by Seeley James
“As soon as I go in, give Tania a sniper rifle and let her disable all three Yagi antennas.”
She looked up, saw them, and grasped their role immediately. She snapped her fingers and barked in German. Men scrambled around the Teslas. One came back with a rifle. Tania took it and gave me a nod.
Miguel patted me on the back. “Good luck.”
“You can take this one if you’d like.”
“Better if you do it. If it goes bad, the world will only be short one white man.”
“Thanks.” I marched to the door and my doom.
The only man who’d been inside gave me a grim look with a hint of thank-god-it’s-you-and-not-me in it. Behind me, the Kommandant’s men exhaled in muted protest.
Mercury marched alongside me. That was powerful, bro. You told her in no uncertain terms. Now that’s the way to go Caesar. Keep doing that, and we might have a future. So. What’s your plan?
My plan? I stopped in my tracks. Don’t you have a plan?
Mercury looked puzzled. Why would I have a plan? You were all over this.
I said, What’s the bomb look like? What’s going on down there?
Mercury said, How in the name of Minerva would I know?
I said, Because you’re a god. Wait. What are you telling me? Oh no. You really are a figment of my imagination? You don’t really exist? All those doctors were right?
Mercury said, No. I’m Mercury, messenger of the Roman—
I said, Then how come you can’t see anything I can’t see? If you do exist, you could tell me what’s going on in there.
“Are you all right?” Kommandant called out to me.
“Just having a word with god.” I stood still, contemplating whether I wanted to go in there now that I knew we are alone in the universe. But there was no turning back. Jenny and seventeen kids depended on me.
Just in case my existential moment was off by a god or two, I said, You have thirty seconds to think of something, or I go back on my meds for the rest of my life. However short that might be.
CHAPTER 48
At the bottom of the stairs, two of the Kommandant’s bravest men stood next to a thick wooden door. They were sweating. There was a bomb inside, and they stood in the blast radius. Worse, there was a good chance they knew the children inside. I gave them a smile and patted their shoulders and displayed confidence as best I could. They weren’t buying it. One of them reached for the door’s handle with a hand shaking so badly I caught his arm and pushed it back. I opened the door myself.
Inside was dark. It stank of fear and urine. Children cried and sniffled softly in the dark.
My vision began to adjust slowly. Back in Iowa, we would call a room like this a root cellar. The place where you stored your potatoes, carrots, melons, and other supplies that didn’t need a refrigerator but did need a cool space. Stone steps led down to a granite floor far below. The ceiling was arched and high. In the center, a wooden chair hung from a pulley. It was high enough off the floor to break bones if the occupant tried to jump down. The ropes holding it in place ran through the pulley and down to a tie-off point at the bottom of the steps.
In the chair was Lugh, his broken arm still in a sling. In his good hand, he held an electronic device with a big red button on top. The dead man’s switch. His thumb had turned white from holding it down for hours.
As my eyes adjusted, the darker corner of the room became visible. My heart stopped beating. Clawed animals tried to scratch their way out of my stomach. Jenny was tied to the chair I’d seen in Nema’s video, her mouth taped. Behind her cowered seventeen trembling children. Everyone’s face was streaked with tears. Jenny and Lugh as well as the kids.
I inched down steps built long before any building codes. There were no handrails. The treads were slick and damp and narrow. Lugh watched every movement with a look of sheer terror. When I reached the bottom, I gently felt the rope that held him in the air.
“Don’t touch that!” Lugh shouted.
I held both my hands up in surrender. Then I strolled casually to Jenny. I pulled the tape off her mouth. While doing that, I checked the bomb in my peripheral vision. I didn’t want to remind her of the danger and trigger a spasm of fear.
It was ugly. Big packages of C-4 were sewn into the vest. Military blasting caps had been pushed deep into each one. The wires ran to a device the size of a cigarette pack on her breast. The light on it still blinked green. Two wires ran from it to one of those extended batteries built for heavy phone users.
Nema wanted to make sure there was enough power for me to finish the mission before having a chance to watch them die.
