The naked edge

33

Three minutes to ten.

A team member stood against a wall as the crowd passed. Impatient, he checked his watch, looked up, and paled when two men confronted him, aiming pistols.

"Hands up!"

*

"Turn around! Against the wall!" an agent shouted to another team member, this one a block away. "Jay, get the knapsack off him!"

*

"I think it's safe to take the knapsack!" an agent yelled to his partner three blocks away. "If it's a bomb, it doesn't have a manual trigger. Otherwise, he'd have blown himself up by now."

Someone in the crowd overheard. "Bomb?"

"Where?"

"A bomb!"

"Run!"

*

"Keep your hands away from the knapsack!" an agent shouted.

When the team member drew a pistol, the agent protected the knapsack and shot the man in the head.

The dying man fired into the sidewalk, fragments hitting the crowd.

Panicking, a woman tripped. Stampeding, three men fell over her. Screams filled the street.