Nameless (25 page)
McBride’s inability to get the job done would prove Devoted Fan a fool and that the Bureau had been right to off-load him three years ago.
Sure, the big exposé that reporter had done revealed the war that had gone down between Quinn and McBride, but any agent worth his salt would know that didn’t prove a damned thing. McBride’s retrieval plan could very well have gone wrong just as Quinn’s route had. There was no way to ever be sure. Maybe the Bureau had been right … maybe he had been destined to crash and burn. And just maybe if he hadn’t been, Quinn wouldn’t have snatched control away at the last minute.
Any way you looked at it, McBride couldn’t say it wasn’t his fault. All the more reason he shouldn’t be here doing this. People were counting on him and he wasn’t sure he could live up to the expectations.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t shit he could do about it.
One last pull from the smoke and he pushed away from the car. He dropped the butt on the sidewalk, ground it out, but then picked up the snuffed-out remains and shoved them into his pocket. This was a church, after all.
Sacred ground. Where four little girls had died in a bombing because some asshole had thought he was better than them.
“ …
he must be humbled.
”
Confidence nudged at McBride. This had to be the place. Devoted Fan wanted this high profile. He wanted the world watching …
McBride rushed up the steps two at a time, reached the entrance just as Grace and Arnold followed Simmons inside.
The main sanctuary was filled with pews dressed in thick red cushions and that same brilliant red spilled across the floor in the form of carpet. A balcony circled the sanctuary, providing additional seating. Massive stained-glass windows, each telling a story, wrapped the room in biblical accountings.
The Reverend Simmons led the way through the sanctuary and to all rooms and halls on the upper floor. McBride’s gut twisted as each area revealed nothing.
“What about the basement level?” he asked, when it was obvious that the sanctuary level was clear.
“This way.” The reverend indicated the door to his right. “I was here until around seven last night,” he explained as he led the way down the winding staircase. “And we had service this morning.”
“To this day the church gets bomb threats,” Arnold said to McBride. “Condoleezza Rice was here a couple years ago and the Bureau responded to a threat after her visit.”
“Lord have mercy, Jesus.” Simmons gasped.
McBride moved down the last step to stand next to the reverend, whose horrified gaze had fixated on the abomination erected in the center of the large basement’s gathering place.
“Nobody move,” McBride warned.
He weaved between the tables and chairs until he stood before the rudimentary cross where Dr. Kurt Trenton had been lashed crucifixion style. Using extreme caution, McBride reached up, touched Trenton’s carotid artery. “He’s alive,” he called back to the others.
Alive and naked, save for the bomb on his chest. Trenton’s eyes were closed. Written in black marker across his forehead was one word:
GODLESS.
His arms and legs had been bound in place with silver duct tape. His mouth was taped shut the same as the other vics had been. At least Devoted Fan was sticking with his tools of choice. Except … for the bomb. That was definitely a little more high tech.
“Is that …” Arnold asked without coming any closer, “what I think it is?”
“Looks like.” McBride watched the digital timer count down from three hours forty-nine minutes then he considered the IED, improvised explosive device. The working parts were strung together against the doctor’s chest with no casing or enclosure of any sort. Just the guts. As if the doctor’s innards had been bared for the world to see. And they would be if this thing went off.
McBride turned to face the man of the cloth waiting with Grace and Arnold. “Reverend, I want you and Agent Arnold to go outside and start knocking on the doors of any houses or businesses close by where there might be people. Birmingham PD will assist when they arrive. If this thing goes off, I don’t want anybody in the possible blast radius.”
McBride’s throat tightened. He swallowed. Didn’t help. “Grace, go outside with the others. Call Worth and tell him to get me a bomb unit over here.
Now.
”
“I’ll make the call and then I’ll be back.”
He’d expected that. No way was he allowing her to play hero. “Arnold, if she tries to come back in here, restrain her.”
“Yes, sir.”
Returning his attention to Trenton, McBride felt the daggers flying at his back. This was no time to argue. Grace could thank him later.
