Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 44, No. 6, June 1999

The Bomb Squad by John M. Floyd

“Lights,” Becker said, looking up through the windshield. “We got lights on the top floor.”

The driver, Ed Timmons, leaned forward over the steering wheel, took a quick look, and sat back again, his eyes on the road. “Oh God,” he said, and swallowed. “It’s really him, isn’t it?”

Sergeant Tom Becker was already punching numbers into his cell phone. “I hope so,” he bed. What Becker really hoped as he waited for the security guard to answer the phone was that there was a cleaning crew up there, or someone working late. But from what the guard had told him moments earlier, there was little chance of that. Unlike the other threats and tipoffs that had flooded the police switchboards since the bomber’s latest attack, this one looked as if it might be the real thing. An anonymous call had come in to headquarters only minutes ago, delivered in a voice that was as clear and chilling as its message: his next target’s Remington Tower, top floor. He’s there now.

Becker was leaning forward for another look at the building in question when he heard Ralph Hendrix, the security guard in the Remington lobby, pick up the phone.

“Mr. Hendrix?” Becker said. “Me again. You did say everybody on thirty-two had signed out already, right? And nobody’s signed back in?” Becker paused, rubbing a hand through his crewcut as he listened. “Well, somebody’s up there now, we just saw the lights come on.” Another wait, and a weary nod. “Right. Well, what it means is, we don’t have as much time as we’d hoped. And we’re still a ways away.”

Becker had a sudden thought and turned to ask the driver, “Who were those guys who called in a minute ago, from the East Side?”

Timmons frowned, most of his attention on the road. “Spellman, I think he said. Spellman and Rice.”

Becker turned back to the phone. “Two men from one of the other stations are close by,” he told the guard. “They should be there soon. Officers Spellman and Ri—” He stopped. “They are? Good, put one of ’em on.”

As he waited, Becker glanced again at Timmons, who was cursing softly as he weaved their cruiser through the late-night traffic. They had at least another twenty blocks to go. The building loomed ahead of them, a black monolith topped with a single row of lights.

Becker heard a new voice come on the phone.

“Rice?” he said. “My name’s Becker, from Metro. Here’s what I want you to—” Becker broke off then, and spent the next thirty seconds listening and nodding. Finally he said, “Sounds good to me. Well be there inside ten minutes.” He started to break the connection, then added, “One more thing. Are you both in uniform? Yeah, us too. We don’t need to be shooting each other.” With that, Becker clicked the phone off and sagged back in his seat. His head had begun to throb.

“I take it he outranks you,” Timmons said, swerving to pass a white limo.

“Don’t know and don’t care,” Becker answered. “The important thing is, he’s got a plan, which is more than I had.” He sighed and took his pistol from his holster. As he checked its load, he saw Timmons glance at him, and was reminded of the scene from Bullitt when the driver of the car that Steve McQueen was chasing turned to watch his passenger stuff shells into a shotgun. It occurred to Becker that Timmons looked a lot more scared than the guy in the movie.

“Rice said he and Spellman were just down the street when they heard the call,” Becker explained. “He’s already studied the floor layout and talked with the guard. Apparently there are two elevators on the east end of the building and stairwells east and west. The top floor — the one that’s lit up — is thirty-two. He and Spellman want to take one of the elevators to thirty-one, send it back down, and go up the stairs to the top floor. They’ll lock the stairwell door there, then go back down to thirty-one, down the hallway to the west end of the building, back up to thirty-two, and wait outside that stairwell door until we call them. They don’t have a cell phone, but they’re taking one of the guard’s radios and a set of keys to the offices.”

Timmons seemed to think that over. “Four people,” he said, “from two different stations. We don’t know them, they don’t know us, and none of us know what we might find up there.” He shook his head. “You sure we can go in this way, without more backup?”

“The only thing we can’t do,” Becker answered, holstering his gun, “is let this jerk plant his bomb and get away again. Okay?”

Timmons said nothing. His face was grim, his eyes locked on the street ahead.

“It’s a smart plan, Eddie,” Becker said. “This’ll save time. Spellman and Rice’ll be in place outside the door on the other end of the hallway by the time we get there. We can go in from both sides.”

