When they reassembled, Team 2 showed up again. “We’ve got a meeting with Smithson in a couple of minutes,” Doepker said to Reg, “but we wanted to see what you’re doing with that platform.”
“It’s a very simple exercise,” Reg said, fingering the binoculars around his neck. “Two of them get on the platform and we raise it.”
“It’s hydraulic,” Doepker said to the trainees. “And it can go high.” He grinned at them. “I saw the flight mechanics wheeling it out earlier and figured Reg had to be behind it.”
“There’s a live bomb on the platform,” Reg said.
“What the …,” Doepker said. “Crap, Reg, did you get clearance for this?”
“I did,” he said. “The director required an emergency egress system in case the defusing doesn’t go well. Hence the big yellow mat at the bottom.”
“The big yellow mat is single use,” Richtig said. “Like a car’s air bag.”
“Yeah,” Reg said.
“If one of them jumps on it, it deflates.”
“Yeah,” Reg said again.
“There are going to be two of them on that platform? With a bomb?”
“That’s right.”
“What the hell, Reg? If they have to get off there, they’ve got to jump at the same time. Otherwise one of them is stuck,” Doepker said.
“They’ve got two shots at teamwork,” Reg said. “First, when defusing the bomb. If that doesn’t go well, they can jump together. If they can’t pull off either of those, they don’t belong here.”
They were all silent for a moment. The trainees exchanged sober glances.
“How high are you raising the platform?” Richtig finally said.
“Three stories.”
“Crap, Reg,” Doepker said.
“You remember when I crashed?” Reg said, leaning forward, invading Doepker’s space. “You know what happened?”
“I know how much it cost. That’s mostly what Smithson mumbles about.”
“Yeah,” Reg said. “My pilot panicked and used the emergency egress system. By himself.” His nose was a centimeter away from Doepker’s. “Leaving me to land the craft by myself.” He turned to the trainees and barked, “It was a two-person landing procedure. It’s a miracle that I brought it down at all.”
“Did they fire him?” Brad said.
“No,” Reg said, and he didn’t sound angry anymore. “They buried him. Idiot used the capsule for a water rescue and we were over land.” He sighed. “We have some work to do here. You guys want to stick around and play?”
“I think we better get to our meeting,” Richtig said. “I’m not sure what our liability is if we’re here, and I don’t want to find out.” He clapped Reg on the arm.
“Good luck,” Doepker said to the trainees. “Listen to this guy. He’s as smart as he is crazy.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Reg said. Team 2 walked away.
“Wow,” Rosa said. “I’m so sorry …”
Reg waved her off and clipped a cordless mic to her collar. “Rosa and Trevor, scramble onto the platform there. Don’t touch anything.”
They walked over to the platform, a gray contraption with a metal ladder dropping off the side. It had five steps. Rosa reached up and grabbed ahold and climbed onto the platform, and Trevor followed her. It had a low railing, and there was a stand holding a box, a stapled document, and a blindfold. Reg pressed a button and the platform began to rise.
“Why is there a blindfold?” Trevor said. “Reg?”
“Oh yeah,” Reg said, grinning. “Put that on. You’re going to be defusing blindfolded.”
“No,” Trevor said. “That’s not a thing that’s going to happen.”
“Rosa, make sure the blindfold’s tight, then glance at that booklet.” She looked down at them, her face pinched. The platform was rising slowly, but they were already too high to use the ladder to climb down. “You’re going to give him instructions on what to do. Trevor, you have to do it without being able to see what she’s talking about.”
Rosa waved the printout. “I just tell him to do each of these steps? And we don’t go boom?”
“That’s right,” Reg said. “You can’t do any of it yourself.”
“Okeydokey,” Rosa said, her voice tight.
“Don’t start till we get up to our observation post.”
“Oh god,” Trevor said.
