Blonde Bomb Tech

by Lara Santiago

  Chief Cochran was on the phone, speaking intensely in low tones to whoever was at the other end of the line. The chief noticed him draw close and shot him a look that said he should reconsider his approach. So Jake did. He took the hint and changed course in mid-stride heading over to see what the story was with Murphy and Hennessey. Maybe Sabrina hadn’t made it to the bomb site yet. She’d been on her way to see her sister when she left the fire station. Jake would soothe them if he could. She had a brand new sister and deserved some family time.

  Murphy looked up from his pacing as Jake strode closer and gave him an utterly horrified expression. He might as well have shouted the words ‘Big, big trouble going on here’ out loud.

  “What’s going on?” Jake asked, getting more and more apprehensive with each passing moment.

  “Jake!” he heard Brian say from behind him. He turned at the sound of his brother’s voice, also laced with serious concern.

  “What’s wrong, Brian? Where’s Sabrina? Is she late?” he asked, as sudden and complete fear niggled its way back down his spine.

  “Look, Jake…” Brian started out in a tortured, barely audible voice. That was a bad sign. Brian was the smartest and most articulate of all his brothers. He never lacked for the right thing to say. If he was flustered, then something bad was going on.

  “What, Brian? Quit scaring the shit outta me.” Jake’s gut was now roiling in concern for her. “Just say it.”

  “Sabrina’s inside the daycare with a bomb,” Brian said quietly.

  Jake registered the words and looked at the scene all around him. He turned back to Brian. “So why are we all so far away from her?” Jake asked and realized he sounded like a petulant child.

  “Per the bomber. His instructions, and…she gets no help.”

  “What? No help. What does that mean?” Jake took a step towards Brian, wanting him to just spill his guts and get it over with. “Stop being diplomatic and just tell me.”

  “We don’t have contact with her,” he finally said, as if the words pained him.

  “What? Why no contact?” Jake didn’t get it. He always depended on his team in every situation they faced.

  “Also per the bomber. She has to be solo,” Brian said.

  “But, how will we know…” and that was all he got out before a huge explosion ripped through the sky from three blocks away.

  The sound of the explosion echoed through the previously quiet morning as Jake moved in the direction of the sound. He barely registered the grasping arms at his shoulders trying half-heartedly to stop him. He shook them off and moved, as if in a trance, towards the smoke. His fire truck start moving towards the flames and knew he would have to run to catch them. He broke into a jog. Instead of jumping on the rig, he passed them as he picked up speed, running flat-out as fast as he could toward the billow of smoke and fire rising up ahead of him.

  The front third of the one story rectangular brick building was on fire. There was a good sized hole blown in the roof. Debris was still raining down from the otherwise clear blue morning sky.

  However, Jake’s first sight, as he slowed his running in front of the structure, was of a huddle of people. A crowd of little kids, with a few adults interspersed, stood across the street. Jake registered their fear as they watched the building belching smoke from the roofline. He searched for Sabrina among the group, but already knew she wasn’t with them. He didn’t feel her presence nearby.

  Jake looked back at the building that was on fire and instinctively headed for it as burning debris rained down around him. He kept moving towards the heat of the fire until he felt arms on him again. He shook them off as well. He moved another couple feet until physically stopped when strong arms grabbed him around the neck from behind.

  “Jake, for God’s sake, you don’t even have all of your gear on!” Matt yelled and put a chokehold on him that brought him to his knees. Jake couldn’t feel her presence. There was no awareness of Sabrina nearby. He wanted to throw up.

  The truck had come up close and the fire fighters in his squad were already shooting water at the base of the flames as more explosions sounded from inside the devastation that used to be the daycare.

  “Sabrina!” he screamed at the building as part of the roof gave way and fell inward.

  * * * *

  “Where are you?” Hennessey barked at her through the borrowed cell phone a few hours after the daycare building blew up.

