White Night

Chapter 20

         The sun shone through the park, warming Nikolai's face even as the rest of him froze in the winter air.

"The magnesium reacts with the thermite powder. You'll have two minutes to get clear," Peter said flatly. It was just another device for him but freedom for Nikolai.

"How far?" Nikolai asked.

"Minimum three blocks." Peter smiled as he placed the queen of hearts down in front of Grensky.

At least one afternoon a week, at two o'clock, Nikolai played durak, the card game his father taught him, in the park. Sometimes three players, sometimes four—the only difference today was that the third player wasn't from the neighborhood.

"Two minutes?"

"It's longer than it sounds." Peter's weathered face creased into a smile again, revealing greying teeth and sewer breath as he laughed at Grensky's lowered brow.

Grensky stared down at the queen of hearts next to his own six of hearts, but there was nothing Nikolai could do to help his friend. In a durak attack the defender must defend alone. Grensky swore under his breath and picked up the cards. No one wanted to be the durak (fool) with cards left at the end of the game, but as Grensky failed to produce a higher card or a trump card, he'd lost the battle as well as his turn to attack.

Peter turned to Nikolai, still smiling, and motioned with his worn fingers, inviting the next durak attack on himself.

He looked at his own hand before sliding the king of spades across to Peter.

"You are a lucky man at cards." Peter sighed, picking up the card.

Almost every continent had experienced Peter's work. Most bomb makers had a pattern, a signature, something that eventually leads cops to their door. Peter could blow someone's head off with the contents of their own cleaning closet and make it look like a school kid jammed it together in shop class. His finer work had severed brake lines on diplomatic limos and depressurized planes with nothing left in the wreckage to even point to the existence of a device.

"The fuel mix goes into the air first, then ignites. It's called a thermobaric reaction," Peter said seriously, his eyes still on his cards as he slid the ten of clubs across to Grensky, who responded with the king of clubs and dumped both cards on the burn pile.

"How much heat?" Nikolai asked Peter.

"Four thousand degrees at its peak, but that isn't the interesting part." Peter's eyes were alive, clearly waiting for him to ask.

He only needed two thousand degrees to sear the DNA out of the bones, but four thousand was better. "The interesting part?"

"With a thermobaric device it isn't just the heat that kills. For the people in the confined space of the building, their hollow organs, the ears, lungs, and stomach all explode first as the air is sucked out of them, then blasted back."

Peter waved his fingers, inviting him to attack again.

He slid the queen of clubs across to Peter. "How wide an area for the heat?"

"Initial blast isn't much, but the secondary explosion should be as far as a few blocks once the materials in the meth lab above drop down on top of the fire. More, once the water pipes in the building spill onto the magnesium."

Grensky joined the durak attack, sliding the queen of hearts across to Peter.

Peter scratched his head; the double attack from Nikolai and Grensky had put him under pressure. "Bodies?"

"As long as the device gets inside the building, melted to dust within the first fifty feet." Grey teeth and vile breath appeared again as Peter placed the eight and jack of diamonds on top of the attacking cards, defeating them both with the trump suit.

No trace. That was all he needed. No chance for the Romanos to investigate, identify, and pursue.

"Within the next 100 feet they're burned to the bone, when the meth lab drops down after the initial blast," Peter said.

"I don't need to know the rest—"

"At 200 feet, many have third degree burns over most of their bodies." Peter casually rubbed the grey whiskers on his chin as he poured over his remaining cards, before initiating another successful attack on Grensky.

Meeting was risky but electronic communication was a greater risk, thanks to the terrorist attacks over the last two decades. This way, even if the Romanos themselves were watching, they would see three Russian men playing cards as they did every week. No change in his routine. Peter looked like a kindly grandfather. There was nothing for anyone to look at.

"The concussion from the secondary blast breaks bones and bursts eardrums of everyone within two blocks. Night lights up like a summer day."

His White Night was close now, his freedom from the Romanos.

"Delivery?"

"Ah ha, that is the beauty! Small and very portable, as most of the explosive is already in the building upstairs in the meth lab."

"I meant who?"

"No one you know." Peter's emotionless eyes stared over the top of his wire-rimmed glasses.

"If I don't know the deliveryman, then how do I get clear?"

"It's the timing. By 8.45 pm you get the hell out of there."

"I prefer to know who I'm expecting," Nikolai said, leveling his own stare at Peter now.

"How can you know? The deliveryman doesn't know." Peter rocked back and forth in his seat, laughing wildly until he coughed more rancid air from his mouth.

"What?"

"I use young addict. They do anything for $20 and I pay them enough for twenty hits."

"So my life is in the hands of some asshole junkie?"

The bomb maker's grandfatherly face quickly twisted into a dark threat. "Do not use that language around me again."

"But—"

"Your life is in my hands. These guys have been running packages for me all week. The one who does as he's told and does it on time delivers the device." Peter shook his head, waving his fingers quickly in irritation as he invited the final durak attack.

Nikolai slid the ace of diamonds across to him. Grensky joined in with the ace of clubs and Peter's shoulders sank.

"Well, you are better at cards than you are with words," he said without a smile.

"I apologize," Nikolai said, almost choking on them now.

"It's no matter." Peter waved him off as he shuffled the deck for the next round. "Here." He offered the cards to Grensky, who promptly cut the deck.

Peter roared with laughter; he'd trapped Grensky into touching the deck and Grensky must now take over as dealer.

"Shapku s duraka ne snimayut." Peter smiled as Grensky snatched the deck from him angrily. "One should not take the hat away from a fool." He chuckled.

Grensky swore quietly, but the earlier tension was broken, and Peter was all smiles again.

Nikolai's phone vibrated in his pocket, a message from the cop.

Found the second victim.

He sent the text before picking up his newly dealt hand: End him. Tonight.