Though he still didn’t reply, the driver seemed to accept that, and Becker turned again to stare out the window. He found himself wondering why in the hell this had to happen now, on his last night of crossover duty. Becker’s normal job was at a desk at headquarters, where the only danger was getting poisoned by the coffee. To make matters worse, this was the night of the commissioner’s roast, which meant a big chunk of their workforce was ten miles away, fidgeting in their chairs in the Hilton ballroom. The backup Becker had requested might take awhile.

“I heard you ask dispatch about the tipoff,” Timmons said, interrupting his thoughts. “What’d they tell you?”

“Not much. Male caller, sounded young, sounded white, thumping noises in the background.”

“Thumping?”

“That’s what they said. We’ll listen to it afterward.”

“I hope so,” Timmons murmured, looking worried.

Becker was pondering that comment when the car screeched to a stop in front of the Remington Building. In the blink of an eye both he and Timmons were out of the cruiser and heading for the door, where they were met by an overweight guard in a rumpled tan uniform. His nametag said R. HENDRIX; his face said he was scared half to death. Smart man, Becker thought.

“The other two guys should be in place soon,” the guard told them as they crossed the echoing lobby. He sounded out of breath. “They sent the elevator back down two minutes ago.”

The floorplan was still spread out on Hendrix’s desk, near the elevator. While Timmons wrung his hands, Becker studied the layout, stopping every few seconds to fire questions at the guard.

“Any other exits?” he asked.

“Just the elevator and the two sets of stairs.”

“Roof access?”

“Only from the stairwells.”

“Outside fire escapes?”

“No. The windows don’t open. If you go out, you go down.”

“What about lights?”

“On that floor? One switch, near the elevator. Controls the hallway and all the offices.” When Becker looked surprised, Hendrix added, “I knew a guy who worked up there years ago. The offices used to be a bunch of open cubicles with partitions. The wiring never got changed.”

“Well,” Becker murmured. “At least nobody’ll be hiding in the shadows.” He chewed his lip a moment, his mind working. “What about noise this time of night?” he asked.

The guard frowned. “Pardon?”

“How noisy is it on thirty-two? Fans, generators, piped-in music?”

“Just the air conditioning. It’s a big unit.”

“It’s loud?”

“Kind of a rumble. You know.”

“Can it be turned off from up there?”

“Don’t think so. Another throwback to earlier times. Some of the top floors used to have computer gear that had to stay cool. It’s controlled centrally from somewhere.”

“Okay.” Becker stared at the plans, still thinking. “Right now I need you here, Mr. Hendrix, but later I may phone you to go find the a/c and switch it off. Understood?”

As the guard nodded, Timmons cleared his throat. “Excuse me, sarge,” he said, his voice shaky, “but it seems to me — well, we might want a little noise up there, while we’re poking around. If we can’t hear him, maybe he won’t hear us.”

Becker glanced up from the floor-plan. “That’s not what I’m talking about. We might need to listen for sounds that he wouldn’t.”

“What kind of sounds?”

Instead of answering, Becker turned to the guard. “Where’s your other set of keys?”

Hendrix held out a ring of about fifty. “Office numbers are written on ’em.”

“No master key?”

“Not any more. All the locks were changed last week after some folks left the firm.”

“What kind of sounds?” Timmons asked again.

Becker looked him in the eye as he clipped the key ring to his belt. “Ticking sounds,” he said.

Their gazes held for a second longer, then Becker scribbled a number on a desk pad and handed it to the guard. “Use your phone to contact me but only if you have to. And when you see us reach thirty-two—” he pointed to the floor indicator above the elevator doors “—call Spellman and Rice on their radio. Tell them to wait five seconds, then go in. Timmons and I’ll enter from this end of the hall. I’ll send our elevator back down, and you hold it here along with the other one. Okay?”

Becker waited for Hendrix to nod, then turned and headed for the elevator. Timmons followed, his face as pale as chalk.

“Good luck,” the guard called as the doors closed behind them.

In the elevator Becker checked his gear. Service revolver, cell phone, cuffs, flashlight. The light was probably unnecessary tonight, but he was glad he had it along. He wished he had a shotgun.

He glanced at his partner, who still looked a little green around the gills. “You okay?” Becker said.

Timmons swallowed and kept his eyes straight ahead, staring at nothing. “What do you think it would feel like?” he asked.

