I left the hotel in a state of flux. It was one of those hotels– a “motel” really– with a couple of buildings each two stories tall and surrounded by a concrete walkway all the way around on both floors. You know the type. It always seems to be cold when you’re staying at one of these places. Today it was both cold and rainy. Not as bad as it had been recently, but it had yet to let up completely.

I had a bit of time, so I ambled. Zipping my coat, I ambled down the hall, down the stairs, paused to buy a coke from the machine, and strolled out onto the sidewalk, staying under the overhang to keep from getting rained on. Enough of that crap, y’know? I planned to stay dry for a while.

Our room was in the second building, around the back. The front office was in the first building, around the other side, and I strolled over there like a guy with nowhere to be. As I sauntered up to the little piece of building with the linoleum counter, ringy-bell, last year’s calendar, and bored bored bored attendant, a car pulled into the entrance and under the carport. Standard black sedan, tinted windows, a couple years old. It stopped right in front of me, and I got in.

“Nice car.”

“It’s a rental.” said Jake Leary.

“Still.”

“Thanks.”

Leary pulled out from under the carport, and drove slowly around the back of the hotel to the second building. He pulled to a stop and handed me a little metal box, about the size of a deck of cards. We looked at the hotel, at the second floor, at the room where my wife had probably gone back to bed for a few more hours after a couple of hard days. I pulled out the antenna on one end of the box, pushed the red button on the center of one side of the little box, and we watched the building explode.

“Pretty.”

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