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She caught herself before she could give in to that desperate line of thought and turned to face Michaud. "Mulder found it in a vending machine. He's locked in with it."
Michaud looked over his shoulder and yelled at an agent directing people through the doors. "Get Kesey with the torch! It's in the vending room."
He looked back at Scully. "Take me there," he commanded.
"This way—"
• • •
The windowless room felt like a cell to Mulder, as he crouched in front of the soda machine and stared glassy-eyed at the array of explosives there, the shifting pattern of red numerals on the LED
display.
7:00
He wiped a bead of sweat from his chin, hurriedly punched at his cell phone as it began to chime. He jumped, then switched the phone on with relief.
"Scully? You know that face I was mak-ing—I'm making it now."
"Mulder." Scully's voice was muffled by a keening sound in the hallway. "Move away from the door.
We're coming through it."
He backed away, even as the brilliant blue-white flame of a gas plasma torch began to roughly trace the outline of the metal door. Gray smoke sifted inside as the stench of scorched metal filled the room.
The hinges glowed, then turned black. The torch finished its circuit of the doorway, so that a somewhat smaller rectangle momentarily appeared within it. Mulder heard a series of thumps and a faint voice yelling " Go!" Then, with a muted crash, the door fell inward and crashed to the floor.
"Mulder…" Scully began, but was silenced as Michaud shoved past her, handing off the plasma torch to another agent and grabbing a hefty tool kit. She followed him inside, along with three other agents—bomb techs. They headed for where Mulder stood gazing at the soda machine's digital readout.
4:07
Mulder shook his head. "Tell me that's just soda pop in those canisters."
Michaud gingerly set the tool.kit on the floor and stooped in front of the machine. "No. It's what it looks like. A big I.E.D.—ten gallons of astrolite."
He pursed his lips, studying the bomb, and without looking up, commanded, "Okay. Get everybody out of here and clear the building."
Mulder frowned. "Somebody's got to stay here with you."
"I gave you an order," Michaud snapped, still not looking up. "Now get the hell out of here and evacuate the area."
Scully sidled up behind him. "Can you defuse it?"
"I think so." Michaud snapped the tool kit open and withdrew a pair of wire clippers. The other agents nodded at each other and quickly left the room.
Michaud pushed up the sleeves of his wind-breaker and flexed the wire clippers. Mulder watched him dubiously.
"You've got about four minutes to find out if you're wrong."
Without warning Michaud turned on him. "Did you hear what I said?" His voice shook slightly, and there was a febrile intensity to his gaze.
"Let's go, Mulder," Scully murmured. "Come on."
She started out the door. Mulder remained for a moment longer, staring at Michaud.
But the other man's attention was focused solely on the bomb. Seconds passed, until finally Mulder turned and followed Scully into the corridor. In the room behind him Michaud set the wire clippers carefully on his knee but did nothing else; only crouched staring at the bomb. Just staring.
Outside, the last of the building's occu-pants had been evacuated. The horde of schoolchildren raced up the steps of one of the city buses, while other buses pulled away from the curb in clouds of exhaust.
People ran pell-mell across the plaza, headed for the relative safety of the far side of the street, where police barricades had been hastily erected, and where uniformed men frantically directed the last stragglers to flee.
"Go, now!" bullhorns howled, and their echo rang out above the cries and shouting of the panicking mob.
The plaza in front of the building was all but empty now. As the last buses roared off, the fire engines did the same, and the police cars, until only a single police car and one anony-mous sedan remained, engines ru
"What are you doing?" Scully had gone on ahead, but suddenly noticed his hesitation. "Mulder?"
A solitary figure in FBI windbreaker burst from the revolving door: the last man out.
"All clear!" he shouted, his footsteps echo-ing as he ran toward the idling cop car. Mulder ignored him and remained staring as though entranced by the building.
"Something's wrong…"
Scully hurried to his side. " Mulder?"
The cop car zoomed away. In the sole remaining vehicle, an FBI agent gazed in disbe-lief at Mulder, then yelled, "What's he doing?!"
"Something's not right," Mulder said, as though to himself. Scully shook her head and grabbed his arm.
"Mulder! Get in the car!" In the waiting vehicle the agent motioned at them furiously. "There's no time, Mulder!"
She pulled him after her, heading for the car. Mulder twisted to stare over his shoulder.
"Michaud…" he said.
In the vending room, Michaud had replaced the wire clippers and shut his tool chest. Now he was sitting on it, his eyes fixed on the LED display.
¦30
He watched as the seconds disappeared, yet still did nothing. Finally he let his head drop forward against his chest, not so much in despair as resignation, a devoted Bureau man to the last.
Outside the sun beat heedlessly upon the nearly empty plaza.
"Mulder!" Scully shouted, and at last he relented, hurrying alongside her to the car.
"For chrissakes, get in," urged the agent standing in the open door of the driver's side. "It's going to go at any second—"
Mulder slid into the backseat, Scully into the front, and the car peeled off. They turned to gaze out the rear window, watching as the building receded—ten yards, twenty, not quickly enough.
And suddenly it exploded, the entire edi-fice consumed by a immense ball of flame that ripped up from the bottom floor, expanding until it seemed to devour everything in sight. Smoke surged outward along with buckling steel girders and rippling waves of broken glass, and the air thundered deafeningly.
Scully cried out but her voice was swallowed by that terri-ble roar, her arm bashed against the car door as the bomb's impact traveled through the air and sent the car caroming across the plaza, slam-ming against the back of a car parked on the street. It lifted up in the back and then slammed back down; all around them other cars did the same. There was a sharp crack, and the rear window collapsed into granular parti-cles of safety glass, showering the two of them.
"You okay?" bellowed the agent from the front seat.
"I-I think so," Scully gasped.
Outside shards of glass were everywhere. The air seethed with blackened debris, ash and metal and burning plastic. As Mulder and Scully watched, horrified, the entire side of the building emerged from the smoke, so that they could see inside to where flames raced along abandoned corridors and through the ravaged remains of cubicles and offices. From ground floor to rooftop fires raged, and in the distance the first sirens began to wail.
In the backseat Mulder shook his head, dis-persing glittering bits of safety glass. Slowly he leaned out the broken side window to open the door. He got out while Scully exited the front, the two of them shaken and breathless as they looked up at the burning building, broken glass, and fluttering bits of flaming paper cas-cading everywhere.