“Jacob, run.” Jenny shook her head free of the last bit of tape. “Get out of here. He explained it. It’s only a matter of time.”
I wiped the tears off her face with my thumb. “Good to see you again.”
I turned around to face Lugh only to find Mercury standing in my path. Mercury said, You should listen to her. This is hopeless. Run for it.
I said, Keep thinking. You’ll come up with something. If you don’t, your last believer will end up in a million pieces.
I looked up at Lugh. The rig was ingenious. If he leaned forward, or dropped his trigger, or got shot, or fell asleep, everyone in the room died. Including Lugh.
“Don’t worry,” I said to him, “I’ll get you down safe and sound.”
“He’s a terrorist!” Jenny cried. “He’s going to kill us all. What are you doing?”
“What I should’ve done with you,” I said while maintaining eye contact with Lugh. “Engaging in conversation.”
“It was never about you,” she said. “It’s me. I don’t know how to deal with …”
She started crying again.
“We’ll get through it,” I said, turning to her. “You’ll go to counseling. We’ll restart our relationship from the beginning. Take it slower, easier. One step at a time. Maybe you’ll want to date me, maybe not. We’ll see after counseling.”
She looked up with red eyes. “I wanted to go somewhere no one had ever heard of me.”
“You came here? Basel?” I asked. “I thought you went home.”
“I found a job online at a daycare facility.” She looked at the kids and started crying again. “A place where no one knows about the killer heiress.”
“What the hell are you doing?” Lugh snarled.
“Chill, dude.” I gave him a frown. Then I noticed the pool of liquid on the stones directly below him. “I’ll get everyone out of here safe and sound. Tell me the truth, are the kids wired to any kind of trigger?”
“No.” Lugh sounded as if he were going to cry. “This button … I can’t …”
I glanced at Mercury. Figured it out yet? I need something here.
Mercury said, Don’t look at me. Not even Mars knows anything about all this new-fangled bomb shit. Sorry, brutha, I don’t know electronics.
Something Mercury had said in Rabat ticked in my brain. It took a second for the gears to fall into place, but they did. I said, Yes, actually, you do know something about electronics. Only one thing, but it’s a life-saving thing. Thanks, Mercury.
He hooked his thumbs in his toga and grinned like a proud papa. Anytime, homie. You can count on the Dii Consentes to save your wretched soul. Uh, what exactly is it that I know?
I faced Jenny and leaned down. I looked over the bombs. I checked a couple wires to make sure they were secure. I tugged two of them a little harder than the rest. They didn’t come loose, but I could tell how much tension would be required to disconnect them. If they were the right ones to disconnect. I looked at all the other wires. Did I have this right? Were these two the ones I needed to pull? It was a matter of faith. Was Mercury right about electronics?
I looked at the little faces next to me. Big expectant eyes met my gaze.
“Were you on the bomb squad?” Jenny asked. “Tell me you were on the bomb squad.”
“Nope,” I confessed. “But I did go to science class in the s
ixth grade once. It was worth it.”
I turned back to Lugh. “We’re going to let the children go. Then I’m going to do something that I’m pretty sure will get us out of here alive. But it might not.”
“No way,” Lugh said. He looked at a corner of the room. “She has a remote switch.”
I followed his gaze and saw the video camera. He thought Nema was still watching us. With her Yagi antennas disabled she’d lost her live feed. Probably.
In case Lugh still had some misplaced sense of loyalty to the woman who set him up to die, I thought it best to lie. I said, “Lugh, she knows I’m here. She can see me. She knows what I’m doing. She doesn’t want to be the one who kills a bunch of kids.”
“She hates children!” His voice shook with fear.
“Trust me on this.”
I faced Jenny. “You must speak German if you got the job. Shout to the guards outside to come get the kids.”
She did. Seconds later, two scared cops came in and rushed the kids up the stairs.
I leaned to Jenny. “Do you trust me?”
She looked up at me. Tears filled her eyes. Even her skin shook. Her body trembled. She nodded. “Kiss me first?”
