Staying Alive (8 page)

“Be very careful, Claire, this could be a trap.”

She jumped. Almost dropped the phone.

The voice was Krueger’s. He’d spoken to her via the communication device tucked into her left ear.

She didn’t respond. If she did Nusair would hear and she couldn’t let him know there was any interference coming from Krueger’s people. He’d warned her explicitly about that.

Slowly, her fingers trembling, she lowered the zipper on the jacket.

Her heart sank when she saw the bundled mass of gadgetry strapped to the boy’s chest. Layers and layers of duct tape were wrapped around his thin torso, holding the device in place. A digital timer counted down from two minutes ten seconds.

“As you can see,” Nusair said, “there are several wires in a variety of colors. All you have to do is select the right one to pull free of the mechanism and the timer will stop. Pick the wrong one and the device will detonate. If you run out of time, our game is over.”

He severed the connection.

Claire’s cell phone fell to the padded floor. She stared at the bundle. Did she dare touch any of it? If she had a knife she might be able to cut the whole bundle loose from his body and throw it….

“Talk to me, Claire. Let us guide you through this. Tell me what you see.”

Krueger.

“It’s a
bomb!
” She had to stay calm and think. “It’s…a jumble of different items. A nine-volt battery…what might be a transistor of some sort. Lots of electrical tape and wire nuts and…oh, God, the timer is ticking down really fast.”

The timer blinked menacingly at her, one minute, forty-eight seconds.

There would never be enough time.

“Claire! Listen to me. Don’t touch anything yet. Our bomb squad tech Bob Jackson is going to take you through this.”

“What color are the wires, Miss Grant?”

A new voice…

She moistened her lips, drew in a much-needed breath and forced herself to focus.

“All different colors. Red, black, white, green, yellow.” Her foot started to tap. She was running out of time.

Joey’s breathing was ragged, his chest rising and falling with monumental effort. Claire locked
gazes with the boy. Please, God, don’t let him breathe too deeply. This thing could go off.

“Okay, Miss Grant, listen very carefully to me.”

Claire stilled, held her breath.

“Look all the way around the device. You see the battery, the transistor and there should be a small solar fuse in the mix. It’ll be a small square or rectangular device. There may be an electrical lightning-bolt symbol on it for ID purposes.”

“Yes, I see it.” She squatted down to get a better look at the bundle.

“Do you see anything else?”

“Duct tape. Something beneath all the gadgets. It’s like a block of…I don’t, molding clay maybe. I’m afraid to touch it.”

Several seconds of silence followed.

“What do I do now?” Didn’t they realize her time was running out? “There’s only sixty seconds left. Somebody tell me what to do!” She was screaming.

One look at Joey’s face and she wanted to tear out her tongue for letting him hear her panic. She held her breath. Told herself to calm.

“Miss Grant,” Bob said, his voice somber, “this is an IEP, an improvised explosive device. It will not detonate if it is disconnected from the power source, the battery. Do you understand me? It
will not
detonate when separated from its power source.”

She tried to see what he meant, but she had to be sure. “I’m not sure what you’re telling me to do.” He had to give this to her in more straightforward terms. “Power source? Do you mean the battery or…or what?”

“Pull the wires loose. Without the connection to the battery the timer will stop. The battery is the power source.”

She reached for the wires.

Her hand froze.

“Wait! He said if I chose the wrong wire—”

“Miss Grant, I can’t see what you’re seeing, but from what you’ve described to me this is a homemade device using C-4, a simple timer, a battery and a solar fuse. The C-4 will not detonate without an igniting charge. No power source, no detonation. I think he’s bluffing. Pull the wires loose. Do it
now
.”

Claire stared at the jumble of colored wires. “But what if you’re wrong?”

“I’m going out there.”

Krueger.

“Sir, you can’t go out there!” Talkington’s voice blasted in her ear.

Claire whipped her head around just in time to see Krueger make a lunge for a massive potted plant about six feet from the shield.

Bullets pinged against the marble floor next to the potted plant.

“Tell him to go back! Tell him to go back!”

Claire’s gaze collided with the boy’s as he shouted those words over and over. He was trembling. His eyes were huge.

