across the floor. Eyes locked on Ellen, I see the despair painting her face. The desire to live.

  Crawling to the knife, left wrist broken, the snapped-in-two sharp edge of white bone exposed, I snatch the knife back up with my good hand. Get back up on my feet, the building swaying from side to side. Reaching down, I grab hold of Henry, pull him up.

  “Your mother!” I scream. “Go to your mother!”

  Stealing a piece of duct tape that bound Henry, I wrap it tightly around my broken wrist. The pain relief from the tape’s splint-like support is almost immediate.