“Gabby,” Ty called softly. “Are you okay, sweetheart?” The endearment from their online romance slipped out unexpectedly, but it fit with a solid click beneath his heart, like a lock latching tightly shut around something important.
“I’m not hurt,” she said, but even in the wan light he could see the tear tracks on her face and the stark terror in her pale-brown eyes.
“She’ll stay that way if you do what I want,” Liam said. He jerked his chin into the tunnel. “Let’s take a walk. You first.”
Covering both Ty and Gabby with his weapon, Liam marched them into the tunnel. Once they passed inside, he clicked on a high-powered flashlight mounted atop the handgun. His and Ty’s flashlights showed a monstrous stone-and-cement arch over four lanes of traffic that were eerily deserted. The arch went only halfway through its semicircle, ending in a center wall that both supported the massive tunnel and separated the inbound and outbound lanes.
Their footsteps echoed hollowly, and the faint light outside faded back to darkness lit only by the flashlight beams, which illuminated circles of stone and pavement and glinted off the luminescent paint that divided the four-lane road.
Ty became aware of the tunnel descending beneath his feet, a subtle downward tilt that riffled the fine hairs on the back of his neck. A snippet of Grant’s speech came back to him then in the vice president’s powerful, ringing voice. “This massive undertaking tells the story of the great city of Boston,” he’d said. “The many miles of tunnel have been hewn out of rock just as the patriots of years gone by struggled to hack freedom from tyranny. The great arch was sunk beneath hundreds of feet of harbor water, set there by engineering feats that trace back to the great architects of colonial times and beyond…. This project represents Boston. It is Boston. And because of that, how can we do anything less than honor it?”
He’d promised federal funds to cover the Big Dig shortfalls, Ty remembered, and he damn well knew they’d come through. He’d heard the mayor say so himself.
So what did Liam want here? he thought, but as soon as the inner question formed, the answer clicked into being. The bomb.
Liam wasn’t trying to kill people. He was trying to make a statement. What better statement than to destroy something his enemy helped create?
“Over there.” Liam’s light jerked off to the right, toward where a short flight of iron steps led up to a narrow cement catwalk on the short side of the tunnel. “Up the stairs.”
Ty followed the instructions, thinking fast as he mounted the steps. The catwalk was just wide enough for a single person, creating a confined area with a wall on one side, a ten-foot drop on the other, and doorways every few hundred yards. If he could somehow signal Gabby to make a dive for it, leaving Liam exposed, he might be able to get the gun, get control of the situation. But how could he signal her?
“Here,” Liam said, voice sharp. “Through that door. And don’t try anything, or I will put a bullet in your girlfriend here.”
The professional in Ty said to ignore the dig, but the man in him couldn’t. “You hurt her and I’ll end you, Liam. That’s a promise.”
Liam laughed, a dry, derisive bark. “I was ended a long time ago, Ty, and your friends finished the job when they took out my boys. Now I’m just making sure I take the right people down with me when I go.”
Ty took note of a sturdy bar outside the door, one designed to drop into a pair of brand-new hooks, one on either side of the doorway.
They were to be barred in, were they? He’d see about that.
Gritting his teeth, he shoved through the doorway and paused in surprise when he realized he could see. The room was well lit by generator-powered lights, which showed a long, narrow space with an inexplicable maze of pipes and lines and circuit boxes lining the walls. A small pile of camping gear was stacked in one corner, suggesting that Liam had stayed in the room at one time.
A security camera high up on the wall blinked to indicate it was functioning normally, but it had a crude-looking device stuck to its side, with wires running at haphazard angles, suggesting the tape was being looped, or diverted somehow.
Worse, a tall metal cylinder with rounded edges and pressurized spigots at the top sat in a darkened corner formed by a maze of intersecting pipes. It was a pressurized tank of some kind—likely propane, if Liam’s second clue was anything to go by. One thing was sure—it didn’t belong in the long, narrow room.
Ty cursed low under his breath and crossed to the tank, one part of him fearing what he’d find, one part of him already knowing.