Twenty-nine seconds.

“Miss Grant.” The technician’s voice sounded in her earpiece. “You’re running out of time. Yank the wires loose from the battery. If you don’t do it now, the initial charge will detonate and then the C-4 will blow. You’ll die. The child will die.”

…the child will die.

Claire stared at the timer.

Ten seconds. Nine.

She grabbed a handful of the wires and pulled as hard as she could.

Nothing happened.

Five seconds.

Her fingers twisted in the final two wires.

She stared into the boy’s tear-filled eyes, prayed she wasn’t making a mistake and ripped the final wires loose.

T
wo seconds.

The timer stopped.

Unable to speak, Claire sat back on her haunches, hugged her arms around her knees and didn’t move.

She couldn’t move…she couldn’t tell what had happened…

There was no explosion.

Only the silence of complete shock.

“Am I going to die?”

The boy’s frightened voice broke the tension.

Claire managed a shaky smile. “I think we’re okay now, Joey.”

Everything happened at once after that.

Krueger and his team were suddenly on top of them. No more flying bullets from the sniper. Bob, the technician, and one of his associates removed the bundle from Joey’s torso, placed it in a containment canister and hurried away.

Claire watched as Joey was reunited with his mother. He was really okay.

It was over.

“Miss Grant, are you all right?”

She looked up into Agent Krueger’s now-familiar green eyes. He’d run out into the open, risked his life to help her and the boy. He’d been as good as his word. She wanted to answer his question, but somehow she couldn’t form even the simplest syllable.

Her knees buckled. Krueger caught her just in time.

“Medic!”

A woman wearing a paramedic’s uniform came rushing up to Claire with a medical bag in hand.

Krueger and the paramedic guided her toward the nearest bench. “Let’s get you off your feet, Miss Grant.”

“I’m fine. Really.”

“Why don’t we make sure about that?”

Claire sat through the routine screening. Her heart rate had slowed and she could breathe com
fortably now but she still felt disconnected, as if her mind and body were separate entities.

Krueger divided his attention between her and the ongoing investigation.

When the paramedic finished her examination, she patted Claire on the arm. “You’re going to be fine, Miss Grant.”

The paramedic walked over to Krueger and spoke quietly to him. Claire didn’t hear what she said, but she presumed that the woman passed along the same information she had given her. She would be fine. No permanent damage.

Not physically anyway.

She might not sleep for about a hundred years without having extreme nightmares.

Krueger came over and sat down on the bench next to her. “Miss Grant, we’re going to transport you to a safe house now. We took out Nusair’s sniper before he could escape, but if Nusair was here he slipped past our net. We believe any threat in the area has passed, but I don’t want to risk your continued exposure in this setting.”

He stood and offered his hand. She placed hers in his and allowed him to help her to her feet. She didn’t like having to rely on anyone else but she felt pretty darn shaky just now.

The team working directly for Krueger gathered around her once more as they exited the mall.

Two SUVs waited right where the sidewalk met the asphalt. Krueger opened the rear driver’s-side door of the first one and Claire climbed in. He took the front passenger’s seat. Talkington drove and Betty Nance slid in next to Claire. The crowd of shoppers watched from behind their barricades. She wondered how long they would be forced to wait before they were able to get into their vehicles and leave. It wasn’t likely that anyone here would forget this shopping experience.

“Are we going back to the hotel now?” It was the first coherent sentence she had managed to get out in the last several minutes. Krueger had told her where they were going but for the life of her she couldn’t remember what he’d said.

“No.” Krueger didn’t bother turning back to look at her. “That location may be compromised now. Anytime we make a major move motivated by the enemy, we’ll change our location just in case. We have a safe house prepared for your arrival.”

Claire leaned back and told herself to relax. But she couldn’t. “What if I hadn’t survived and Nusair was still at large?”

“We do the best we can to make contingencies for every scenario, Miss Grant.”

During those tense moments in the mall he’d called her Claire. She wondered now if he’d done
that to get her full attention. Now he wouldn’t even look at her and it made her uneasy. Was he hiding something or was he fighting his own reaction to what had just happened?

