“We won’t know until you can describe what the mechanism is like.”
“What am I supposed to do, run back and forth?” she snapped.
“If you could disrupt the explosive assembly around the core of the weapon,” said Johnny Bib, who was listening in on the line, “then it stands to reason that the explosion would not work as designed. The formula has a set of variables that I believe describe modules. Removing one module will alter the result exponentially.”
“In English!”
“Take one of the explosive modules away,” said Johnny Bib. “There’ll still be an explosion, a huge one, but it won’t compress the nuclear material. No boom.”
“Look, there’s someone with me. Have him talk to the British police or whoever I was talking to and describe what happened.” She turned and held the phone out for the man who’d surprised her in the tunnel. “Talk to them. I’m going back on the train.”
He grabbed at her arm. Lia jerked back out of the way. If her leg had been all right she would have tossed him over her shoulder.
“You can’t go back,” said the man, his Irish brogue thick now. “It’s suicide.”
“I have to go back. Just tell them what happened.” Lia hobbled toward the entrance. Her leg muscles loosened as she moved and she was able to walk more normally, making decent progress.
“Listen,” said the man, coming after her. “You have to get out of here. Come on.”
“Don’t worry about me.”
“Don’t worry?”
“Look, I’m a professional. Just take care of yourself,” she said finally, heading back for the Chunnel tube.
Donohue watched the woman leave. She must be some sort of undercover police officer — but she had an American accent.
CIA?
Or a British MI5 agent undercover. If that was the case, it would be dicey dealing with her.
Not with that accent. Clearly American. And an American would be an asset.
She was something. She’d nearly flattened him in the tunnel earlier.
Help her and she’d vouch for him when they got out. No one would even question him.
Donohue decided he had nothing to lose by following along and finding out. He gave her enough time to get out of the service tunnel and back into the train tube, then began following as quietly as he could.
111
Dean examined the boxes more carefully this time. They were definitely different units, but they were locked together somehow. The surface seemed to be a plastic material painted to look like metal at first glance. At the top of one of the boxes a small watch face had been inserted in an octagonal cutout; as Dean watched, time slipped away: 424, 423, 422…
He tried to pry the clock up and out of the indentation with his fingers, but it wouldn’t budge.
He could break it, probably, by slamming something into it. But would that stop the timer or merely cause the bomb to explode prematurely?
Where was the stinking Art Room when he needed them?
Dean climbed up over the seats and squirreled around to the back of the car. He saw the dim outline of the power car down the tracks; it sounded like it had been started up again.
Whoever was in it would be waiting for the gunmen.
He stepped back, thinking there must be a way to close the door manually. But it wasn’t obvious, and after a moment searching he decided he was better off trying to figure out how to defuse the bomb.
There were now a little more than 350 seconds left — less than six minutes.
He could break the timer as a last resort.
He began hunting for another switch, looking at each side of the device. When he didn’t find one, he thought it might be possible to pry the watch out and reset it. He reached into his pockets, looking for his keys, only to remember that he didn’t have any. He bent to the dead woman whose body rested against the bombs. Her pocketbook was on the floor near her seat. He opened it and fished around. There was a small nail file at the bottom.
As he started back he heard a sound at the end of the car. He pulled the pistol from his belt as he ducked behind the seat back.
“You going to shoot me?”
“Lia.”
“That thing there’s a nuke,” she said, limping toward it. “Johnny Bib says it’s put together like building blocks. We have to pull one of the blocks away.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Oh yeah, I made it up.”
She reached forward and put her fingers on the crack at the side, pulling. It didn’t budge.
“We have to pull it apart? It won’t explode?”
“I have no idea, Charlie Dean. Just help me.”
“Wait,” said Dean. He ran to where he’d dropped the MP-5, thinking they might be able to use it as a pry bar.
“What happened to your leg?” Lia asked, pointing to the bloodstain.
“I bit a ricochet. How’s your calf?”
“Still here. Johnny Bib’s a nut, you know.”
Dean couldn’t get the muzzle of the weapon into the razor-thin opening between the boxes. He started using the gun like an ice pick, hammering away. Nothing moved.
“This back one, here,” said Lia. “Look, there’s more of a crack. Give me that nail file.”
She took the file and began wiggling it in. It hit something about an inch in.
“Slam the file down,” she said. “I think I hit a lock or something. Come on.”
As Dean positioned himself, he saw the time draining — they were in the two hundreds now.
“Here, come on, come on,” said Lia. She grabbed the gun and together they slammed it down on the file. It broke, but the box moved about a quarter of an inch away from the others, just enough to slide the gun in.
They pushed together, once, twice — and the third time was the charm. The box moved perhaps an inch away.
“More!” Lia yelled.
Dean got up on the seat back and kicked at the gun, forgetting that he had hurt his leg. The knee twisted and the pain was so bad he felt his whole body go weak and then numb.
But the box moved about six inches.
“Again, come on,” said Lia, and she twisted around to help him. He put the pistol down and they pushed, once, twice, three times, a fourth, a fifth — the snaps at the bottom finally gave way and the box tumbled down with a heavy crash.
So did they, rolling into the seats and then onto the floor, Lia barely avoiding getting crushed.
As Dean looked up, a shadow came around the comer at the back of the train. He dove for his pistol.
Mussa heard something as he climbed onto the train. What were Muhammad and Kelvin up to?
He checked the machine gun he had taken from Ahmed. He’d have to kill them, too. There were only a few minutes left, no sense keeping them alive now.
As he turned the corner, the bomb seemed to explode. His first thought was that Allah had permitted him the sublime ecstasy of seeing his weapon erupt.
And then he realized he was very wrong. Someone was trying to take it apart. He was so shocked it took a moment before he could lift his weapon.