If
he didn’t end up splattered all over the Magic City.
The digital clock was ticking right on down, but, barring any unexpected deviations from Devoted Fan’s usual MO, there was plenty of time for the bomb unit to get here and take care of this.
McBride studied the assembly. The timer and battery were connected to a detonator, which led to a block of what looked like C-4. Defusing this thing shouldn’t be a problem for a trained technician. He had defused one during his career but it had been a long-ass time and he had been in contact with an expert during the whole process. He hoped that wouldn’t be necessary this morning. He’d hate like hell to get this fancy doctor killed … or be responsible for the loss of this historic landmark.
Unless … maybe he could get it off the victim’s chest, lay it carefully on the floor, then get the victim out of here. That could work.
Careful not to touch anything, he leaned down and peered at the way the bomb was attached to Trenton’s chest since there was no tape or strapping visible.
Not seeing a thing, McBride tried to work his finger between the timer and Trenton’s chest, but his skin seemed attached to the device. Then McBride knew. Glue. Something powerful like … Super Glue. Maybe the same glue the unsub had used to trap Katherine Jones.
“Smart bastard,” McBride griped under his breath. Why couldn’t he have gotten a stupid unsub?
Trenton groaned. McBride straightened, reached up, and started to peel the tape from his mouth. Trenton’s eyes snapped open. He tried to scream, jerked and bucked in a futile attempt to break free.
“Don’t move, Dr. Trenton,” McBride urged, drawing his hands away from the man in hopes of calming him. “Don’t move!”
Trenton stilled but his eyes were huge with fear.
“My name is McBride and I’m with the FBI. Help is on the way. There’s—” The readout on the digital timer jerked his attention there.
59:38
What the hell? A minute ago it had displayed more than three hours forty minutes to go. Now there was less than sixty minutes? McBride’s tension shot to the next level.
Trenton started groaning and doing that wiggling-jerking motion again.
The timer went into fast-forward.
“Stop!” McBride glared at him. “Don’t move! There’s a goddamned bomb strapped to your chest. Every time you move the countdown speeds up.”
The man froze except for the sobs muffled behind the tape still partially covering his mouth.
The timer displayed three minutes eleven seconds and ticking down.
Shit!
Desperation cutting off his air supply, McBride dug out his cell phone and called Grace. “What’s the ETA on that bomb unit?” His heart thumped harder with each word.
Grace’s words echoed in his ear like a death call. The bomb unit was more than three minutes out.
McBride lowered the phone, let it fall to the floor.
They were fucked.
As if he had said the words out loud, Trenton’s sobs grew more frantic.
McBride met his gaze. The terror there twisted his gut.
This man, God complex or not, was going to die if McBride didn’t do something. Being in a church wasn’t going to make one damned bit of difference. They were on their own.
McBride wasn’t going to give up without trying. He considered the design of the bomb again. C-4 required a detonating charge. Any detonation required a power source. No power source, no detonation of the igniting charge. No igniting charge, no boom.
Simple. All he had to do was stop the process.
He wished for a cigarette and a drink, but he’d just have to wait until he was through here. A tremor jerked his hand as he reached out to the battery. Each piece of this thing was glued to Trenton’s chest, so there was no moving any one part. He had to defuse it by cutting the wires.
Too bad he didn’t have a knife.
1:46
And all this time he’d thought he was prepared carrying a condom around.
Okay, what were his options?
He could try pulling the wires loose.
The wire to the timer first or to the detonator first? The way they were twisted around who could tell what went where?
To hell with it.
He’d just do them all.
Red went first.
1:12
Sweat beaded on his forehead as the seconds kept ticking off.
1:08
…
0:59 …
Green wire next.
0:42
Black.
0:36
“Goddammit.”
Blue.
0:22
How many damned wires did it take?
White.
0:14
“Son of a bitch!”
Only one more.
0:09
Yellow.
0:04
What the fuck?