Reg, Eddie, and Brad walked to the zipline tower and climbed its corrugated aluminum steps in silence. When they got to the top, Reg shouted, “Get that blindfold on, Trevor!” At three stories tall the platform was well below them, and fifty yards away. Rosa gave them a thumbs-up, then turned to Trevor.
“Okay, Trev. The first thing is to put your hands out.” He did and she grasped them. “I’m here. Feel me?” He squeezed her hands. “I’m right here, Trev, and we’re going to do this together. Then we’re going to think of something really awful to do to Reg.”
On the tower, Reg grinned.
“Now turn back around,” Rosa said. “A little more to the right. There you go. Put both hands forward, about shoulder width apart, and lift the lid straight up.”
Trevor reached forward, got ahold of the box covering the bomb, and lifted. “I want to release a variety of airborne pathogens in his office,” he said.
“That’s the spirit!” Rosa said. “Now turn to your left and lower the lid to the platform.”
The device was the size of a shoebox, had a half-dozen color-coded wires and a digital timer with a blank display screen.
“That screen comes on if they accidentally activate it?” Brad whispered on the tower. Reg nodded and kept watching through the binoculars. “Does it really have live explosives?” Brad said.
“Yeah,” Reg said. “It really does.”
Rosa gave directions one step at a time, guiding Trevor in picking up the tools, clipping wires, and pulling a pin out of the device. When they were done, Trevor took his blindfold off and sat on the edge of the platform, limp, his arms draped over the railing. Rosa sat beside him.
Reg climbed down from the tower and lowered the platform, then removed the defused bomb and replaced it with another device covered with a box. “This one’s different,” he said to Brad and Eddie. “So if you memorized how to defuse the first one, forget it.”
“Wish he didn’t think of everything,” Eddie muttered.
“Brad, you’re in charge,” Reg said. “Eddie, get the blindfold on.”
Reg, Rosa, and Trevor trudged up the tower steps while Eddie and Brad clambered onto the platform. Eddie waited until it finished rising before he put the blindfold on.
“Okay,” Brad said. “Take the lid off.” Eddie reached forward, got ahold of the lid, and lifted it. “Well, put it down,” Brad said. Eddie hissed through his teeth and set the lid down on the platform. “Pick up the screwdriver,” Brad said.
“Um?” Eddie said.
“You have to remove a screw to get to one of the wires.”
“I don’t know where the screwdriver is,” Eddie said.
“Well, obviously it was under the lid, or you’d have seen it. So put your hand out and feel around a little.”
Eddie put his hand out gingerly, felt the edge of a tool, and slid his finger along its surface. “These are wire cutters.”
“Yeah,” Brad said. “So put them back. They’re for later.”
“You get that you could be more helpful?” Eddie said.
“You’re ‘exceptional.’ You figure it out.”
“I don’t like this,” Rosa whispered on the tower.
“Brad’s right there, though,” Trevor said. “He’s going to be an ass, but he can’t do worse than that.”
“Okay,” Brad said. “Unscrew the third screw from the left on the bottom row.”
“You want to give me some overall visual of this?” Eddie said. “Just describe it in general?”
“It’s more complicated than the first one,” Brad said.
Eddie waited. “Oh-kay,” he said. He waited another moment, then reached out and felt the device, running his right index finger along, feeling for screw heads. “This one?”
“Sure,” Brad said.
“Is it or isn’t it?” Eddie snapped.
“Yes,” Brad said. He flipped the microphone off. “You know, I get that you were raised in a barn, but you could still be more polite.”
“I was raised in a barn?”
“I can tell by your clothes,” Brad said. “And you’re from Indiana.”
Eddie removed the screw. “You get that there isn’t one giant barn over Indiana, right?”
Brad shrugged. “If there were, I wouldn’t know about it. My dad does real estate in Manhattan.”
“What’s next?” Eddie said, pocketing the screw and ignoring the provocation.
“Get the wire cutters and cut the black wire close to its source. That’s the one that arches over the top of the device.”
Eddie picked up the wire cutters, felt around for the wires, and said, “This one?”
