"I gotta turn off the blower before I pull that off," Kowalski said.
He punched the button that shut down the big fan. A few minutes after that, he had the panel off the ductwork.
"The whole system is shut down with that blower off," Kowalski said. "I'll stay here until you're done, so I can put it back together."
"Okay," Nick said. "I'd like you to stand over by the wall, away from the opening."
"You think there's a bomb in there? Those guys already checked it out."
"It's only a precaution. Please, stand over there."
Grumbling, Kowalski moved to the other side of the room.
Nick got inside the ductwork and looked up. It was dark. He couldn't see anything except sheet-metal rising toward the ceiling.
Why did they need a ladder?
He took a flashlight from his pocket and turned it on.
"There's another large branch going off at a right angle, about ten feet up. Let me have the ladder."
His voice echoed inside the metal work.
Lamont handed the ladder in to him. Nick set it up against the steel and climbed. He shone his light down the branch and saw a round, black container with wires coming off it. The wires were connected to a digital timing device. Red LEDs on the display counted down as he watched.
More wires were hooked up to a package in front of the container. Seconds ticked off as the timer counted down.
Nick set his flashlight down in the duct, pointing at the bomb.
"There's a bomb, and a timer counting down. Call Harker, clear the hotel."
Selena took out her phone and speed dialed Virginia.
"Yes, Selena."
"We found a bomb. Nick says clear the hotel."
"Tell her, do it now," Nick yelled from inside the duct. "Tell her she's got less than four minutes."
"I heard that," Elizabeth said.
She disconnected and started making calls.
"Oh, shit," Kowalski said.
"Get out of here," Ronnie said. "Find the first cop you can find and tell him there's a bomb. Then get out of the hotel."
Kowalski ran for the door.
"What have we got, Nick?" Ronnie asked.
"There are two different packages, both of them wired up. There's a timer counting down. It's hooked up to a black object that's round, about two feet long. Sophisticated. This isn't some homemade job. The second package has wires coming out of it, too. It's covered with some kind of paste. Probably something to fool the dogs."
"What do you need?"
"I think the package blows when anybody messes with the timer or the black thing and sets it all off. There are a lot of wires. I cut the wrong one, it's all she wrote."
"Can you get to the timer?"
"Not without going through a web of wires. Someone knew what they were doing when they put this together."
Then he thought, Selena. The baby.
"Selena, get out of here."
"Just defuse it, Nick. I'm not leaving you here."
"Damn it, Selena."
"Tell us what to do, Nick. None of us are going anywhere."
Ronnie said, "How much time, Kemo Sabe?"
"Less than two minutes. We could use one of those transporters about now, like they had on Star Trek."
The timer was down to one minute and fifty-seven seconds. He took out his knife.
"Not much I can do. I'm going to start cutting."
"Wait," Selena said.
She ran over to the wall, pulled down a fire extinguisher, and ran back.
"That might work," Ronnie said.
"What might work?" Nick called.
Ronnie grabbed the extinguisher from Selena, ducked through the access panel, and climbed up the ladder below Nick.
"Spray the shit out of it with this," Ronnie said. "It's cold, it will coat everything. It should stop the timer."
"What if it doesn't?"
"Then we'll all be sitting on a cloud somewhere having a cold beer. Use the extinguisher."
He handed it up. Nick took the extinguisher from him and looked at the timer.
Forty-two seconds.
He pulled the safety pin, pointed the extinguisher at the malevolent package in front of him, and squeezed the trigger. A cloud of white blasted out of the nozzle, coating everything in the ductwork and beyond. Nick closed his eyes and ducked down as some of the spray blew back at him. It felt ice cold against his skin.
He opened his eyes and looked down the duct. The beam from his flashlight illuminated a scene that might've come out of a Christmas display window in a department store. Everything was covered with a thick coating of white. A faint shine of red from the timer came through the white. He couldn't read the numbers, but it didn't look as though they were moving. Even as he watched, the red glow faded.
"Must've worked," he said. "Time to get the bomb squad in here."
Nick climbed down the ladder and stepped out into the room.
Lamont and Ronnie started laughing.
"What's so funny?"
Ronnie said, "Your face and hair are covered in white. You look like a damn zombie."
Selena wrapped her arms around him.
"You should've left."
"Not a chance," she said.
CHAPTER 48
Elizabeth was in her office, on the phone with Hood at Langley.
"It was sarin," Hood said. "It was supposed to release into the ventilation system. There was enough gas to kill everyone in the conference, including the President and the prime minister. I think you just renewed your lease with the White House. Corrigan knows it was your team that found the device and deactivated it."
"It won't make any difference, if his Chief of Staff has anything to say about it."
"She won't be there forever. As far as the public knows, it was a conventional bomb, not poison gas. That device wasn't manufactured in somebody's basement. Your average terrorist doesn't have access to the kind of machinery necessary to manufacture that cylinder, not to mention the gas. We think Tehran is behind this, but we can't prove it."
"Were not out of the woods yet," Elizabeth said. "Those three are still out there somewhere. They may try something else."
"I'm going to send something to you," Hood said. "One of the agents who was killed at the van was documenting the search with a video. His phone was destroyed, but he was streaming images back to headquarters. I'd like you to look at it. That, and the video from the garage that led them there in the first place."
"Do we have a visual on any of the terrorists? Something we can use to help identify them?"
"You can see someone sitting in front as the van enters the garage, but his face isn't visible."
"Send everything over," Elizabeth said. "We'll take a look at it."
"Check your inbox. It should be there now."
Elizabeth looked at the screen on her computer, entered a command, and saw the files.
"Got it."
"I've got to run."
Hood disconnected. Elizabeth looked at the phone and set it down. It seemed like every phone conversation she had with Hood ended like that. She wasn't sure that boded well for the future of a relationship between them.
The team was back in Virginia. Elizabeth decided that everyone needed to watch the video. Six pairs of eyes were better than one. Stephanie was down in the computer room. Nick and the others were either in the gym or on the range.
Fifteen minutes later, everyone was settled on the couch, looking at the blank monitor behind Elizabeth's desk.
"I have two videos I want you to watch," Elizabeth said. "The first one shows the van used by the terrorists entering the garage where it was found. The second was taken by one of the FBI agents as they examined it."
"What are we looking for?" Ronnie asked.
"Anything that might give us a clue about who these people are, help us track them down, or ID them. It's a slim chance, but these videos are all we have. That, and FBI drawings based on Kowalski's descriptions. This is what they came up with."