Of course, for that to work, they had to set it off in the next four minutes, before the long midnight fell.

“I’ll take it from here,” he said.

“No way. My toy.”

She lifted it with both hands and carefully carried it out into the rain. Still limping, Rex followed her to one corner of the roof, where a cell phone repeater sat, a five-foot-tall antenna that faced out toward the suburbs. Dess balanced the bomb atop it. She’d explained to Rex that it had to go up high so the roof wouldn’t muffle the shock wave before it could travel out across Bixby.

“Okay. Let me do this part,” he said.

Dess looked at the bomb for a long moment, then nodded. “Fine by me. But if that fuse starts to burn too fast, run like hell.” She paused. “You know what? Run like hell no matter what.” She stepped back.

Rex took a deep breath and pulled out his lighter. His foot was throbbing dully now, keeping time with his quickening heartbeat.

He reached down and lit the long, dangling fuse. It sputtered to life and began crawling slowly upward toward the paint can.

“Okay, let’s go,” Dess said.

He watched the fire climb for a long moment to be sure the rain wouldn’t put it out, finding himself fascinated by the shower of sparks that were carried off in a little trail by the wind.

“Rex!” she called from the other end of the roof. “Come on!”

Then thunder boomed overhead, and for a split second Rex thought the bomb had gone off. He stumbled backward onto his bad foot and, swearing at the pain, turned to limp after Dess. They huddled against the far side of the stairwell shed.

“Are you sure we’ll be okay back here?” he asked.

“According to my research, Rex, bombs can kill you in two ways. Stray bits of flying stuff, which this shed is solid enough to protect us from, and the shock wave. My little baby isn’t strong enough to crush our heads, but make sure you cover your ears unless you want to go deaf.” To reinforce this point, she placed her own palms flat against her head.

Rex checked his watch. Only a little more than one minute left.

Then a terrible thought occurred to him. They’d used the slowest-burning fuse they could find, three feet of it for the maximum amount of time. But kicking through the door had already put them behind schedule….

“How long did you say that fuse would take?” he asked.

“About two and a half minutes.”

“Good. There’s just about a minute to go before midnight.”

“Really?” She looked at Geostationary. “Sixty seconds? Crap, Rex, we took too long!”

“But the bomb will go off before midnight.”

Dess shook her head. “Shock waves travel at the speed of sound, Rex, which is slow—almost eight seconds to go one mile. The shock waves have to get out to the suburbs, and then car alarms have to go off long enough to wake people up. That’ll all take extra seconds we don’t have!”