“Yeah,” Brad said. Eddie traced it back and snipped it. “Now detach the red wire from the timer.” Eddie reached out, felt a rectangle, and found a wire leading from it. “This one?”
“Yeah,” Brad said. He flipped the mic back on.
Eddie clipped the wire.
The digital display snapped on: 15 seconds.
“Oh god!” Brad said. “You idiot!”
14 seconds
“Eddie, take off your blindfold!” Reg shouted.
Brad took one step to the edge of the platform, lowered himself off the railing, and dropped onto the yellow bag below. It billowed up around him and he sank slowly in the middle as it deflated. Eddie tore his blindfold off, saw the display: 12 seconds, at the same time he realized he was alone on the platform. He stepped to the edge and saw Brad sprawled below him, riding the bag down. Single use. If he jumped now, the fall would be uncushioned.
Rosa grabbed the zipline apparatus and jumped off the edge of the tower.
Eddie saw her coming and crouched on top of the railing, facing her. Rosa hurtled down the line toward him. As she slammed into him, Eddie grabbed for the nylon line clipped to the pulley, his fingers closing over hers and his legs wrapping around her. The impact was hard, ribs knocking together, the irresistible force of Rosa’s speed hitting the immovable object of Eddie’s bulk. They began rotating, still swinging downward toward the far platform.
They spun in hard, Eddie taking the brunt of the landing with his shoulder. They went down on the landing platform in a tangle of legs and elbows.
That’s when the bomb went off.
A small crack came from the center of the field, and a white cloud rose six feet over the raised platform and then showered it with fine dust.
Rosa brushed herself off and stood. Eddie sat, feet dangling over the edge, and stared at her.
“That is the most badass thing I have ever seen,” he said.
“What is that?” Rosa demanded. “What kind of bomb is that?”
“Maybe powdered sugar?” Eddie said. “I can’t believe you …”
But Rosa pounded down the stairs from the landing platform and bolted across the field. Reg and Trevor were halfway down from the taller tower when she reached the bottom and shouted up at them.
“What kind of bomb was that, Reg?”
“I said it was a live explosive. I didn’t say it was a big one.”
“What the hell?” she said, and started shaking.
“Damn it, Reginald,” he said softly, trotting down the last stairs. “You okay?” he asked her.
“No, I am not okay!” She couldn’t stop shaking. “I thought Eddie was going to die.”
“Me too,” Eddie said, reaching them. “Thanks for your crazy-ass heroics. It’s been a while since a girl swept me off my feet.”
Trevor grinned at him. Rosa put her hands on her knees and sucked in great ragged breaths. Eddie put his hand on her back.
“What happened out there?” Reg barked to Brad.
Brad walked toward them from the shadow of the building, where he’d run. His face was twisted. “He screwed up and nearly killed me. Would have killed me if that had been a real bomb.”
“John Glenn’s nuts!” Reg said. “You were responsible for talking him through it. Why didn’t you?”
“He was too busy insulting me to describe anything precisely,” Eddie said.
“That’s not true!” Brad said.
Reg stared between them, his face dark. “This is my takeaway from this team building exercise,” he finally said. “Rosa Hayashi has crazy courage. Trevor can handle his fear. And something I don’t like is going on between you two.”
He stalked toward the building. The trainees exchanged an uncertain look, and then followed.
“Rosa,” Reg said, not turning around. “Did it occur to you just to send the zipline handle down to Eddie without swinging yourself? If that had been a real bomb, you both could have been killed.”
“It goes faster with weight on it,” Rosa said. “And the blast would sever the zipline. Eddie had to make it to the landing platform before the bomb went off. I thought we needed the extra speed.”
Reg shook his head and clapped slowly.
“Knock knock,” Eddie whispered to her.
“Who’s there?” Rosa said.
“Angel.”
“Angel who?”
“Ain’t gelatinous scattered body parts because of you. That was incredible.” He brushed the back of her hand with his fingertips. “Thank you.”