There were no more wires!
Trenton groaned and bucked.
McBride’s heart stopped stone-still.
0:00
5:18 A.M.
“What the hell is happening in there?” Vivian glared at Arnold. “I’m going in.”
“Bomb unit’s a minute out,” Arnold argued. “We’ll wait for them.”
Four Birmingham PD cruisers had arrived and blocked off Sixteenth as well as Sixth Avenue, keeping curiosity seekers out of the blast radius.
“Dammit, Arnold, he’s been down there over five minutes
alone.
I’m going in.”
Arnold, his frame a mile wide, stepped in her path. “No way, Grace. You heard what McBride said, we stay out here. You’re not going in.”
There was movement at the entrance of the church. Her breath stalled in the vicinity of her lungs. McBride rushed out with Trenton leaning heavily against him. The man’s naked body had been draped with some sort of dark cloth.
What the hell had happened? Had McBride defused the bomb?
Vivian ran for the steps.
The bomb unit roared to a stop on the street.
“Are you all right?” she demanded of McBride as she reached his position in front of the church. She did a quick visual sweep of Trenton, who looked like hell but was definitely still breathing.
“Didn’t hear a boom, did you?” McBride jerked his head toward Trenton. “I do owe the reverend a new pair of curtains.”
Fury descended on Vivian with biblical proportions. He had forced her to leave him in there alone with a damned bomb and a victim. And now he comes storming out talking about freaking drapes. “You are the absolute, biggest, goddamned—”
“Hold on, Grace,” McBride cut her off as he shifted Trenton’s weight. Then he inclined his head in her direction and said softly, “You’re practically in a church.”
Booted feet charged toward them. She snapped her mouth shut.
Trenton was alive.
McBride had done it again.
Vivian couldn’t decide if she wanted to hug him or kick his ass.
“Zoom in on her face,” Nadine Goodman ordered her cameraman.
Agent Vivian Grace, along with newly reinstated Special Agent Ryan McBride, stood aside as Dr. Kurt Trenton was hefted into a waiting ambulance. According to Nadine’s source from Birmingham PD, the victim had had a bomb attached to his chest and the word GODLESS written across his forehead.
Nadine knew Dr. Trenton. His reputation in the medical world was unparalleled. His wife served on a dozen charitable committees. He had two brilliant children at the prestigious Altamont School.
Special Agent-in-Charge Randall Worth’s unannounced press conference last evening hadn’t mentioned anything about an ongoing case, only that Ryan McBride had been reinstated and temporarily assigned to the Birmingham field office. Obviously whatever case McBride had been brought here to solve was ongoing.
There was something going on that no one was talking about. In her eight years as an investigative reporter, Nadine had never encountered a case with a tighter lid. No one knew anything. She had spoken to Katherine Jones upon her release from the hospital and gotten nothing. The Byrnes refused to answer any questions regarding their daughter’s abduction.
And now an elite surgeon is tossed into the mix?
Was the same perpetrator committing these abductions? All three had taken place at historic landmarks. Dozens of police officers were involved and yet no one knew a damned thing. If they did, Nadine would have gotten something from someone, and her sources were bone-dry.
She supposed it didn’t help that charges related to the break-in at McBride’s bungalo were pending.
She was very good at what she did. Some called her ruthless. She, on the other hand, called her methods survival of the fittest.
There were two consistent details in this puzzling investigation: Ryan McBride, whom she had already outted, and Agent Vivian Grace, a rookie and the newest agent at the Birmingham field office—besides McBride of course.
Why wasn’t Aldridge or one of the other more senior agents partnered with McBride?
Just another aspect of this strange investigation that made no sense.
“Let’s do the final segment with the departing ambulance in the background,” Nadine instructed her cameraman.
She would get this out of the way, then hang around the hospital to see if she could get an interview with someone … anyone. Afterward, she was going on another digging expedition.
Before this day ended, she would know all there was to know about Agent Vivian Grace.