Sure enough, on the far side of the tank, where the deepest shadows rested, Vice President Grant Davis sat atop a second tank, bound in place with coil after coil of thin wire. His head hung low on his chest. A trickle of blood had dried at his temple and a nasty bruise spread across his cheek, but that wasn’t what had Ty sucking in a breath.
Between his feet sat the digital readout for the time-delay detonator Liam had used as his first clue.
As Ty watched, the digital countdown ticked down past the twenty-minute mark.
It was almost dawn.
Chapter 11
Gabby, sweetheart, I wish you’d tell me what’s going on. I don’t understand why we can spend hours trading e-mails and instant messages but we can’t meet. You know more about me than just about anybody. Nobody else knows that I’m up most nights because I dream, and I’m betting you don’t talk to too many other people about your parents, or about how you’d like to make a change in your life. I bet before we started corresponding, you hadn’t even admitted some of those things to yourself. So why can’t we set a date? What are you hiding? Are you married? In trouble with the law? An alien in disguise? What?
[Sent by TyJ; July 27, 2:30:01 a.m.]
5:20 a.m., August 3 18 Minutes until Sunrise The moment Gabby had heard Ty’s voice outside the tunnel she’d wanted to weep with relief. Just as urgently, she’d wanted to tell him to run, to get away. Liam had passed beyond madness to cold, sociopathic revenge, and he had no intention of letting any of them go free. She was sure of it.
Now, hearing the hollow echo of Ty’s curse, she had a feeling he knew it, too.
Liam had explained the setup to her as he’d tied the vice president into place. The main tank contained highly pressurized liquid propane, and the secondary tank Davis sat atop was filled with more of the same. The standard-issue military explosive that sat between Davis’s feet—the one Liam had clued them how to circumvent—was merely what Liam had called “crowd control,” designed to get and keep Ty’s attention.
Liam himself was carrying a remote detonator he could use to blow the tunnel on a moment’s notice, using the main device, which was located below them in a narrow access shaft his sons had blocked off, making it nearly impossible to reach. No matter what Ty said or did, the main bomb would detonate at dawn.
They had played Liam’s game, but there would be no winners here. Only losers.
“At least let Gabby go,” Ty said, his voice quiet and almost pleading. “She’s done nothing to you.”
Ignoring him, Liam dragged Gabby to the main tank. He forced her arms high over her head and looped the rope binding her wrists over a protrusion higher up, nearly suspending her off the floor. She squirmed and spat and got nowhere.
Once Liam had her arranged to his satisfaction, he turned away, his voice echoing in the small room as he said, “It’s down to this, Ty. Only one of us is leaving this room alive. When the time comes, it’ll be up to you to choose who it will be. Until then, we’re going to have a little chat, and just in case you were thinking of doing something stupid…” There was a pause, and Gabby heard the sound of shifting cloth and motion, and pictured Liam showing Ty the detonator. “No sudden movements.”
“Think about this, Liam.” Ty’s voice was raw with emotion. Having come to know him as well as she did, Gabby could only imagine how hard it was for him to see a former comrade arrive at this point. “You were a good man once, a soldier. This
isn’t the sort of thing a soldier does to his own people.”
“These aren’t my people,” Liam said. His voice shifted as he moved away a few steps, closer to the vice president. “He isn’t one of mine.” Flesh struck flesh and Davis grunted a curse, the sound nearly drowned out when Liam snarled, “Tell him what you did, Grant. Tell him what sort of man he’s been protecting all these years.”
Davis groaned but said nothing. There was the sound of another blow, then another. Gabby winced with each punch, though none of them were aimed directly at her. There was pain, though, in her arms and shoulders, and the muscles of her calves, which cramped as she stretched onto her tiptoes in an effort to relieve the strain.
Unable to sustain the stretch, she dropped back flat-footed.
She felt the rope give a fraction.
“Stop it,” Ty said in a sharp voice. “Beating some sort of confession out of him means nothing. Sending us across the city chasing our own tails means nothing. Maybe he welched on a few campaign promises. Stuff happens. That doesn’t make him responsible for ruining your life. You did that entirely on your own.”
