Fire and ice

10:49 a.m

Matt thought about trying to navigate the water pipe, as Shelly had, and following her out that way, but the pipe had bowed under her weight and he was fairly certain it would break under his. Mr. Dark smiled down at him.

“You should have killed her when you had the chance.”

For a moment, Matt feared that the son of a bitch could read his mind.

Because the thought had occurred to him.

Matt had killed before, but only when there was no other choice. When not killing would have meant more deaths. He wasn’t a murderer.

Not yet.

The voice in his head was his own… but it sounded eerily close to Mr. Dark’s.

Matt got off the forklift, limped behind the tanks, found Terri, and once again removed the duct tape from her mouth.

“Why did you leave me here like this?” she said.

“I didn’t want you to walk around with me and maybe get your head blown off.”

“Oh. Well, thanks. I guess.”

Matt switched on the flashlight from Hubbs’s office, put it in his mouth, and started unwrapping the tape binding Terri’s hands. He wanted her to raise him to the vent fan with the forklift so he could go after Shelly.

Then he saw the red glare.

He stopped what he was doing and scooted one of the bags of chemicals out of the way. A cavity had been created underneath it, and in the center of the cavity was a red metal gas can, the kind people use to fill lawn tractors. But this was no ordinary gas can. Two holes had been drilled through the lid, and a pair of electrical wires snaked from the holes to a black metal box the size of a deck of cards. The box was secured to the top of the can with duct tape.

Matt looked at the bags of chemicals stacked from one end of the tanks to the other. He shined the light on one of the bags and saw the words ammonium nitrate printed in bold black letters.

He didn’t know much about chemistry, but he knew that ammonium nitrate was one of the ingredients terrorists used to make bombs. Timothy McVeigh had used 108 fifty-pound bags of the stuff to blow up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

There were easily ten times that many stacked behind the Fire and Ice tanks.

Matt figured the explosion would not only destroy the plant-it would wipe out a couple of square blocks of nearby residences and businesses as well.

You know, I’m tempted to let you stick around until eleven and see the show. It’s going to be fabulous.

Matt had wondered what K-Rad was talking about, and now he knew.

“What are you doing?” Terri said. “Untie me!”

Matt frantically unwound the tape from her wrists and then started on her ankles. “I don’t want to scare you,” he said, “but if we don’t move really, really fast, we’re going to be blown to smithereens.”

“What are you talking about?”

“There’s a bomb about eighteen inches to your right.”

Terri jumped to her feet and almost fell back down. “Oh my God. What are we going to do?”

“I have an idea, but my leg’s messed up. So you’re going to have to do most of the work.”

“Just tell me what to do.”

They hurried to the front of the tanks.

“Grab some two-and-a-half-inch hoses off that rack over there,” Matt said. “Get three of the twelve-footers. We’re going to need a three-way connector and a reducer and a twenty-foot section of one-inch hose.”

While Terri ran for the hose rack, Matt positioned a pneumatic pump a few feet from the valves in front of the tanks. By the time he ran an air hose from its reel on the wall and secured it close to the base of the pump, Terri had gathered the supplies and it was