The muscle flexing in the hard line of his jaw gave her an answer. No matter how many times he’d done this it wasn’t easy for him either. Claire didn’t know why, but somehow that comforted her just a little.

Dusk had fallen over the city. The lights twinkled dramatically. She lost herself in the beautiful skyline with its soaring Space Needle and Mount Rainier as a majestic backdrop.

She’d come here all those years ago to escape the pain and the memories. Her life in Seattle to this point had been quiet and pleasant. She’d made lots of new friends. This city was home now. From day one she’d made it a point to get to know her new home. The first couple of years she’d spent every weekend that she didn’t work on her house exploring the neighborhoods.

For all that time she had felt completely safe. Safe and happy.

Until now.

The driver made lots of turns and did a significant amount of backtracking. She had no idea where they were headed, but she definitely recognized when they cruised the same block twice.

Their destination eventually became clear when she spotted the headquarters of Amazon.com high atop Beacon Hill overlooking downtown Seattle and Puget Sound.

She’d considered buying in the Beacon Hill area before she fell in love with the little bungalow in her funky, eclectic neighborhood in Fremont.

Would she ever be able to go back there?

Why was she still alive?

A frown tugged at her brow.

Nusair had had a sniper in the mall. Why hadn’t he shot her when she managed to disable the bomb? Or even before?

Would the fact that a bomb-squad technician had talked her through disarming the bomb make Nusair even angrier? He’d warned her about getting help from her new friends. Yet he’d done nothing about it when he had the opportunity back there.

If he wanted her dead…wanted his vengeance, why hadn’t he taken it? Not that she was in any hurry for that to happen.

Claire Grant, you will die for your transgression. Over and over again.

She turned her hands palms-up and stared at them. Had there been something on the device…anthrax or something that might kill her later?

Was that why she felt so exhausted now?

Her fingers tightened into fists and she closed her eyes to shut out the thoughts. She wasn’t thinking rationally. She didn’t know why she was still alive. Or why the sniper hadn’t taken a shot at her. The only thing that mattered was that Joey Denton was safe.

More questions came to mind when she thought of Joey. Why Joey? Was his selection happenstance? Out of all the kids in Seattle, did he just happen to be in the mall at the wrong time?

That seemed like an awfully big coincidence to her.

The SUV slowed and made a turn dragging Claire’s attention back to the present. The day had completely given way to night while she’d been distracted by her disturbing thoughts.

How could less than thirty hours have passed since all hell had broken loose?

For the first time since she had walked out of that school alive yesterday she considered that her sister would likely be aware of what had happened by this point. For nearly six years Claire had lived in Seattle without anyone from her hometown knowing where she’d moved to. Now the whole world knew.

She didn’t know how she felt about that. Somehow the anonymity had been reassuring. Here, with only herself to answer to in regards to the past, she’d felt able to move on without looking back.

For six years she had rarely thought of that night.

Now everyone from her past who watched the news knew that she was responsible for a second man’s death. Nothing like showing off how well you’ve done for yourself.

Krueger opened the door and waited for her to get out of the SUV.

Claire slid out of the seat. As her feet settled on the pavement, she took in the area. She didn’t recognize the neighborhood, but it was dark. Maybe she would notice something familiar in the daylight. The house was two-story colonial-style brick with nice big columns. Pretty swanky place.

A white picket fence, a little fancier than the one she had at home, wrapped around the yard. She couldn’t tell much about the landscaping. There were only about four other houses on the short cul-de-sac. The driver had parked the SUV in the colonial’s driveway.

As they approached the house the garage door hummed to life and began to rise. Once they were inside the garage, Talkington pressed a button and sent the garage door back into the closed position.

Krueger led the way through a door that opened into a large kitchen. Two more agents, both dressed in the official FBI uniform of navy or charcoal suits with coordinating ties, waited inside.

In the kitchen Krueger turned to Claire. “Agent Nance will see you to your room. You should take a break. We’ll talk later.”

“Thank you.”

Krueger touched her arm. When she’d met his gaze, he said, “Keep in mind that no one died today. That makes what happened a success rather than a failure.”

