Russell Andrews - Aphrodite

"What's happening?" Deena whispered. He realized that she was speaking quietly not because she didn't want to be overheard; fear was not allowing her to speak any louder. "Why are they killing people?"

Justin wished he had an answer for her, but all he could do was shake his head. He didn't tell her what he was thinking. It was not a very comforting thought, and he knew that it would occur to her soon enough. He was thinking: Somebody beat us to Granger. Which means somebody knew we'd be here.

When he glanced back at Deena, he knew she'd just made the connection. She grabbed Kendall, drew her close, and hugged the girl to her body. As he watched Deena's eyes flicker, he knew she'd also taken the thought to the next logical step.

Which means somebody knows we're here now. Mr. Depford was waiting for them in the hallway when they stepped out of Lewis Granger's room.

"If there's anything I can do," he said, still using his most somber and funereal tone.

"Actually, there is," Justin told him. "I'd like to look at any records you might have."

"What kind of records do you wish to see?"

"My father always kept something a bit of a mystery. None of us ever knew how old he really was. I'd like to find out."

"I'm afraid we don't have that on file."

"Isn't that standard information?"

"Normally, yes. And, of course, we had it. But a few years ago, three to be exact-"

"You had a burglary."

Depford looked surprised. "Why, yes."

"Right before you started the job."

The manager looked even more surprised. "That's right. How did you-"

"Were any other files taken, other than my father's?"

"A few. That's what I was told. But no one who's still with us, I'm afraid."

"Thank you very much, Mr. Depford. You've been very helpful." Justin took Kendall by the hand and started walking down the hallway toward the stairs that led to the lobby. Depford did a little hop, step, and a jump to keep up with them.

"What about a funeral?"

"Excuse me?"

"What would you like me to do with the body? Now that you're here…"

"Nothing but the best," Justin said. "Spare no expense."

"Um…yes…of course," Depford said. They were downstairs and almost at the front door. The prim little man looked uncomfortable now. "But as far as payment…"

"The usual," Justin said. "Send the bill to the Ellis Institute. Just be sure to tell them I okayed it."

Depford didn't follow them out to the parking lot. They headed quickly toward the car, until Deena pulled up short.

"I think you should use the rest room," she said to Kendall.

"Mom," the girl said. "I told you. I'm a big girl."

"I know you are, sweetie, but sometimes even big girls-"

"I know when to go!"

"But we don't know when we'll find another stop," Deena said. "I really think-"

"Mommmmm…"

"Okay," Deena said. "Okay. But I don't want any whining when we're in the car. Just remember I told you that, because we're not going to be able to stop in the middle of nowhere."

The little girl tossed her head as if to say "I do not whine," then skipped ahead of them toward the car.

"Tell me again how I'm doing something right," she said to Justin.

"Nobody's perfect," he told her.

"Where do we go from here?" Deena asked.

"I was afraid you were going to ask that."

"You don't know?"

"I've got a couple of ideas," he said. And then, when she looked at him incredulously, he added, "What, you thought I was kidding about that 'nobody's perfect' thing?"

He got in the driver's seat, reached over Deena's lap into the glove compartment, and pulled out an old Dire Straits CD. The only thing he'd bothered to transfer from his old car to this one were his CDs. This one had a song on it, "The Bug," that was one of his favorites. Justin skipped ahead to that song, heard Mark Knopfler twang out the line Sometimes you're the windshield, sometimes you're the bug.

Yeah, Justin thought. And as he drove away, he realized that he'd spent the last six years of his life being the bug. But he never felt it quite so much as he did this very minute.

The first thing Wendell Touay ever blew up was a rat. He was thirteen years old and caught the rodent as it was scampering over a rusty drain-pipe in a construction site that had been emptied out for the July Fourth weekend. The rat, struggling to escape the boy's grip, bit Wendell on his thumb, which not only pissed him off, but hurt like hell. Wendell had simply been going to strangle the animal but now that he was angry he decided it deserved a more elaborate send-off. He was carrying several cherry bombs-M-80s and M-100s-was planning on setting them off at the site, his own private celebration. He decided to ratchet up the celebration a notch. He shoved one M-100 as far into the rat's rectum as he could manage, watched in delight as the ugly, furry thing twisted and clawed and snapped, furiously trying to escape, then he lit the fuse, tossed the thing high in the air, and toasted America's birthday under a rain of sparks and flesh and fur and blood.

Ever since then, he had been addicted to explosions. Gordon liked to touch the things he killed. Wendell much preferred watching them get blown to pieces. He read books on explosives, had late-night Internet chats with fellow devotees, spent hours upon hours on the dozens of international Web sites devoted to all things that explode, and studied everything he could about homemade bombs. He'd had to buy several copies of The Anarchist's Cookbook and The Poor Man's James Bond because he'd read them both so often that the spines had broken and the pages had fallen out. He considered himself an expert and took quite a bit of pride in the scope of his knowledge. He could tell you the difference in the rate of detonation between tetrytol and TNT and, for any primary or secondary explosive, he could rattle off its color, its detonation rate, and any quirks that one had to watch out for when handling it-sensitivity to static electricity, degree of water resistance, any danger that might arise from as little as a three-degree drop in temperature.

So when he and Gordon worked out their plan, he was not only pleased to have the opportunity to indulge his passion, he was confident that his skills were up to the task. Gordon's plan had failed on the back roads of Long Island. This plan would not fail. Wendell had created explosives before for them to use in their exclusive line of work, and the success rate had been one hundred percent. A small piece of Wendell was excited at the chance to surpass his seven-minutes-older brother. But what excited him even more was the anticipation. When Wendell first began to picture exactly what was going to happen to Justin Westwood and his two charges, a tiny drop of anticipatory spittle formed on his lower lip and he had to lick it away. The thought of seeing the three people blown to bits actually made him drool.

While the cop, the woman, and her kid were inside the old-age home-just about now, Wendell thought-discovering that Lewis Granger was not going to be very much help to them, Wendell was crouched down behind the piece-of-shit Buick, busily attaching four surprise packages underneath the frame.

Each package was identical. And he was proud of them. They were not only clever, they would be devastating.

Everything had been assembled in a highway rest-stop parking lot midway between the airport and the Leger Retirement Home. They had picked up their rental car and gone straight to a hardware store. There Wendell had purchased a kitchen timer-he picked one in the shape of a rooster that crowed when the timer went off-two packages of double-A batteries, duct tape, five industrial-power magnets, electrical wire, industrial-strength fast-drying glue, a plastic bucket, a two-gallon plastic jug, and a large ball of string. After that, they stopped off at a liquor store and bought five bottles of a good Bordeaux. Before paying for them, Wendell checked to make sure that the bottoms of the bottles were all dimpled in the center. He had brought his own electric blasting caps, which had required some ingenuity since they were flying and security was supposedly tighter than in years past. Still, it was no problem. He'd taken apart the DVD case in his laptop computer, removed the mechanism, and inserted the caps-which were similar in size and resembled the tubes of ink that fit inside fountain pens-in its stead. He then replaced the casing for the device and slipped it back into the computer, attaching it in its proper place. He was able to carry it right on the plane in his overnight bag. The caps set off no alarms and caused no special search.