  “In a safe house, courtesy of your old friends and my new best friends, the FBI,” Sabrina responded glibly. She was a little freaked out from the earlier drama, but she and Suzanne were safe. They waited comfortably at a safe house for Hollingsworth to be arrested and put in Federal custody.

  It was taking much longer than she thought it should have already. Federal matters often did. She knew the FBI wanted a clean arrest. They had Hollingsworth dead to rights, including pictures and a video. The delay was all due to paperwork. That was okay for now. She didn’t want him to be able to squirm his way out of prosecution over a technicality later on. He had lots of money for the best attorneys.

  Sabrina had raced around the daycare collecting what she needed to rescue Suzanne. She sat on a pressure bomb. She knew it would be tricky without someone to help her, but she was confident.

  Sabrina had never been so glad to see anyone in her life as when the FBI agent entered from a back room. His name was Kurt. He identified himself as FBI only after she flipped her Bomb Tech badge at him. Dueling badges.

  Hennessey had called him in as a favor. Kurt had shown up inside the daycare shortly after Hollingsworth had exited, as Sabrina had been gathering the supplies she’d need to defuse the bomb. She rigged up a similar weight pressure with reams of paper totaling the weight the bomb was set to. The idea was to shove paper reams under Suzanne until double the weight on the chair and then let Suzanne get up so they could run for it. It would be easier with someone else to help.

  Kurt had been watching for a good time to enter the fray without Hollingsworth knowing he’d been followed.

  Once he’d gotten to the daycare, he snapped some pictures of Hollingsworth entering the facility carrying something in a box.

  “How did you know we were here?” Sabrina asked as he helped her load the chair carefully so Suzanne could get up.

  Kurt, no last name given, said, “I didn’t. I followed Hollingsworth from his office at Linden House Canning.”

  “Why?” Suzanne asked lifting one hip so Sabrina could shove a ream of paper on the seat. Sabrina had seen this bomb configuration in a book recently. Hollingsworth had apparently been reading the same book. It was also set to a timer that had just over thirty minutes left on it when Hollingsworth exited, but Suzanne couldn’t get up or it would blow.

  “I was doing a favor for an old friend of mine. When I saw Hollingsworth carry a box inside through the back door, I called it in as suspicious activity. Another FBI agent showed up in the nick of time to follow Hollingsworth when he left. I came into see what he’d been up to and found you by accident.”

  “The children—” Suzanne yelped.

  Kurt cut her off. “I released them already along with the other staff. They’re safe. But we need to hurry.”

  “Once I get enough weight on the seat we should be okay.” Sabrina said.

  “That would be true if there weren’t another bomb ticking away in the back room,” Kurt responded tightly and glanced at his watch. “You have about three minutes.”

  Hollingsworth had set another bomb, one she didn’t have time to defuse.

  “Sabrina, I need to tell you something,” Hennessey said in a cautious, tired tone. Sabrina pictured him running his hand down his face and pinching his nose as he spoke.

  “Okay. What? And don’t tell me Hollingsworth is getting out of this or I start screaming.”

  “No. That is proceeding slowly, but the thing is,” he hesitated again, making Sabrina sigh in impatience. “Jake’s fire station responded to the daycare and…”


  The enormity of what he said hit her square in the heart.

  “NO!” she screamed. “Ohmigod! You have to tell him.”

  “Well, I wish I could but…”

  “No buts. Goddamn it, you tell him I’m okay now or I’m leaving to go tell him myself,” Sabrina shrieked. Oh no. Jake. I’m not dead. I’m not dead. She closed her eyes and sent a mental message out to him.

  “Sabrina, we just need another hour to…”

  “To what? It should be a done deal already. He is the bomber. He is a crazed menace to society. He admitted murdering my mother for money in his attempt to kill me when I was three years old. The FBI has him on video feed with bonus audio for Christ’s sake. What is the fucking hold-up?”

  “Councilman Peters is defending him and trying to get an injunction to stop the arrest…”

  Sabrina heard herself make an inhuman noise that emanated from deep within her body.