Becker regarded him a moment. Timmons was leaning back against the wall of the elevator car, beads of sweat glistening on his cheeks and forehead. “What would what feel like?”

“An explosion,” Timmons said. “I’ve heard that when it happens you don’t feel, or hear, a thing. You think that’s true?”

Becker shook his head. “We’re not going to get blown up, Eddie. Not tonight anyway.” He raised his eyes and looked at the floor numbers on the display panel as the car rose. “For one thing our experts say this guy — if it’s really him — is careful. He works slow. And since we know he’s been here less than fifteen minutes — we saw the lights come on ourselves, remember — he probably hasn’t had time to arm and plant anything yet.” Becker paused, watching the numbers change. They were at the nineteenth floor and climbing.

“The second thing is, even if he has already hidden it, we’ve got at least eight hours to find the damn thing. This dude’s ego is probably as big as Bigfoot; he’ll go for max headlines and max casualties. No way he’d set it to blow before the morning crowds arrive for work.” Becker took a breath and let it out slowly, still watching the display. Twenty-seven... twenty-eight... twenty-nine...

“So if you want to worry about something, Eddie my man, worry about getting shot. Better yet, worry about me getting shot.”

As Becker spoke the words, the elevator car slowed. The red number thirty-two appeared on the display and stayed there. Becker heard a ding, then a moment of total silence.

The doors opened.

The top floor was one long, narrow hallway with office doors fining both sides. Guns drawn, Becker and Timmons stepped out into the corridor. Becker held the elevator car until he saw the two uniformed figures at the far end of the hall more than a hundred yards away; then he leaned back into the elevator, pressed “1,” and came out again as the doors sighed shut. He heard the car start its long trip back down. Timmons acknowledged the two colleagues with an upraised hand, and Becker saw one of the figures bend down to lock the stairwell door on their end.

Well, that’s that, Becker thought. All the exits were now sealed.

He took a moment to look around. From where he stood he had a clear view of everything in the hallway. All the lights were in fact on, there were no obstructing objects like file cabinets or water coolers or potted palms, and the only break in the corridor was at this end, where it widened a bit to include a receptionist’s area complete with desk, computer, and telephone. There was no place to hide. Whoever else was here — if he was here at all — had to be in one of the offices.

Okay, Becker thought. Here goes. Another glance down the hall told him the other cops were already unlocking office doors and venturing inside. Signaling Timmons to stand by, he unclipped the ring from his belt, found the key to the first office on his right — 3201 — and turned it in the lock. The door swung open.

Becker crept inside. The office was large and cluttered. Plenty of hiding places here. While Timmons stayed put just inside the open door, Becker did a quick search. Nobody home. Before leaving he took a look through the tall window at the end of the room. At first he was puzzled: the entire city block below him, just behind and to the north of the building, was pitch black — no lights, no people, no anything. Then he saw perimeter lighting and a chain-link fence and, as he looked more carefully, the deep pit with heavy equipment parked at the bottom. Construction site.

Satisfied, he turned and went back to the hallway. “One down,” he whispered as he moved past his partner. He doubted whether Timmons had heard him; the guard, as it turned out, had been right about the air conditioning. It made a deep, steady rumble that seemed to come from everywhere at once, with an occasional knock or rattle thrown in. Becker couldn’t imagine having to listen to it all day long. If it did come down to a search for the device, the bomb squad would definitely have to get the a/c shut off first.

Slowly they worked their way down the corridor, checking rooms on both their left and right; 3202 was a restroom, and 3203 contained only a copier and a fax machine. The rest were offices. Ten minutes after starting out, while they were searching room 3208, the air conditioning cut off — or at least cycled down. The resulting silence was even more unsettling than the noise had been.

That was when they heard the shots.

Two of them, one right after the other. A second later, the crash of breaking glass. The sounds had come from the other end of the hall.

Both Timmons and Becker froze for an instant, then eased out into the hallway. Resisting the impulse to hurry, Becker flattened himself against a wall and waited for several seconds, his heart pounding and his gun sweaty in his hand. Finally he nodded to Timmons, who was trying to make himself small on the other side of the corridor. They both moved forward.

As they approached the west end of the floor, Becker saw that the five farthest office doors were open. He assumed that whatever had happened had happened behind the nearest door, since the other team would have started its search at the stairwell and come this way. Having heard no more noises, he and Timmons stopped just outside the door of 3246, cocked their revolvers, and waited a moment.

