Unless …
Something nagged at my brain, just beyond my awareness. Something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Something about the timing of the detonation was itching at me, trying to make sense. If I had a few minutes to work it out …
But I didn’t. I’d have to put that thought on hold and come back to it later. At the moment, I had to either wait for the bomb squad or try to disarm the bomb myself. I thought about it and decided it made sense for me to do it since the explosion was well overdue. I was sure the hotel clerk had called the bomb squad, but by the time the call got routed to the right people, by the time the right people got here, it could all be over.
I headed for the back entrance at a fast clip. As I pulled the door open, a childhood memory popped into my mind, a perfect example of how this Time Saver thing works.
I’d been twelve the summer my best friend Eddie tied a dozen cherry bombs together with a single fuse and lit it. We howled with excited laughter and dashed for cover. We waited forever but nothing happened. Eddie finally went back to investigate and when he did, the bombs exploded. Eddie lost several fingers, a section of ear, and most of the skin on the left side of his face.
I can’t explain how, but standing in the hotel doorway just then I could feel the bomb trying to explode. In my mind I pictured an old-time detonator, the kind with the big handle you push down to make contact. In my mind that handle was already in motion. I screamed for the benefit of anyone within the sound of my voice. “There’s a bomb in the hotel! Run for cover!”
I slammed the door shut, reversed my direction, and ran full speed back toward the concrete wall I’d spotted earlier, the one that bordered the courtyard. It was waist-high, and from this direction, I couldn’t just slide behind it like before. I’d have to dive over it like the commando I used to be.
So I did. I managed the dive. Then, laying flat on my chest, I pressed the left side of my body and head against the wall.
At which point, much of the hotel—and the upper third of the wall protecting me—vaporized.
CHAPTER 27
The explosion from the hotel left a residue of soot and dust hanging in the air like a mushroom cloud. I coughed what I could out of my lungs. My ears rang. All color had been blasted from my vision. I turned to check behind me and saw white sand and sky, black palm trees and water.
I shook my head a couple of times and blinked the color back into my eyes. I got to my feet, checked for injuries, but other than the nagging pain in my shoulder, I had nothing to complain about. I seemed to be moving in slow motion and wondered if I was in shock. I willed myself to snap out of it so I could focus on the devastation fifty feet before me.
The side walls of the hotel remained intact, but most of the back had been scooped out. The roof and outer walls of the penthouse floor were still there but were listing precariously. With the internal support structure weakened, it would only be a matter of time, probably minutes, before the overhang crashed into the rubble below. The balcony I’d jumped from, like the ones above and below it, as well as the adjacent ones, was history. The exterior of the hotel had been cleanly dissected in a half-circle running maybe sixty feet in diameter.
What remained looked like a scene from a war zone, with bodies and body parts everywhere. Leaping flames erupted sporadically, revealing ruptured gas lines. People screamed from within, but the massive wall of sweltering heat would surely hinder rescue efforts.
Locals, tourists, and even vagrants began rushing to the scene to rubberneck. I spotted a homeless guy heading my way wearing a decent pair of boots. I fished a fifty from my jeans and quickly traded for them. As I laced up the bum’s boots, I studied the roof. How long could it possibly hang there, defying gravity?
This was no time for heroes, I thought, and had I not felt directly responsible for the widespread destruction and loss of life, I might have walked away. Instead, I took a deep breath and entered the smoldering ruins. As my eyes adjusted to the soot and heat, I scanned the carnage and decided the far right edge of the blast perimeter offered the highest probability for survivors.
Disregarding the teetering roof structure above me, I picked my way through the mess. Within seconds I spotted the torso of an elderly man covered in soot. I tried for a pulse, but he wasn’t offering any. In these situations, you have to move quickly, put your effort where it can do the most good.
I had to focus on the living.
Working my way deeper into the ruins, I moved beyond the mangled bodies of the obvious dead. Since most surfaces were too hot or sharp to grab, I took a few seconds to search for something I could wrap around my hands. Strips of curtain remnants did the trick, and soon I was tossing broken furniture out of the way and pushing slabs of concrete aside in order to inspect the smoky air pockets below.
I found an unconscious boy with severe burns lying beneath the upturned bed that had saved his life. Next to him I found a girl, probably his older sister, who had not been so fortunate. I carried the boy out of the blast site to a clearing on the sand. Some people rushed to help. A lady said, “Bless you.” I nodded and went back to search for others.
Some who had gathered to view the scene became motivated to help. Better than nothing, I figured, but the devastation was formidable and the rescuers were unskilled and tentative. Some with rubber soles beat a hasty retreat when they felt their shoes melting.
I continued working and managed to uncover several bodies, but no survivors. Quinn appeared out of nowhere, carrying two children, one in each arm, both disfigured with horrific injuries but alive. Someone pointed and screamed when they saw Quinn’s face, mistaking him for a burn victim. We assessed each other with a quick nod and continued our search.
Soon police and fi refighters were on the scene, yelling at us to clear the area. Knowing these guys were better equipped to handle things, Quinn and I withdrew and began picking our way through the mass of people converging on the area where one of Southern California’s premier boutique hotels had stood majestically a scant fifteen minutes earlier.
“The whore did this?” asked Quinn.
“She did,” I said.
“On purpose?”
I’d been wondering the same thing while searching the blast site for survivors. She didn’t strike me as the type who would blow up a building on purpose, but she was obviously the type who would hide a bomb in my room.
Quinn’s cell phone rang with a text message. He read it silently, and his lips moved as he did so. “Coop followed her home,” he said.
“Text him and have him send us the address,” I said. “Tell him to stay put till we get there. Tell him to follow her if she moves but keep us informed.”
Quinn gave me a look that offered more attitude than a ghetto crack whore. “You see these fingers?” he said. “You know how long it would take me to text all that?”
We walked. Quinn called Coop and gave him the message. He had Coop order us a sedan from a local limo service and told him where to pick us up. Since no cars were moving, we’d have to walk at least a mile to get beyond the traffic jam.
Around us, news crews were scrambling to set up live cams. Television reporters rehearsed eye witnesses, prepping them for their big moment on live TV. Sirens blared from all directions. Above us, thwacking blades from a dozen helicopters sliced the sky.
“How’d she detonate it?” Quinn asked. “Cell phone?”
“That’s my guess,” I said. “Or maybe she just placed the bomb and someone else detonated it.”
Hundreds of locals rushed past us, jockeying for the best views from which to observe the unfolding drama. Shell-shocked tourists aimed cameras and video recorders at the human carnage, and I cringed, thinking about how these grizzly images would be played and replayed and plastered all over the news. Talking heads would speculate and argue, and politicians from both parties would point fingers and assign blame to the opposition.