Nemesis (FBI Thriller 19)

The TSA agents were slowly flanking him as he talked. Sherlock knew airport security would arrive at any second, all of them trained to deal with such a threat, but it didn’t matter. They weren’t here yet. She was on the spot, a few feet away from him, looking right into his eyes. His arm was still around Melissa’s neck, his finger still hooked around the grenade’s ring. One pull and a whole lot of people would die, herself included. Her heart kettledrummed in her chest; the spit dried in her mouth. There was an instant of dead silence, only the sound of his hard, fast breathing. She called out, her voice calm and easy, “Sir, what do you want?”

He locked on Sherlock’s face, tightened his death grip on Melissa, and held the grenade toward her. “Who told you to talk, you stupid woman? Get back with the rest of the mutts and shut up!”

“Sir, you obviously knew you couldn’t get a grenade through X-ray, so you planned it this way. Why? What do you want? What if they simply let you leave?” She wanted to see how tight his hold was on the grenade ring, but she forced herself to keep her eyes on his face.

He screamed at her, “Shut up or you’ll be the first one dead! You agents, stop moving around, do you hear me? Any more of you take a step toward me, I’ll toss the grenade right in front of you!”

The TSA agents stopped in their tracks, their eyes moving from him to Sherlock, and always back to the grenade he held in his shaking hand. The passengers stayed still as stones, as they’d been told, hardly breathing, watching, praying. Sherlock heard a distant cacophony of voices, either running away or swarming closer to see what was happening. Not good. Airport security was beginning to inch toward him. He juked this way and that, trying to keep an eye on the agents. His eyes narrowed, sweat beaded on his face. What had he planned to do? Sherlock felt rage and fear rolling off him. Yet he hadn’t pulled the pin. Why? Was he having second thoughts, or was he waiting to make some kind of statement? She saw it clearly on his face, he was struggling with himself, trying to rev himself up to kill as many people around him as possible, Melissa included. That was certainly what he’d planned when he’d taken off his shoes and set them in the bin. They didn’t matter then because he knew he was going to die.

She looked at Melissa’s face, at her eyes. She was terrified, but she was there, ready to do something if she could. Sherlock said to her, “What’s your name?”

He was distracted and automatically loosened his hold. Melissa sucked in air. “Melissa Harkness.”

He was looking at Sherlock now, focused on her. Good. “And what’s your name, sir?”

“None of your business!” He raised the grenade higher, ran his tongue over his lips, and tightened his hold on Melissa’s neck again.

“Why don’t you let Melissa go? She didn’t do anything to you. Maybe I can call your wife, you can speak to her and to your children.”

“What are you talking about? You know nothing about my blessed wife. For you to even speak of her is an abomination.” He kept swinging the grenade around to force airport security guards and TSA agents back.

Melissa was beginning to choke again, her fingers pulling against his arm.

Sherlock spoke quickly now. “Does your wife expect you to die today and kill dozens of innocent people along with you? Does your wife even know what you’re doing? Where is she now?” She saw the security team moving even closer and she smelled fear, a raw corrosive in the air, from everyone around her, especially from him. He was as frightened as Melissa. She had to stop this now.

“I told you not to speak of her. I’m a British citizen, not some poor sod from Pakistan or Iran you can manipulate.” He laughed, a scary laugh that was filled with derision and something buried deep, something that made him what he was, and something deeper, a kind of desperate bravado. He was trying to convince himself to accept his own death. “I’m from London—that decadent city they call Londonistan. We will fight until we control the whole world, in the name of Allah.”

What idiot taught you that? It sounded like he’d practiced saying it, exactly that way. Why? “Despite what you said, I don’t think you want to die. If you throw the grenade, that is what will happen. You’ll die and you’ll never see your family again. Do you want to be nothing at all in the flash of a second?”

Sweat bathed his face, and his hands trembled so badly Sherlock wondered how he could keep hold of the grenade ring. He bared his teeth at her. “You shut your mouth.”

Sherlock smiled. “You throw the grenade and so many bullets will hit you from airport security, your body won’t be able to hold itself together. Your wife won’t be able to recognize you because your face will be blown off. Maybe she’ll recognize your sock, the one with the hole in it.”