If one of the cops had just been trigger-happy and then knocked over a lamp, Becker said to himself, we’re all going to feel like fools.

Oddly enough, when he followed his gun around the corner and into the open doorway, the first thing he saw was a broken lamp lying in the middle of the room — but beyond that was a broken window, and on the floor beside the window was the sprawled body of a policeman. Off to the right, on the far side of a wooden desk, a second cop was looking through an open briefcase. He jerked upright when he saw Becker and Timmons; then all three relaxed.

Becker lowered his gun, his mind racing with a combination of relief and confusion.

Where was the suspect?

As he stood there dumbfounded, Timmons brushed past him to check on the fallen officer.

“He’s dead,” said the second man, who had immediately resumed his search of the briefcase. Becker studied him a moment. The man’s shirttail was out, his hat was off, and his blue nametag said Spellman in white block letters. He continued with the briefcase for several seconds, then closed the lid and pushed it away in frustration. “The bomb’s here somewhere,” he added. “We surprised him.”

As Timmons rose from the body, Becker walked to it, knelt, and looked at the nametag above the shirt pocket. Rice. Though he hadn’t known the man, Becker still felt a lump in his throat. He had, after all, spoken to him on the phone twenty minutes ago. After a pause Becker waved his gun barrel at the window. “That where he went?”

Spellman nodded. Though his voice had been fairly steady, his face was pale, his hands trembling.

Becker and Timmons exchanged glances; then Becker rose to his feet, holstered his pistol, and looked through the broken window. There was no construction site on this side of the building; when he leaned out the window, he looked down on a lighted city street. Thirty-two floors below, a crumpled figure lay on the sidewalk, surrounded by a growing crowd. For a second it looked as if the body might be wearing tennis clothes. Becker quickly dismissed that thought, blaming his poor eyesight. It was night after all, and the sidewalk was a long way down.

When he turned again to face the room, he saw Timmons helping Spellman to a chair. Watching them, Becker took out his cell phone and called Hendrix in the lobby. He told him the situation, then put the phone away and approached Officer Spellman. The man’s eyes were glassy and vacant.

“What happened?” Becker asked him as gently as he could. He was vaguely aware that the air conditioner had come on again.

“He killed Rice,” Spellman said in a monotone. “He killed him, then took a shot at me. I jumped behind the desk there.”

“You sure you’re not hit?”

Spellman blinked, then ran a hand over his chest and stomach in a gesture that would have been comical under other circumstances. “I don’t think so.”

“No struggle?”

“No time.”

“What happened next?” Becker said.

Spellman motioned with a lift of his chin. “He went through the window.”

Becker frowned. “Isn’t that safety glass?” he asked, studying the jagged hole.

“Beats me. He just put his head down and rammed through.” Spellman swallowed and said, “I never saw anything like it.”

“Okay, you just rest a minute.” Becker picked up the cell phone and punched numbers. “Hendrix? Free up one of the elevators, we’ve got a man coming down. Any sign of the bomb squad?... Well, when they do, send ’em up, quick. And see if you can kill that a/c, we’ve got a search to do here.”

He signed off and turned to Officer Spellman. “You go on down to the lobby, sport. I’ll tell your people you did good.”

The cop nodded dazedly but made no move to get up.

“You need some help?” Timmons asked him.

Spellman blinked, then focused on him and said in a faint voice, “No. No, I can make it. Thanks, guys.” He rose unsteadily to his feet, took a breath, and made his way out the door. Moments later Becker heard the elevator ding at the other end of the hall.

“What about the body?” Timmons asked.

Together they turned to look at Officer Rice lying dead on the floor ten feet away.

“He’ll get a hero’s burial,” Becker said. “But right now we’ve got work to do.”

Both of them took a deep breath and directed their attention to the office. It was pretty much in order except for the floor on the left-hand side of the room, which was strewn with books and boxes apparently taken from a line of storage bins and shelves along that wall. It was clear that the two other cops had indeed interrupted the bomber as he was preparing a place to plant the device.

“Spellman was right,” Timmons murmured, looking at the items scattered about on the carpet. “The bomb’s here somewhere.”

Becker nodded agreement. But something was nagging at him, something at the back of his mind.