  “Bring Jake to me now,” she said in a cold voice. “He can stay with us here until such time Councilman Peters pulls his head out of his ass.”

  “You know it doesn’t work that way. It’s only another hour at most.”

  “Does Murphy know or does he think I’m dead too?”

  “I’m the only one who knows in our chain of command. Listen to me, Sabrina. I called Kurt to follow Hollingsworth as a personal favor. It was an unofficial tail based on an anonymous tip I made up. I’m trying to make it official now, okay. Do you get it? I’m bending the law as fast as I can,” he grated out.

  “You better hurry, and you better keep Murphy away from Jake.” And Murphy better not tell Jake about her delicate condition, she thought morosely.

  “Jake’s still here at the scene. They almost have the fire under control.”

  “Please tell him,” Sabrina pleaded to Hennessey. She heard the sob in her own voice.

  “An hour, Sabrina, then I’ll bring him to you myself,” Hennessey promised.

  “Sixty minutes. That is thirty six hundred seconds and not a second more,” Sabrina said and hung up.

  Sabrina thought back to their escape from the daycare center and sent mental waves of love to Jake. .Working together quickly, they used the paper she’d accumulated and carefully placed it under Suzanne as she balanced carefully on the chair. Sabrina weighed everything on the school scales in the little nurse’s office, while Suzanne got steadily more panicked. If anyone had peeked in it, would have looked like they were practicing a circus routine.

  Once enough weight was in the chair, Suzanne got up and the bomb didn’t blow. They raced out the back, but Sabrina wanted to take a look at the other bomb. It was in the back office where the daycare center housed the video surveillance equipment.

  Suzanne started pushing buttons on the equipment. “The daycare has audio video surveillance. Grab the tapes and we’ll have proof of what Hollingsworth said.”

  Kurt and Suzanne grabbed tapes from various machines as Sabrina squatted down to look at the bomb. The timer had less than two minutes.

  “We don’t have time for this. Let’s go.” Kurt grabbed her arm and pushed her towards an open window.

  Once they’d exited the building, Kurt had shoved them in the back of his SUV and taken off in the opposite direction of where all the fire rescue teams were staged three blocks away. They’d been two blocks headed in the opposite direction when the building exploded. Sabrina had looked up to see the flames shoot straight up. She had wrapped her arms around Suzanne and they’d both started crying, two emotional pregnant women fleeing the madness of greed and insanity.

  Sabrina still had the heart-stopping feeling from years of bad dreams. They were not magically going to go away. She’d thought of Jake as she’d rested her head on Suzanne’s shoulder and trembled.

  Sabrina never expected that Jake would have responded to this call, as he had gone out on one right when she left the station. She figured by the time he would find out about her temporary death, she would already be back with the living.

  Kurt had coordinated with his boss at the FBI and also with Hennessey to get all their respective ducks in a row before moving in on Hollingsworth.

  It took ninety-five minutes before Hennessey showed up with Jake. Sabrina had almost paced a hole in the floor of the safe house when they arrived. At sixty minutes exactly Sabrina had headed for the door. Kurt had to hold her back and told her they were on their way. He said they were having trouble getting Jake to leave the scene.

  Twenty-five excruciating minutes later, Jake walked in backwards still arguing with Hennessey about why he was leading him to some strange building.

  “You didn’t even tell him on the way,” she said to Hennessey incredulously as he came in behind Jake who was still backing in…still arguing. Jake spun around and looked at her like…well, like he’d thought she’d been dead.

  “Babe.” He grabbed her up into a crushing hug and buried his face in her neck. “Oh my God, Sabrina,” he said, crushing her tighter.

  “I’m sorry, Jake. I’m so sorry,” she whispered over and over like a litany.

  “Don’t. It doesn’t matter. I never believed it anyway,” he whispered, still crushing the breath out of her with his embrace. Bending his head, he kissed her deeply and completely as if he’d never let her go.

