11

New York City, 9:50 A.M.

The theater is filled with agitated rich people, the old and new financial and corporate elite and their broad-shouldered security guards. The blare of the alarms exponentially compounds their market-related anxiety.

Ten years and a month since 9/11, and the fear rises back in an instant.

Benjamin Krupp stands in the center of the stage, holding a PowerPoint clicker he’ll never click, wondering how the day can possibly get any worse. Over the PA system they are already playing the opening bars to Rick Salvado’s song, “The Rising,” of course, by Bruce Springsteen. Or, the “other Boss,” as Salvado likes to call him.

Sobieski crashes through the swinging doors at the rear of the theater.

Havens is close behind. “Everyone out!” she screams. “There is a bomb threat in this room.” New York City PD foot patrol are first on the scene, running onto both ends of the stage and directing the crowd toward the exits. FDNY first responders, in full bunko gear, begin entering from the rear. Sobieski continues to shout, “Everyone out!” but she’s not sure what to do next. She’s scanning the crowd for Salvado, whom she’s never seen in person, and for anything that looks like it might be a bomb, but what does that look like, exactly? Right now, everything looks like a bomb.

Havens jumps onto a table in the back of the room, in part to get away from the stampede and in part to get a better view of the theater. He sees Laslow before Laslow sees him. The bald man is cursing at an uncooperative cell phone in his right hand and wearing a backpack. He looks even bulkier than usual and he’s heading directly toward Havens.

Havens looks down at the tabletop and notices that it is covered with closed cardboard boxes stamped SALVADO MEMOIR. If anyone would know the status of Salvado’s memoir, it’s Havens. The guy never stopped talking about it, and its June publication date. He also knows that he’s far from finished writing it. Terrorist or not, the egotistical son of a bitch couldn’t keep his mouth shut over something like that. You’re standing, Havens tells himself, on the fucking bomb. And Laslow, whose faulty phone was probably detonator number one, is detonator number two.

He leaps off the table and stumbles momentarily. When he looks back up, he can no longer see Laslow.

As he bounds through the side door near the stage, Salvado sees that he won’t be delivering a keynote this morning. He sees the pile of books in the back of the room and hears people shouting “bomb” as they rush past, toward the exit. Only now does he realize the full extent of the pact he made in 2002. “What have I done?” he asks himself as he continues toward the stack of boxes. After three steps he sees the bald man and calls his name. “Laslow!”

Laslow turns and frowns. “What?”

“No one said anything about a bomb.”

Laslow shrugs, quickly turns, then hustles away toward the boxes.

Havens is looking to his left as Laslow comes up on him from the right. Havens turns and reaches for Laslow, but the larger man recognizes him and punches him, glancing off his jaw, driving him back against the boxes. Havens straightens and surges forward, but Laslow steps back, pulls out a pistol, and points it at Havens. Havens stares at the gun, then directly at Laslow. “You don’t know when to quit, do you, you fucking egghead?” Havens looks over Laslow’s shoulder, where Salvado stands, panting and wild-eyed. Laslow glances back at Salvado, who nods, Do it. As Laslow turns, Havens braces himself for the shot, the close-range bullet to the head.

But as Laslow fires, Salvado’s right fist slams down on his gun hand, knocking the pistol to the floor. Laslow turns and drives his left fist into Salvado’s nose and a right uppercut that drops him to his knees. He steps away from Salvado, eyes scanning the floor for the pistol. When he doesn’t see it, he removes his phone from his pocket and begins to rapidly redial the detonation code.

Three numbers in, the bald man looks up and sees his gun in Havens’s hands, trained on his face. Havens squeezes the trigger and blood jets out the back of Laslow’s head and splashes on the stack of boxes. Before Laslow pitches face forward onto the theater floor, Havens grabs him and begins prying his dying hands away from anything that can set off the bomb that will take down the room, the building, and the economy.

When he looks up, he sees the man who made him rich and changed his life several times over, bleeding from the nose, on his knees staring at him with a look of terror in his eyes. Havens raises the gun but knows he won’t fire it. He knows now that Salvado is an evil piece of trash, a criminal and a sociopath, but not a terrorist. Salvado takes a step back and slowly shakes his head while looking into Havens’s eyes. The billionaire raises his arms in half apology, half surrender. “This was never part of the plan,” he explains. Then, before Havens changes his mind, he turns and disappears into the crowd.