“I need to look at it again.” He took care to keep his voice low and even. “I need you not to move. Do you understand?”
Her eyes as wide as saucers, she answered with the barest nod of her head.
“I’m pretty sure it’s pressure sensitive.” Otherwise, she wouldn’t be here. But he didn’t add in that gruesome fact. “Like the landmines you see in old World War II movies. It’s trigger will fire when the pressure lets off.” He talked for his sake, and hers—the more he kept his mind working, the less he’d become wrapped up in the reality. “Only that’s all Hollywood—landmines are designed to explode on impact, mostly. This method is designed for the psychological effect.”
He eased onto to his hands and knees and peered under the seat again. The good news was, the bomb didn’t have an actual timer, lessening the pressure that resided on his shoulders. On the scale of bombs, it was relatively simple. Remove the casing without triggering the detonator—assuming it wasn’t armed with some sort of anti-handling measure—and strip out the fuse. But the damned thing was a bitch to get to, and they’d rigged the pressure plate inside the seat, increasing the odds that disarming it would negatively impact the pressure.
“Someone wanted to fuck with McTavish’s mind before they took him out. Brutal bastards. It’d have been simpler to set a clock to count down.” He frowned at the interlacing wires—those didn’t belong on something so evidently simple. “Course then he could have run away.”
“Jayce,” she murmured, her voice oddly high-pitched.
“Hm?” He scrunched his shoulders and twisted sideways to better see the path of the wires.
“C-can you…get me off this thing?”
“Yeah.” But not fucking easily. Those damned wires connected to a secondary device, the bottom portion of which just barely poked out from where the column that lifted the chair disappeared into the seat. Son of a bitch. He scooted further toward the column. Strained to lift his ear closer.
Muffled by the heavy padding, a faint beep…beep…beep resonated from inside the cushion.
Oh hell. Someone was damned certain McTavish wasn’t getting off this chair. If the first trigger didn’t catch, they’d armed that to a more standard, automatic, countdown delay. How much time was on that fucking clock?
Jayce lifted a hand to pluck away the vinyl. Making matters worse, his hands were shaking.
“Alyssa?”
“Yes?” she answered, her voice tight and strained.
God bless her—she was doing her best to keep it together. “Is there a letter opener up there somewhere? A paper clip? Scissors?”
“I c-can’t….” She paused, drew in an audible breath. “Reach the drawer.”
Jayce levered himself off the spindly legs and pushed the chair closer to the desk. “How about now?”
While she rummaged in the desk, he withdrew his cell phone, then thought better of it. On the off chance a signal could power this device, he turned his phone completely off and for good measure took out the battery. He tossed both as far from him as he could.
“Here. I have a staple remover.” Something rattled across the desktop as she fumbled her grip. “Damn it.” Again, she took a deep breath; her exhale shuddered in the quiet.
From Jayce’s peripheral vision, he sighted the quivering of her thigh. He smoothed his hand over her leg, waited for her to collect herself.
“Here.” Trembling fingertips dipped below the arm of the chair.
He reached up, and she dropped the staple remover into his hand. “Hold tight, baby doll. I’ve got you. You’re going to be just fine.”
Carefully, he went to work prying off the vinyl covering. What he found beneath had him swearing, despite the rush of relief that flooded his system. Sixty minutes was more than enough time. But outside of specialized organized crime outfits, he hadn’t seen anything this complicated. Wires, crossed wires, false wires—it was as if they’d decided to slap a whole bunch on just for the sake of being able to do so.
He closed his eyes and silently swore.
“Pick up the desk phone, baby doll. Call your house. Get Kane and McTavish here.”
“O-okay,” she stammered.
She dropped the phone twice, before he heard the clicking of buttons. Satisfied she was appropriately distracted, Jayce closed his eyes and took a moment to choke down his own emotions. If he lost her…
No. He wasn’t losing her. He’d get her off this chair one way or the other. If he didn’t, well, they’d depart this world together. He wasn’t leaving her side.
