Dantes' Inferno (18 page)

Mahoney echoed the warning cry as he finished testing the wire with the galvanometer; he was looking for a short or a break but found none
.

“We got a circuit,” he said, voice gruff
.

Following final orders, Sylvia connected the shot wire to the black, palm-sized blasting machine. Her pulse quickened
.

“It's just like that old cliché,” Church said quietly, in real time. “Makes you feel alive.”

“Oh, yeah . . . alive,” Sylvia whispered. Her mouth was so dry her tongue felt swollen.

“So you got to blow the shot?” Church prodded gently.

The nipple on the side of the blasting machine was soft under her thumb. It was her job to press the button, make the shot. She heard Mahoney's countdown, took a breath, and upshifted her thumb
.

Nothing happened
.

Then she saw a brown cloud of earth and rock rise above the tree line. Almost instantly, the cloud was accompanied by a round of deep staccato booms, the music of five-hundred-millisecond and twenty-five-millisecond explosive delays
.

She felt herself shoved from behind—Mahoney yelled—and she was under the nose of the Ford as chunks of fly rock pelted the battered hood. A faint acrid smell followed the blast. From the edge of the powder truck's bumper, Sylvia gazed up at One-Shot Mahoney. Her hair was matted with limestone dust, hard hat tipped at an angle; her back ached, and she knew she wore a stupid grin
.

Mahoney's smile was wicked as he growled, “Hot damn, I love the smell of ANFO in the morning.”

The high-pitched electronic whine scared Sylvia all over again. Disorientation kept her from recognizing the mechanical noise. Before she could react, a new and reassuring male voice called out, requesting that she keep calm and, “Just listen, don't move now. And hang in there, Sylvia. It's Sylvia, right? Shorty's got to check things out—we're right behind him.”

The vibration was faint, but she felt it travel up her legs from her feet. Her first thought was that the bomb had been triggered. Then she realized she wasn't alone.

Sylvia caught sight of the robot—
must be Shorty
—as it rolled to a stop very near her left foot. In other circumstances, she might have likened the robot to a dog. Actually, it resembled a power lawn mower or a tiny tank. Propelled by ribbon tread, reaching knee height, the squat body was topped by a long neck, lightbulb eyes, antennas, and swiveling cameras. Fearless, purposeful, curious, Shorty had been designed to investigate a possible bomb situation via remote commands; with a computerized chip for a brain, the machine could enter a minefield to collect visual, aural, even olfactory information—it could retrieve a device and transport it from location A to location B.

About the only thing Shorty could
not
do was disarm an explosive device. That remained the bare-handed job of men and women.

She heard Church's quiet reassurance: “You're in good hands now, Doc.”

Another voice—
something familiar about its soothing tones
—suggested she continue taking in oxygen, they were almost done, they'd have her out of there in a New York minute.

Yes, please, and thank you
.

Perhaps the robot's specific vibration had traveled through the floorboards with enough force to affect physics. Or maybe the arrival of Shorty initiated the slightest shift in Sylvia's body—with the same result.

Whatever. The bomb's metal heart began to tick.

Sylvia's eyes grew wide. Had she imagined a soft voice somewhere in the world murmuring,
Oh shit?

Shorty's neck lengthened by six inches. One camera eye tipped toward the floor, the other swung around on the smoothest hydraulics to stare down the bomb.

The truth was unavoidable, the hand on the clock face was clicking off seconds:
forty-eight, forty-seven
—

“Help,” she called out.

Thirty-one, thirty, twenty-nine
—

From somewhere in the house a muffled male voice responded, “We hear you, Sylvia. Hang on, don't move, we're coming in.”

Eighteen, seventeen, sixteen
—

She groaned, her body tensing so hard her muscles cramped.

“Get ready to roll!” Someone barked out the command.

Seven, six, five, four
—

It all happened in an adrenaline haze. Responding to instinct she crouched, Shorty reversed direction, and a heavily muscled person in a space suit and helmet tackled her, knocking the air from her lungs. She felt herself flying backward, hitting the floor—she was crushed beneath two hundred pounds of armor and a bomb shield. She squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the explosion.

