Faith laughed.“Hey, at least you have a story to tell, right?”
Jessica started to laugh too, but stopped when Stevenson bucked his hips and tried to throw them off.“You’re all gonna die,” he growled.“All of you.You’re going to freaking die, and I’m going to laugh!”
“How are you going to do that?”Faith asked.“You’ll be dead too.”
His brow furrowed.Then his lips pulled back from his teeth.Faith braced herself, and sure enough, he tried again.She held onto him.
For now.Her arms were already complaining about the strain, and her lower back was growing tight.Judging by appearance, she should have far more stamina than Stevenson, but he didn’t have to strain constantly the way she did, and his physical exhaustion was no doubt masked somewhat by the energy his insanity gifted him.
Turk rounded a corner ahead, the EOD team following him.Faith took a deep breath and shared another look with Jessica.She had placed her trust in Turk before, and he’d never let her down.She knew he wouldn’t disappoint this time either.
She just had to hold on a little longer.Stevenson bucked violently, and she cursed softly as she nearly lost her hold of his hand.
Just a little longer.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Sergeant Larry Burkman was used to frightening situations.That came with the territory when you were a member of a bomb squad.Your job was to defuse explosives, and the risk you took was that you’d fail and the explosives would kill you and probably a lot of innocent people around you.
Still, his throat was dry as the Sahara as they followed the FBI agent’s dog through the utility maintenance corridors underneath Terminal 2 of Ronald Reagan Airport.Right now, their survival depended on the ability of a couple of women to hold a man’s thumb down on the trigger.
He kicked himself for bringing gender into it, but that was a big dude.Maybe he should have had one of his men stay behind to hold Stevenson’s thumb instead.
“That dog’s old, man,” Officer Travis, his most senior technician, said, lowering his voice as though not to offend Turk.“Did you see his muzzle?It’s white as shit, man.”
And lovely.Now he was worried about that.Did dogs’ noses go bad when they got older?He knew their eyes went bad eventually because his sister’s poodle kept bumping into the walls the year before she put it down, but her nose seemed all right.
Damn it, why did they trust this guy?Of course, he wasn't going to tell them where the freaking bomb was.They should have brought their own dogs or called the TSA for their dogs.
Actually, he would do that now.Might as well.Better to know for sure than—
Turk barked enthusiastically and shot off down the corridor.“Wait!”Larry called, “Shit, uh, heel!”
Turk looked back at him and slowed.He looked ahead, barked, then looked back at Larry.If Larry didn’t know any better, he would have said that Turk looked annoyed at the wait.Maybe he wasn’t so old after all.
When the group reached him, he shot off again.Larry huffed and puffed, regretting every donut he’d ever eaten.Although he was also wearing fifty pounds of armor, so that should count for something.
“Turk!”he called.“Slow down!”
Turk stopped again, and Larry would swear on his mother, the dog tapped his front paw impatiently while he waited again.When they caught up again, he trotted forward, still moving fast enough to push Larry to the limit but not so fast they were falling behind, at least.
After another minute, he stopped in front of a doorway and barked.Larry shared a look with his team and said, "Okay, guys.Here we go."
He stopped in front of the door and pulled a penlight from his pocket.Turk whined and looked intently at the door, and Larry said, “I get it, boy.We just need to be careful.We do this the wrong way, and we could trip something.”
Ironically, now that he was here, he was calmer.Still terrified, but this was his element.This was what he had trained to do and done successfully for twenty-five years, first in the Army and now with the MWAA PD.
He moved the penlight along the edges of the door, looking for wires or evidence of explosives.From within the room, a muffled voice called, “Mmm!Mmm!”
“I know, sir, we’ll be right with you,” Larry said.“Hold on, okay?”
When he satisfied himself that he could open the door without killing anyone, he turned the handle and pushed it inward.The sight that greeted him turned his stomach.
James Hartford was sitting against the wall of what appeared to be a water valve.His hands were bound behind his back, and a strip of duct tape was pulled over his mouth.His pants and underwear were nowhere to be found.The bomb was positioned so that it covered his modesty, but considering what would happen to that modesty if the bomb went off, Larry didn’t think it was much of a favor.
Then it hit him where they were.That wasn’t a water valve, and these weren’t water pipes.
“Oh, shit,” Travis said.“These are the fuel lines, man.”