The sound of her voice as she spoke to McTavish soothed the chaotic jumping of his heart. He pulled in a deep breath and opened his eyes. The wires stared him in the face; ice blue numerals ticking away steadily. Fifty-five minutes. Willing his hands to remain steady, he traced a solid white wire into the casing box.
* * *
Alyssa set the phone back in the receiver. To quell the need to move, to escape, she smoothed her hands over Brice’s desk blotter. Her throat was tight, her chest felt too small for her lungs. She refused to panic, though she hovered on the verge. If her number was up tonight, she intended to go out with dignity, not amid hysterical blubbering. But it was requiring all of her self control to hold on to some semblance of calm.
So this was how it ended. Funny how fate worked. Just when she began to believe she might actually have the future she’d always wanted, that she and Jayce could overcome the past, fate decided it wouldn’t be that easy. Oh, God. Emotion threatened to choke her. She swallowed it down hard.
“Jayce?” she asked quietly. She closed her eyes, picturing the handsome face she couldn’t see. God, she wasn’t ready to leave him. If she survived this, she’d do whatever it took to repair things between them. Please let me have another chance. Please.
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“I’m sorry.” She swallowed hard to stave off the cracking of her voice. “For everything.”
“Hey, none of that. You can tell me here in a little bit.”
Right. Weren’t those words used with people on their deathbeds? She squeezed her eyes shut and banished the thought. No, they were used by bomb specialists who knew how to save lives. She must have faith.
Good lord, who’d have ever thought she would appreciate the fact he worked with dangerous explosives on a daily basis? She swallowed an inappropriate chuckle, further evidence she was barely clinging to sanity.
Long moments of oppressive silence passed. The quivering in her thighs intensified, and she clenched her knees together to stop the annoying tremble. Another inappropriate thought surfaced, then slipped free without her permission. “I have to use the restroom.” Wasn’t that cliché? She’d have sworn she heard someone in a movie say the same thing. Nevertheless, mother nature was mother nature.
Beneath her, Jayce chuckled. “Wet your pants.”
Gah! “I am not wetting my pants.” The ridiculous remark assuaged her frazzled nerves. Despite her circumstances, she let out a soft laugh, then quickly stifled it. She shouldn’t be laughing. She didn’t want to die. Not when everything she wanted was at last within her grasp. Jayce—she’d confessed she loved him. He’d repeated the precious words. There must be a way. Things couldn’t end like this. They just…couldn’t.
The quiet hit her again, like heavy bricks flung down on her shoulders. She resisted the urge to fidget. Clamped her teeth into her cheeks to keep her body still. But the more she strained against the lack of noise, the more deafening it became. She opened her mouth to alleviate the silence, when a faint, rhythmic, beep…beep filtered into her awareness.
Another dose of fear coursed through her veins. Ever so slightly she straightened her spine. “Jayce, what’s that sound?” She didn’t want to know. Really didn’t want to hear the answer.
“Timer.”
“Timer?” To her shame, her voice pitched a higher octave. A bomb. She was sitting on a bomb. Somehow that solitary word brought everything down to a narrow focus. This wasn’t a ga
me. Her life was on the line. She cleared her throat, willed her pulse to steady again. “I thought you said it was pressure sensitive.”
“It is.”
His lack of additional explanations told her he wasn’t conveying the full truth. But right now, she didn’t think she really wanted to ask. Really, she knew everything that mattered. She was sitting on a bomb.
Oh, God.
The thought blasted through her, reminding her of the gravity of her circumstances. She crossed one ankle over the opposite foot that braced her in place, and stared at the front window, gnawing on her lower lip to contain a sob. Would it hurt? Would she even know it happened? She didn’t want to die like this; she had yet to visit Rome. Hadn’t seen the sunset on an island beach. Hadn’t held her own child in her arms.
One by one all the things she hadn’t accomplished in life fast-forwarded through her mind. So many things. But the most important fiddled beneath her chair, and the prospect of losing Jayce had tears brimming in her eyes. She was so close to forever. So close to everything she’d ever dreamed of.
