Finally, with the last possible combination, she got a dial tone.
The timer on the bomb showed twelve minutes.
She pressed 911.
And what the hell good is that going to do? Did they evenhave a fire department on Fire Island? And how could she even tell them where she was?
Shit!
She depressed the button and dialed Healy's home number.
No answer. She started to slam it down, then caught herself and cautiously pressed the button again-feeling as if she had only a few dial tones left and didn't want to waste them. This time she called the operator and told her in a breathy voice that it was an emergency and asked for the 6th Precinct in Manhattan. She was astonished. In five seconds, she was connected.
"It's an emergency. I need to speak to Sam Healy, Bomb Squad."
Static, someone near the switchboard telling a Polish joke, more static.
"Patch it through," Rune heard. More static. The punch line of the joke.
Static.
Oh, please…
Then, Healy's voice.
The operator was saying, "Central to Two-five-five. I've got a landline patch for you. Emergency, she says. You available?"
"I'm in the field. Who is it, what does she want?"
"Sam!" she shouted.
But he didn't hear.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
"Tell him Rune," she shouted to the dispatcher.
"Hurry!"
A moment later the condition of the line improved, though it was still filled with static.
"Sam." She was crying. "He's got me in a room with a bomb. The Sword of Jesus bomber."
"Where are you?"
"A house on Fire Island. Fair Harbor, I think. He's put a bomb here."
Seven minutes.
"Where's the guy who set it?"
"He left. It's that Warren Hathaway… the witness in the first bombing. He's going back to Bay Shore on the ferry."
"Okay, I'll get a copter on its way. Describe the house." She did. Healy broke the line for a terrifyingly long twenty seconds.
"Okay, what've we got?"
"A big handful of-what is it?-C-3. There's a timer. It's set to go off in about six minutes."
"Christ, Rune, get the hell out-"
"He's nailed me in."
A pause for a moment. Was he sighing? When he spoke, his voice was soothing as a Valium. "Okay, we're going to get through this just fine. Listen up. Okay?"
"What do I do?"
"Tell me about it." Rune told him what Hathaway had said about the bomb. It seemed he whistled when she explained it, but that may have been just static.
Fiveminutes.
"How big is the room?"
"Maybe twenty by fifteen."
A pause.
"All right, here's the deal. You get far enough away and cover yourself up with mattresses or cushions, you'll probably live."
"But he said it'll make me deaf and blind."
There was silence. "Yeah," he said. "It may."
Four minutes, twenty seconds.
"The thing is, you try to disarm it yourself, and it goes, it'll kill you."
"Sam, I'm going to do it. How? Tell me how."
He was hesitating. Finally he said, "Don't pull the detonator out of the explosive. There's a pressure switch in it. You'll have to bypass the shunt and cut the battery cord. You need enough electricity to keep the galvanometer fooled into thinking the cord isn't cut."
"I don't know what that means!"
"Listen carefully. Look at the bomb. There'll be a little box near the battery."
"It's gray. I see it."
"With two metal posts on it."
"Right."
Healy said, "You have to run a piece of wire that's very narrow gauge-"
"What's gauge?" She was crying.
"Sorry… I mean, it's got to be real thin. Run a piece from one lead of that box to the main terminal connecting the battery to the cable. See what I'm saying?"
"Right."
"Then you cut the wires to the timer."
Three minutes, thirty.
"Okay," she said.
"Find a piece of wire, strip the insulation off, and wrap one strand-not all of them, just one strand-around the terminal of the gray box and then the other around the terminal on the timer. Then cut the other wires from the timer."
"Okay, I'll do it." She stared at the plastic components. Picturing it.
Healy said, "Remember, you can't override the rocker switch. So don't move the bomb itself."
Through her tears she said, "They're called IEDs, Sam. Not bombs."
"The helicopter's on its way. There'll be county police meeting the ferry in Bay Shore. And we'll send one out to Fair Harbor."
"Oh, Sam. Should I just hide under the mattress?"
He paused. The static rose up like a storm between them. Then he said, " 'Believe in what isn't as if it were until it becomes.'" Two minutes.
"I'll see you soon, Sam." Rune yanked the wires from the phone. Then, with her teeth, stripped the insulation off one of them-the white wire-and wound one strand around the two terminals, the way Healy had told her. Ninety seconds.
Now cut through the battery cables. She bent to the bomb, smelled the oily scent of the explosive, just inches from her face, and took one of the black wires in her teeth. She began chewing. Tears fell on the plastic.
It was thicker than she thought.
Fifty seconds.
A tooth chipped and she felt an electric jolt of pain and surprise. Her breath hissed inward.
Forty.
Thirty…
The wire snapped.
No time for the other one. Had he said to do both of them? She thought he had. Shit. She backed away from the bomb, pulled the mattress and springs off the bed and lay down on the floor in the corner the way Hathaway had told her. Blind and deaf…
Thirty twenty-nine twenty-eight twenty-seven…
She prayed-to a God she hoped was a lot different from the one the Sword of Jesus claimed as theirs.
Fourteen thirteen twelve eleven…
Rune tucked her head against her chest.
Warren Hathaway was proud of his precision. When not building bombs he was in fact a bookkeeper-though not a CPA-and he enjoyed the sensuality of the act of filling in the numbers on the pale green paper with a fountain pen or a fine-tipped marker-one that did not leave indentations on the sheet. He enjoyed the exactness and detail.
He also enjoyed watching big explosions.
So when the windows of the beach house did not disintegrate in a volley of shards and the sandy earth did not jerk beneath him from the huge jolt of the bomb he felt his stomach twist in horror. He didn't swear-the thought never would have entered his mind. What he did was pick up the hammer and walk the hundred yards back into the house.
The trials of Job…
He knew he'd set the system properly. There was no doubt that he knew his equipment. The cap was buried in just the right thickness of plastic. The C-3 was in good condition. The battery was charged.
The little whore had ruined his handiwork.
He walked inside and then slammed the hammer down on the wooden boards barring the door. He struck them near the nails to lift their heads and then caught them in the claw. With a loud, haunted-house creak the nails began coming out.
With the first naiclass="underline" He heard the girl's voice in a panic, asking who was there.
The second naiclass="underline" She was screaming for help. How silly and desperate they were sometimes. Women. Whoring women.
The third naiclass="underline" Silence.
He paused. Listening. He heard nothing.
Hathaway pulled the rest out. The door opened.
Rune stood inside the room, in front of the table, looking at him defiantly. Her hair was stuck to her face with sweat, her eyes were squinting. She drew the back of her hand across her mouth and swallowed. In her other hand was a leg wrenched from a table or chair.
He laughed at it, then frowned, looking past her at the bomb. He studied it with professional curiosity. She'd bypassed the shunt.
He was frowning. "You did that? How did you know-?"