Aphrodite by Russell Andrews

Author:Russell Andrews
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Police Procedural, Police, Serial murders, Mystery & Detective, Long Island (N.Y.), Long Island, General, Fiction, Police - New York (State) - Long Island, Mystery fiction, Thrillers, New York (State), FIC031000
ISBN: 9780892967841
Publisher: Hachette Digital, Inc.
Published: 2004-01-15T07:52:43.340285+00:00

20

The first thing Wendell Touay ever blew up was a rat. He was thirteen years old and caught the rodent as it was scampering over a rusty drain-pipe in a construction site that had been emptied out for the July Fourth weekend. The rat, struggling to escape the boy’s grip, bit Wendell on his thumb, which not only pissed him off, but hurt like hell. Wendell had simply been going to strangle the animal but now that he was angry he decided it deserved a more elaborate send-off. He was carrying several cherry bombs—M-80s and M-100s—was planning on setting them off at the site, his own private celebration. He decided to ratchet up the celebration a notch. He shoved one M-100 as far into the rat’s rectum as he could manage, watched in delight as the ugly, furry thing twisted and clawed and snapped, furiously trying to escape, then he lit the fuse, tossed the thing high in the air, and toasted America’s birthday under a rain of sparks and flesh and fur and blood.

Ever since then, he had been addicted to explosions. Gordon liked to touch the things he killed. Wendell much preferred watching them get blown to pieces. He read books on explosives, had late-night Internet chats with fellow devotees, spent hours upon hours on the dozens of international Web sites devoted to all things that explode, and studied everything he could about homemade bombs. He’d had to buy several copies of The Anarchist’s Cookbook and The Poor Man’s James Bond because he’d read them both so often that the spines had broken and the pages had fallen out. He considered himself an expert and took quite a bit of pride in the scope of his knowledge. He could tell you the difference in the rate of detonation between tetrytol and TNT and, for any primary or secondary explosive, he could rattle off its color, its detonation rate, and any quirks that one had to watch out for when handling it—sensitivity to static electricity, degree of water resistance, any danger that might arise from as little as a three-degree drop in temperature.

So when he and Gordon worked out their plan, he was not only pleased to have the opportunity to indulge his passion, he was confident that his skills were up to the task. Gordon’s plan had failed on the back roads of Long Island. This plan would not fail. Wendell had created explosives before for them to use in their exclusive line of work, and the success rate had been one hundred percent. A small piece of Wendell was excited at the chance to surpass his seven-minutes-older brother. But what excited him even more was the anticipation. When Wendell first began to picture exactly what was going to happen to Justin Westwood and his two charges, a tiny drop of anticipatory spittle formed on his lower lip and he had to lick it away. The thought of seeing the three people blown to bits actually made him drool.

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