Before the tears could break free, headlights flashed in the parking lot. Hope she couldn’t explain pulled her out of the arms of despair. Kane and Brice? She glanced at the wall-mounted clock. No, it took ten minutes to make it from her house here.
“There’s someone here.”
“Kane might have called someone.”
“Oh.” But I didn’t tell him why to come. Jayce must not have been paying attention. And she really ought to stop distracting him. But the conversation was making it possible to stay somewhat still.
Frowning, she watched a shadow come up the walkway. The broken front door creaked as it opened. Alyssa tensed all over again. She gripped the arms of the chair in a viselike hold.
“Jayce Honeycutt?” a masculine voice called.
Alyssa blinked. Maybe Kane had sensed something and called someone after all.
“Yeah?” Jayce called from beneath her chair. She could feel his fingers prodding just beneath her thighs.
She watched, obediently motionless despite the rigid nature of her spine and the cramping in her thighs. An athletic silhouette approached the doorway. To her surprise, she recognized him. It was the same blond man in the grey sedan who’d asked her for directions, then waved just before she’d been kidnapped.
Only now, instead of his teasing grin, he was armed with a gun.
“Jayce.” She whimpered. “Jayce, he’s got a g-gun.”
“Alyssa,” the man nodded at her. “Sorry you’re caught in this crossfire. Need to have a word with Honeycutt.”
Sorry? Fury coursed through her veins. If she could move, she’d throw this chair at his head.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Jayce slide out from under her chair. He lay on his back, fiddling with something beneath his suit jacket. Gradually, she realized he was freeing his own gun. With his jacket unfastened, he rose to his knees and peered over the top of the desk. “Who’s asking?”
“I am,” the blonde answered.
“Sorry, but that doesn’t mean anything. You are?”
“It’s really not important, but I’ll give you a name. Toledo. I’m afraid you’ll have to come with me for some questioning.”
* * *
Toledo. So this was the bastard who’d convinced McTavish he was a government guy. He had the right build. The arrogance too. But evidently he didn’t know jack about investigations. If he did, given he knew Jayce’s full name, he’d have discovered Jayce was government too. And a damn sight more dangerous than this little piss-ant.
All the more reason to believe McTavish had been fed a line of bull.
Jayce let out a dry laugh. “I’m afraid the answer is no. But you can feel free to take a seat. I have a few questions for you.”
The man’s gaze narrowed. “Your curiosity is the problem.” He fumbled in his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. With a flick of his wrist, he lobbed it open to flash some sort of identification. Jayce couldn’t make out the details from his distance.
“Counter Intelligence Agency. We want to talk to you.” Toledo stuffed his wallet into his jeans again, and turned the wrist that held his gun. A move that would have otherwise drawn attention to his weapon, if Jayce hadn’t been immersed in them for a decade. “We can do this the easy way, or the hard way.”
“Jayce,” Alyssa hissed through clenched teeth.
He squeezed her ankle then stood, hands splayed wide at his sides. “Put that way…” Shrugging, he rounded the corner. He hated the flash of fear that shone in Alyssa’s eyes, but he couldn’t hint to her what he intended without revealing himself to this guy. Nothing said those credentials were legit. Anyone could get their hands on a false set of cards.
With an encouraging nod, Toledo tucked his gun into a holster at the small of his back. He motioned for Jayce to follow him out the door.
“Jayce!”
Alyssa’s sharp cry stopped Jayce at the corner of the desk.
“He’s part of it! I saw him right before they kidnapped me! He drove by in a grey car.”
Grey car? Jayce slowly swung his attention back to the guy. The asshole who’d shot at him drove a grey car. Now it all made sense. They knew when she was home, when she wasn’t, and where to find her, because this asshole was watching her. Everything inside Jayce ground to a halt. Government agents did not take pot shots at fellow agents’ heads. Nor did they screw up their research so badly that they failed to overlook their own guys.
Toledo must have sensed Jayce’s blaring alarms. He hastily reached behind his back, no doubt going for his gun once more.
Jayce moved faster. He had his Sig in-hand before Toledo could pull his free. He trained it on the younger man’s face. “I don’t think so. Put your back to that wall.”
