“I understand,” I said.
Then I leaned over the emesis bag and lost my lunch.
39
BEN
The blood was coming faster now, making it harder to see which wires I was supposed to cut. I tensed my fists as I fought off another dizzy spell, then blew out a long breath as the room stabilized. I picked up the next wire.
“Hayes!” Lang yelled, startling me.
Had the guy forgotten there was an unstable man with a gun standing a few feet away from me? “Let’s stay calm,” I said.
“Hayes, drop that fucking wire or we’re going to have a problem!”
Okay, now it made sense. I’d picked up the wrong wire. I squinted and focused on the remaining connections. If my vague memory of this type of device from my basic explosives training was correct, I had three wires left to cut. Then the warning light would turn yellow, a trick to make someone inexperienced nervous enough to cut another wire, and then... Assuming we got past that, the light would turn green, the HEAT team who’d been following the burner phone’s GPS would arrive, and we’d all go home.
The rifle barrel jammed into my spine. “Devlin, buddy, what the hell?”
I risked a glance over my shoulder. He was sweatingprofusely, but hell, so was I. But his eyes were unfocused. Come to think of it, so were mine, but only one of us had a head injury.
“Devlin.” I did my best to radiate calm. “I need to finish this, or it’s going to end badly for us.”
“Are we good?” Lang asked in the same soothing tone.
He and Jensen had their eyes on the timer like I did. None of us liked what we saw.
Devlin backed up, but he kept the barrel pointed at me. “They’re not coming, are they? Anson said they would come to help with you, but they’re not coming.”
He finally realized he’d been duped. And I finally realized I’d been more than the lucky sucker they’d grabbed so Devlin would look like a murderer. Devlin wanted me dead. When I’d heard Savannah speaking to him earlier, I’d realized she’d found his kompromat, and it all pointed to his years-long obsession with her. What I didn’t know was whether he was aware that she loved me. I was no longer unsure about that.
There was some good news in all this. He didn’t want to kill me himself. Fair enough. Very few people in the world are cut out for wet work. Anson had used the promise of someone killing me for him to lure Devlin into helping kidnap me. That would make the second thing I’d have to do easier.
But first things first.
“Devlin.” I used a more strident tone. I didn’t have a choice. He was disappearing inside his own revenge fantasies. I needed him present. “If this blows, we both die, not just me, and you’ll never see Savannah again. Is that what you want?”
He shook his head.
“Then back the fuck up and let me work.” I wiped at the blood with my sweaty forearm and winced. “I’m going to need some antibiotics for that scratch.” I knew Bond waslistening, so that was for her. I wiped my sweaty, bloody hands on my jeans and returned to the wires.
“Ready?” Lang said.
“Ready. One thing, though, to make sure I’m right about this. If I get a green light, we’re clear. But if I get a yellow light, we run like hell.”
Lang hesitated.Come on. He wasn’t on the tactical ops team, but he was cross-trained. He needed to follow my lead.
“Right.” That was Wheeler’s voice, but Devlin didn’t freak out, so I continued.
“Then I’m ready.”
Lang walked me through the next two wires. With a deep breath and another forearm wipe of my head, I took in Devlin’s exact position, figured out what he was most likely to do when I made my move, and bent to cut the last wire.
Snip.
The yellow button engaged.
“Shit!” I yelled. “It’s yellow!”
