The Dolomite Solution by Trevor Scott Page B

soothing about rivers that he didn’t understand, but was perhaps the reason he had taken the apartment in the first place.
    He put the key in and started to turn it, and then stopped. He wasn’t sure what had made him hesitate as he began to start the car, but he had. His eyes darted around the interior. Something wasn’t right. The visor. It was propped back a little. Slowly he lowered the visor and a heavy object dropped down, which he caught in his right hand. It was a piece of paper wrapped around a rock and held in place with a rubber band.
    His heart pounded.
    He undid the package and in English block letters it read: “Humint is an oxymoron. So don’t be one.”
    Someone had gotten into his locked car while he slept in the apartment, locked the door behind him, and simply wandered off. It was a puzzling message.
    Trying not to be too obvious, he glanced up and down the street, using the rear view mirrors. There was an older woman walking toward his car with a bag of groceries. A man sat on a bench across the street watching the river flow by. And that was it. There was nobody in the other cars on the street, as far as he could see.
    He was afraid to move. If someone had taken the time to put the note there, perhaps they had taken it one step further.
    And what about the note? Humint was short for human intelligence, a military term for intelligence gathering by actual humans on a case, instead of by satellite or computer surveillance. He had worked in both areas, first with computers and then in Humint. The joke in the Air Force had been a standard for decades; military intelligence was an oxymoron. But what about the second line? “So don’t be one.” That was obviously a reference to the moron part of oxymoron. Think. How could he not be one?
    He thought about turning the key, but instead removed it from the ignition. Slowly he reached under the seat, to feel for anything unusual. Nothing. Next he started to open the door and stopped short, his hand still on the lever. What about the door? Someone could have set a dual switch, one clicks on when he gets in, and another detonates as he opens the door. He checked around outside again. There was nothing unusual.
    With one quick motion, Jake swung the door open and hurried out to the street. He half expected to be blown across the street into the river. When nothing happened, he looked up and down the street once more. A car drove by slowly. Its driver looked at him like he was some lunatic, and he felt like one too. Maybe he was over-reacting. Someone was definitely screwing with him, but had they actually tried to kill him?
    Slowly he returned to his Beemer. He was going to check under the hood, but decided it would have been far too obvious for someone to open another man’s hood in broad daylight and wire a bomb to the ignition. There were far quicker ways to do it.
    Instead, he crouched down to his knees and craned his head under the chassis. Shit. Directly under the driver’s seat was a bomb. C-4 from the looks of it.

    After the Austrian Army bomb squad had departed, along with the fire trucks and ambulance, Jake sat on the bench along the river, gazing at the soft aqua hues and the sparkling ripples.
    Captain Franz Martini, the Tirol Criminal Commissioner, took a seat next to Jake. “There’s good news and bad news,” he said, smiling for the first time since Jake had met the man.
    â€œLet me guess. The good news is I’m still alive.”
    â€œEven if it had blown, you would be,” Martini said.
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œThere was a small explosive charge wrapped inside of modeling clay. It was made to look like C-4, but would have made only a small noise.”
    â€œHow was it wired?”
    â€œThe seat belt.”
    â€œReally?”
    â€œThe bomber drilled a small hole through the floor, ran a wire from the receptacle through the floor. Then he probably planted the bomb and