“You don’t want to do this, Honeycutt,” Toledo said with surprising calm, even as he followed Jayce’s directive.
“Who the hell are you?” Jayce advanced a few steps, making sure the guy couldn’t make a dash for the door. Fuck, he was wasting precious time. And this damn sure wasn’t helping Alyssa’s state of mind. He chanced a glance at her, groaning inwardly at the sight of her ghost-white complexion. He had to get her off that bomb. That timer was pushing thirty minutes remaining, and he had barely untangled the net of wires.
“I told you. CIA.” A superior smirk crossed Toledo’s mouth. “And your position in Sec Ops is in fragile circumstances right now.”
Sec Ops? This asshole had kiped his ID? What the fuck? Jayce glared down the length of his extended arm. “Wrong. Start talking, or I’m going to start taking off fingers.”
A moment of indecision passed over the younger man’s face. Insecurity Jayce remembered all too well as a new hire. Maybe he’d pegged this guy wrong. Maybe he was government, just too wet behind the ears to recognize his own mistakes. Or too cocky.
“I want your operational division’s number,” Jayce demanded.
At that, Toledo laughed softly. “Seventy-two. Good luck confirming it. You, however, are twenty-eight, Special Security Operations, grade thirteen pay level, three years seniority. You report to Jonas Abrams.”
Jayce stared, fury slowly creeping down his spine and mingling with a heavy sense of foreboding. Seventy-two—Black Opal division. Who the hell was this guy, and how had he stumbled across the code for the Opals? If that had leaked, Clarke had a major problem on his hands.
Toledo shrugged. “Call it in.”
Moreover, if he knew enough about Jayce’s false credentials, why hadn’t someone set him straight?
The sound of a roaring engine blared through Jayce’s awareness. A car pulled into the lot, headlights off. A moment later, two car doors slammed. Two sets of boots pounded up the walk.
Kane and McTavish bounded inside, both skidding to a halt as they reached McTavish’s office doorway.
“Shit,” Kane muttered. “Brice said she sounded worried. Now I see why.”
Jayce instructed them to enter
with a jerk of his head. “Not the half of it. Call Clarke.”
“What?” both Toledo and Kane asked in unison.
“Toledo here says he’s division seventy-two. You ever heard of him, Kane?”
Kane shook his head as he tugged out his cell. “Can’t say I have.”
“Me neither.” Jayce lowered his gun, satisfied Toledo wasn’t going anywhere, surrounded like he was. “I want to know who the fuck he is and what he wants with Alyssa.”
“He’s not after Alyssa,” McTavish spoke quietly. “He wants me.”
Jayce opened his mouth to argue, but Kane motioned for quiet. He quickly snapped it shut, and scowled at Toledo instead. A Black Opal—this guy had barked up the wrong tree. And if he found out this jerk had anything to do with that bomb, he’d tear him to pieces.
“Hey, boss. Got a situation here,” Kane greeted Clarke.
Jayce snatched the phone out of Kane’s hands. Having uncovered the bomb enough to confidently ascertain it couldn’t be tripped wirelessly, he returned to Alyssa’s side and set a hand on her shoulder. When she looked up, tears reflected in her eyes. Her silence was explained by the furious way she gnawed on her lower lip. Christ, she was falling apart by the second.
“It’s me,” he barked into the cell. “I’m putting you on speaker. I need some public answers.” Hitting the button, he set the phone on top of McTavish’s desk, directly in front of Alyssa. Then, he leaned down and whispered in her ear, “Hang in there, baby doll. You’re okay. I promise.”
She nodded, but the way her throat worked with her swallow, signaled her distress. He needed answers and he needed them fast. Before she did something like faint. If Toledo were responsible for the bomb, Jayce didn’t dare dismiss him as completely insignificant. Even better, he might know the damned code to turn the counter off.
“What’s on your mind, Jayce?”
“I’ve got a guy here claiming to work for you. Calls himself Toledo. Right about now, he looks scared as hell. You care to give me the go-ahead and impress upon him just what he doesn’t know?”
Explosive (The Black Opals) Page 30