She nodded and he let her go. She understood that he wanted to make her feel better about the situation, but that was something she simply couldn’t do right now.

Nance led her down a long hall that ended in an entry foyer. From there she took the stairs to the second floor. When they had reached the second door on the right in the upstairs hall, Nance stopped.

“This will be your quarters until this is over.” She opened the door and went inside the room.

Claire followed. The room was nice. Smartly decorated in subtle shades of blue and gold.

“There’s an en suite bath.” Nance indicated one of the doors on her side of the room. The other was probably a closet. “The items you wanted from your home have already been unpacked for you.”

“Thank you, Agent Nance.”

Nance smiled—it was the first time Claire had seen any of the agents do that—and left the room.

Not that she didn’t believe what the agent had
told her, but Claire needed to see for herself. She went to the closet. Sure enough there were the clothes she’d asked for. In the bathroom all her toiletries were lined up on the counter. Back in the bedroom she checked a couple of dresser drawers and found her underwear and pajamas.

Along with her nightshirt and box of chocolates she found something she hadn’t expected. Her one and only family photo album. She kept photo albums at school of activities she and her students had done together, but, at home, she had just one. This one. She smoothed a hand over the aging cover. It was the one possession of sentimental value that she owned. Pictures of her and her family, of her parents years ago before they’d passed away and of her sister.

The album was her one connection to the past besides the diary. She couldn’t bear to lose it. She tucked it away in the drawer with her nightshirt. She couldn’t look at it now…too painful. Knowing it was there was enough.

For long minutes she stood in the middle of the room and tried to decide what to do next.

A shower? Or just crawl into the bed.

She had no appetite. Unbelievably.

Hey, if she survived this and lost weight, she could go on
Oprah
and announce a new kind of diet, the Run-from-the-Terrorist diet.

Ha-ha.

A knock on the door made her jump.

Claire pressed her hand to her chest and hauled in a calming breath. There was nothing even remotely funny about her situation. Then again, if she didn’t make jokes she might very well cry.

She didn’t want to cry.

She walked over to the door and opened it. No point asking who it would be, the person on the other side of the door would be Agent somebody.

Krueger.

She blinked. A little surprised to see him so quickly. He’d said they would talk later.

“Agent Holman has gone out for pizza. According to your file you like cheese pizza.”

Her file?

“This file contains information on what I like to eat?”

Amusement flashed in his eyes then morphed into an outright smile. “Vanilla-bean ice cream. Chocolate mousse. Cheese pizza. Burgers, well-done, mustard and pickles only.”

Her cheeks heated with mounting mortification. “Oh.”

“May I?” He gestured to the room.

She stepped back from the door. “Sure.”

When he stepped inside, the bedroom felt way smaller. He looked around. “Is this room to your liking?”

“It’s fine.”

Those intense green eyes settled on her. “You have everything you need?”

“Yes.”

“Excellent.”

Claire moistened her lips. Her mouth felt dry all of a sudden. “Were any of Nusair’s people spotted as we left the mall?”

Krueger pushed the lapels of his jacket aside and settled his hands at his waist. He’d loosened his tie again. He looked tired, but even tired he couldn’t be called anything but handsome. Funny that she would notice anything so insignificant as that right now. Maybe she just needed something else to occupy her mind. She’d read about cases where extreme stress brought on escapism fantasies. God knew, reality was getting more and more unbearable. But then, she’d been fixating on details about him since she’d first laid eyes on him.

“I’m afraid not. Nusair’s people are very good, Miss Grant, and, unfortunately, they have the element of surprise on their side. They act, leaving us with no choice but to react. Not the best scenario for us.”

She nodded. She could understand that.

“If you’re feeling up to it,” he went on, “I’d like to bring you up to speed on what we’re doing. So
you’ll be assured that we’re on top of the situation.”

The situation. The most-wanted terrorist in the world wanted her dead. She wasn’t sure much of anything he said would be reassuring, but she supposed that as long as she was alive there was always hope that tomorrow would be better.

“First, we’ve identified the hiding place the sniper used at the mall. That isn’t much but knowledge is power and we now know a little more about how Nusair is planning to carry out his vengeance.”