In the movies, bombs have ten wires in every imaginable hue. Those are complicated circuits with backup systems and failsafes and remote detonators. They’re hard to make. Plenty of terrorist bombmakers had gone to their reward trying to overcomplicate a basic on-off device. My gamble was based on what Mercury had told me was the extent of his electronics prowess, that without power, our gizmos were useless. The device on Jenny’s breast didn’t look all that complicated.
I gave her a gentle, confident kiss.
And pulled the wires from the battery.
With any luck, the battery was the only power source. If there was a battery inside the controller, we would soon be three dead people. I looked at the blinking light. It stopped blinking. We weren’t out of the woods yet.
Lugh screamed his anguish and, in the process, dropped the switch. It clattered to the floor. The red button had been released. We stared at it.
Nothing exploded.
I unwrapped Jenny’s wrists and gently removed the vest. I set it on the floor. The tape on her ankles came off next. The instant her feet were free, she leapt from the chair into my arms. She wrapped me in a hug and squeezed so tight I wondered if I would ever breathe again. She held me, and I her, without moving for a long time. Then she kissed me. A long, ravenous kiss.
I broke it off. “We need to clear the area.”
She backed up a couple steps to give me room. I went to the ropes and untethered the chair. I lowered Lugh to the floor. He rose and faced me with an awkward expression. He hated me—yet I’d saved his life. He wasn’t sure about the proper etiquette.
Jenny took a few quick steps and kicked Lugh in the nuts. “You son of a bitch! How could you do that.”
Her voice shook the stone chamber. She kicked him in the shin. He fell to his knees.
“It was supposed to be just the two of us, you and me.” Lugh looked up with pathetic eyes. “You saw it. She brought the kids in after she tied me to the ceiling. I never should’ve trusted that bitch.”
“You tried to kill me!” Jenny kicked him in the face. He fell to the floor. She took a big step and kicked him in the stomach. He doubled up in pain. She kicked him in the face again. And again. And again.
“He’s going to jail.” I pulled her off. “I don’t want you to go with him.”
CHAPTER 49
Kommandant was a different woman when we emerged. She wrapped me up in a big motherly hug. An expected reaction since I saved her career along with the children. The parents were on their way. The press strained at the police barriers. Onlookers cheered me in the Swiss dusk.
Jenny wanted to talk. I wanted to talk. But. We had no privacy.
Tania pushed me to get my attention. “Bianca has a fix on what she thinks is the command center for Free Origins. She said spotting the Yagi antennas was a big help. There’s a lot of encrypted messages coming and going from a farmhouse in northern Denmark, near Skagen. It’s a two-hour flight. We’ve got to get moving.”
Miguel shoulder-punched me. “Nice work, friend. You saved the day for them, but there are still a thousand lives at stake if we don’t get moving.”
I faced Jenny and started to say something. She put her finger to my lips to stop me. She said, “I know. Before this, well … I thought you were just a guy. I know, ‘just a guy’ who saved my mother’s life and helped me get a pardon, but it wasn’t just Mom you saved, was it? I get it now. This is what you do. And while I may be safe, there are others. Go. Do what you do. We can talk later.”
I kissed her, hugged her one more time, and followed Tania and Miguel to a place where a big Eurocopter waited. It took us to our jet at the airport. The jet took us to Skagen. The whole time we traveled, people talked to me, said things, showed me stuff. All I could see was that last tear rolling down Jenny’s cheek.
I came out of my stupor when the rental car Miguel was driving stopped at a roadblock. It was dark, and we were near the top of the Jutland peninsula. The Skagen website showed pictures of people in bathing suits on sunny, sandy beaches. My eyes stretched across weedy dunes hugged by a gray sky, and a grayer sea made even grayer by the darkening night.
Mercury tapped my shoulder. That Shikowitz likes to steal your thunder. He called the Danish police before you left Switzerland.
I said, That’s what FBI directors do. Warning foreign governments about American-grown terrorists is his responsibility.
