"Tell me what you're looking at Cable" Masek said. Time was very much of the essence.
"Single cylinder mixer" Cable replied. "There's a separator in the middle attached to a coiled spring. My guess will be that, once the timer ends, the spring will fire the separator away and the liquids will mix. Then comes the bang."
"Any idea how to diffuse it?"
"No" Cable said. "It looks simplistic, but I've never seen anything like this before. It'll take me some time to analyse it properly."
"Well be quick about it" Masek said. "I don't want Scarlett returning from her recon to find a pile of rubble, but if the timer gets too close, then get out of there."
"You got it" Cable said. "So, what were you actually calling me about?"
"We found out who stole all our data."
"It was Wyatt!" Jenna shouted out from the background.
"Was it now?" Cable responded. "That doesn't surprise me as much as I would like it to. He always felt like bad news. Not too much of a stretch to think that he would have something to do with this bomb."
"We're trying to track him down" Masek said. "But whilst we do that, you deal with the bomb. Let's not make this day any worse."
Cable studied the bomb as much as he could, all the time well aware that the counter was ticking down. The coiled spring fed into a single fuse box, but the box had two different wires coming out of it. One of which probably led to the timer, and would activate when it hit zero, with the other wire a complete unknown. And worse still, they were twisted into each other and disappeared into a metal block at the front of the bomb, so Cable had no idea which was which. So, with the wires out of contention, he set to work on the fuse box itself. It wasn't big, perhaps about 10x10cm, and the top cover did not want to come off easily. But when Cable did finally manage to pry it open, he was met by the complicated internals.
"Ah, come on!" He cursed out loud. There was no way he could figure out which part was the correct one to disconnect. He glanced back at the timer, just as it dropped to under a minute.
"Cable" Masek came over the radio. "There's less than a minute, have you disarmed the bomb?"
"No" Cable admitted.
"Then get out of there" Masek ordered. "It's too late, just get clear of the bomb and let it go off."
"Never" Cable said, and turned off the radio. He turned back to the fuse box, and started pulling out connections. Nothing. The timer was ticking down, but no matter what he disconnected, nothing changed.
Ten seconds to go.
Cable simply looked at the fuse box, then at the timer, then back at the fuse box.
"Well I suppose anything is worth a try once" he said, bringing his fist crashing down. He hit it again and again, slamming his fist into the internals with more and more force on each hit. On the fourth hit, the timer exploded in a bonfire of sparks, and stopped completely. 00:03.01 etched into its display.
"Yes!" Cable exclaimed in relief, falling onto his back as he took it in. His joy soon changed when he heard the sarcastic clapping from the doorway.
"Bravo" Wyatt said, leaning against the door frame. "For a moment there I thought you weren't going to do it. But here you are, the conqueror. This isn't my device by the way, I just helped move it in here. Oh, and it's not a bomb either- When the two chambers mix, it releases a rather lethal gas; I already took the preventative antidote, of course."
"Wyatt" Cable growled. "I should have known."
"Maybe you should have" Wyatt replied. "But you didn't. Your problem, not mine. But think, if you had caught me out earlier, you would have been a hero! Now, not so much."
"You won't get away with this" Cable said, lunging forward. But Wyatt had been carefully concealing his right hand the entire time, and chose that moment to bring it out, and the rather nasty looking .45 calibre handgun it was holding. Cable went down like a sack of bricks.
"Device or no device" Wyatt said, standing over Cable. "You're all going to die. I've got everything I need from this place, why on Earth would I leave witnesses?"
And with that, Wyatt disappeared.
"Masek" Cable rasped into his radio, his blood-soaked hand shaking as it held the radio close. "It was Wyatt, he's here. He made a dash for the stairwell. Bastard shot me... Aaargh. You got to stop him before he escapes."
"Hold tight" Masek said. "Help is on the way."
"Hold tight?" Cable questioned. "What else am I going to do?"
Masek sprung into action as soon as Cable sent him the message.
"Jenna, get the first aid kit and get down to Cable immediately" he said, but Jenna was already one step ahead of him. "I'm going after Wyatt."
"Be careful" Jenna said, without most of the usual buoyancy in her tone.
"I will" Masek said, and left the room, heading straight for the staircase. The FRA Headquarters was only on one floor, so the stairwell could mean only one thing – Wyatt Munroe was heading for the roof. The roof was closer to Masek than it was to Wyatt, even if he had a head start. And as Masek reached the end of the corridor, he could see a shape disappearing up that very staircase.
"Wyatt!" He called out, but no response. Cautiously, he traversed the stairs, gun drawn. The biting wind chill hit him as soon as he got to the roof, but there was no sign of Wyatt. No, there, beside the ledge, facing away from him, that had to be Wyatt. It was.
"The fact you're here tells me Cable isn't dead!" Wyatt called out. "That is a shame, I would have much preferred to do this uninterrupted."
"It's over" Masek said. "You're finished."
Wyatt smirked. "You're so sure of yourself. You always are, you stubborn old goat. Times are changing Masek, you need to get with them quickly or they'll leave you behind."
"I've only got one thing to ask you" Masek said as he inched closer. "Why?"
"To save the human race" Wyatt replied, defiantly. Masek could see his hand hovering over his holstered handgun, ready to draw.
"Don't do it" Masek said. "You know it won't work."
Wyatt's smirk grew even wider. "You know what? I think I like my chances."
He whipped his weapon out of its holster, but Masek was more than ready and fired three shots centre mass before Wyatt could even get his finger around the trigger. Wyatt stumbled backwards to the ledge, but stayed upright, finely balanced. Masek, without a single word, walked up to Wyatt, and in one motion Sparta kicked him straight over the ledge and off the roof. Masek looked over the edge as Wyatt slammed into the water, disappearing beneath.
They never did find the body.