“I was going to drag Radovan out through the back door,” I said.
His eyebrow rose.
“How had you planned on moving me?”
“Rolling your fat ass?” I said, with a shrug.
His lips flickered.
We both knew there wasn’t a single ounce of fat anywhere on his body.
“For your safety I suggest you remain outside the house until I have left,” I said, opening the cloakroom door.
Tau grunted. I heard him take hold of Radovan and drag him across the floor toward the back.
I opened the cloakroom door and went directly to the wooden drawer where I had stored the three bottles. Weeks of careful sourcing. Nobody looks in a cloakroom.
Time was moving. I found a glass bowl, layered it carefully with aluminium foil, curving the edges down the sides. One by one I opened the bottles and measured the relevant quantities. I should have been wearing gloves and goggles—the way they had taught us in class—but there was no time for that now.
I placed the bowl into the microwave, set it to the highest level and pressed start.
The countdown began.
I checked the back door. Tau stood leaning against a tree with Radovan at his feet, already a safe distance from the house.
“I’d move back a little more,” I called. Then quieter:“Bye, Tau. Thank you for your friendship.”
He didn’t speak. It wasn’t his style.
He raised his hand to his forehead.
A salute.
A crackling sound from the kitchen.
I moved.
Car loaded. Keys in hand. I pulled out of the garage and down the driveway, the house filling the rearview mirror for the last time.
No one had thought to ask what I studied. No one had thought to ask where I worked. Forensic science. A law firm after graduation, research that built proficiency in ways a classroom alone never could. And all the time in the world on an iPad had done the rest.
The car was halfway down the driveway when the explosion hit.
The kitchen first. Then the east wing.
Debris rained onto the roof of the car. It didn’t matter—bomb proof, the same as all of his fleet. I gripped the passenger seat and turned to look back at the partially standing house, dust still rising through the morning air, the east corridor open to the sky.
His wing.
No time.
My heart was pounding. My foot found the accelerator.
The men at the bottom of the driveway were waving their guns, some already running toward the house, the gates still closed.
I opened the window.
“Hurry. Open the gates. It’s an inside job,” I cried.
