Peter said, “I’m sorry, Dinah. It’s my fault you’re here.”
“Peter?” She turned her face, trying to find the direction of his voice. She’d pulled Miles into her lap. “Peter, where are you?”
“No talking,” called Lipsky. He was on the phone again.
“I’m cuffed to a chair,” said Peter. “Keep your blindfold on. It’s going to be okay.”
“I said don’t talk.” Boomer came over and backhanded Peter across the face. “You gotta learn to do what you’re told.”
Peter tasted blood. “Fuck you,” he said. “Cut these cuffs off and hit me again. I’ll have you pissing blood for a week.”
“Please, Peter,” said Dinah, arms wrapped tight around Miles, her face shrouded by the blindfold. “Do whatever they say. They told me they’ll let us go when they have what they need. I just told them where the money is.”
Lipsky turned to the scarred man. “Boomer, get that detonator finished. Midden, go keep an eye on Cas. Help him get the bags dumped into the drums.” Midden nodded and walked out to the warehouse.
Dinah buried her face in Miles’s neck.
Boomer took another folding chair and sat at the table across from Peter, a cruel smile playing across his ruined face. “I’m looking forward to watching you turn into pink mist.”
Peter smiled pleasantly. “That’s funny. I’m looking forward to tearing off your head and using your neck for a latrine. I think it’ll improve your looks.”
Boomer stood up again, reached under his coat, and brought out a gigantic revolver. “I think I’ll just shoot you now, fuckface.”
“Boomer.” Lipsky’s voice cracked like a whip. “We keep him alive for now, remember?”
“What is the plan, anyway?” asked Peter. “Sure seems like you’re making this up as you go along.”
Lipsky looked at Peter. “I take it back, Boomer. Go ahead and hit him. But with your hand, and not in the face.”
Boomer came around the table and drove his fist into Peter’s stomach.
“Ooogh.” Peter doubled forward as much as the plastic handcuffs would let him, and tried to sound as if all the air had gone out of him. He’d hardened his gut muscles when he’d known where the punch would hit, and it wasn’t that bad. He’d had worse during sparring.
Boomer puffed up in triumph. “Now who’s the asshole?”
Lipsky put a hand on Boomer’s shoulder, pulling him away. “Now finish the goddamned detonator.”
“All right, all right.” Boomer emptied the plastic bin onto the table and raked through the bomb parts. A twelve-volt battery. A gray plastic junction box. A cell phone. And a neatly coiled group of wires connected by a plastic wiring harness. To Peter, he said, “You ever get blown up, asshole? They say suicide bombers don’t feel a thing, but how would they know? I’m pretty sure it’s gonna hurt like hell.”
The wiring harness looked like something you’d find under the hood of a car. There were ten short wire pigtails made up of two color-coded wires, blue and white. One end of each pigtail came together in the long, narrow harness. The free ends each ended in a quick connector.
Ten pigtails, Peter thought, for ten sets of conduit. For ten plastic oil drums.
On the far end of the wiring harness, a single pair of wires came out, again blue and white, again with quick connectors. Humming happily, Boomer plugged the single blue wire to one of two blue wires soldered into the open back of the cell phone, then plugged the second blue wire from the phone to a third blue wire soldered to one terminal of the twelve-volt battery.
The cell phone would be the trigger. A remote switch that worked by connecting the phone’s vibrator to a set of wires. When the vibrator was set off with a call or text, the circuit would close and the battery would send power to the detonator.
“Was this how you got blown up, making bombs?” said Peter. “Nasty scars. Lost part of an ear. And you were ugly to begin with. Must be hard to get a date with a face like that.”
Boomer smiled at the wires, his hands busy with his work. “You kidding? I’m a war hero, motherfucker. I get all the pussy.”
“But they feel sorry for you,” said Peter. “That’s a pity fuck. That’s a hand job from your sister.” Peter didn’t know what he had to gain by provoking the man, but he was tied to a chair and hating it. And he wasn’t built to wait.
He saw the muscles work in Boomer’s jaw for a moment, but he still didn’t lift his eyes from his work. “Boy, it don’t matter what you say anymore.” Boomer reached for the free white wire, and plugged its quick connect to a second white wire soldered to the battery’s second terminal. “Because in less than an hour, I’m gonna make a phone call. This here switch gonna close, and ten blasting caps gonna pop, setting off ten beautiful chunks of plastic. The plastic will light up the fuel oil. The oil will light up the fertilizer. All in about half a second. And there will be one big-ass explosion. Take down a tall building.”