More tinkling glass. Reynolds grimaced. He shut his eyes.
Seconds passed. Nothing happened.
Reynolds opened one eye, squinting at Cook.
‘Get your hand around the other side,’ Reynolds said. ‘I’ve got the detonator, but I can’t pull it out. You’ll have to do that.’
With Reynolds lying to one side of the bomb, there was nowhere else for Cook to stand.
‘Get up on top of it,’ Reynolds said. ‘It’s not going anywhere.’
Cook carefully climbed onto the bomb, feeling the heat of the metal beneath him.
‘Down there,’ Reynolds said, gesturing with his head.
Cook reached his left hand down, felt Reynolds’s fingers. He was holding something the size of a jam jar.
‘Got it,’ Cook said.
‘It’s going to unscrew,’ Reynolds said. ‘Might have an anti-tampering device on it, so if you hear it click, stop what you’re doing.’
‘What would trigger it?’ Cook asked.
‘If you turned it the wrong way. Could be they’ve made it so you’re meant to turn it clockwise, so anti-clockwise arms it. Kind of a bomb-maker’s sense of humour.’
‘I thought the Germans didn’t do humour,’ Cook said.
‘Everyone who makes bombs likes a laugh,’ Reynolds said. ‘You have to, otherwise you’d go loopy, messing around with these bastards all day.’
‘So I should turn it clockwise?’ Cook asked.
Reynolds grimaced.
‘Up to you,’ he said.
Cook closed his eyes. Clockwise or anti-clockwise. No way to make a high-quality decision.
Cook turned the jar-sized device anti-clockwise. It turned smoothly – precision engineering from a German factory. He paused to reset his grip. Turned it again.
Click.
Cook felt it. A switch, disturbed. Moving from one state to the other. From on, to off. Or from off, to on.
Cook waited for the world to end. He hoped it didn’t, which surprised him.
Nothing.
He pulled the jar-shape out from its recessed housing, felt Reynolds fumbling with pliers.
‘Sure you’ve never done this before?’ Reynolds asked, as he snipped a bundle of wires between the detonator and the rest of the bomb.
‘Anything you sappers can do,’ Cook said. ‘It’s not like they had entry exams.’
‘Where were you?’ Reynolds asked.
‘Wherever they told me to be,’ Cook answered.
‘I heard you stayed in, after.’
