Mortal Fear

left in here weeks ago, toner bottle for refilling printer cartridges-

“Harper, for God’s sake!”

I hold up my hand, looking from the sleek black EROS computer to the boxy white Gateway 2000, then at the printers attached to each, and finally the keyboards.

“Drewe.”

“What?”

“I want you to type Berkmann a note. On the Gateway.”

“What?”

“Please just do it.”

“What do I type?” she asks, sitting down at the computer.

“Go into WordPerfect. Double-space the note. Write it as if you’re me. Tell Berkmann you hate his guts, that you’re taking your wife out of the house, that he’ll never have her. Tell him to wait right where he is, because you’re coming back to kill him as soon as your wife is safe.”

“But it’s the wrong computer!” Drewe protests. “I can’t send the message to him!”

“Just do it! But whatever you type, make the note longer than a single screen. You understand? You’vegot to go a few lines past the first screen.”

“Okay,” she says, tapping slowly at the keys.

I flip on the halogen lamp near the Gateway, then move to the door with the.38 and switch off the overhead light.

“Where are you going?” Drewe calls, her voice high and thin.

“I’ll be right back. Finish the note!”

I close my left hand around the doorknob and slowly turn it. Berkmann could already be inside the house, but I don’t think so. And I’m going to be very quick.

One pull and I’m sailing up the hallway with the office door shut behind me. Hard left, into the unused bedroom that holds the gun safe. Shifting the.38 to my left hand, I kneel before the safe, spin the combination lock back and forth to the numbers of my father’s birthday, and yank the handle. My right hand parts the thicket of antique muskets, grabs a black-and-yellow can, and gives it a shake. Three-quarters full. Then I’m running again, the.38 held out in front like a ram.

“Thank God!” Drewe cries from the pool of light at the center of the room.

I shut and lock the office door. “Did you finish the note?”

“Four lines past the bottom of the screen. Harper, what are you trying to do?”

A moment of doubt as I reach into the bottom drawer of the desk. Nothing gets lost faster than tools. But this one I used less than a week ago.

“What are you looking for!”

My heart leaps as my hand closes around the screw starter. “I’m going to blow him to hell and gone.”

“What?”

I hold the can from the gun safe under the light.

“Black powder?” she asks.

“You got it.” I flip open the top of the Hewlett-Packard printer and pull out the black wedge-shaped toner cartridge. Drewe stays on my heels as I carry the cartridge into the bathroom.

“Tell me what you’re doing!” she demands. “Are you making some kind of bomb?”

“Yes.” With the screw starter, I pop out the two pins in the left end of the cartridge, then flip it around and start on the right.

“What are you going to do with it?”

The fourth plug gives with a pop. “Kill Berkmann,” I tell her, dropping the plug into my pocket. “I need you to clear out a space on the floor of the closet. Move all the shoes and things to one side.Hurry.”

“Okay.”

After pulling off the cartridge cover, I turn the cartridge on end, exposing the inch-wide plug in the toner reservoir. It pulls out easily. I start to invert the cartridge over the toilet bowl, then realize how stupid that would be. The “ink” used by laser printers is a superfine black powder of plastic and metal that looks like coal dust and spreads like an eruption of volcanic ash. If I try to flush it down the toilet, the bathroom will look like a blind man tried to paint it with India ink. Instead, I flip open the cabinet that holds my dirty clothes hamper, stick the cartridge through, turn it on end, and shake it until the weight tells me it’s empty. Then I pull it out, wipe my hand on a towel, and drop the towel into the hamper.

“I heard something!” Drewe shouts. “Outside!”

Looking out of the bathroom, I see her pointing the.25 at one of the front windows. “Just keep to the shadows,” I tell her, running back to my desk.

With the empty toner cartridge braced against the floor, I press the sharp end of the screw starter against the plastic and bear down like a blacksmith, punching a hole clean through the wall of the toner reservoir. Then I punch another hole about a quarter inch from the first.

“Hurry, Harper!”

Covering the holes with my thumb, I begin filling the toner reservoir with black gunpowder.

“Why did I have to write that message?” Drewe asks.

“That’s part of the detonator.” Through the plug hole, I watch the level of the gunpowder rising.

“I don’t understand.”

“When you don’t go outside, Berkmann will have no choice but to come in. Just like you said.” I glance at my watch. Nearly three and a half minutes have passed.

“If he sets the house on fire, we’llhave to go out!”

“He won’t do it.” The gunpowder keeps rising. “He won’t take a chance on hurting you.”

“Where are we going to be when this bomb of yours blows up?”

“Right here.”

“Right here? In this room?”

“In the closet.”

“What? Waiting for him to come in here with us and set it off?”

“It’s the only way.”

“You said we’d die if we wound up in the same room with him!”

The toner reservoir is full. I stuff the plug back into the hole, then dig through the bottom drawer of my desk for wire cutters and electrical tape. I need wire too, but there’s none in the drawer.

“Stop for one second!” Drewe shouts, squeezing my arm so hard I have to yank it away.

“Damn it!” I yell, trying desperately to think of some place in the office where there might be wire. “We’ll be buried under clothes and everything else in the closet.”

“How big will the explosion be?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“Like a pipe bomb. We might get hurt, okay? Buthe’ll be cut to pieces.”

Drewe freezes, her mouth open. “Did you hear that?”

My eyes lock onto a Gibson ES-335 guitar hanging from its brace above my bed. “What?” I ask, jumping onto the bed with the wire cutters.

“My God! Do you smell that?”

The first snip pops the Gibson’s high E-string with a twang like a cartoon ricochet. The second gives me the length of wire I need.

“Gasoline!” Drewe gasps. “That’sgas!”

She’s right. The sharp tang of high-octane gasoline is seeping into the room. Maybe through the air- conditioning ducts.

“He’s bluffing,” I tell her, cutting the guitar string into two three-inch lengths. I pull off my watch and hand it to her. “We’ve got forty seconds. Tell me when our time’s up.”

With Drewe staring wildly at me, I reach into the open cartridge with the screw starter and feel for the corona wire. This ultra-thin filament electrically charges the magnetic drum that puts the “ink” in the right places on