I sprinted across the empty square. By the time I hit Centre Street the crowd erupted, picking up Kylie’s chant. Do it, Zach. Do it, Zach. Do it, Zach.
Do what? Get myself killed because my partner, who spent a few minutes talking to some guy in a Thai prison, suddenly decided she was an expert on when bombs can go off and when they can’t?
The clamor grew more raucous as the mob egged me on.
And then out of nowhere came the music. Some crazy son of a bitch in the horde of well-wishers had a saxophone, and I heard those stirring opening notes to “Theme from Rocky.”
Dum, dum, da-da-dum, da-da-dum, da-da-dum.
Hero music. But I didn’t feel heroic. I felt like an idiot. Kylie’s words raced through my brain. “Segura can’t blow up anything without a cell signal, and guess what they have on the ESU truck? A cell jammer.”
My gut reaction when she said it was to try to stop her from using the jammer illegally. What I should have said was, “How do you know Segura can’t blow anything up without a cell signal? What if he has a computer rigged with a backup detonator? What if he has a high-powered rifle, and he shoots me for trying to save the man who cost him twenty years of his life?”
But I hadn’t questioned her logic, and now I was putting my ass on the line to save one of the biggest dirtbags on the planet.
Nathan Hirsch sat staring at his dead cell phone, probably wondering if Segura was going to call him back or blow him up. He was a dozen steps up from street level, dead center between two massive Corinthian columns. The towering temple of justice loomed behind him.
I wanted to bound up the stairs two at a time, but as soon as my foot hit the first step, everything seemed to slow down. It was like that recurring dream where you’re running, running, running, but you feel like you’re barely moving.
Maybe it was the jet lag. Maybe it was the abject fear fucking with my head, but it seemed to take a lifetime for my foot to touch the second step.
Someone had found a way to amp up the sound of the sax, and with the music blaring and the crowd chanting, I made it to the third step. And the fourth.
Days later, I would watch some of the many videos of my climb up those courthouse steps. On film it only took seconds, but in real life my entire world was in slow motion.
“Nathan—don’t move,” I called out as I got closer.
He looked up when he heard me. Cates had guessed right. Hirsch had pissed himself. And he was crying.
Please, God, I thought, don’t let this fat bastard be the last thing I ever see during my time here on earth.
“Hold still,” I said, lowering his cuffed wrist so I could rest the briefcase on the steps. I took a look at the bolt cutters I’d been dragging along like an appendage. They were a flimsy government-issue piece of crap, and I remembered John Glenn’s famous words: “As I hurtled through space, one thought kept crossing my mind: every part of this rocket was supplied by the lowest bidder.”
Somewhere in my pocket was a key ring with half a dozen keys on it, one of which might open the cuffs. Or it might not. I hoped I didn’t have to find out. I opened the bolt cutters wide, positioned the blades over two steel links, and, with every ounce of strength I had left in my travel-weary body, I slammed the two handles together.
The chain snapped.
“Run, Nathan, run!” I commanded.
He didn’t. Or maybe he couldn’t. He froze.
And he was too fat to carry.
I grabbed him by both arms, pulled him toward me, and put my mouth to his ear. “Listen to me, asshole. I’ve got a girlfriend I’m going home to. You either move or you can stay here and die.”
He moved.
He navigated the steps like a pregnant sow, and I braced myself for the explosion that would hurl the two of us into the federal court building on the other side of Lafayette.
It never came. No boom. Just the whoops of the onlookers as I helped the gasping lawyer waddle across Centre Street toward the bedlam and finally passed him into the arms of a team of uniformed cops.
“Have the paramedics check him out,” I said, “but don’t let him wander off until he has a heart-to-heart with Selma Kaplan at the DA’s office.”
One of the cops put her hand on my shoulder. “What about you?” she said. “You okay?”
“I’m fine. Just get me away from these fucking cameras.”
I followed her to a mobile command center that was parked on Worth Street, stumbled in the door, shut it behind me, dropped to my knees, and, half sobbing, half laughing, I thanked a God I hadn’t been in touch with for longer than I care to admit.