Ty’s voice moved as he spoke, and Gabby could hear Liam shifting on his feet, facing Ty. At first she didn’t understand why Ty was moving, why he was goading the madman holding the detonator.
Then she sagged against her bonds and felt the rope give a little more, and she realized she knew exactly what he was doing.
He was giving her a chance to make a difference.
* * *
Come on, gabby, Ty thought inwardly, willing her to notice that the rope at her wrists was fraying where it was hooked over a sharp-edged metal flange on the propane tank. Come on, sweetheart, just a little bit more. You can do it.
Outwardly he fought to keep Liam talking, struggled to keep his focus away from Gabby. “You didn’t really expect your little treasure hunt to persuade me, did you? Surely you knew me better than that. I know what I know, and I trust who I trust.”
Liam sneered, but at least he’d turned away from Davis, whose head hung even lower now, and whose blood dripped from a split lip to stain his ripped tux shirt. “I remember,” Liam said. “You were an idealistic young pup, and you’ve grown into a blindly loyal dog, haven’t you? You’re not even willing to look at what’s right in front of your face and consider that you might’ve missed a few things along the way.”
The older man held the detonator up and shone his flashlight all along the small unit, admiring it, perhaps, or more likely reminding Ty that he was in control.
Catching a flash of warning on Gabby’s face, Ty took a step to the side, angling away from her and forcing Liam to track him as she tugged at the rope. Ty said, “You made a mistake, Liam. You were mad at the insurgents for nearly blowing you away in that car bombing, and you wanted to get yours back. We all knew it. Hell, Commander Bradley made you swear you’d hold it together. You didn’t, and innocent people died. That’s nobody’s fault but your own.”
Ty forced himself to focus on Liam, but in his peripheral vision, he could see that Gabby had started working the rope from side to side along the jagged edge of the flange.
Even better, Davis’s head had come up, and his swollen eyes were focused on Ty. He gave a brief hand signal, a flick of the wrist in the silent language all three of the men had used so long ago. Ready when you are.
He was still bound, but if Gabby could get to him, they might be able to make it three to one, might be able to gain control of the detonator and subdue Liam without bringing the tunnel—and Boston Harbor—down around them.
Maybe.
“It wasn’t my fault,” Liam insisted, shifting the light so it lit his face. “I swear it on my sons. On my family’s honor, I swear I didn’t jump the gun on the signal.”
“So we’re back to the story you told at the trial?” Ty asked, feeling a prickle work its way down his neck when Gabby eased away from the tank and bent to work on Grant’s bonds. “You’re claiming that Grant set you up by signaling you to cut the power before the commander gave the signal? Then I’ll ask you the same question the inquiry board asked before they sent you up for a court martial. Why would he do something like that? You were the one who wanted to get at the insurgents, not him. Davis just wanted to get the hostages out.”
“Grant wanted what I had,” Liam snarled. “We both had the charisma, but I had the connections and the name. That rescue was going to send us home heroes, and he couldn’t bear to let that happen.” Before Ty could react, Liam spun to point at Grant Davis. “He—”
The world sped up and everything erupted into a blur of motion and bodies as Grant Davis launched himself at Liam.
“Stay back!” Ty shouted to Gabby, who was inexplicably crumpling toward the ground. Knowing he had to take care of Liam first, he hurled himself into the fray.
He grabbed Liam’s left hand, the one holding the detonator, and clamped his fingers around the pressure switch, holding it from popping open and triggering a hell of an explosion. Getting his other arm around Liam’s waist, he swung his weight, bringing the three men down in a heap.
“Grab the gun,” Ty ordered. “Toss it in the corner.”
“Got it,” Davis replied, then said something else that wound up lost as Liam exploded beneath his captors. He rammed a bony elbow into Ty’s gut, hooked a foot around Ty’s leg and heaved himself off the floor with nearly superhuman strength.
“I don’t think so.” Ty hung on, cursing when fingers pried at his hand, loosening his grip on the detonator. “Grant!” he barked. “Can you get it?”