  “Well, I’ll just leave you two alone. You have two minutes and then we have to get back,” Hennessey said as they ignored him, still locked a passionate kiss. He exited to the next room where Suzanne was sitting with Kurt, also waiting to get a hold of her husband to let him know she was alive.

  * * * *

  The Mad Bomber incidents had turned into a big complicated federal case, but Sabrina was happy to turn over the whole stinking mess over to the FBI. They had the resources to put him away faster anyway. She would be called as a material witness whenever it went to trial, if it ever did. Perhaps Hollingsworth would save everyone a lot of time and just cut a deal for life with out possibility of parole versus the death penalty, which he deserved.

  Once the federal warrant was issued, Hollingsworth was finally arrested. The federal red tape needed to keep Hollingsworth in jail without any bail once he’d been arrested took the rest of the day.

  Jake had stayed for his allotted two minutes and had reluctantly peeled himself away from her and the scorching kiss they shared for the most of their time together. Then Hennessey made him leave. He wanted him back at the scene. .

  “You better look devastated until we get all our paperwork lined up perfectly in a row. I don’t want Hollingsworth to find out she’s alive and worm his way out of this. If he gets out of custody, he’ll be gone to the nearest country without extradition,” Hennessey told Jake in front of Sabrina.

  “Can I beat the crap out of someone I don’t like for effect?” Jake asked.

  “How about Councilman Peters for making the process extra-long?” Sabrina suggested.

  “Works for me,” Hennessey said, physically leading Jake away from her. He never broke eye contact as Hennessey removed him from her sight.

  “Meet me at the apartment at midnight tonight, Sabrina,” Jake called out over Hennessey’s shoulder as he was shoved out the door.

  * * * *

  Sabrina was finally released from the safe house at ten o’clock. Hollingsworth was in custody for the time being. Suzanne went home to her husband. She called his cell phone in advance so he wouldn’t freak out from all the media attention over a daycare being blown up. There was much speculation about whether she was alive or dead after the explosion, since she wasn’t with the other daycare staff.

  The media frenzy over a bomb blowing up at a daycare facility had caught poor Ray Forrester walking in the door of his house from a two-day absence only an hour before Suzanne was released. He found out from the media hanging around his front door that his wife was missing from bomb that had gone off in the building where she worked. He’d barely had time to fight his way inside when Suzanne had called him and told him to stay put in the h
ouse. He’d hidden in their house for the rest of the night until Suzanne could be released.

  Sabrina made a beeline for Jake’s fire station as soon as she left the safe house. She wasn’t waiting for midnight. She needed to tell Jake about her delicate condition. She called Hennessey and told him to have Murphy meet her there. She needed to rise like the Phoenix from the ashes of her presumed death, and she didn’t want to call and freak Murphy out with her voice from beyond the grave. It was a partner thing.

  Sabrina strolled into the fire station with a borrowed FBI hooded jacket pulled up to partly conceal her features. Matt saw her enter and fell down on one knee when he realized it was her.

  When he screamed for Jake like a man possessed. Jake came running from around the back of the truck. He strode over to her and smiled wickedly as he clutched her up to him again, kissing the breath from her as though he hadn’t just seen her a few hours before.

  “I didn’t want to wait all the way until midnight,” she whispered, when he finally pulled away an inch from her lips.

  “Good thinking.” He planted his lips on hers again.

  “Jake, I need to tell you something.”

  “Yeah, I know. You love me and you are never going to scare me like this ever again.” He kissed her deeply, not allowing a reply.

  “Jake,” she said, chuckling a minute later as she pulled away.

  “Uh oh,” he said looking over his shoulder. “You’re in big trouble now.”

  Sabrina turned in Jake’s arms and backed up against his chest as Murphy with his blue eyes blazing came striding over to where they stood in the center of the firehouse bay. Firefighters were backing away in fear from his fierce look directed at Sabrina.