“We should have a while, though,” Timmons was saying. A drop of perspiration ran onto his eye, and he brushed it away with the back of his hand. “Like you said, it’d be set for the morning rush hour, right?”

Even as Timmons spoke, Becker noticed the lamp again. The lamp worried him. If there had been no struggle, why was it broken? Had the suspect knocked it over in his dive through the window?

The cell phone rang. Timmons waited for Becker to answer it and, when he didn’t, answered it himself.

Becker was still staring at the fallen lamp. Not only was it broken, it was unplugged. Unplugged and lying in the middle of the floor. Becker frowned and concentrated, letting his eyes sweep the room. The open bins, cluttered shelves, carpet, window, walls—

“It’s the chief, sarge,” Timmons said.

Becker’s gaze stopped on two small holes in the wall just above the baseboard, beside the window. He walked over to examine them. They were bullet holes, spaced no more than an inch apart.

Bullet holes?

“Sarge,” Timmons said again. “The chief wants to talk to—”

Becker squeezed his eyes shut, searching his memory. Whatever was nagging at him had been there since they first entered the room and found the dead officer. And something else, too, something Spellman had told them...

His eyes snapped open.

The shirttail. There hadn’t been a struggle, yet Spellman’s shirttail was all the way out and his hat missing. It was as if he had not yet finished dressing. And the body on the sidewalk, decked out in what looked like tennis whites—

My God, Becker thought.

Without even looking at Timmons, Becker reached out and snatched the phone from his hand. “Chief?” he said.

“What the hell’s going on up there?” Chief Wellborn demanded. He was outside; Becker could hear traffic noises in the background. “I got a dead body on the sidewalk, and the guard here says there’s another one up—”

“Let me speak to him,” Becker snapped.

The chief, who was not accustomed to being interrupted, said, “Now, just a minute, sergeant—”

“The security guard,” Becker shouted, his face red. “Put him on!”

After a short pause the guard’s voice came on the line.

“Mr. Hendrix, this is Tom Becker. I want you to look at the dead man’s face.”

“Look at his... I can’t. His arm’s in the way—”

“Then move his arm! Look at his face, and tell me if you recognize him.”

A long silence passed.

“Hendrix?”

Still no reply. But Becker could hear him breathing into the phone.

“Mr. Hendrix?”

“I see him,” the guard answered, in a strange voice. “I see his face now...”

“It’s one of the two cops, isn’t it,” Becker said.

He heard the guard swallow. “Yessir, it is. It’s the other one, the one who didn’t talk to you on the phone. Spellman.” Hendrix paused, then murmured, “Why’s he in his underwear? There’s a pile of clothes lying way over there, bundled up and tied with a pants leg...”

“Mr. Hendrix, listen to me a minute.” Becker’s eyes were shut again as he spoke. “The man I told you was coming down in the elevator. Did you see him get off?”

The guard hesitated. “I didn’t see him, no, but I’m sure he’s down by now. By the way, I got a maintenance guy working on cutting off the a/c, and there’s a bunch of cops on the way up to you right now.”

“The bomb squad?”

“No, just cops. From all over.”

“Great,” Becker mumbled. “Put the chief back on.”

When the phone had been handed over, Becker said, “Chief, we’ve got some trouble here. The body in front of you is a cop from an East Side station. The bomber shot him and his partner, too, and got away. We need to get the explosives team up here on the double, and we need to put out a call to all units, with the following description...”

He spoke a moment more, listened, nodded, and signed off. Then he turned to Ed Timmons, who looked a bit like a business student who had just wandered by mistake into a class on quantum physics.

“He changed clothes,” Becker explained. “After they surprised him, he put Spellman’s uniform on and threw him out the window.”

Timmons swallowed. “So... he shot both of them?”

“Looks that way.” Becker’s eyes roamed the room again, clicking off each item even as he spoke. “I imagine he shot Rice first, then swapped clothes with Spellman before shooting him. That’s why there was no blood on the uniform.”

“But we heard the shots. They were close together—”

Becker pointed to the two bullet holes in the wall. “Those were the shots we heard. I figure he used a silencer to kill the partners, then used Spellman’s gun to put two rounds into that baseboard later, just so we would hear them, to back up his story. Then he used the floor lamp to smash the window and threw Spellman’s body out.”

