The Edge of Armageddon

CHAPTER FORTY

Drake’s memory snapped to the fore. Ramses had deliberately told him that Hayden was the bomb. But what the hell did that really mean?

Looking now, he saw the three wires wrapped around her. Which one led to the trigger? Dahl pulled a piece of paper from his pocket.

“The codes,” he said. “There is now no other way.”

“Let Marsh try again. Ramses made a point of mentioning Hayden.”

“We use the codes.”

“They could be bloody fake! Their own trigger!”

Marsh was already peering at Hayden’s body. Drake scrambled across and grabbed Kinimaka’s attention. “Roll her.”

Hayden helped as best she could, muscles and tendons no doubt screaming their agony, but receiving no relief. The clock ticked. The bomb neared fruition. And the world waited.

Marsh leaned in, following the wires around her body as Drake raised one arm, then a leg and finally unbuckled her belt where two wires crossed. When he saw the knotted pair passing again through her knees he pointed at Kinimaka. “There.”

Suffering a nightmare game of Twister, Hayden watched as Marsh followed the path of every wire back to the timer.

“For sure,” he said, squinting hard, one eye wide, the other closed. “It’s the one on the right.”

Drake glared at the suitcase nuke. Kenzie joined him and Dahl on the floor right beside it. “A specific configuration of parts and mechanisms is required to detonate this thing. It is… so delicate. Do we really trust the man who brought it into the country at this point?”

Drake drew the deepest breath of his life.

“No choice.”

He pulled the wire.