Man in the Middle

something I want: those documents. You tell me, I tell you.”

Peter stepped forward. As he did, Muller picked up a metal box and held it outstretched—as a magician might hold a deck of cards for his audience to see.

“Stop right there, Neil. I anticipated your non-cooperation.” Muller’s fingers folded over the box. Peter fixated on the thumb as it depressed a red button.

Peter looked around the room, moving only his eyes.

The immense skull shook. “Here’s what’s happening: this is a detonator, tied to a room wired with explosives. In that room, several miles away, is a very pregnant black woman.”

“You’re insane. What’s wrong with you?” Peter needn’t have asked the question. Muller’s eyes were chutes that led straight to hell and thoroughly billboarded his problems. The man was vile, and his evil was joyous, enraptured, and at the core of his being. It’s what made him so good at what he did for a living: lying, breaking the law, unnecessarily destroying people, and amassing fortunes at the expense of others. And for Muller, this current drama was about more than simply retrieving those damning papers. It was about hatred. And sport. About obliterating his most despised opponent.

“You are a pissant, Neil,” Muller said, using a tone that confirmed all of Peter’s suspicions. “I suggest you listen, carefully.” Muller again grinned, as if reacting to an inner joke. “Think back to that moron, Stanley Drucker. It’ll save us some time . . .” Muller gave an explanation identical to the one Carlos Nunoz had given to Stanley Drucker. “If you try and remove my thumb,” Muller said, “the Franklin woman will blow up. If you substitute your own hand—assuming you can do that without this button retract-ing—she will blow up. The sensors will recognize only my thumbprint. So as to make certain we reach a resolution expeditiously, this device will send its signal in twenty minutes, no matter what I do. You may thank Sarah Guzman for the idea. And while I don’t much like her personally, she has a formidable mind. Don’t you think?”

Peter took another step, placing himself only a yard away from Muller, then stopped. What to do? He didn’t have an answer.

“You don’t want me to lift my thumb,” Muller said, the calmer halfof his split-personality now speaking.

Peter watched as Muller’s thumb twitched, on purpose, as if a central part of the damn show. “How do I know you won’t kill Monica anyway?” Peter asked, buying time to think.

“Trust.” Muller laughed a mocking belly-laugh. “That’s funny. Almost as funny as you saying I could be a Macy’s Parade float.” With those words, Muller flipped a mental switch and his voice became hard and crazy, worse than before. “What do you say, Neil? A fucking trade? Huh? Come on, wise guy. What do you say? Hit the bid? Take the offer? How’s it feel to be an impotent piece of nothing, you nothing? You have a split-second to decide. Assess your risk-reward. You ready to shit in your pants yet? Sure you are. You’ve been screwing around with the best. Me. Did you really think you had a chance? Get fucking real—” The man sounded like Stuart on drugs. Only Muller mainlined suffering.

Aware of the emptying hourglass, Peter cut the tirade short. “Shut up, Muller! Tell me: do you have a way to disengage that thing?”

As Peter waited for an answer, something nagged his subconscious. He looked at the Civil War trophy case. The safe. Toward the small desk-key hidden in the index card box. Tape. Matches. He considered all of Muller’s words, and then glanced at the man’s hand and arm and body. He imagined noise and chaos. How did all these pieces fit together? Did they fit together?

“Of course I have a way to disengage things,” Muller finally said, not sounding as if he cared whether Peter believed him or not. “I’m here to trade a life for some worthless documents.”

Muller stood, holding the detonator chest high, and a bit too casually, Peter thought.

A powerful shudder suddenly passed through Peter’s body, rattling his spine and clearing his mind. In that moment, he convinced himself of the futility of negotiating with Muller. He had the seeds of a plan that was less than brilliant, but seemed better than taking his chances with Muller. A tight knot released from Peter’s belly like a spring, catching Muller in total surprise. Peter reached out and slammed both hands across the extended box, enveloping the CIO’s fat thumb atop the button, making certain he couldn’t relax the pressure he had on the detonator. Muller went from bent to rigid in a fraction of a second. With a leveraged twist, Peter wrenched the imprisoned wrist. Pain spread across the man’s gigantic face faster than the flash of a struck match.