Timmons still looked lost. “To back up his story? Why’d he need a story? How did he know about you and me at all?”

“I imagine he got that out of Spellman, during the change of clothes. There’d have been plenty of time.”

Timmons thought that over, then said, “Okay. Okay, if that’s what happened... then there’s still plenty of time for us, too, right? We have till morning to find it. That’s what you said.”

“I know what I said.”

“Then why do you look so worried?” Timmons’ face had gone very stiff “If that’s true, why do you keep wanting the bomb squad to hurry up and get here?”

Becker turned to look at him. “Because there’s a chance I’m wrong.”

“What do you mean, wrong?”

“The lights,” Becker said. “That’s been bothering me from the start. Why would he announce himself that way, turning on all the lights? Why not just use a flashlight? Was he arrogant? Was he careless?”

“Maybe he’s just stupid.”

“No. I don’t think so. Arrogant, maybe. Insane, probably. But careless, or stupid? No.”

“Then what’s the answer?” Timmons asked. “Why the lights?”

“What do you think?”

Timmons pondered that. He seemed to be having trouble getting his breath. “To get us here in a hurry?”

“That’s what I’m thinking now.”

“But... why?”

Becker just shook his head. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I think it means we better find that thing, just as quick as we can.”

As he spoke, the air conditioning sputtered and bumped one final time and then clicked off. “At last,” Becker said.

Timmons had already begun looking through the fitter on the floor and in the shelves, and Becker was crossing the room to join him when another thought struck him.

The briefcase.

He turned to look at it, recalling the way the man in Spellman’s uniform had it open, its contents hidden from their view, when he and Timmons arrived on the scene. Becker felt a sudden chill ripple down his spine.

Had that been an act? Had the suspect just been going though the motions, pretending to search the case in order to convince them that he was who he appeared to be? Or had he been doing something else entirely?

Like setting a timer.

No, Becker thought, his mind racing. He wouldn’t have waited that late to set it, even if he had been surprised by Rice and Spellman. The scattered contents of the shelves was a good indication that at the time he was interrupted he had been about to hide the bomb, not to arm it. That would surely have already been done.

But what had he been doing with the briefcase?

Becker approached the desk. As Timmons turned to watch him in the eerie stillness of the now-silent room, he took a deep breath, held it, and placed his ear against the side of the case.

It was ticking.

Becker’s heart lurched.

The bomb was in the briefcase.

And at that moment it all came together. The truth hit him like a slap in the face.

The bomber hadn’t been setting the bomb’s timer; he’d been resetting it.

Keeping his head down and motionless, Becker raised his eyes to meet his partner’s. He opened his mouth to tell Timmons to alert the others, to warn them away, but it was too late. Even now Becker could hear the footsteps of a dozen cops in the corridor. And all of them, he realized, were about to be killed. He and Timmons and the men in the hall and heaven knew how many more in the street below.

Because they were out of time.

Becker knew it; he could feel it in his bones. The bomber had already been gone for almost ten minutes, and the timer wouldn’t have been reset for a minute more than the man thought it would take him to fake his grief and get out of the building. He would want all the witnesses to go up with the blast.

At the very instant that all this was flashing though Becker’s mind, one of the policemen stuck his head through the doorway and looked in at him and Timmons.

“You guys the bomb squad?” the man asked.

Becker straightened up, his heart pounding in his chest. “We are now,” he answered, half to himself. In the same tone of voice he said with a glance at the new cop, “Get away from that door. All of you, he down in the hall and stay there.” To Timmons, whose face showed he knew, Becker murmured, “Be ready. You’ll have to get the window.”

Timmons hesitated, then understood. He stepped back as Becker drew his pistol and fired through the open doorway, four shots, his bullets shredding the lock on the door across the hall. Timmons was already moving, dashing out and across the hallway, lowering his shoulder and crashing through the ruined door of 3245. At the same moment, his ears ringing, Becker dropped his gun, picked the briefcase up by the handle, and ran after him. As Becker passed through the doorway and crossed the hall, he had a glimpse of a corridor full of cops, all of them lying on the floor and staring up at him with wide, frightened eyes.

Not as frightened as I am, he thought.

