Arm still wrapped around Sinaga’s throat, Jack somersaulted. He heard a muffled crunch-pop. He landed in a heap, rolled sideways, sure Sinaga would be on him.
“Jack!” Chavez’s voice. Ding appeared, running through the gate. Without breaking stride, he kicked the knife away from Sinaga’s hand. He wasn’t moving. His head was cocked strangely to one side. His eyes blinked several times, but they were fixed, staring. His right arm was jerking, rapping softly on the ground.
“Christ ...” Jack whispered. “Christ almighty.”
Clark ran through the gate, stopped short, then knelt down beside Sinaga. “His neck’s broken. He’s gone. Jack, you okay?”
Jack couldn’t take his eyes off Sinaga. As he watched, the man’s arm stopped twitching.
Clark said, “Jack, wake up. You okay?”
Jack nodded.
“Ding, get him inside. Quick.”
Once inside the trailer, Ding sat Jack on the couch, then walked down the hall to the bedroom and helped Clark manhandle Sinaga’s body back through the window. They met back in the front room. From the bathroom, the cocker was barking.
“Nothing moving outside,” Clark reported, shutting the front door. “Ding, check the fridge, see if a little food’ll quiet down Fido.”
“Got it.”
Clark stepped over to Jack. “You’re bleeding.”
“Huh?”
Clark pointed at Jack’s right shoulder. The material of his shirt was dark with blood. “Take off your shirt.” Jack did so, revealing a two-inch gash on his collarbone at the base of his throat. Blood trickled down his chest.
“Huh,” Jack mumbled. “Didn’t know. Felt something hit my shoulder, but I didn’t realize.”
“An inch or two higher and you’d be done, Jack. Put your thumb on it. Hey, Ding, see if Sinaga’s got some superglue.”
From the kitchen came sounds of drawers opening and closing, then Chavez walked out and tossed a tube to Clark, who handed it to Jack. “Put a line of that in the cut.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No. Better than stitches. Do it.”
Jack tried, but his hands were shaking. He looked at them. “Sorry.”
“His choice, Jack, not yours. You can feel bad about it if you want. That’s natural. But don’t forget: He was trying to open your throat.”
“Yeah, I guess. I don’t know.”
Chavez said, “Don’t overthink it. You’re alive; he’s dead. Would you rather have it the other way around?”
“Hell, no.”
“Then chalk it up as a win and move on.” Chavez capped the superglue tube, stood up.
“Just like that? Move on?”
“Might take a little time to process it,” Clark replied. “But if you can’t, you need to stick to your desk.”
“Jesus, John.”
“If you carry this dirtbag around in your head, it’s going to get you or somebody else killed. I guarantee it. This job isn’t for everyone, Jack. There’s no shame in that. Better you figure that out now than later.”
Jack exhaled, rubbed his forehead. “Okay.”
“Okay, what?”
“Okay, I’ll think about it.” Clark smiled at this. “What?” Jack asked.
“That was the right answer. You just killed a man. I’d be worried if you didn’t have a little soul-searching to do.”
From the kitchen, Ding called, “Got something, John.”
Three days after it left on a charter flight from Dubai, the device touched down at Vancouver International Airport in British Columbia. Having landed the day before, Musa was waiting for the flight. His business card and letter cleared him into the customs warehouse, where he met the inspector.
“Silvio Manfredi,” Musa introduced himself, handing over his documentation.
“Thanks. Phil Nolan. Your package is over here.”
They walked to a nearby pallet on which the plastic crate sat.
Neither the card nor the letterhead had been difficult to create using Photoshop and a high-end desktop publishing program. Of course, the inspector would care little about a letter from the University of Calgary’s veterinary medicine department chair, but the psychological effect couldn’t be ignored. The inspector was dealing with a fellow citizen and a renowned Canadian university.
What Musa’s fourteen months of study had taught him was that customs inspectors the world over were overworked and underpaid, and lived by checklists and forms. For this particular type of shipment—radioactive materials—the inspector would be concerned with three forms of documentation: an invoice and bill of lading for the device; the stamps and seals from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) agent in Dubai, stating the origin of the shipment; and the myriad paperwork demanded by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, Transport Canada, the Nuclear Substances and Radiation Devices license, the Canadian Nuclear Substances Act, and the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act. While none of these documents had proven difficult