Cliff Ryder - Out of Time

He worked as quickly as he could. When she saw him struggle once or twice, Brin took the duffel bag without saying a word. Alex did his best to resist each time his body betrayed him because he knew that when she saw it, she was reminded of his own betrayal, or at least his failure to be honest. One lie led to the next, and it was a wonder that she still stood beside him, or waited for him at all. As close as they’d always been, he now saw what a wall of secrets he’d built between them, and despaired of ever tearing it down completely.

Finally, the charges were set. Alex checked his watch. It was nearly four-thirty in the morning.

“How soon until people start getting here?” he asked.

Brin thought for a moment.

“The main lobby opens at eight, but there are a lot of people in before that. The earliest I’ve been in is about five-thirty, and I only saw a couple of others at that hour. We have a little bit of time.”

Alex nodded. “I want to make sure we have time to get out of here and back to the car before I set this off, and I don’t want anyone wandering in in the meantime.”

When the final two charges were set, he pulled a small black box from the pack. Alex attached it to the first charge, flipped up a small antenna and then pressed a button. A series of lights flashed, flickered and then burned green and steady. He crossed to the second charge and repeated the action with a second box.

“The others are set to respond to the shock of the initial blast,” he explained. “It was the best I could do on short notice.”

She stared at him and he flushed. Everything he said made his life of lies more clear to her. More than anything, he wanted to try to explain, but what could he possibly say that would mend the rift between them? He turned away to hide his frustration and adjusted the receiver.

“We’d better get going,” he said at last.

They turned together, leaving the empty duffel bag on the floor behind them. Alex stumbled, nearly fell, and found that Brin had caught him.

She slipped under his arm and supported him without comment as they hurried out the service exit, across the parking lot and down the street to where Alex had parked. Then Brin stopped.

“Alex, I have to get my car,” she said quickly.

“I have mine,” he said, not understanding, and she slipped out from under his arm, nearly dropping him to the pavement.

“My car is in the parking lot, Alex. Why would it be there if I’m not inside? If I’m inside, and the building blows up, they’ll think I’m dead, and they’ll come around with condolences. If they find me, they’ll wonder why my car was in the parking lot of a building that went up in a flaming ball, but I wasn’t killed.” She hesitated for a moment, then turned back. “I’ll be right back.” She started to walk away, then called back over her shoulder, “I thought you were supposed to be good at this.”

Alex watched her go in numb disbelief. She was right, of course, and it was another indication of how tired he was, and how far off his form. He’d almost made a blunder that a first-year agent would laugh at, and his wife had just saved his ass.

Again.

THERE WASN’T A BONE in Alex’s body that didn’t hurt. The fight with Dayne had left his arms weak, his legs even more unstable than they had been in the past few days. His shoulder was so sore that his arm hung limp and nearly useless. His head burned like fire and he’d sweated through the bandages and smacked it on something during the night’s adventure. It throbbed and felt as if it might burst through its bandages and explode. He couldn’t tell if that was why he had trouble focusing, or if it was the MS. He had been through hell for the past few days and he had trouble sorting out what was a symptom, what was fatigue and what was a normal casualty of the job. Not knowing made him crazy and he shook it off, trying to concentrate.

He fought the urge to doze off as he waited, and he knew it was only a few moments before he heard the engine of Brin’s SUV idling beside him, though it felt like hours. She parked, but left her engine running, came around and slid into the passenger side of the Porsche.

“Okay,” she said.

Alex nodded. He pulled a black box out from under his seat and placed it in his lap. It was simple, three switches and a few status lights. He flipped the first button and the lights flickered.

One light glowed amber, and the others flickered, then grew steady. Each was green, like the indica-tors on the receivers had been.

“They’ve found the signal,” he explained.

“You ready?”

“No, but do it and get it over with,” Brin said. Her eyes were dark, hovering somewhere between fear over what was to come, and anticipation. Alex nodded, closed his eyes and flipped the two switches.

For the first couple of seconds, nothing seemed to happen. Brin turned to look over her shoulder toward the building, started to speak and was cut short by a flash of light. There was no sound at first, then the explosion registered and the car shook. Brin screamed and Alex put an arm around her to steady her. They turned together and watched.

What looked like a pillar of light shot up the center of the building then, seconds after the initial blast, the other four charges went off. They weren’t exactly in sync, and it sounded like a string of giant, out-of-control firecrackers. There was no hint of sunrise on the horizon, so when the flash died, all that remained was a white cloud illuminated from within, and then, nothing.

“Wha—” Brin started to speak again, and it was that moment that a cloud of dust and silt began raining down on them. Another wave of energy washed over the Porsche and around it, blowing outward and shaking the windows. The small vehicle shuddered. Brin clutched at her armrest on the right and Alex’s thigh on the left until the moment passed.

It was hard to see out the windows more than a foot or so.

“Wait for the dust to clear,” Alex said. “It will be hard to breathe out there for a few minutes. As soon as we can see, we’ll go.”

“I’ll have to come back,” Brin said.

He stared at her again. “There’s nothing to come back to,” he said softly.

She turned to him, glaring. “I know that, Alex.

I’m sitting right here. I have to come back. I’m the manager of the research lab. If I just don’t show up, how is that going to look? When my people show up for work, and the building is gone, they’re going to be looking to me for guidance. Maybe you’ve seen this kind of thing too much. You sure don’t seem to see the people behind your actions—

not even when I’m one of them. I have to come back and help try to make sense of this.”

Alex sat back as if he’d been slapped. It felt that way, actually. She was right, and not for the first time in a very short span his respect for her grew and his confidence in himself dwindled. He was starting to feel very weak and small, and he hated the sensation almost as much as he hated seeing the hurt in her eyes.

They sat in silence for a few minutes longer, then Brin opened her door and stepped out. She leaned in and caught the stricken look in his eyes, leaned over to kiss his cheek. “I’ll see you at home,” she called as she closed the door.

Alex sat and waited until she was back behind her own wheel and pulling away from the curb, then he started the Porsche and sat a few minutes longer. He had a lot of things to sort out.

He slapped the car into gear and pulled out onto the street, fighting the urge to gun it and race home.

He wanted to, but the professional in him still held sway. If he drew attention to himself now, there might be questions. If they questioned him, they would find out who he was, and if they found out who he was, they’d find Brin, and everything she’d just reminded him of would become a serious problem.