In the office across the hall Timmons had snatched up a heavy chair and slammed it through the window as Becker charged through the open door. Now the window was open as well, a gaping hole in the center of the glass. While Timmons dived out of the way Becker made a full three hundred sixty degree windup and flung the briefcase out and through the jagged hole and into space. It spun away into the black night like an oversized Frisbee.

Becker didn’t stop to watch its descent into the construction pit behind the building. He hit the floor three feet from his partner and folded both arms over his head, waiting.

Four seconds passed. Five... six... seven...

The explosion rocked the building and blew out what was left of the office window. It also, though they did not yet know it, blew out all the other windows on that side of Remington Tower. Most of the cops in the hallway, some of them hardened veterans, cried out like kids in a thunderstorm.

When the rumble finally died down, Ed Timmons raised his head and brushed a dusting of glass fragments from his hair.

“I was half right,” he said. “I didn’t feel a thing.”

Two hours later both of them were still in the building. They had been debriefed in the lobby by both the chief and their captain and had spoken at various times to the mayor, the police commissioner, three TV reporters, two journalists, and a pair of constipated-looking agents from the FBI. What little feedback they had received so far indicated that there were, incredibly, no reported casualties and no serious damage to the building itself. Most of the force of the blast had been absorbed, as Becker had hoped it would be, by the earthen and stone walls of the thirty-foot-deep pit.

To the casual observer, however, the scene was one of a first-class disaster. Policemen and city officials and newspeople were everywhere, and Becker was amazed at the sheer number of firemen the city had been able to produce on short notice. Outside, especially in the streets immediately surrounding the building and the construction site, was a blinking logjam of squad cars and ambulances and television vans. Inside, at least in the area immediately surrounding Becker and Timmons, things had — for the moment — actually quieted down a bit. It was the first time since the explosion that the two men had a chance to say much to each other.

“Well,” Timmons observed, his eyes twinkling. “Looks like you saved the day.”

Becker gave him a glum look. “Two cops dead and nobody in custody, I’d say the day wasn’t all that saved.”

“Not according to the chief. He’s saying you’re a hero. And me, too.” He paused, then added, “I like the me part.”

Becker couldn’t help smiling. “Well, if the governor calls, you can talk to him.”

Becker could still hear the sound of sirens outside, though he couldn’t for the life of him think of a practical reason for it at this point, two hours after the fact. He finally decided the sirens were going simply because big things had been happening, and it was a shame to have a siren and let it go to waste on a night like this.

“He was setting it, wasn’t he?” Timmons said. “When we came in, I mean.”

Becker nodded tiredly. “Changing the settings, most likely. To give him time to get away.”

“So we were just lucky.”

“That’s right.”

After a brief silence Timmons said, “At least we stopped him, sarge. At least it didn’t go off tomorrow morning, like you said it might, and kill a thousand people.”

Becker shook his head. “I was wrong about that, Eddie. He never intended it to go off tomorrow morning.”

“But... what you said made sense. Max casualties—”

“Oh, he wanted casualties all right. He was just after a different kind.”

Timmons just stared at him, waiting.

“You saw me go over there and use that phone a while ago, right? To call in?”

Timmons nodded.

“I called the dispatcher,” Becker told him. “I got to thinking about what you said in the car, about the tipoff call. So I asked the guy at dispatch to replay the tape of the call while I listened in.” Becker paused long enough to touch a finger to the bandage over his left eye. He had taken a few minor cuts from the explosion.

“Remember the thumping noise they said they heard in the background?” Becker continued. “Well, as it turned out, I recognized it. It was a kind of a rough hum, with a whump and a rattle thrown in every now and then.”

Timmons looked a little puzzled, then blinked. “The air conditioner,” he said.

Becker nodded.

“You mean... the call came from here?”

“More than that.”

Timmons frowned again. After a moment his face cleared. “It was him,” he said, in an awed voice. “He was the one who called.”

“He had to be. It came from here, and he was here.”

“But... why?”

“He was reeling us in like we said before. First he called to tip us off, then he waited a bit and turned on the lights to make sure we got the message. He knew the bulk of the force was out tonight at the roast, and he knew that meant it’d take the police longer to get here and also longer, probably, to locate the bomb once we did get here. The idea of hiding it in the briefcase, by the way, was a nice touch.”

“I still don’t follow you,” Timmons said.

“I think he knew we’d think we had plenty of time to look for it. I think he set it, the first time, not for the morning rush but for right about now, give or take an hour, so he’d get as many cops as he could. Maybe even the bomb squad itself.”

