Eckhart removed the detonator from his pocket and depressed the button on the top of it.
The digital timer reset at 3:00 and then began to count down.
Automatically, just as they were designed to do, the latches on the crates clicked into the locked position. Not even an Artificial would be able to pry them open.
And, with the ankles of the reporters secured, there wouldn’t be time to clear the auditorium.
All he needed to do was wait it out.
“Let’s go!” Julian cried when he saw what Eckhart had done.
“We stay.”
“Why? No!”
“To make sure.”
“I’m leaving.”
“No. You’re not.”
Eckhart fired.
A head shot.
Julian dropped.
“No one else moves.”
* * *
I froze, petrified.
I could hardly believe what’d just happened.
Eckhart had killed his partner.
Trevor, who’d been coming closer to us, stopped in the middle of the aisle.
* * *
He emerges from the sublevel tunnel with the guard who shot at him earlier. As they find their way backstage, he sees Angelo and another tactical team member restrained.
Free them. They can help.
* * *
With the position of the blade in his side, Nick feared a liver laceration. But he had to stop this.
The Feeds. You need to save the Feeds.
He began to drag himself across the floor toward the console as Rodriguez limped out of the room.
* * *
I saw things happen as if they were in slow motion.
Angelo bursting through the curtains, targeting Eckhart.
Jordan, Gavin, and a Terabyne guard I didn’t recognize following after him.
Eckhart turning the gun on himself. “I’m the only one who knows how to stop that timer.”
Angelo warning him, “Hold on now.”
“Always free.”
“Stop!”
Then Eckhart squeezing the trigger.
When he fell, I ran over and looked at the item he’d been holding, the button he’d depressed.
And saw a small digital readout on the side of it in red, glowing numbers.
2:31.
2:30.
Oh. Bad.
2:29.
I looked at the crowd. There would never be enough time to free people and get them to safety.
“We need to get these crates out of here!” I shouted.
“Careful!” Trevor cautioned Jordan and the others as they gathered around them. “As far as we know they’re bombs, ready to blow.”
As they carried them toward the door, Angelo asked, “Do we know what’s inside of them?”
“They used tri-nitrocellulose in Cincinnati,” Trevor said. “And RDX.”
* * *
He observes.
He thinks.
With RDX and that much tri-nitrocellulose, either of these crates will be able to take down any building on this campus.
As they pass outside, he decides.
“Where’s the helicopter pilot?” he asks them.
“With his bird,” Gavin replies.
“Have him fly it down here.”
They all look at him.
“How long will it take him to start it?”
“Just seconds. It’s new tech. It’s like starting a car.”
“No,” Kestrel says. “He can’t fly the crates out of here. It would be suicide.”
“He’s not going to fly them out. I am.”
“But, Jordan—”
“Call him down.”
“Do you even know how to fly a helicopter?” Angelo asks him.
He accesses his files. “I will by the time it gets here.”