enough.
He needed to do something cleverer than that.
Improvise
.
An idea came to him.
The science sets were in the same aisle in which he’d woken up. ‘Build your own alarm clock’ kits, ‘My First Electronics Kit’, chemistry sets . . .
Zak ripped open one of the chemistry-set boxes and examined the contents. He saw a neat row of sealed test tubes, each marked with its contents.
Bright blue copper sulphate. Useless.
Deep purple potassium permanganate. Useless.
Dull grey iron filings. Strips of magnesium. They’d burn brightly, but they were no good for what he had in mind. He put the chemistry set to one side, took a deep breath and tried to remember his school chemistry lessons . . .
Exothermic reactions: chemical reactions that give off loads of heat. He’d learned about them in class one day, then gone home to learn more on YouTube. He’d seen exothermic reactions capable of melting metal. ‘Don’t try this at home, kids,’ the guy on the video had said as he put his safety goggles on. How had he done it? What had he used?
It came to him in a flash.
Etch A Sketches
.
He’d seen piles of them. He ran to the next aisle, nursing his burned wrist as he went and found the Etch A Sketches, eight of them, stacked in boxes, one on top of the other. Gathering them up in his arms, he carried them over to the fire exit and quickly began unboxing them. He stood over one of the units and, with a sharp jab, brought his heel down on the face. The face cracked immediately. Zak wormed his fingers into the crack and pulled the face of the Etch A Sketch away. He had a grey, powdery residue on his fingers.
Powdered aluminium.
He dumped it out of the body of the Etch A Sketch, then broke open the remaining units. Two minutes later, all the powdered aluminium was piled by the fire exit. He pressed it up against the rusting base of the door.
Powdered aluminium and iron oxide. The mixture would produce a high-temperature thermite reaction. Hot enough to burn through the door.
All he needed now was a way to ignite it.
And he didn’t have one.
12.31 HRS
Estimated time till Cruz’s arrival: nine minutes.
Eight minutes.
Bile rose in Zak’s throat. He either had eight minutes to escape, or eight minutes before he would die.
Matches would be no good, even if he had any on him. Nor would a cigarette lighter. The thermite mixture needed a sudden blast of intense energy to get it going. He considered the strips of magnesium ribbon from the chemistry set. They might do it, but he had nothing to ignite them with.
And it wasn’t like he could stroll out and ask the guards for a light.
Think.
Improvise
.
Zak ran back along the aisles until he came to the science kits again. He ripped open the box of ‘My First Electronics Kit’ and rummaged through the contents. He found them almost immediately: a small soldering iron with a red handle, and a small coil of solder.
He grabbed them, then ran along the aisle to collect the other two items he needed: a kids’ handheld torch, and one of the brightly coloured laptops.
Back at the exit, he got to work.
There was no time to dismantle the laptop carefully. Zak simply unboxed it and smashed it down on the ground, hoping the noise wouldn’t travel to the far side of the warehouse where the guards were waiting. The outer shell came apart immediately and Zak hurriedly dismantled the machine.
Inside was the optical drive. A sticky label on the casing told him it was a DVD burner. That was all he needed to know. He smashed the drive down against the ground until its casing started to disintegrate. Seconds later, he was inside, and he immediately found what he was looking for: the small laser diode that was the core component of the burner.
Moving quickly, he unscrewed the end of the torch and removed the bulb. Then he took thesoldering iron over to the power socket and plugged it in.
Estimated time: five minutes. Sweat trickled down the nape of Zak’s neck. He was
He needed to do something cleverer than that.
Improvise
.
An idea came to him.
The science sets were in the same aisle in which he’d woken up. ‘Build your own alarm clock’ kits, ‘My First Electronics Kit’, chemistry sets . . .
Zak ripped open one of the chemistry-set boxes and examined the contents. He saw a neat row of sealed test tubes, each marked with its contents.
Bright blue copper sulphate. Useless.
Deep purple potassium permanganate. Useless.
Dull grey iron filings. Strips of magnesium. They’d burn brightly, but they were no good for what he had in mind. He put the chemistry set to one side, took a deep breath and tried to remember his school chemistry lessons . . .
Exothermic reactions: chemical reactions that give off loads of heat. He’d learned about them in class one day, then gone home to learn more on YouTube. He’d seen exothermic reactions capable of melting metal. ‘Don’t try this at home, kids,’ the guy on the video had said as he put his safety goggles on. How had he done it? What had he used?
It came to him in a flash.
Etch A Sketches
.
He’d seen piles of them. He ran to the next aisle, nursing his burned wrist as he went and found the Etch A Sketches, eight of them, stacked in boxes, one on top of the other. Gathering them up in his arms, he carried them over to the fire exit and quickly began unboxing them. He stood over one of the units and, with a sharp jab, brought his heel down on the face. The face cracked immediately. Zak wormed his fingers into the crack and pulled the face of the Etch A Sketch away. He had a grey, powdery residue on his fingers.
Powdered aluminium.
He dumped it out of the body of the Etch A Sketch, then broke open the remaining units. Two minutes later, all the powdered aluminium was piled by the fire exit. He pressed it up against the rusting base of the door.
Powdered aluminium and iron oxide. The mixture would produce a high-temperature thermite reaction. Hot enough to burn through the door.
All he needed now was a way to ignite it.
And he didn’t have one.
12.31 HRS
Estimated time till Cruz’s arrival: nine minutes.
Eight minutes.
Bile rose in Zak’s throat. He either had eight minutes to escape, or eight minutes before he would die.
Matches would be no good, even if he had any on him. Nor would a cigarette lighter. The thermite mixture needed a sudden blast of intense energy to get it going. He considered the strips of magnesium ribbon from the chemistry set. They might do it, but he had nothing to ignite them with.
And it wasn’t like he could stroll out and ask the guards for a light.
Think.
Improvise
.
Zak ran back along the aisles until he came to the science kits again. He ripped open the box of ‘My First Electronics Kit’ and rummaged through the contents. He found them almost immediately: a small soldering iron with a red handle, and a small coil of solder.
He grabbed them, then ran along the aisle to collect the other two items he needed: a kids’ handheld torch, and one of the brightly coloured laptops.
Back at the exit, he got to work.
There was no time to dismantle the laptop carefully. Zak simply unboxed it and smashed it down on the ground, hoping the noise wouldn’t travel to the far side of the warehouse where the guards were waiting. The outer shell came apart immediately and Zak hurriedly dismantled the machine.
Inside was the optical drive. A sticky label on the casing told him it was a DVD burner. That was all he needed to know. He smashed the drive down against the ground until its casing started to disintegrate. Seconds later, he was inside, and he immediately found what he was looking for: the small laser diode that was the core component of the burner.
Moving quickly, he unscrewed the end of the torch and removed the bulb. Then he took thesoldering iron over to the power socket and plugged it in.
Estimated time: five minutes. Sweat trickled down the nape of Zak’s neck. He was
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