“Now you’re just being theatrical.” Benny’s normally clipped, calm voice was rippled with fear.
“I’m pretending to be calm.”
“I’m still scared!” Benny said.
“I am too!” Merinda took a step back. “Imagine a Mountie saying he is scared.”
“I am… uneasy.” Benny ran his hand through his hair. “There’s nothing wrong with saying what you feel, Merinda. You so often say what you think. And with such little provocation.”
Merinda stared at the bomb carcass on the ground. “What do we do with this? I know nothing about bombs.”
“Do you think if I pick it up and take it farther, that will stop it from accidentally detonating?”
“I don’t know! I don’t know!”
“I do!”
They heard David Ross before they saw him, one hand trying to stop the spread of blood, while the other was waving a gun at them. His pained voice was a wire wound tight and thin. “I trusted you.”
“You did so in complete error! What is wrong with you? Going to annihilate the entire world to exact your brand of justice?” Merinda spat.
Ross set his gun down, but as Benny made to grab it, Ross struck a match on the ground beside him and tossed it so that its sudden flame caught the end of string trailing a stick of dynamite, held to others of devastating power like firewood bound with twine. Slowly, the snaking flame ate at the string. “We’re still close enough to do a lot of damage,” Ross panted.
Benny made for the gun, but Ross had reached it in the split second Benny was distracted by the bomb flickering at his shoes. Benny instinctively stepped in front of Merinda and stared Ross down. “There’s enough dynamite here to cause quite a stir,” Ross continued. “You can leave, of course, but that would mean how many casualties?” Ross cocked the pistol and backed away before tripping, still holding the gun toward them and grunting, his hand completely soaked with his blood. “Or one of you can do something noble. Pick it up and run with it. You may not get out alive, but… ”
“What statement does that make?” Merinda screeched. She stepped out from behind Benny. “You would die too.”
“I would take my betrayer with me.”
“Would it be worth it? With no one to see? No president with grand thoughts to extinguish?” Benny leaned into Merinda and turned her from Ross. “Merinda, you have to go! Run. Run as fast as you can and get the police.”
“And what about you?” Merinda squeaked, feet solidly on the ground.
Benny looked about him. Debris, piles of overturned crates, bricks, rubbish. “I can find a way to… to… ”
“You can’t disable a bomb by yourself.” Merinda’s ears made out the painful trail of the flame on the string. Inching closer and closer.
Benny glared at the shortening wick. It seemed surreal. Just a moment before they would… “I won’t have you stay here with me. Merinda, I will not have your blood on my hands when I could… when I could… ”
Merinda shook her head vehemently.
“Ben!”
Merinda and Benny stopped, startled.
“Jonathan!”
“The two other bombs are cleared out,” he assured them. He threw Ross a scowl before following Benny and Merinda’s terrified eyes. “Thought I’d knocked you out better than that, you… you… ” His eye caught the bomb at their feet, and he dropped to his knees and inspected the explosive. “Ben, take Merinda and run. That way!” he said through gritted teeth.
“You can do something, can’t you?” Benny’s attempt at a confident voice betrayed the uncertainty he felt.
Perspiration trailed down Jonathan’s forehead. His fingers shook over the gadgets. His bleary eyes trailed over the interlocking wires. “Not sure, Ben.”
“There must be a way you can stop it!” Benny’s eyes sheened. “You can do anything. You could always do anything.” He watched his cousin’s tired profile.
“Ben, I’ve let you down for the last time,” Jonathan said flatly. He extracted the pistol from his pocket and shot Ross, turned to Benny so their eyes locked. “I’m sorry.”
Merinda looked between them, a startling, wavering realization drawn in a split second. She made to move or speak. But Jonathan had traded the gun for the sputtering bomb and was sprinting in the opposite direction before Benny’s arm could stretch out, clutch on, and hold him back. Merinda, wiry but strong, kept him from bounding after the retreating shadow.
Ray stretched his arm out and centered the barrel so that it pointed directly at Tony.
And his mind screamed, “This is Tony!” For his mind was suddenly a book filled with moments, of photographs, of memories. He was just a boy again and Tony was his best friend. Putting ink in his sister’s tea. Playing jacks by the river. Chasing chickens.
He blinked his eyes into focus. Steadied his hand, his finger light on the trigger. Jasper was bleeding now. “Drop your knife, Tony,” Ray said.