Spy School Egypt

Chapter 23: Bomb

As soon as Agent Durkee fell, we swooped up and grabbed her gun. I tossed the weapon to Erica since she was better at using it, and Cyrus held his own and used it to train it on Ms. E, who was pointing a gun at Catherine.

"Hey, guys!" Ashton said happily. "I was hoping I could join! Sorry if I scared you, but you guys looked like you needed help."

"Thanks...you did great help," I replied.

"Does that qualify me to become a junior CIA spy agent like you guys?" He asked.

"I'm not a spy," I said. "We...just got in a bit of trouble with some robbers."

"Sure you did," he said.

"I would love to chat with you, but we're sorta busy right now," I replied.

"With what?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.

"With uh," I staggered, trying to come up with a reasonable excuse. "We accidentally broke a pipe."

"Yeah, right," Ashton snorted, "just tell me the truth."

"Alright, I'm a CIA agent, like you said. And over the past year, we may of made a few enemies," I said sheepishly, pointing to Erica, who was wrestling with Ms. E over the gun right now.

"Uh, a few?" He said, looking at us.

"We'll fine, not a few; there's a lot more coming," I said, "Although you watched James Bond movies all the time, and it looks epic being a spy, but it's really not."

I had a huge bump the size of my fist on my head, and blood scratches all over my body and face. I gently touched my gash and winched.

"Look, there's a bomb going off in two minutes, and the best you could help is not interfere," I said.

"Two minutes?" He screaming, looking horrified. Erica was trying to fend off the Agent while trying to defuse the bomb. Everyone else was trying to hold off Agent Durkee, who was screaming at everyone.

"Yeah..." I replied, backing away. "You better leave now if you don't want to get hurt."

"Okay, if you say so," he replied, walking a safe distance away from us.

I took a look at Cyrus and Erica, who were trying to fend off Ms. E. She was highly talented and used to work for the CIA. She turned to Spyder a few years ago because Alexander Hale, a spy that was a fraud, rose to the top, and she sunk to the bottom. Although I'm not going to say I'm siding with the wrong guy, she did have a point. The sexism was severe at the CIA.

I had to concentrate on the bomb which sat near the corner. A year ago, Erica and I sat also with a bomb on the mountains of Colorado. I just had to concentrate now on how to get rid of the bomb. I knew I wouldn't be helpful if I tried fighting. I would probably just get in the way.

I focused, sweat beating down my shirt. The timer only had around two minutes left on the clock. I knew that I couldn't just slap the bomb like I did last time, this was a different type of bomb, and I figured Catherine only knew how to defuse it, but she was too busy helping out. Catherine was the only one who was holding up the fight.

I took a deep breath and concentrated.

I carefully lifted the cap off and took out some tweezers. The bomb was mainly a jumble of wires. But there was something in it that caught my eye. It was a blazer in the center. It was tiny and almost unseeable. The bomb was now down to one minute. The way this bomb was functioned was the blade. Soon as the bomb went down to zero, the blade would slice down and snap the red wire in the center in half. And then I guess it would explode.

The blaze had already cut almost all of the wire. There was a tiny strand holding it together. I quickly grabbed the strand and used my fingers to hold it together. It was burning hot, and a bead of sweat dropped down onto the group. The wire was scorching, but I resisted it and did my best to hold it until the countdown was over. The blade skinned through my finger, and I had to bite my lip not to scream.

Suddenly, I heard a thump as Mike and Erica fell to the ground as Ms. E pulled out a gun. This was one of those situations where you had to pick to save your friends or Africa. My crush and my best friend or everyone who lived in Africa.

"Now Ben," Agent Durkee said. "Let go of the string, or else your friends die. But if you let go, they die anyway, so whatever."

I knew I couldn't let go; only one option was left for Agent Durkee and Ms. E then. The bomb ticked to three seconds left and even though the knife had now cut deep into my finger I didn't let go. So Agent Durkee shot me. It was the only way for me to let go of the bomb.

The bullet flashed into my back and it felt like a million needles jabbing into you. My eye sight grew blurry and the last thing I saw was Agent Durkee yelling. I held on to the wire for one last second before I blacked out.