From Russia Without Love

17

That night, in a roomy two-car garage of a safe house outside of London, Xander showed Animus how to construct a homemade car bomb. They placed boards inside the back of the van that would carry the explosives, then drilled the boards to the floor in order to keep the thirteen barrels stable while transporting them to the target area.

“Now we need to fill each bucket with the right amount of explosive,” Xander said. His face was blank, emotionless, as they worked.

“Can I ask a personal question?” Animus asked.

Xander poured Tovex into a plastic bucket and weighed it with the scale to make sure it was the correct amount. “Yes,” he said after a moment.

Animus couldn’t contain the anger in his heart, and it overpowered his voice, making it tremble. “This has all become so ugly. How do you keep from being consumed by it?”

After adjusting the amount of Tovex in the bucket, Xander emptied it into one of the fifty-five-gallon barrels. “I am not sure I understand.”

Animus tried to mimic Xander’s calm and even manner, and measured the next amount of Tovex before pouring it into a barrel. “I feel so much rage at these Americans, and it’s driving me crazy.”

“Rage is good,” Xander said. “Rage fulfills destiny.”

“You lost your wife and daughter, yet now you seem so calm. I don’t understand how you do it.”

“It is the calm before the storm,” Xander said. “Success is my revenge.”

“Success?”

“I am not half-Greek like you, but you are half-Russian like me, and as Russians, we know how to immerse ourselves in fighting the West and delusions of glasnost and perestroika. I know you can feel what I am saying is true. Together, you and I will crush the American and his allies. Our success will be our revenge.”

Animus nodded.

They completed portioning the Tovex into each of the barrels. Then they distributed liquid nitromethane, diesel fuel, and ammonium nitrate fertilizer into each of the drums. “Now we need to shape the charge,” Xander explained. “We will pack the rest of the fertilizer around the explosives, leaving one wall of the van empty. When the bomb explodes, it will blast through the area of least resistance, the empty wall. That will be the one facing UKP headquarters. Because the blast will be directed in one direction, we will be able to post our little army around the area, using trees in the park for cover, to make sure no one defuses it. Anyone who survives the blast and tries to escape the building, we will shoot.”

“Will this destroy the whole building?” Animus asked.

“It will destroy much of the first floor,” Xander said, “and I hope the unsupported weight of the building will make the rest of it collapse. After the explosion, we’ll sweep through St. James Square and shoot everyone we see.” He duct-taped two PVC pipes to the floor, running from the explosives to the driver’s seat. He grimaced and pulled so hard on the tape it looked as if he was strangling it. Then he slashed the tape with his knife. “Five years ago, on the twenty-first of December, the West was responsible for the death of my wife.”

“It is why we call ourselves 21D,” Animus said, repeating what Xander had told him previously. “In her memory.”

“It is time to remember her again. And Evelina.” He smothered the pipes with paint to blend with the color of the van’s floorboards. “It is time for the pogrom.” It is time for the massacre.

Then he stabbed a fuse through one of the pipes. “Now you do the other.”

Seeing Xander’s acrimony bleed through to the surface made Animus’s heart wrench for the man and increased his desire to triumph in their mission. He ran the second fuse through the other pipe.

“Excellent,” Xander said. “We’ll join one end of each fuse to the thirteen blasting caps, which will connect to tubes of Tovex that will detonate the explosives in each barrel. And we’ll hook up a detonator to the driver’s side of the fuse.”

“Why two fuses, then?” Animus asked.

“Just in case one does not work properly. In Moscow we say, ‘If you are going for a day trip, take a week’s supply of bread.’”

“I’m with you to the death,” Animus said.

“The death will be theirs. Then we can begin Phase Three.