Page 48 of Under Fire in Big Sky

Thirty seconds.

Nausea bubbled in the pit of Eli’s stomach, but he ignored it. He had to make the right call for all their sakes.

“Twenty,” Trujillo said.

Every strained breath Eli took was a stark reminder of the volatile situation. A cold sweat slicked his palms, but he maintained a firm grip on the Leatherman. He positioned the cutter over the green one.

Ten.

Eli changed his mind and repositioned the wire cutter around the yellow cord.

No more time. He snipped the wire.

The countdown stopped. A wave of relief crashed over Eli.

Trujillo exhaled as his shoulders sagged. “One second left. Talk about cutting it close.”

“Thank goodness.” Wiping his brow with one hand, Johnson patted Eli on the back with the other. “You did it.”

Stepping away from the economizer, Eli searched the sky for Liv. He spotted the lights of the chopper off in a distance, high in the air.

She was safe.

Taking a deep breath, he rolled his shoulders and stretched his neck. The chopper turned, heading back.

Boom! The windows of the power plant building shattered as another bomb went off inside. Fire roiled and smoke billowed into the air.

Johnson stared in horror. “Oh, my God.”

They all glanced at the gauges clipped onto their clothes. Eli’s needle moved from green to yellow. But there were still two more hazardous zones on the device, orange and red. They were okay.

A second explosion rocked the night. A loud thud—not at the facility but located farther away—that shook the ground.

Eli’s stomach sank.

Trujillo looked between them. “What on earth was that?”

“It sounded like—” Another boom cut off Eli’s train of thought, and the ground trembled. He was about to guess before, but now, he was sure. “An explosive charge detonated somewhere. But it wasn’t a building.” He turned to Johnson. “Other than the facility, what else could be targeted that would sabotage the whole thing?”

“Well, uh, I guess the pipeline itself.”

“But it’s buried deep underground, isn’t it?” Trujillo asked. “Wouldn’t they need heavy equipment to get to it, like an excavator? That would draw too much attention.”

“Yes, they would.” Johnson scratched his chin, his gaze roving, as if he were thinking. “But I suppose they might not have to. There is another way. If you soaked the ground with water, for a day or two beforehand, at key junctures in the pipeline and then set off a device in the ground that shifted the soil enough, it would weaken the pipeline joists, putting pressure on the pipes until—”

“They rupture,” Eli said.

Johnson nodded.

Eli checked his gauge. The needle didn’t move again. The rupture must have been farther enough away not to affect them.

The helicopter set down. Its door slid open. Liv leaped out and sprinted straight for him. As she rushed into his arms, he wrapped her in a tight hug, grateful they were both alive.

Cupping his cheeks in her hands, she scanned his face and then glanced at the power plant that was ablaze. “We heard two more concussive sounds.”

“We believe Shepherd targeted the actual pipeline, not just this facility.” His voice was rough, strained from the adrenaline and fear that still coursed through him, leaving his muscles tense. “Layers of redundancy. There’s no way we could’ve found everything and disarmed it all in time. Even if we had ten more people helping us search.”

“You prevented the most critical explosion. The one that could’ve been the most catastrophic,” she said. “You saved the residents of Cedar Breaks.”