And he would have. Because that was the way they all were. If Healy'd said, “Yeah, you take this one,” Rubin would've done it. But Healy didn't. The game didn't quite work that way. It was who was there first, who took the call, who said “I'll go” before anybody else. Any of them would go, it came down to it. But Healy'd claimed this one. He didn't know why but he felt it was his. You just did that sometimes. For the same reason you sometimes didn't say “I'll go” quite as fast as somebody else.

Tonight Healy felt about as invincible as anybody picking up a box that could destroy the average house could possible feel.

“Sam!” Rune called as she climbed out of the cab. He looked at her only for an instant. She glanced at his eyes and fell silent. He understood that she was looking at someone she didn't know at all.

He whispered to Rubin, “Keep her the hell away. Cuff her, you have to, but I don't want her close.”

“Sam...” He glanced at her once more. She put the camera on the ground, which was a message, he thought.

Telling him she wasn't here for the movie or because of Shelly Lowe or for any reason other than that she was worried about him. But he still turned away from her.

As Rubin drove the robot out of the van — they'd drive it as far as they could — Healy put on the heavy green bomb suit, thick with Kevlar panels and steel plates. He put the helmet on and started the circulator pump to get air into the helmet.

Rubin stopped just inside the theater doors and drove the robot down the aisle the supervisor had marked with yellow plastic tape. He wore a headset and a microphone on the tip of a thin armature that ended in front of his mouth. His eyes were distorted behind thick goggles. Healy walked past him, then past the robot. He said into the helmet's mike, “How you reading me, homes?”

“Good, Sam. Lucky you got the hat — this place fucking stinks.”

Healy walked farther into the theater, his feet shuffling aside empty crack vials and Kleenex wads and liquor bottles.

“Talk to me, Sam, talk to me.”

But Healy was counting on his fingers. The manager had said the bomb was in Aisle M. Was that the fifteenth letter of the alphabet? Man, he hoped not. Fifteen wasn't a good number for him. Cheryl had left on the fifteenth of March. Wasn't that the ides of March? His only car crash had been a rear-ender on the Merritt Parkway — Route 15.

J, K, L, M... Good. M was the thirteenth letter of the alphabet. He felt unreasonably cheered at this news.

“Okay, I see it,” he said, smelling the stale air, sweating terribly already, feeling breathless. “Cardboard box, shoe box, lid off.”