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I zip tie his hands and push him toward Trent who secures him in the back of the van with his hands above his head while we toss the other bodies inside.
He says something to Trent and gets backhanded for his trouble before Trent jumps down and slams the double doors and stalks back to the front of the van. He jumps into the front seat and leans toward the passenger side and holds up a timer that causes my chest to tighten and my feet to move.
I meet him as he gets out of the vehicle. “Tell me that isn’t what I think it is.”
“Can’t do that. They activated the detonator before they came out. It was a delayed timer.”
I take the device from him, turning the little black box in my hands. “They were coming back to get rid of them. Abandoning the mission. They never intended to take the girls alive from here. This thing isn’t programmed to be shut off after it’s been activated. It’s foolproof. No going back after it’s been put in motion except to disengage every fucking one of those devices on the truck. We’ll deal with this. Go, the cops will be here any minute.”
He runs back to the Special Forces van and guns it, taking off in the same direction that we sent the vans, the opposite direction that anyone coming in from the highway would take. Allie, Marenah, and Liam come into sight as emergency vehicles begin to sound in the distance. Allie jogs the rest of the way to me and runs into my arms. “We heard shots!” I pull her close for a second, feeling her heartbeat race against my chest.
The distant wails of firetrucks and ambulances grow louder. In no time at all, the paramedics are swarming with men jumping from their trucks and trying to get their pulse on the situation.
Pat, a man we know from the Special Forces, gets out of the official van that pulls up and walks toward me, extending his hand in greeting. “Marenah called and filled me in. What a fucking mess,” he comments, pushing his sunglasses onto the top of his head as he looks at the women staring back at him, wide-eyed and packed like sardines into the back of the metal truck.
“That’s putting it mildly,” I tell him.
“Where are the drivers?”
“They crossed the wrong people. My guess is they’ll end up at the bottom of the river.”
“You’re walking a fine line, Nick. The brass is going to want to know who’s responsible. They’re going to want to give people some assurance that this isn’t going to happen again.”
“The only way we’re going to be able to give them that one day is to find out who’s pulling the strings. We both know these women were heading to somewhere that would take them out of state and outside of your jurisdiction. The reason you look the other way on some of this shit hasn’t changed. We’re still fighting for the same thing. Once they get them to the water, it’s too late, but right now we need to get these detonators turned off, and the way they have them rigged, I can’t do it myself.” I hold up the device. “We’re on a timer and don’t know when the clock is going to run out.”
“The bomb squad’s right around the corner. What else do we need to know?”
I fill him in on the details, and his jaw tightens. No words are needed, because we both know one wrong wire could send the entire truck into the air along with every life inside of it. “Good work on the warehouse detonator. I was going to say that we better have our guys take care of this one without you, just to keep the lines from getting crossed, and I’m glad you waited, but let’s fuck the politics on this one. We have hundreds of women’s lives on the line, and we need every man we can find. We could use your help.”
“Then you’ve got it. Why don’t I jump up and start? If anything goes down, you can tell them the truth. I was already in the truck when you and your men came aboard.”
Pat pulls his shades back down. “Works for me,” he replies as I roll up my sleeves and take a gulp of water from one of the bottles.
Allie’s unusually quiet, observing me like she does. “Everything is going to be fine.”
Her lips tighten in response, and eyes glisten with unshed tears, but she swallows past the lump in her throat enough to give me a one-word answer. “Okay.”
“Stay with the guys.” They’ll keep her protected if anything happens to me.
I start in the front of the truck, leaving room for the others when they come on board. It takes time to assess each connection, and to find the coils where they’ve been hooked to other leads. My fingers slide over the lengths of coated wire wound around the barbing, focusing on my task while the bomb squad gears up in those heavy-ass suits. Rules and regulations of their job, but my teeth grind with impatience as they take the time to gear up because every minute counts when you don’t have any idea how many are left. And the sad reality of this situation is that one cut wire is sending us all straight to the grave, regardless. Beads of perspiration pool on my brow from the oppressive heat that the tight quarters and crowded metal box bring while hundreds of wide eyes watch, waiting to see what fate brings them at the end of the day.
I focus on the task at hand, crouching next to the women, finding each connection, and following it to the next only to find another. One long dark-haired woman crosses her heart and says a barely audible prayer as I work on the wires that cross her waist. The first three connections have all been different but then comes the pattern. “Every fourth pattern they switched the devices, but we have a bigger problem,” I tell the men as every black junction box in the entire trailer emits a beeping sound and a green light begins to blink.
“Fuck me,” one of the bomb squad guys says.
“Copy that. We don’t have time guys, no time,” one of the bomb squad leaders replies.
These fuckers may have rigged a lot of these devices, but once we find the connection paths, and the pattern, they’re relatively easy to disengage, but it’s time consuming, and we don’t have any left.
“Murphy, if we don’t blow, we’re going to need someone to help with fingerprints when this is over.”
“Copy that. I’ll get word to our guy on the inside at the PD and make sure he’s assigned to the case and can lift and run the prints,” Murphy replies.
The bomb squad and I meet at the middle of the truck when we’ve reached the last of the devices, coming in from either side. I hold up the last wire, and all the women around us tense as the guy in the suit cuts it, and every green light in the truck turns off.
The relief from inside of the truck is palpable and filled with tears and sobs of joy as I cut the ropes that hold the last woman from the ones next to her and then stand for the first time in what feels like hours while Marenah calls in the vans to begin helping load up the women and get them to safety.
The women hold each other tightly as tears from some continue, while others watch silent and wary, not yet knowing what their fate will be. I focus on the ones that require an ambulance as Jay, Damian, Mason, and Garrett arrive to help our team, and the city rescue workers half carry them off the truck and to the safety of Marenah, Allie, and the paramedics who are triaging which vehicle each lady will take.