An elbow connected with Ty’s mouth, mashing his teeth against his lips so hard he tasted blood. He spat a curse and fought back, punching and kicking and trying like hell to hold on, though he wasn’t entirely sure what body part belonged to whom anymore.
Then his hand was empty. The detonator was gone. In the moment he hesitated over the realization, Liam elbowed him once more and yanked away.
Ty cursed viciously. “Watch it, he’s got the—”
A bark of gunfire cut him off, and the man beneath him shuddered and went limp.
“Grant!” Horror slashed through Ty—the failure of losing a protectee, losing a friend. “No!”
He grabbed for the limp figure and took a quick inventory of the wound. He was so focused on the injury it took him a moment to realize that the mortally wounded man wasn’t Grant Davis.
It was Liam.
A bright red bloom spread across his chest and his eyes rolled white and scared. His mouth pulled tight in a rictus of pain, of disbelief, and he reached for Ty.
Ty turned toward the door. “Grant, thank God. Do you have the detonator?”
Davis stood partway across the room, battered and bloodied, holding Liam’s gun in one hand and the detonator in the other. Something hard and cold and unfamiliar moved through his expression. “Yeah, I do.”
He dropped the small unit and ground it underfoot.
“No!” Ty grabbed for the thing, but it was too late. Furious, he snapped, “Grant, for chrissake, we could’ve used that to help disarm the main device!”
The vice president nodded. “I know, and I’m sorry. But I have a reputation to protect.”
Without another word he slipped through the door, which shut with a thunk.
Ty shouted and flung himself at the door, but he was too late. Grant had dropped the welded bar into place.
“Damn it!” Ty jammed his shoulder against the panel, cursing when it didn’t budge.
Pulse riding high, he spun and crossed to the propane tanks. He crouched down to Gabby, realizing that Grant must’ve cold-cocked her.
“Gabby? Sweetheart, are you hurt?” He got no response, and her muscles were lax under his hand when he touched her shoulder. New panic spurted. “Gabby!”
His shout echoed in the small space and his heart clutched in his chest when she didn’t respond.
Then he saw her throat move, and heard her faint moan.
“Gabby.�
� He bent close and touched his lips to her cheek, ran his hands over her, gently trying not to move her if she was seriously hurt.
He found a raised knot at the back of her head, and hot anger flared. Grant Davis had done this. The man he’d trusted. The man he’d defended. The man he’d vowed to take a bullet for.
Right now he’d rather put a bullet in the bastard.
“I’m okay. I’m fine.” Gabby roused finally, pulling herself up to a sitting position and batting at his hands, but then she sank against him, tucking her head beneath his jaw. “Ow. I didn’t see that one coming.”
“Me, neither,” Ty said. “I’m sorry. I should’ve listened to you instead of being stubborn.”
But there was no time for more explanations or comfort. The display showed eleven minutes until sunrise, until detonation.
Ty helped Gabby to her feet and propped her against the wall when she swayed. Then he knelt down beside the man he’d once called a teammate, once called a traitor.
Liam looked like an old man now. An old, dying man. The lines across his forehead and beside his mouth cut deep grooves, his eyes were closed and his skin had gone waxy pale. His shirt was soaked with dark blood, but none appeared to be flowing bright red from the bullet Davis had put in his chest.
For a second Ty thought Liam was already gone. Then he stirred and opened his eyes. Lifting a trembling, bloodstained hand, he gripped Ty’s wrist with surprising strength. His lips moved, forming words without sound. “I’m sorry.”
At another time, under other circumstances and with a different man, it would have been a time for absolution. But with the seconds and minutes ticking down, there was no time for niceties. Ty leaned in, grabbed Liam’s shirt and twisted it in his fist for leverage so he could lift the wounded man partway up and get in his face. “Where’s the access point and what’s the code to disarm the countdown?”
Liam’s eyes locked on his, and Ty could see failure and regret, could hear both in the other man’s voice when he said, “The bastard won, didn’t he?”
Lights Out Page 15