The shrill sound of an alarm filled her ears—

The sound ran down to a bleating whine.

Then a hiccup. Another.

No explosion.

Just silence—and the breakneck beating of her heart.

She caught the harsh ventilated breathing of her savior, tasted the metallic bite of body armor, but all she could see was a blurry face behind a plastic helmet. A disembodied voice said, “We're still here.”

After an interminable time, she heard footsteps, careful and light, someone tiptoeing across the floor.

“Kudos, Dr. Strange.”

Sylvia pushed, and the saint in the bomb suit rolled to the side, releasing her from imminent asphyxiation. She sat up, instinctively pulling herself together; she shook dust from her hair, brushed dirt from her shirt. No bones broken, definitely dazed. She was still alive.

She saw something flash—again and again—and she shuddered, gazing up at the man she knew only as a distinctive voice: Professor Edmond Sweetheart.

“The bomb?” Her throat was so tight she had to repeat the words twice.

“First, let's get you out of here,” Sweetheart said, shaking his head as he pocketed a tiny digital camera. “I'm feeling vulnerable, even though . . .” His eyes were on the explosive device as he reached out, offering her a smooth hand. She accepted and felt herself lifted to her feet.

She whispered, “A hoax?” Then louder. “A goddamned fucking hoax bomb?”

“Maybe a goddamned fucking hoax bomb.
Maybe
. It won't be Dantes' first.” Still he stared at the bomb nesting between floorboards, but he nodded, echoing her words with his rich dark baritone. “They've got to make sure the area's clear. They can't do that with us standing here.” He rubbed something white between his fingers.
Dust
. The house seemed to be coated with fine powder, as if someone had split open a bag of Betty Crocker flour.

She swayed, bouncing against Sweetheart, feeling his arm steady as a ballast. “Shit.”

He gripped her firmly—but not roughly—bringing her to ground. When both her feet were rooted, she took him in: he was somewhere between thirty and forty-five, some strong mix that included Polynesian ancestry, medium height, gleaming blue-black hair pulled from high cheekbones, incredibly smooth skin, dark brows, and fiercely probing eyes. She focused on his mouth, which was generous even when he wasn't smiling, and he
wasn't
smiling. He looked angry—as angry as she felt. Oddly, his size registered last.

Sweetheart weighed at least 250 pounds.

Their eyes met, held; hard to say who would've looked away first.

Simultaneously, they both turned their heads, drawn by the strident tones of a man wearing a dark FBI jacket and cap. The Fed addressed the space between Sylvia's eyes where executioners aim their weapons: “Evacuate the premises.
Immediately
. This area has not been cleared.”

Sweetheart loosened his grip on Sylvia's shoulder, asking, “Ready for this?” She nodded, following him across the room without delay. She couldn't wait to evacuate the damn premises.

The federal agent, walking with a heavy stride, stayed directly behind her; Sweetheart took the lead.

Retracing earlier steps, she exited the house through the back door. Searing midafternoon sunlight slapped her face. Squinting into the glare, she saw a scene transformed. Two fire trucks, a squared-off bomb squad truck, LAPD squad cars, obtrusively neutral federal vehicles—and corresponding personnel—occupied the previously semideserted street. The asphalt had been turned into a temporary parking lot; the vehicles partially blocked the view of the several dozen residents who had gathered on the lawns of their sixty-year-old homes. Another hundred feet along the
street, at the intersection, sawhorses barred access to curious pedestrians. As Sylvia scanned the scene, a TV news crew pulled up in a van, the logo advertising the network affiliate.

A day for crowds and live broadcast news coverage.

She took a slow, deep breath, simultaneously lifting her thick auburn mane of hair from her neck. Using her right hand, she fanned her face; the cooling effect was minimal, but the physical action helped ward off the shakes.

