Decker stood up from behind the crate.
“Ah, there you are,” said El Aqrab with a grin. “You are resourceful, aren’t you, Agent Decker?” He waved his hand and the match went out. “Come closer, let me see you. That’s better. Now, throw your gun down.”
Decker stepped forward, his arms raised, and his pistol dangling from his fingertips. He took a few more steps. Then he stopped and slowly lowered the weapon to the floor. He kicked it over to El Aqrab. His large companion bent down and picked it up. Then he approached Decker.
“Just let her go, Jamal.”
“My name isn’t Jamal. Not anymore. It’s El Aqrab.”
“You said you’d release her.”
“And you said you wouldn’t give up your gun.”
The other man stepped forward without warning and smacked Decker across the face. Decker buckled at the knees. His head began to ring. He was actually seeing stars. The man had hit him with his gun. Decker tried to stand but his legs were made of water.
The man grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him to the nearest crate. He handcuffed Decker’s right hand around some kind of heavy machinery. Then he pulled Swenson over by the hair and attached her to the other side.
“You said you’d let her go,” said Decker. His face had started to swell and it was difficult to talk.
El Aqrab approached him carrying the attaché case in his hands. He placed it on the crate, immediately beside them, only a hand’s length out of reach. He turned it around so that Decker could see the bright red LED. It was counting off the sequence. There were twenty-eight minutes left. No, twenty-seven now. He stared at El Aqrab, trying to find some semblance of humanity, some touch of grace, some particle of pity in him — but there was nothing there. “You said you’d let her go,” he repeated almost to himself.
El Aqrab drew near. He padded over like a cat. “I promised you she wouldn’t feel the pain of fire. And she won’t. Neither of you will. A nuclear explosion is probably the quickest way to die. And, therefore, the least painful.” He laughed. He hovered over Decker.
“Oh, and, by the way — Salim Moussa sends his love. He told me to tell you that he still gets chills remembering your partner falling. He knew you would give up your gun. You have no heart for killing, Agent Decker. You couldn’t even shoot to save your partner.”
“Fuck you, you little prick. Fuck you! What a disappointment,” Decker said. “The great El Aqrab.” He laughed. “To destroy the world over your shattered dreams, your inconsequential ego. How fucking pathetic. This isn’t about Allah or Islam, the Ummah or the Palestinians. It’s all about Jamal. About your murdered mother. Your hunger for revenge. About Ishmael’s jealousy of Isaac.”
The gun came down on Decker’s head. He saw a light as bright as any nuclear explosion.
Then it burnt out.
Chapter 40
When Swenson came to, she was handcuffed to Decker around some piece of machinery, still half-lodged in its crate. She sat up. It felt as though someone had cleaved her forehead down the middle like a chicken breast. Then she realized she was naked, except for strand after strand of light gray metal ribbon, and the bulbous contours of what appeared to be balloons of sand, like seaweed pods. She covered herself with her hand. “Decker,” she said. She tugged on the handcuffs but he still didn’t stir. “Decker,” she repeated more emphatically.
He was out cold. His face was puffy and red. But he was still breathing; she could see that. At least he was alive.
Swenson struggled slowly to her feet. She looked about. She tugged on the handcuffs, then tried to push the machinery with all of her might, but it wouldn’t budge. That’s when she noticed the aluminum attaché case, just out of reach on the crate. And then the bright red LED, the numbers counting: 25.29; 25.28; 25.27.
And it dawned on her — the bomb! The atom bomb, no bigger than a briefcase. It was an elegant device, scientifically speaking. A beautiful angel of death.
She sat down on the ground by the crate. Simply not seeing the numbers reassured her. “Decker,” she said, “Please wake up. John? John, can you hear me? Please!”
Decker did not stir. Swenson looked about, trying to spy something that might prove useful. Nothing! They were trapped. She ran her free hand through her hair, trying to think, when she felt the hairpin. She plucked it out. She held it up against the light. It was a little bent but it would have to do. Swenson slipped it into the tiny keyhole in the cuffs, just as she had seen done a thousand times on television, and in the movies. She started to twist. The hairpin slithered out. She tried again. She worked it around in every possible direction, using different combinations and various rates of pressure. She examined it like an experiment.
After a painful three minutes, she was about to give up when — with a great sigh — she tried to rip the hairpin from the hole. Great! Now, it’s stuck, she thought. She cursed and yanked it free. Decker rolled over. Swenson tried to catch him but he banged his face against the crate, exactly where he’d been struck with the gun.
“Oops,” she said. “Sorry!” She pulled him upright once again, and slipped the hairpin back into the lock. “Decker,” she said as she worked. “Decker, wake up. We’ve got to get out of here. John, wake up!”
He moaned. He started to move.
She let him gradually recline into her lap. She stroked his face and said, “John, if you don’t wake up, we’re both going to die. And I really don’t want to do that.”
Decker’s eyes fluttered open. He stared up at Swenson and smiled. “Where am I?” he said.
“Don’t you remember? We’re in a cavern, at the heart of an active volcano, in the middle of the Atlantic, handcuffed to a nuclear bomb.”
“Oh, right. I thought for a minute there that we were in trouble.” He laughed and sat up. “That’s an interesting ensemble you’re wearing.”
“Are you insane? You think this is funny? How hard did that guy hit you?”
Decker looked over the lip of the crate at the attaché case. They had twenty-three minutes to live. “Not hard enough,” he said.
Swenson continued to fiddle with the lock.
Decker noticed her desperate prodding. “What is that?” he said. “A hairpin? That’ll never work.”
“Got a better idea?”
“You’re right. Here, let me try.”
She handed him the hairpin. He turned it first one way, and then the other. Then he tried again. And again. And again, when — out of nowhere — the patter of desperate footsteps echoed through the cave. Someone was running toward them. Decker tried to stand but the handcuffs kept him huddled over, and the sudden jerking of the chain caused Swenson to cry out. He peered over the crate. “It’s him,” he said.
“Who?” Swenson strained to get a better view.
“One of the men who chased us back at the hotel. I recognize him.” Then Decker paused, and listened, and added in a tone of quiet desperation, “He’s coming this way.”
They squatted down behind the crate, both absolutely still. Swenson’s thighs began to shake. She watched as a thin rivulet of blood ran past Decker’s temple, down his neck, and into his shirt. The footsteps grew louder and louder as the man drew near. He was almost upon them. And then he was there, right there, beside them, towering overhead, casting a shadow over Decker, who still held the hairpin in his hand.