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must be wiped clean for the glory of the Motherland.”
    Pivoting against the display case, I flip on the laser sight I recently installed on my .45 and plant a cherry on the gunman’s forehead. It’s not that I need help aiming. My Colt 1911 is practically a part of my hand. No, I tacked on this bit of hardware to scare the shit out of people so I don’t have to pull the trigger. That’s my way of being nice.
    Unfortunately, the message doesn’t resonate with the gunman. He notices the laser sight, but laughs.
    “Killing me won’t help you recover the Iceman,” the gunman says.
    “Maybe, but I’ll feel a lot better about it,” I say from behind the .45. “Why don’t you put down your gun and we can discuss your options for remaining above ground?”
    “You might consider them yourself,” the gunman says in his thick accent. “I left a little something behind when I took the Iceman.”
    Hillary looks to the CLOSED sign. “A bomb?”
    “Yes. You are, as you Americans say, a loose thread that needs to be snipped. All I needed to do was to get everyone in one spot to ensure an effective detonation,” the gunman says. He looks around the room at Hillary, the bikers and myself. “You Americans are so quick to play John Wayne, I knew you’d come running if I showed up with a gun.”
    Hillary turns to me and says, “Do it.”
    But before I pull the trigger, the gunman laughs and says, “Too late.”
    “What?” I say.
    “You all have 10 seconds to live,” the gunman says and grins. “I already initiated the bomb.”
    I should’ve known. Suicide bombs are en vogue, and this guy looks nuts enough to be fashionable.
    Ten seconds should be enough time to make it to the exit, but apparently the Russians use a different type of clock. I only make it a step before the explosion rips through the museum.

 
    10.
     
    Watch enough TV and movies or, hell, even read too many adventure novels, and you get the sense explosions happen in slow motion. The characters watch a fireball unfold like a flower blooming. This allows plenty of time for one-liners, cool walkaways with destruction raining down in the background and a chance at decent cover.
    Now let me tell you how those things actually happen.
    The bad news is that a bomb going off offers zero warning ahead of time and not much in the way of movie-grade special effects. Those near the explosion don’t know it happened, which, if your number gets called, isn’t the worst way to go out. For everyone else, they can only observe the effects of the bomb rather than the blast itself, as with electricity or faith in a higher power.
    The good news, however, is that if you’re aware that a bomb went off, you lived through the explosion. And I can say with great certainty from my vantage beneath an overturned display case that, yes, a bomb did indeed go off at the Museum of the Bizarre. That I’m alive is a testimony to the terrific volume of crap the museum stocked. The blast knocked me on my ass, but it took enough metal, stuffing, wires and wax along with it to snuff out most of the impact. The sharp irony isn’t lost on me. If the museum didn’t house a bunch of hoaxes, I’d probably be dead right now.
    That doesn’t change the fact my body hurts like hell, although I can’t tell if that’s from the explosion or the beat down from the bikers. I’ll call it a draw between the two and try to find my .45 in all this mess. Half of the museum detached itself from its foundation one bolt at a time. Just my luck, the laser sight is still on. All I have to do is follow the red dot projected onto a plaster cast of a Bigfoot track back to its source.
    I clean the .45 off and holster it beneath my bush jacket, confident it’ll still work the next time I need to pull the trigger. Not the first time it’s lived through an explosion.
    Movement from beneath a pile of debris reveals Hillary struggling to get to her feet. I rush over and give her a hand.
    “You OK?” I