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"Hell, get a bomb blanket over it and let it detonate."
"Only one problem. Your girlfriend didn't realize it, I assume, but she's docked right next to a barge that's filled with five thousand cubic yards of propane. That bomb goes and takes out the barge-that'll ignite three square blocks of the West Side."
"Hell, tow it out there."
"I made a call and it'll take two hours to get a tug there and get the barge rigged to move. It's bolted to off-loading pumps on shore. You can't just move the damn thing."
"And how much time do we have till the device goes?"
"Forty-five minutes."
"I'll be right there."
"One thing, Sam. It's weird."
"What's that?"
"The Sword of Jesus… they didn't just call in a threat. They said, 'Get the Bomb Squad over to this houseboat in the Hudson at Christopher.' It's like that was the most important thing, getting somebody from the detail there."
"That's why it's antiperso
"Yep. I think it's directed at us."
"Noted," Healy said. He hung up. Turned to Cheryl, who'd heard the conversation.
He wondered if she was going to give him one of her exasperated looks. The Here-he-goes-again look. The shield against his stubbor
Breathing hard, in the bomb suit.
Walking up the gangplank onto Rune's houseboat. Trying not to think about the last time he was here. About them lying in bed together. About the stuffed toy, Persephone, falling to the floor.
He saw the bag, peeked inside.
Okay. Problems.
It was one of the most sophisticated bombs he'd ever seen. There was an infrared proximity panel so that if a hand got close it would detonate. And it had a cluster shunt-twenty or thirty fine wires ru
And to top it off, there was a mercury rocker switch in the middle of the shuts.
Great, a rocker switch in a bomb on a houseboat…
Healy gave these details to the ops coordinator, who along with Rubin and several other members of the squad huddled behind sandbags at the end of the pier. They'd made the decision to bring only a few officers here; if the propane barge went up, whoever was within two blocks would be killed, and they couldn't risk losing the majority of the squad.
"I could cut the rocker switch," he said, breathing heavily. It wasn't shunted. "But I can't get into the bag. The proximity plate'll set it off."
"How sensitive's the rocker?" Rubin asked through the radio.
"Pretty," he replied. "Looks like anything over three or four degrees'll close the switch."
"Could you freeze the mercury?"
"I can't get anything into the bag. The prox switch."
"Oh, right."
"I'll just have to move it out slowly."
Healy surveyed the scenario. He'd move the bomb to the gap in the houseboat railing where the gangplank was. That would be all right; the bag would stay relatively flat. But then he'd have to pick it up and carry it, by hand, down the gangplank and then to the TCV, which had been driven out onto the pier, ten feet from the houseboat.
That'll be the longest ten feet of my life.
He glanced at the timer. Seventeen minutes left.
"I need some oil."
"What kind?" Rubin asked.
"Any kind."
"Hold up…"
Fifteen minutes…
He was startled when Rubin appeared beside him with a can of 3-In-One oil.
Healy shook his head in thanks-Rubin wasn't wired into the radio any longer-and poured the oil on the painted deck of the houseboat, to minimize the friction when he moved the bag. He tossed the can aside and then reached out and gripped a corner of the canvas. Thought of Adam, thought of Cheryl, thought of Rune. He started to pull it toward him.
Rune watched Warren Hathaway walk down the path to the beach, where she was su
"I've just been on the phone with some investors. Here's what I've arranged. Not great but, considering you don't have a track record making films, I think you'll be happy."
The way it would work was this: Warren Hathaway would loan her the money to finish the editing and post-production work. It would be a straight loan at just eight percent interest. He'd said, "Prime is twelve but since you're a friend…"
She'd hugged him.
"I'd go lower but the IRS imputes income if the interest isn't market value."
Whatever…
Then, he explained, they'd do something called a joint venture, a phrase Rune had never heard before and that started her giggling. When she'd caught her breath he'd told her that he'd underwrite the cost of finding a distributor, then they'd split the profits. She'd get eighty percent, he'd get twenty. Was that okay with her?
"More than okay. Hey, this sounds like real business. Adult, grown-up business."
"I'll go let them know."
Then he'd gone into the house and left her on the wide beach, dozing, thinking about Sam Healy, then about her film, then dozing again, then trying not to think about Sam Healy. She heard the water crash and the gulls hover overhead, squawking. Rune fell asleep to that sound.
An hour later she woke up, with the first sting.
Rune looked at her arm.
Oh, brother…
I have dark hair and dark skin and I've got a half inch of sunscreen on me. There's no way I should have a third-degree burn.
But she felt the blisters forming on her back-a crawling, chill, damp sensation.
She slowly sat up, dizzy, and threw a blanket over her shoulders. She walked toward the house.
Maybe she could ask Warren to rub some Solarcaine on her, but she decided that one thing would lead to another… Not that he wasn't cute, not that she wouldn't love to make Sam Healy a little jealous. But with Warren's interest in her film she figured that no sex made the most sense. Keep it professional.
Her back pricked with an infuriating itching and she danced over the hot concrete of the patio into the house.
Warren was inside, looking into his gym bag.
"I hope you've got Solarcaine in there," she said. "Or Bactine. I'm lobster woman."
"I think I've got something to fix you right up."
She looked around. "Didn't you have two bags?"
"Yeah," he said matter-of-factly. "I left one at your houseboat."
"Oh, too bad."
"No, I did it on purpose." He rummaged, squinting into the bag.
"You did, why?"
"To keep the Bomb Squad busy."
And he took a red windbreaker from the bag, unwrapped it carefully and set a fist-sized wad of plastic explosive and detonator on the tacky driftwood table.