Peter pulled the twisted arm, circled it behind Muller’s back, and lifted. As large as Muller was, he did not match Peter in strength or agility. In a helpless reflex, Muller rose up on his toes, and Peter pinned the wrist and arm against his back in a half-nelson. Muller breathed so heavily that his airborne blasphemies were unintelligible.

Don’t let go of his hand, Peter reminded himself in a steady mantra.

“Where is she?” Peter hissed in Muller’s ear.

“Nowhere.” Tears supplanted sparks as Muller melted. “I wouldn’t have had you come . . .” He coughed, then tried again to speak: “Had you come if—”

“Wrong answer.” Peter pulled on the pinned arm. Muller screamed. “Where is she?” Peter repeated.

“I told you . . .”

Peter tuned him out. Even if Muller revealed where he held Monica, they had too little time to find her and deliver her to safety. Taking another tack, he asked, “How do you disengage this thing?”

“You don’t disengage,” Muller said. It sounded like a plea.

Peter gave up trying to get through to Muller. A wireless signal. Radio waves, traveling through walls. He had earlier formulated an extreme plan and, with all other options tapped out, he decided to go for it. It amounted to a longshot, but at least it was some kind of shot.

Peter did a final inventory of the office contents. “I’m going to tell you to do something,” he said. “If you don’t, I swear to God I’m going to kill you. You understand?”

“Yes . . . but a mistake—”

“Your safe,” Peter said. “The one built into that panel. The one with all that cash for paying-off scum. Open it.”

“No . . .”

Peter tugged at Muller’s wrist, driving a hip into the man’s back and forcing him against the wall, near his desk. “Do it.”

Muller’s free hand depressed a button on the lip of the desk. A wall panel slid open, revealing a two-foot safe with a mounted keypad.

“Enter the damn code. Now!” Peter yelled, compliance with his commands no longer an issue.

Muller leaned in and pressed a series of numbers. The safe popped open an inch. Peter looked to his watch. Time seemed to move illogically, in chunks of seconds. Clutching Muller’s hand with his right palm, Peter used his left to finish opening the heavy door. Reaching in, he pulled out two bags and dropped them to the floor. Bundled bills were evident through the canvas.

He then steered Muller to the Civil War trophy case. Peter smashed the glass, activating a burglar alarm. Muller no longer attempted to speak or resist. In a sweeping motion, Peter grabbed one of the two unsheathed swords mounted in a metallic X. He yanked. The pitted blade of the field officer’s sword held its mount. Peter made a second attempt, leveraging his weight. This time, the relic released with a jerk. The momentum caused Peter to teeter. Muller limply flowed with the action, but his thumb-grip on the detonator held.

Peter unwound Muller’s arm, bringing it from around the back. He then flattened that arm across the wooden desk and raised the blade overhead, clutching the sharkskin wrap of the grip. Aiming, he brought the edge down in a chopping axe-motion. At mid-forearm, the lower halfof Howard Muller’s appendage separated from his body-main. Peter moved before blood spraying from Muller’s stump could soak him.

Peter carried the forearm across the room, thumb still attached to the small metal box, still depressing the red button. Muller collapsed to the floor with a thud.

Peter found the index-card box that held the key to the desk drawer, not daring to look at the gray flesh of Muller’s arm. He snatched the small key and returned. Unlocking and opening the desk drawer, he found a tape dispenser. He began winding scotch-tape around the lifeless thumb, pinning it in place against the button. He counted the seconds. He reached eight the moment he stood next to the open safe. He estimated the steel- reinforced walls at four inches. He dropped the taped creation, fingers already gone stiff, through the twenty-inch opening. He swung the door shut.