The Drifter (Peter Ash #1)

The scarred man’s design was good. The layers of protection were solid. The junction-box lids were epoxied shut, so he couldn’t get to the C-4 directly. The weakest point was the heavy conduit conveying the wires from the central control box. If he could break the threaded connectors, he could pull the wires and free the blasting cap from the C-4 inside.

He took hold of the closest length of armored conduit and gave a hard jerk. No quick snap of the connectors, nothing gave way. Of course it couldn’t be that easy. He braced his knees on the drums, set himself, and let the white static pull until his shoulders ached. But after a moment it was clear that the connectors and conduit were too strong to break that way.

He could crack them all eventually by stressing the joints, repeatedly bending the conduit back and forth. But it would take minutes for each drum, and he’d never get them all, not in time. Not before they arrived at wherever Lipsky had chosen for his ground zero.

His mind worked hard, riding the static like some animal tamer. Running through possibilities, searching for an answer, while also trying furiously to keep himself intact inside the rush of blinding white electricity. The hardest part was the pure joy of the static, the pleasure in destruction. He hadn’t remembered how good it was, how alive he felt. Part of him, a disturbingly large part, wanted to leave the bomb in place just to watch it explode. To watch the world come down.

But he ignored that urge and channeled it. He leaped up onto the plastic drums for better leverage, and crept across the ordered conduit like a fly testing a spiderweb for weaknesses, and all the while the heaving truck tried to throw him to the floor. He had to get to Boomer’s ignition system, the big central control box. If he could get only one box open, it had to be that one, where the cell-phone igniter connected the twelve-volt battery to the wires for the blasting caps. That way he could essentially pull all the wires at once.

The control box was at the center of the bomb. This plastic lid also was epoxied in place, but there was a little overhang, a thin lip where Peter might get a grip. Peter caught one edge of the loosened handcuff strap under the lip, and again set himself. Using his back and legs for leverage, he put the white static to work, roaring aloud as he pulled until his muscles screamed. Then he pulled harder. But the epoxy was stronger than the handcuffs had been. Stronger than Peter.

He kicked at the plastic box with his bare foot, hoping the box would crack and he could gain purchase there, but Boomer had used exterior-rated boxes, with thicker walls and stronger corners. Peter’s foot did nothing.

He looked down from his perch on the drums at Midden, who still hung on to the cargo strap while the truck leaped and lurched under his feet. Peter saw the steel clip at his front pants pocket.

“Your knife,” said Peter, barely recognizing his own voice. “Give me your knife.”

The man seemed lost in his head, banished to whatever purgatory or hell he was making for himself there. He didn’t seem to notice that Peter had spoken.

“Hey,” said Peter, the white static roaring fully through him now. “HEY! Make yourself useful. Give me your knife.”

The man didn’t respond for a long moment.

The chemical fumes of the fuel oil mixed with the thumping of the truck over the potholes to give everything a terrible urgency. Every moment of travel that much closer to the time when the world would turn to fire.

Then the man’s dark, dead eyes rose to meet Peter’s while his right hand went to his pocket and took out the knife.

He opened it with his thumb, revealing the wide, wicked blade. The serrations designed for nothing other than opening up the flesh of a man.

He looked at Peter for a long moment.

Then swung his arm and lofted the knife underhand in a gentle pitch devoid of spin, one workman tossing a tool to another.

Peter smiled as it came, plucked it easily from the air, and in the next movement plunged the knife into the lid of the central control box.





53





Dinah


Dinah crossed North Avenue at the top of the hill, looking down toward the bridge where she hoped to put the truck into the river.

Miles clutched her waist and whimpered softly in the seat beside her. She wanted to put her arms around him, but the skinny man with the spooky eyes had his own arm wrapped around her son’s neck, and she needed both hands to drive anyway. She’d take her son back soon.

Halfway down and picking up speed, she realized that she’d forgotten about the rebuilt bridge with its thick concrete guardrails. If she wanted to put the truck in the river, she’d have to turn a hard right at mid-bridge and jump the curb.

But she couldn’t see it working now. She couldn’t see this truck breaking through the thick concrete to make it to the river, not at an angle, not already slowed by the high curb, and the river only a few dozen yards across. If she made the turn at high speed, she’d flip the truck. She could see it happening in her mind.

They wouldn’t make it to the water. She’d likely just flip the truck.

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