Apparently she'd walked right into a hoax—literally—but officials were taking no unnecessary chances on what was turning out to be a busy bomb day. A tech strode past, carrying what she thought might be disrupter—either that or some missile-type projectile. Another fully suited bomb squad member followed with a leashed and hyperalert shepherd.

Someone, a passing human shape—
Agent Purcell
—handed her a cup of coffee. She clutched the disposable cup, unaware that her fingernails were digging crescents into Styrofoam. “Thanks.” She was grateful her teeth didn't chatter. The aftershocks were beginning to register. The beverage was bitter, sickly sweet, lukewarm—the best thing she'd ever tasted.

Sweetheart covered the seventy feet from house to chain-link fence and reached the gate first. His physical effect was overwhelming, but oddly comforting. He stepped aside, ushering her through the opening. Detective Church appeared from nowhere.

Without thinking, Sylvia walked up to the man and gave him a hug; a soft white powder rubbed off him, dusting her skin. “Thanks,” she whispered.

Church made some embarrassed noises, then asked, “You all right?”

“Yeah. You?”

“Getting there.” Detective Church nodded toward Sweetheart. “Keep an eye on this guy—he's predictable as nitro—a free agent—one of those smart SOBs who answers questions for Quantico. When he's not basking in his ivory tower, that is.”

Sweetheart's eyebrows tilted sharply.

“And obviously,” Church added, straight faced, “since he's worked in the Middle East, he must have connections in the CIA—
and
the NSA. Without Sweetheart's profiling system, that asshole Ben Black would still be blowing shit up.”

“—the hell did you think you were doing—” A male voice rose and fell, and Sylvia looked over in time to see Special Agent Purcell in the process of being dressed down by a superior. She felt a tinge of sympathy. From the corner of her eye, she noticed Detective Church backing away too casually, moving toward the house.

“Where are you going?” Sweetheart asked.

“Got a hunch to check out,” Church called over his shoulder.

“Funkspiele,”
Sweetheart said, now that he and Sylvia were alone.

“I'm sorry?” Sylvia returned her attention to the professor.

“Funkspiele—German for ‘radio games.' Dantes likes to play.” Sweetheart's eyes didn't flinch under the glare of the sun. “So do terrorists in the Middle East. They use false signals to throw intelligence off track.”

“So, the question: is he messing with us, or with M?” Sylvia's dark brows disappeared under wild strands of hair. Her eyes widened, monopolizing her face. “Maybe both.” Her cheeks had lost all color except for the smudges of dirt and dust.

“Either way, he wins.” The professor was studying her. “He gets attention, and he feels he's in control.”

“When I was in the house, I noticed something on the
device.” Sylvia frowned. “Some message on a small piece of paper—in Italian”

“I saw it. From Dante Alighieri's
Inferno
. The theme continues.” He pulled something from his pocket—a fold of paper—and offered it to Sylvia.

She opened the quartered page to find a carefully rendered map. It consisted of concentric circles, descending in size, and numbered consecutively from one to nine. Points of interest had been labeled: Dark Wood; River Acheron; Limbo; Gates of Dis; River Styx.

“The original map of hell. It's yours to keep. It might come in handy.” Sweetheart extended his index finger and tapped the third circle. “We are here,” he added, dryly. He glanced back toward the house. “That quote you saw—it's from the third canto.”

Sylvia followed his gaze, then refocused on him, on eyebrows that could belong to the devil. “Can you translate the Italian?”

His eyes traveled her way, absorbing, registering, as if she weren't quite human. “A group of angels rebelled—and were cast out—”

“They fell past earth, into hell,” she said impatiently. “I know the story.”

“Then you also know they were banned from heaven in order not to tarnish its perfection. And some were not admitted to hell, so that hell could not claim victory over their souls. So they remained in limbo—lost, wandering.”

“And the quote?” Sylvia asked, gazing at the map of hell. “‘ . . . with the caitiff choir of the angels, who were not rebellious, nor were faithful to God; but were for themselves.'”

“The faithless,” Sylvia murmured.

Before either of them could add anything, the house exploded.