The Judas Line by Mark Everett Stone

“Uh, n-no, s-sir,” he stammered.
    “I know she was an underage prostitute, Doctor, but, really, did you have to harm her so?”
    He licked his lips. “You know how it is sometimes, sir, I get carried away. Really, sir … I’m so sorry.” Fear spiced his speech like cayenne.
    My eyes engaged his and I let my anger show through … just a little bit. He tried to back away, but my hand was quicker, stiffened fingers finding his throat. Cartilage gave way beneath my fingertips and he collapsed, choking. Once again I checked my watch and stepped over his thrashing body.
    “The only consolation I’ve had these past months, Doctor,” I uttered contemptuously as I exited the office, “was the prospect of killing you myself.”
    Gillan deserved much, much worse, having murdered several young girls over the years in his lustful frenzy. Add to that his obnoxious American attitude, and my self-restraint at not killing him earlier seemed heroic.
    On the other end of the complex, nearly polar opposite to Dr. Gillan’s office, was an unused hallway hidden behind a locked door that read ELECTRICAL. This hall (about two hundred yards long, made of plain concrete and illuminated by only a few bare bulbs) led to large steel door like a bank vault, complete with spoked wheel in the center and an electronic ten-digit keypad. After punching in the code on the pad, I spun the wheel and opened the door, revealing a shorter hallway that ended in an elevator door. Next to that door was a plain white button and another ten-digit keypad. I pushed the plain button to summon the elevator and then punched in a sequence of fifteen digits on the pad. A red light came to life behind the 0 and I knew everything was primed for action. Three minutes and counting.
    Ding! The elevator doors opened and I plunged into a space barely wide enough to accommodate my shoulders, as long as I didn’t take a deep breath. The doors closed and I pushed the only button available. Less than a minute later the doors slid open and I squeezed myself out into the middle of what looked to be a gardener’s shed; meanwhile the elevator vanished soundlessly, lowering a two-foot diameter plug of cement that fit seamlessly into the grimy floor.
    I checked my watch. Less than two minutes left, plenty of time to catch the show. Pushing aside a riding lawn mower, I avoided the sliding, garage-type door, opting instead for a side door. Warm evening air caressed my face as my Barker Black shoes hit well-tended grass.
    The long hallway and elevator had deposited me just north of the reservoir on the dam end next to Baker Road, smack dab in the middle of a grove of tall maples. I had a perfect view of the lake as the clock counted down to zero.
    And … now .
    Not a ripple on the water, not a tremor to be felt, at least not yet. Not surprising because at that moment a few thousand magnesium strips were burning their way toward hundreds of tons of thermite built into the walls and floors of the complex. At the same time the ventilation system, housing hundreds of two-foot oxygen tanks, were unloading its gaseous burden. If the self-destruct procedure worked correctly, the thermite would burn at temperatures reaching 4500 degrees Fahrenheit, causing concrete and steel to melt like wax. When the oxygen reached the burning thermite, what I called Stage Two, things would become somewhat more… energized. The very air inside the complex would burn, tearing through all the corridors and through the ventilation system, exploding the remaining oxygen bottles that hadn’t emptied their payload. Steel supports, three feet thick, would become taffy-soft and the whole shebang would collapse into Floor Three, which at that point would be hip deep in molten metal and lava. Dr. Gillan, by that time already transformed into charcoal briquettes, would disappear completely, becoming so much ionized gas.
    Once Floors One and Two became vertically challenged and merged with Three, the topmost