Hawke picked up one of the macuahuitls and walked over to them. They flinched when they saw him carrying the horrific blade toward them but he calmed them with some quiet words in Spanish, and then gestured at the woman in the front of the group.
“Put your hands on the end of the altar,” he said in Spanish.
The woman was scared, but did as he told her.
Hawke raised the macuahuitl above his head, took aim and brought it thundering down on the handcuffs. The chain links burst apart and she was free. The Englishman looked up to see the others move toward him with their cuffed hands raised in the air.
“Stand in line, please,” he said, and raised the macuahuitl for the second strike.
It took a few seconds to free the other victims, and afterwards they thanked him with tears in their eyes, but he knew from the look in those eyes what they needed more than anything.
He pointed at the tunnel where he had last seen Morton Wade. “He went that way,” he said, knowing he was sentencing the Texan to a horrific death. It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy, was all he thought.
One of the men held out his hand and Hawke handed him the macuahuitl while the others took up the Sixth Sun’s obsidian daggers.
Hawke didn’t need an astrology chart to know Morton Wade’s fate, but he also knew Silvio Mendoza was still loose and on the run.
Ryan and Maria walked over from the shrine and Ryan held out his cuffs. “Couldn’t get these off could you?” he asked casually. “Then we can go and get that bastard Mendoza.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Two of Jackson’s SWAT men walked Juana Diaz back into the cell. She looked scared, and Alex studied the bruising around her eye with pity. This was a woman who looked like she’d had enough violence and terror for many lifetimes and there was a burning hatred of life in her eyes that frightened her.
“Hurry it up, will you, Camacho?” Jackson said. “You think I got nothing better to do tonight than visit the stratosphere with you losers?”
“Can you help us?” Alex said, looking at Juana. She squeezed her eyes shut as another wave of pain from her legs coursed through her body.
“She doesn’t speak English,” Jackson said. “Gomez here translates.”
One of the SWAT men stepped forward and translated Alex’s words. There was a brief, clipped conversation in mumbled Spanish, and then Gomez spoke. “She says, yes, but it’s not as easy as that.”
Camacho sighed. “What the hell does that mean?”
More Spanish. “She says she’s not afraid of dying, and that is why she joined the cult. She says she knows how to deactivate the bomb. She knows which wire to cut to stop the timer feed.”
Camacho looked hopeful. “Great, which one — I think it has to be the yellow one, right?”
“She says she will not tell you which one is safe, only that the red wire is one of the wires that will activate the bomb if you cut it. She says she overheard the scientist when he was setting it up.”
“That still leaves me with two wires… That’s just great. Get her the fuck outta here.”
Jackson and his men led Juana away from the cell and Scarlet sighed. “Back to where we started.”
“Not really… I guess now we know not to cut the red one,” Kim said. “But what now?”
4:27
Camacho sighed heavily. “Hate to tell you this, guys, but now it just comes down to one of these two wires — blue and yellow.”
“You still think the yellow one cuts the timer?” Scarlet said.
Camacho shook his head. Glanced at his watch. “I can’t be sure. All I know is that one of these wires cuts the timer feed, stopping the bomb, while the other detonates the worst explosion in history. Which do I cut? Guess I’ll go with my gut and snip the yellow.”
Camacho placed the blades of the wire cutters on the yellow wire and started to squeeze the handles.
“No, wait!” Alex yelled.
Everyone turned to her as she pulled herself up straight against the wall, her motionless legs hanging off the bunk above Jorge’s corpse.
“What is it, Alex?” Scarlet asked.
“It’s the classic Monty Hall Problem…” she said, wincing at the pain in her legs.
Scarlet turned to her. “And that’s what, exactly?”
“It’s a probability puzzle named after the original presenter of Let’s Make a Deal.”
Camacho nodded. “I remember Monty Hall, sure. He did the show from 63 into the eighties.”
“Right,” continued Alex. “So what you’ve got right there is the Monty Hall Problem.”
“Wait,” Scarlet said urgently. “Are you two freaking kidding me?”
Alex ignored her. “The Monty Hall Problem is about statistics, and basically says that you can increase the chance of getting what you want by changing your mind.”
Camacho shook his head. “Doesn’t make a difference if I change my mind. One of the wires detonates the bomb and the other wire deactivates the bomb so the chance of setting the bomb off is fifty-fifty. I should go with my instinct.”
“Wrong,” Alex said flatly.
Scarlet threw her hands into the air and turned around in despair. “No, they’re not kidding.”
Alex continued. “On the show a contestant had to pick a prize that was concealed behind one of three doors. He would pick a door, at which point he had a one in three chance of getting it right.”
3:43
“So far so good,” Kim said.
“Right, so at that point the host, who knows where everything is, opens one of the other doors to reveal a booby prize and he asks the contestant if he wants to change his original choice or not. Instead of the host opening the door to reveal one of the booby prizes, Juana told you the red wire is one of the booby prizes, as in one of the wires that activate the bomb.”
“Sure,” Camacho said. “So after the host opens the door with one of the booby prizes behind it, the contestant still has a one in two chance of choosing the star prize — fifty-fifty.”
“Still so far so good,” Kim said.
“Except he hasn’t,” Alex said.
“Let me get this straight,” Scarlet said. “You’re saying James Bond is behind one of the doors, but behind the other two doors is a Ryan Bale?”
Despite the pain in her legs, Alex rolled her eyes. “If that helps you, then fine.”
“It does. You’re now saying I pick a door, and then the host opens another door revealing one of the Ryans, so the contestant — me, for example — now has to choose between two doors to get to James?”
“Right.”
“Two doors, one choice — simple… it’s a fifty-fifty choice of getting James.”
“But that’s not right,” Alex continued. “The probability of getting James is higher if you swap your original choice to the second door because that’s twice as likely to be where he’s standing.”
“You’re melting my mind,” Scarlet said.
2:57
“Mine too,” added Kim, sweeping her hair back from her face and trying to slow her breathing.
“They’re right,” Camacho said. “What you said doesn’t make any sense at all. We had three wires. I picked the yellow wire as the one that cuts the timer feed and then Juana told us the red one was one of the detonation wires. Now there are two left and I don’t know which one activates the bomb.” He turned to look at Alex. “In my book, that makes this a straight fifty-fifty and I’m going with my gut and cutting the yellow wire.”
“No, it’s called a veridical paradox,” Alex said. “That means even though it makes no sense at all it’s still right. When you started there were three wires. This meant you had a one in three chance, or thirty-three percent chance of getting the right wire. At this point the chance of picking a booby prize was two in three, or sixty-six percent.”