William Bernhardt - Strip search

If it hadn't been for the dinging bell of the elevator doors as they began to close I wouldn't have noticed. My head turned And there she was. No clumsy dye job or fake glasses were going to fool me, especially when the woman was nine months pregnant and looked ten. She recognized me, too. She slunk to the back of the elevator. I lurched, jutting my hand forward. It hurt like hell, but I managed to get my palm in sideways, fast enough to prevent the doors from closing. They reopened, and just as I prepared to step into her domain, she caught me off guard with a very heavy shoe to the gut.

I doubled over and she tried to run past me. I grabbed her leg. My head was flooded with conflicting emotions and motivations. I wanted to twist the ankle around and fling her to the ground, but I reminded myself that she was pregnant. The baby was an innocent. On the other hand, the mother was a psychopathic mass murderer. I couldn't let her escape.

I wrapped myself around her waist; she tried to drag me down the corridor, beating on me and clawing me with her nails. Where the hell were all those officers who were supposed to be combing the building? I grabbed her hand and gave her the Vulcan Death Grip-three fingers pressed into the soft spot between her thumb and forefinger. Her knees buckled, but she somehow managed to bring her other arm around and slam it into the side of my face. Maybe it was the protective maternal instinct at work. For a woman who was supposedly dying and about to give birth, she fought like hell.

"You are the Math Lady again!"

God in heaven, it was Darcy. Why didn't he listen to anything I ever said? He was grinning at her like she was some long-lost friend. "That was pretty funny when we played chase at my house. Did you know that I would be faster than you? I bet you thought you could sneak up on me and catch me. But you could not sneak up and catch me. I smelled you and heard you before you got into the kitchen."

Esther made a sort of growling noise and took a swing at him, well off the mark. It was just the distraction I needed. I grabbed her other arm and twisted it hard behind her back. The sudden pain forced her to her knees.

"I guess you could not catch Susan, either, could you?" He grinned, then sniffed the air. "She smells like Aqua Velva."

What? Aftershave lotion? Why would she No. It had to be something else. Something that smelled like Aqua Velva.

Plastique.

I dug my knee into the small of her back. She cried out. I could tell Darcy didn't like it; he didn't like to see anyone hurt. But he didn't interfere. "Where's the bomb, Esther?"

"You'll know soon enough."

"I want to know now."

"There's nothing you can do to me that would make me tell you."

I checked my watch. "The bomb goes off at four, right?" I grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her as hard as I thought I could without inducing premature labor. "Where is it?"

Her only response was a placid smile.

"It isn't going to work, you know," I said. "God-if He even exists, which I have serious reason to doubt-isn't going to come down and have a chat with you just because you killed a lot of innocent people."

Now I had her attention. She was desperate to know how I knew what she wanted, how much more I might know. But she wouldn't allow herself to ask.

"You think Timothy McVeigh got a private audience with God? In this world or the next? I don't."

"He didn't do it right."

"No, and neither did you. This is a delusion, Esther, and somewhere deep inside, you know it. You are not accomplishing anything good here, not for you or your daughter. You're not Jesus Christ. You're Jack the Ripper."

Her eyes narrowed. Her breathing quickened. "You're wrong. Because you're still trapped in the prison. In the darkness. But I've found the pathway out. I'm on my way to becoming-"

"I have seen that briefcase before!" Darcy was screaming at me from the opposite end of the corridor, pointing at a window. "It is hers."

"Darcy! Come back!" I pushed Esther down the hallway, toward the conference room Darcy had just entered. Through the window, I watched him pull a briefcase out from under the table. Before I could yell at him not to do it, he had popped the latches.

Even from my distance, I could see the LED readout.

Barely more than four minutes left on the clock.

I ran around to the door, dragging Esther with me. It was locked.

She smiled at me. "I jammed the lock. You can't get in, and he can't get out." She closed her eyes. "I'm afraid your gifted friend is going to die."

"Darcy! get out of there!" I screamed, but he wasn't listening, wasn't even looking at me. He was staring at the digital readout. I didn't know why. All I could see was a bunch of numbers. I called the bomb squad, then checked on the backup that was supposed to be coming. Neither one would arrive in time.

"Darcy! Get out!"

Esther shook her head. "I told you. He can't."

"We'll see about that." I pulled my gun out of its holster. I could probably shoot the lock off the door, but that would take longer. "Darcy! Get down!" Careful to aim away from the bomb, I fired two shots into the window.

Glass flew everywhere. Darcy crawled under the table, trying to get away from the noise and the flying shards. I grabbed Esther by the throat.

"Is there any way to shut that bomb down?" I shouted at her.

"Of course. But he won't figure it out. Not in time. The math is much too complex. The fractions just continue."

I whipped out my cuffs and locked Esther to the doorknob. "If that bomb goes off, you'll die." I paused, looking her square in the eye. "You and your baby girl."

Her face twitched, ever so slightly. "You won't go through with it."

"Watch me!"

"Fine. Then we both die. Better to die in flames than be subjected to the torment of being born unloved. Shuttled from one cruel home to another. Tortured and abused and-"

I didn't have time to relive her tragic life story. I shoved her down onto the floor. "Darcy! Crawl through the window."

He didn't answer. He was doing something, punching the numbers on a keypad beneath the readout. I would've been afraid that would trigger a premature explosion, but it didn't, thank God.

"Darcy! What are you doing?"

"I think-I, maybe if-" He was concentrating; obviously, I was a distraction. "I think it is a puzzle."

"A puzzle? Like what?"

"Like if I can solve this equation she wrote on the metal part, maybe it will stop the timer."

I turned back to Esther. "Is that true?"

She looked up at me but didn't answer. I was certain that meant the answer was yes.

"But there are so many different ways to solve it," Darcy continued, more to himself than to me. "I do not know which way is right."

"Darcy, there's no time. If you don't crawl out of there, I'm coming in after you."

"I want to solve the puzzle."

"Darcy, if you don't get out in time, you'll die."

For the first time, he looked up. "But there has not been time to evacuate the building, has there?"

Of course there hadn't. I wasn't going to lie to him.

"So if I do not solve the puzzle, everyone in this section of the building will die, right?"

Goddamn that stupid big heart of his! "Darcy, I'm ordering you-"

"Shhh! I am thinking. Maybe I can get this. Maybe."

"You can't. I mean, if anyone ever could, it would be you, Darcy. But no one can. Esther told me. Certainly not in"-I glanced at my watch-"less than three minutes. She said that no matter what you do, it just keeps continuing."

He tilted his head to one side, then his eyes brightened. "Continuing fractions? Like what the Math Lady had in her classroom?" He hunched over the keypad and punched the keys, rapid-fire.

Esther laughed. "When he was in my classroom, it took him an hour to solve three equations. Has he studied them since?"