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mayhem. This bomb maker was clearly very specific about the level of destruction he desired. Or he was under specific orders.
    David couldn’t detach the wire without triggering the explosive charge, so he shrugged and cut the plastic wire in two places to relieve the tension on the trigger. He walked around slowly, ensuring there were no secondary devices. “All clear.”
    “Tell me before you cut a wire next time, mate. You nearly gave me a heart attack. I thought in these situations we’re supposed to have a hilarious conversation about which to cut: the blue or the red wire. Don’t just snip something without discussing it first, okay?”
    It was hard to tell how serious Mal was about anything. “It wasn’t wire.” He picked it up and sniffed it. “It’s minty dental floss.” He frowned and sniffed again. “Wow. That’s…really improvised. The whole thing feels unplanned. Like someone wasn’t expecting to have to rig something but managed to anyway. That’s…hardcore.” He met Mal’s eyes.
    Mal nodded. “And hardcore means fanatic or professional. Neither one fills the heart with moonlight and roses.”
    Suddenly, voices came from a few floors down. Raised and excitable. Mal and David rushed to the window and looked down. As soon as they did, a muffled boom launched a wave of dust and glass through a lower window. Then before they could do much more than wince, the window below theirs blew out too. They looked at each other for a second. Mal braced himself as if he was expecting their room to blow too.
    David raised an eyebrow. “You saw me defuse it right?”
    “Sure I did. But I don’t know how good you are at that shit. You could be crap.”
    “Well let’s see how good you are. Get us out of here with as much evidence as you can.” He looked back toward the door. “I’d say we have less than a minute to clear the building.
    Mal didn’t hesitate. He stacked one empty box inside another, set it in the middle of the floor and started throwing things in it. David grabbed as much dental floss as he could, the device, and the explosives. He lobbed all but the explosives into the box. Those he tucked in his jacket pocket.
    A second later the room upstairs blew too. “Okay, we’ve got to go now .”
    David lofted the box full of evidence and broke for the stairwell. Below, he could see men in antiexplosive suits slowly advancing on them. They must be the police’s bomb squad. A good half of him wanted to stop and shoot the shit with them. He missed the craziness of the Air Force Explosive Ordnance Disposal guys. Instead he took the stairs two by two. Mal was now ahead of him, as he hadn’t stopped to look at the bomb squad.
    David stopped on the next floor up, where bomb debris had blown into the stairwell. He picked up some larger pieces and stuffed them in a pocket and kept running. Once on the roof, they retraced their steps back to the building adjacent.
    As soon as they were inside the building, they stopped to take a breath. “Jesus. Every floor?” Mal said.
    “Someone really wanted to cover their tracks. But I have to say, to me that sounds like more than one person. Setting four bombs on tripwire takes time. It’s not something you can do fast. I mean unless they set them all earlier…but then they ran the risk of them blowing before the hit.” David frowned as they walked much slower down the second flight of stairs.
    “Bombs are pretty commonplace here,” Mal said slowly.
    “Huh?”
    “I mean people aren’t as freaked out by them here. Athens has a healthy population of antiestablishment anarchists of all stripes. Hell, just this year they’ve firebombed a few American businesses. Never heard of them using a sniper though.”
    “So it could be someone sent to assassinate the Russian minister and using bombs to make the authorities think they’re local anarchists?” David said. “Sounds clumsy to me. No way would they think those bombs were from anarchists. Well,