Aarti Raman - Kingdom Come

“BDS is en route. ETA five minutes.”

“Awesome.”

But he continued inching his way into the tangle of wires until he found the one he was looking for. Delicately, with the precision of a surgeon, he stripped the insulation and looked at the tungsten length inside. It would burn inside of a second with the proper spark. He touched the wire end that was attached to the NiFe cells and gently shook it. When nothing happened, he decided to brave the fate again and yanked the cells out of the remote, along with the tungsten length.

Still nothing happened. Then, he set the power source aside and turned his attention to the bomb. He’d disconnected the initiator firing pin but there was still the main fuse that needed to be clipped off. He looked critically at the wires that were attached to the steel pin and began running his hands over each of them. Finally, he struck gold with the fourth one which led into the cylinder, and he reached inside, his palm hitting the C4 bundles. His heart thudded once, hard. He reached and yanked the wire away from the C4 and it came out easily. Krivi looked at the length of det cord in his hand and let it dangle in mid-air.

“Alpha Two,” he said clearly into the microphone at his mouth. “Hot load defused. I repeat, hot load defused.”

For extra measure, he took his palm out and smashed the power source into tiny pieces and watched the tungsten wire embed itself into the gravel. Then he stood up, his legs creaking under the weight of Kevlar, rubber and his own aching bones.

Reaction.

Immediately, three Army personnel rushed to his side and began to cut into the backpack itself and get to the explosive inside, exclaiming over the amount of shrapnel that would have destroyed any living thing into shreds if the bomb had exploded.

Krivi backed off, his footsteps leaden.

A hard hand clamped on his shoulder and he turned around slowly, hampered by the suit. Sam’s grateful, but clear eyes stared back at him. He tapped on the visor of the helmet and Krivi pulled it off. Sweat from his hair and temples dripped down his nose and he let the helmet dangle on his side. He started ripping the suit apart.

“Thank you. Just … thank you.”

“Are they gone? The both of them?” Ziya. He couldn’t believe that she was the first thing he wanted to ask about and it was disquieting.

“No. They’re sitting in the car, waiting for you to drive them.”

Krivi nodded, brushing a hand through his soaked hair. Sam smiled, slightly. “You were cool in there. Glacier cool. Done this before, haven’t you?”

Krivi nodded. “Done everything twice, Major. Can you do me a favor?”

“Name it.” The offer was instant, sincere.

“Take your female back to the hotel with you, all right? One hysterical woman I can handle … but two’s a little out of my league.”

Sam grinned, which was a little ridiculous under the circumstances. But he nodded and matched his steps with that of Krivi’s.

“You’re afraid of two women? You, who just saved us all from certain death?”

He didn’t answer. Just shrugged off the sweltering hot suit and quietly wished for an icy cold waterfall he could just drown himself in. The temperature was now a cool fifteen degrees and he was sweating like a pig. And, he was pretty sure, underneath the suit he smelled like one.

Dirt and sweat and fear.

They reached the edge of the parking lot and Noor shrieked as she caught sight of the two men. Sam sighed and said, “Yep. You get the other one, soldier.”

He ran forward to intercept Noor who was crying and babbling, her floor-duster kicking up little circles of dust as she sprinted towards them.

Ziya, Krivi saw, was just walking with slow, measured steps towards them. Her eyes level with his. They revealed nothing, but were pure luminescence. Quicksilver, glowing, like the sunny streaks in her pixie hair. And for a second he wanted to find the same warmth in them that she gave everyone else.

Sam was half-supporting Noor to his own Jeep, who didn’t even bother to turn around and acknowledge the hero of the hour. All of her attention was focused on the man holding her.

Ziya reached Krivi, her hands firmly inside the pockets of her blazer, which she’d buttoned up in defense of the weather.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hey,” he said.

“You didn’t blow us all up.”

“No,” he agreed. Lighting the one cigarette he carried in his pant pocket with a match. “I didn’t.” He drew smoke in.

Ziya stared at the burning paper and tobacco and stated, “But you don’t smoke.”

“No,” he agreed. “I don’t. Can we drive back now? I am in desperate need of a shower.”

Her lovely lips pursed as if she wanted to make an acerbic comment. But she only nodded at the cigarette.

“Finish that before coming in. I won’t have the car smelling of filthy tobacco.”

Ziya turned around and started walking back and Krivi couldn’t help it. He watched her straight back and bent head and started to smile. Really smile. Infinitely glad to be alive, just so he could make her eyes flare up at him again.

He threw the butt on the ground and crushed it under his boot heel and walked forward. Leaving the bomb suit where it was. Lying on the ground next to his half-smoked cigarette.

One of Wood’s earliest memories, were of catching stray chickens at the farm and eating the eggs raw, after stealing them from underneath the big fat mama hens. Foster care had not been much help in Wood’s case, with that monster of a father playing the cops when they showed up and beating the shit out of Wood’s older brother when he got drunk and mean. Mama had split after the brother’s birth and Dad had taken it out on Wood and his brother’s hide.

Wood had learned early on to stay out of the big man’s way and not make any noise. It was the reason why Wood had not said a word till age four.

One night, when the father was whaling on the brother, who never woke up from that beating, Wood called the cops and watched, hiding in the barn with just a one-eyed cat for company, as the cop cars came and took the entire family away. Wood ran into the woods that night terrified that the father would come back and beat the life out of Wood too.

But, Wood had not gotten far. Another man had followed Wood into the woods surrounding the pretty farmhouse in Chesapeake, Maryland. That man had been gentle and spoken in a calm voice and had the kindest eyes Wood had ever seen. That man had given Wood a Snickers bar and a tissue to wrap it in when Wood had only eaten half of it, sitting under the oak tree where Wood had fallen and was crying inconsolably when the man turned up.

That man had taken Wood to a nice clean bed in a strange motel and asked Wood seriously, whether this family, Wood’s family was what Wood wanted. Wood had answered instantaneously, no . The man had asked if Wood wanted a different family, with only, say a dad and no one else. But an exciting fun life, filled with adventure and faraway places, with trips and no school if that was what Wood wanted.

And Wood had answered as instantaneously. Yes .

The man had offered his hand to be shaken by a small, malnourished five-year-old. And had called himself Tom Jones. Wood had called him Dad since that day.

The Woodpecker smiled and bent the thumb of the blindfolded man sitting in front, back all the way. The man screamed; a high-pitched, keening wail. He clutched his ruined thumb and whimpered; snot and tears running unchecked down his face.

The man wept openly.

“Please, please,” he whispered, shrinking into himself. Hunching his shoulders, trying to occupy as little space as possible. “Please, I am sorry. I won’t mess up the order again. I won’t.”