“That can’t be. We had three teams covering the outside of the house, one inside.”
“Boat? The cliffs? I don’t know.” He clipped one wire, bracing himself. Good. The right one.
“How fast can you diffuse the bomb?”
“I think I can get Tess done, but not in three minutes. Correction, ninety seconds. We need that extra ten minutes.”
He snipped another wire and swore. There was a failsafe. He had to start from square one.
“He’s not going to give you ten minutes, John. He’s not,” Tess said. “Go. Please. I-I’ll be okay.”
John ignored his sister’s pleas. “Get out of here, Blake. Stall as best you can. I need at least five minutes for Tess’s vest, then we’ll run like hell.”
“I’m outta here. I’ll give you as much time as I can.” She sprinted back to Roger’s car.
John moved Tess fifty feet from the SUV, but he couldn’t work and talk at the same time, so he focused on the bomb. But a familiar voice came through on his mike.
“Roger, I have to go,” said Rowan.
“No,” Collins said.
John glanced over his shoulder. There she was.
“Dammit, Roger!” Rowan snapped. “When he sees it’s not me, he’s going to detonate the bomb.”
“Blake, go.”
A moment later, Roger’s SUV passed John, heading southwest across the dry field.
“Roger, he’s going to kill her! Call her back.”
“Francie Blake is suited up. She’s going to buy us time to dismantle the bomb, and then-”
“Get out of here, Rowan,” said Roger. “Peterson, get her out of here.”
“Let me go, Quinn!”
“Rowan,” Collins said, “there’s a bomb in that SUV over there. As soon as Ms. Flynn is in the clear, we’re all running.”
John wanted to wring Rowan’s neck for leaving the safe house, but right now he had too much to worry about. Sweat poured off his face as he unscrewed the faceplate of the timer with the tiny screwdriver in his knife. He dropped it to the ground and concentrated on the remote timer.
“John?” Tess asked, her voice high-pitched and soft.
“Two more minutes.” He hoped.
“Two minutes?” Collins repeated over the mike.
“I think so. Maybe three.”
The next minute passed too quickly, but he made some progress. Collins, Peterson, and Rowan approached and stood a few feet away. He spared a glance at Rowan. She was covered in dust, her face cold and unreadable. Except her eyes.
She was frantic.
“You should have stayed at the safe house,” John told her, his voice low and angry. He turned his attention back to the bomb.
“You shouldn’t have left me there.”
He couldn’t rush the procedure, but he worked as fast as possible. Faster than he would have liked.
A shotgun blast resonated through the still air and Tess screamed. It took John a second to realize she hadn’t been hit. The blast was too far away.
Agent Blake.
He heard the chirp of a cell phone. It wasn’t his.
Roger answered. “MacIntosh?”
“She wasn’t Lily. I want to talk to my sister. Now. Ten seconds or I blow the SUV. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six.”
Rowan wrestled the phone from Roger’s hand.
“Bobby, it’s me. Stop the bomb. You don’t want to kill me like this, do you?”
“I knew you were there. Sending another woman to die in your place.”
“That wasn’t my choice.”
“Right. We all have choices.”
“I’ll come.”
“No!” John shouted.
“Stop the bomb.”
“When I see that it’s you.”
Rowan mouthed to John. How much time?
He held up two fingers, then moved his hand back and forth. Give or take.
“Where are you?”
“Follow the car tracks that your fake left. Quarter-mile.”
“It’ll take me five minutes.”
“I’m giving you three. Better run fast, Lily Pad.”
He disconnected.
Rowan looked at John and saw the conflict on his face. “You have three minutes, John. That’s the best I can do.”
“Don’t you dare go with him.”
“I’ll do what I can. But he will blow up the car. Run fast.”
“Rowan, wait!”
“I can’t.” She caught his eye. I love you, she mouthed.
Then Rowan turned and ran.
Bobby kicked the fake Rowan’s body. He wasn’t positive she was dead, but her face was bleeding and she was definitely unconscious. He raised the shotgun to take another shot when he glanced up.
A lone woman ran toward him. He checked his watch. Two minutes, fifty seconds.
He lowered the shotgun to watch her run, making sure this time that it was his bitch sister. Yes, it was Lily. No doubt about it.
She stopped fifty feet away and stared at him.
“What are you waiting for?” Bobby yelled. He pulled the remote from his pocket. “This?”
He smiled and pressed the button.
An explosion rocked the earth. Wow, he was better than he thought. What an impact! No one within two hundred yards would escape that blast, he thought gleefully.
Lily’s screams echoed in his ears, making him smile. She reached into her jacket-did she plan to shoot him? Ha.
Not so fast. He pulled the tranquilizer gun from his pocket and fired. Lily got off a shot, but it missed. He laughed as she crumpled to the ground, the yellow feathers of the tranquilizer dart protruding from her chest.
The game isn’t over until you’re dead.
CHAPTER 26
John didn’t know how long he’d been out, but a group of SWAT members were reviving him with water.
He sat up quickly, his ears ringing. Tess. He looked around and saw her lying more than twenty feet from him. He tried to stand and swore as his stomach threatened to rebel.
“Whoa, Mr. Flynn,” a member of the team said. “You were out for a good five minutes.”
“Tess.”
“She’s fine. Possible concussion, and it looks like she broke her arm in the fall, but she’ll be fine. An ambulance is on the way.”
Rowan. Slowly John stood, gathered his wits, and spotted Roger, who lay several feet away, awake. He approached him. “Rowan.”
“We lost them.” Roger’s face twisted in pain, both physical and emotional.
“What?” No, dammit, they couldn’t have lost her! He had ached to go after her, but couldn’t. He hadn’t had a choice.
Tess would be dead right now.
But Rowan could be dead. From what he’d seen and heard about Bobby MacIntosh, her death would be slow and painful. Some twisted sort of retribution.
John’s fists clenched.
“In the chaos after the explosion, only one team followed. They got a license plate, ran it, tailed them. Lost them momentarily when he got off the freeway, then found the car ditched.”
“Idiots!” John ran a hand through his hair, dirt raining down on him. He didn’t care about his filth; he needed to find Rowan.
One of the SWAT team members approached. “Director Collins, you need to lie still.”
Collins winced as the cop inspected him.
“What’s wrong?” John asked.
“Possible broken vertebrae,” the cop said.
“And Quinn Peterson?” John asked.
“Nasty-looking head wound, but he should be fine. Our medics are with him now.”
John would never forget the last three minutes before the explosion.
Not being able to follow Rowan killed him inside. His stomach felt ill, hollow. He was lost-the thought of Rowan in the hands of Bobby MacIntosh made him want to hit someone.
Or kill someone. Namely, the bastard who’d taken her.
He remembered it now. Out of the corner of his eye, John had watched Rowan jog away with a glance at her watch. She’d give them the full three minutes. If it didn’t take that long to dismantle this device on Tess, then he could follow her.
Quinn Peterson had gone over to look at the explosives on the truck.