Dark Zone

100

Mussa wheeled the last cart out, then slipped around it and climbed on the seat nearby, walking the cart into place.

He expected a sharp snap as he pushed it into place. Instead, it barely clicked. Thinking he had failed to get it in properly, he pushed against it, but it refused to budge. Mussa leaned over, examining the seam at the top. It was tight; he couldn’t get his fingernail inside.

He climbed up and pushed from every direction, just to make sure it was locked. It didn’t budge.

One more task — the timer. He pulled the top panel off, revealing an oval inset.

“I devote myself to the one true God,” he said, beginning one last prayer before setting the weapon. He pulled off his watch as he prayed and pried it from its band, then took off the face and the back.

Something moved at the end of the car. He glanced up and saw a submachine gun entering the car. The timer, which initiated and controlled the internal firing mechanism, dropped from his hand and bounded to the floor.

Mussa saw only the gun.

Ahmed, returning.

Cursing, Mussa hopped off the seat and dropped to the floor, hunting the watch piece.

“Where are the others?” asked Ahmed.

“Finishing their work,” said Mussa. He put the clock piece in and twisted. The bomb was now set; it could not be stopped. But either when he dropped it or when he set it in, the switch at the side that selected the timer mode had slipped from nine seconds to nine hundred — the device’s default, a hundred times longer than intended.

It began draining off, the seconds kicking down to oblivion.

“Is it ready?” Ahmed asked.

“Yes,” said Mussa. He smiled at the other man.

“Let’s go then.”

Mussa looked at him in surprise. Where did he want to go?

“Aren’t we going to take the engine?” asked Ahmed. “Arno said that was the plan. That’s why I was to detach it and move up the tracks.”

Arno had told him that?

Mussa stared at Ahmed incredulously. How could he believe that they would be spared? Why would he even want to be spared?

“You don’t want to taste the joy of Paradise?” asked Mussa.

“Arno said we were to leave.”

That was like Arno: he told everyone what he thought they wanted to hear.

Including him?

Ahmed pointed the gun at him haphazardly. At this point, Mussa wasn’t afraid of being shot, but he worried that the bomb, despite the guarantees of the engineers, would somehow be damaged if the idiot fired.

Should he explain that the engine was only to block others and help deflect the blast upward if it was not to specifications?

“Aren’t we leaving?” asked Ahmed.

“Yes, of course,” said Mussa. As he began climbing over the seats, he heard more gunfire from a distant coach.

“The timer is running. We’d better hurry,” said Ahmed.

“There’s time. We can wait for the others,” said Mussa.

“No, we should leave now. Let them fend for themselves. They can leave through the access tunnels. The engine will take us out.”

Mussa thought it wise to humor Ahmed until he could wrestle the gun away. What was the worst that could happen? The bomb would explode now, no matter what.

“Lead the way,” he told Ahmed.