“And then we showed up.”

“Right. And he figured he’d better move the schedule up a bit and reset it to give himself just enough time to get clear.”

Timmons shrugged. “Okay, so we saved a dozen people instead of a thousand. I’m not picky.”

Becker barely heard him. He realized he was about as tired as he had ever been in his life. As he looked around the lobby, he caught a glimpse of Ralph Hendrix talking into three microphones at the same time.

After a pause Timmons spoke up again. “That brings up one more question,” he said. “Why’d he get surprised in the first place? If he’d done all this planning, why’d he take so long to do what he was doing?”

Becker sighed. “I’ve been puzzling over that,” he agreed. “I think what happened was, he hid somewhere in the building until after everyone left, then went up the stairs to thirty-two and made the tipoff call from the receptionist’s desk. He waited a bit, cut the lights on, and went into a random office, where he planned to hide the briefcase and then get out again, fast, before the cavalry arrived. Which he could have — should have — been able to do, with no problem.”

“Except—”

“Except for the keys.”

Once again Timmons stared at him.

“Hendrix told us all the locks had recently been changed, remember? I don’t think the bomber knew that. I figure he had a master key that was old and would no longer work. When he found that out, it was too late — he was reduced to having to pick the lock, which took him a while. Meantime, enter Timmons and Becker.”

“And Spellman and Rice,” Timmons said quietly.

“Yeah.”

Timmons asked, frowning, “Why 3246?”

“What?”

“Why’d he pick that particular office? He was in a hurry, right? If he had a master key, and he could pick any room he wanted, why pick one at the opposite end of the hall from the phone and light switch?”

Becker frowned. That hadn’t occurred to him. “Go on,” he said.

“I don’t think he had a master key,” Timmons said, his brow furrowed. “You were right about the lock-change delaying him, but I think he had an office key. I think he had a key just for room 3246.”

“You mean he had an accomplice?” Becker could see his point. “That’s possible. We could check and see whose office that is—”

“Whose it was,” Timmons corrected. “Our theory is that the key didn’t work, remember? I’ll bet we’ll find that whoever used to be in 3246 was one of the people Hendrix said left the firm.”

Slowly Becker nodded. “Not bad, Eddie. Not bad at all.”

Timmons shrugged, looking embarrassed. “Well, we’d better have a few leads, right? I realize we’ve got a description and prints, which is more than we had before, but he did get away. And if he’s gone to ground...”

Becker nodded. “Then he could still be hard for you to catch.”

“You mean for us to catch.”

“No, I mean you, Eddie.” Becker fetched a sigh. “I’m getting too old for this. Come tomorrow, I’ll be back to being a desk sergeant, and—”

“Nobody’ll have to catch him, gentlemen,” a voice behind them said. They both turned to look at Chief Wellborn, who had walked up without their noticing him. “One of the firemen just found this, out back.” He held out a hand, and what they saw in his palm was a blue police nametag. It was blackened and warped, with almost an inch missing off one end, but the lettering on it was perfectly clear.

“Spellman,” Timmons murmured.

The chief nodded. “Your suspect ran, but he ran the wrong way. He must’ve gone out back and climbed down into the construction site, thinking he’d sit out the show at a safe distance and still have a good view, I guess. The body — what was left of it — was found hidden behind a bulldozer in a back corner of the pit.” The chief shook his head. “Talk about bad decisions...”

Becker swallowed, his eyes still riveted to the nameplate. He couldn’t quite believe it. The bomber was dead, killed by his own bomb. Maybe there was justice in the world after all.

After the chief had left them to report this latest news to the media, Becker stood up, ran a hand through his hair, and stretched. “Hold the fort, partner,” he said. “I need to get some air.”

“Not yet,” Timmons said, nodding toward the other side of the lobby. A young fellow in a business suit was hurrying toward them with a cell phone, his eyes fixed on Tom Becker. He looked excited.

“You Sergeant Becker?” the young man whispered, as he drew closer.

“That’s me,” Becker whispered back.

The young man thrust the phone at him, holding it with both hands like a sword. “It’s the governor,” he hissed.

Becker turned to Timmons. “Eddie?” he said. “It’s for you.”

He was still smiling as he walked out the door.