Mercury said, But you can still go in there and get all the glory.
I said, That could be a suicide mission.
Mercury said, Exactly! Then everyone would know how serious you are about doing what the Roman gods tell you.
And that’s when I reached for my meds. My hand went to the empty front pocket of my jeans. I ran out ages ago. While Miguel spoke through the window to an officer, I made a mental note to refill my prescription. One of these days, I might fall for one of his self-immolating ideas.
The cop waved us through. Miguel drove over a ridge where a large police operation was underway. We drove up to a mobile command center with Politiets Efterretningstjenestes emblazoned on it.
A young man in full battle rattle opened my door. “Mr. Stearne, Afdelingschef Dalsgaard requests your presence. We have heard a great deal about you, and he has many questions.”
“What are we, chopped liver?” Tania asked.
The young man looked up and saw my squad for the first time.
I said, “They’re with me. We’re the holy trinity—as far as you know. What’s that Aff-word you used? Since it ended in ‘chief’ does that mean he’s the head of whatever that says on the van there?”
The young man looked back and forth. His English was perfect, no accent. But so was his Danish. Which doesn’t sound as much like German as I expected. He said, “Denmark’s Security and Intelligence Service. We’re the counter terrorism division, and yes, he is the chief. I am Jannik, your translator for now.”
He took us to a stout, older man with thin gray hair brushed straight back. The chief had a trimmed beard and sharp eyes that stabbed at all our critical points. Jannik warned us Dalsgaard was of the older generation who did not learn English in school and did not think it was cool to speak it. He was a traditionalist who insisted his people speak Danish in the office. Everyone else spoke English when he wasn’t around.
“Chief Dalsgaard has many concerns about you.” Jannik shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Ehm. Major Pavard of the—”
“Fuck Major Pavard.” I gave young Jannik my soldier stare. When he flinched, I continued. “Does Dalsgaard want to stop a tragedy or be the guy who watched it happen? Don’t just stand there flapping your lips, ask him.”
Jannik turned barn-red and prefaced his translation as a direct translation.
Dalsgaard responded at length in a
cool voice.
Jannik faced me. “It is not just Pavard, whom Chief Dalsgaard does not know. There are also the videos of you training American terrorists in Úbeda, and Lieutenant Hugo’s report from Leiden, that give him grave concern.”
“That’s Lieutenant Colonel to you, Jannik. And for the record, fuck Lieutenant Colonel Hugo too.”
Mercury came running around the corner. Dude, they have a robot checking out the farmhouse on the other side of that rise. They’ve got snipers in position and a bunch of guys primed and ready to rock. Guess what’s on top of the farmhouse. Yagi antennas. It’s them. C’mon, don’t stand there yakking it up with these fobbits. Get out there. Caesars are always out front.
I said, They’d shoot me in the back.
Mercury said, So? There’s work to be done. Glory to be seized! Carthago delenda est, damn it.
I said, What?
Mercury said, Carthago delenda est. Carthage must be seized. Do you ever read those books I make you buy, or do you just stick ’em on your bookshelf to impress the ladies?
I said, I read them. Some of them. A couple.
Jannik said, “Are you all right, sir?”
“No. I’m not all right.” I faced Dalsgaard. “Thirteen religious communities are about to be attacked. Hundreds could die in a matter of hours. What did your robot find?”
“He insists on answers to his concerns, or he will have you escorted back to your jet.” He shifted his weight and fidgeted. “One other question, if you don’t mind. I lived in America for six years. I studied English and thought I knew it very well. But this one word I don’t understand. What is a fobbit?”
My heart stopped.
Mercury’s mouth fell open. He slapped my shoulder. Brutha, you didn’t say fobbit, I did. Does this mean Jannik can hear me?
I said, Impossible. You’re not real.
Mercury said, Not real? Holy Jupiter. Who told you how to save Jenny and the kids? Who said, and I quote, ‘All I know about this high-tech stuff is that without power, it’s useless.’ Who saves your ass every time you’re about to die?