Chapter 1
Sweat poured from the man's face as his mind worked to remember the configuration of the bomb. He knelt down beside it in the dark room, his hands moving with stilted motions as he tried to reconcile his feelings with the beliefs he'd held dear most of his life.
It was he who had put this bomb here five days before, and he remembered the joy and pride that had surged through him when the timer began its countdown. It gave his life meaning. He was doing a great thing.
He closed his eyes tightly and a sob escaped his lips. The conflict he’d been wrestling with since he first saw the woman was eating away at him, consuming his most basic beliefs like a wild conflagration.
She'd been standing on the gangway, one hand in her husband’s. Her resemblance to his grown daughter had nearly knocked the wind out of him. While his higher sense of reasoning knew her death would support his cause, the father in him knew in that instant he couldn't blow up this ship.
That single moment had started a monsoon of doubt that had laughed and crushed his dreams of destruction. The days since he'd seen her had only magnified his initial reaction, causing him to see the humanity in every man and woman around him on the cruise ship.
He had to do something.
He had to stop his comrades from blowing up the Gem of the Seas, and he had to do it without them finding out.
Stress was like a vise on the sides of his head, twisting and turning against the pressure of bone. He forced his eyes open and before he could stop himself, cut the wire to defuse the explosive. He began to pant, his breath coming in quick gasps as he forced himself to a stand.
There were many more bombs just like this one.
If he truly wanted to save the passengers on board, he had much work to do.
He could not think about that right now, could barely stomach what he had to do in this moment alone.
He opened the door to the hallway and his jaw dropped.
Another man grabbed him by the throat and pushed him back into the dark room.
“Having second thoughts?” he asked.
He opened his mouth to speak, to answer, to explain to his friend this new understanding that what they were about to do was wrong.
But his voice wouldn’t work, and he slowly realized he was losing control of his body.
There was blood on his friend’s collar, big drops of blood, then a stream, more than just a moment before.
And he realized. The blood loss was his. He was a dead man.