Scorched (38 page)

“Well . . .” Kelsey blew out a breath. “Probably so he could get away, right? Mark told us he’s not suicidal. Based on his profile, he wanted an exit strategy.”

“Yeah, but he didn’t need an hour,” Derek pointed out. “It only takes a minute to jump on a train, get the hell out of here.”

“Plus there was no boom,” Gage said. “No big moment. Nothing splashy. I don’t think this is it, Kelsey.”

A chill snaked down her spine. “You think there’s more?”

“Don’t you?”

She turned and looked at the subway map, as if that would provide answers. Both of them seemed fixated on it.

“What if . . .” Derek rubbed the back of his neck as he studied the map. “What if he wanted to maximize casualties by doing something more in that time window?”

“Okay.” Kelsey stared at the map. “Like planting another device?”

“Something different,” Gage said. “A real bomb this time. This guy’s a demo man. I can’t shake the feeling that he’s got more in him than this stealth attack.”

Kelsey stared at the map, thinking. An idea started to crystallize as she gazed at all the colored train routes. The lines covered Oakland, San Francisco. The routes converged into one big artery as they crossed the bay through the transit tube, which was deep underwater.

“What if he . . .” She trailed off as she looked at the map. Montgomery Street Station was at the valve where those lines entered downtown.

“What if he what?” Gage prompted.

“What if he used the timer so he could do something else before the spores released?” She looked at Gage. “Maybe something attention-getting that would force people into the subway. He’d maximize casualties
and
get his dramatic moment—kind of a two-for-one attack.”

“How do you force people into the subway?” Derek asked.

“Take away their cars?” Gage suggested.

“No,” Kelsey said. “Take away their bridge.”

•   •   •

Elizabeth had just fielded what had to be the fifth phone call from Gordon when she spotted Derek striding toward her.

“Where’s that bomb squad?” he asked her.

“On the mezzanine level, doing a final run-through. Why?”

“You have any pull with them?”

“I don’t have any pull with anyone,” she said. “What’s going on?”

“We’ve got an idea, and I think it’s worth checking into, but we need to go now.”

Elizabeth looked at him for a long moment. “I’m listening.”

He outlined the theory as she stood there silently, compiling a mental list of all the flaws in it.

“So, this is pure speculation,” she said when he finished.

He nodded.

“I can tell you right now, there’s no way the SAC—the
Senior Agent in Charge here—would send a team over there on some hunch. Do you have anything solid?”

His jaw tensed. “No.”

“Then I’ll talk to him, but I can’t guarantee he’ll even consider it.”

He muttered a curse and checked his watch. “At least try him, would you?” He moved to leave, and she caught his arm.

“Wait, where are you going?”

“To catch up with Gage and Kelsey. I’ve burned five minutes standing here talking to you.”

“You really believe in this?”

“You think I’d be wasting your time if I didn’t? I’m going to drive to the bridge, see if I spot anything suspicious.” He paused to look at her. “You want to come?”

She glanced around at the crowd of emergency responders. No one here even knew who she was. She wouldn’t be missed until it came time to fill out the gazillion forms that were going to result from the incident.

“Time’s ticking, Liz. Are you in or out?”

“I’m in.”

•   •   •

“You know, nothing looked amiss on the way over here,” Kelsey said as they approached the toll plaza to drive back over the Bay Bridge into downtown. “This really is a long shot.”

Gage didn’t say anything. He’d had that super-alert look on his face for the entire eastbound trip across the bay.

“The more I think about it, it’s simply not possible for him to blow up this bridge,” she said as traffic slowed to a crawl. “It’s built to withstand earthquakes. And wasn’t it reinforced after the last big one?”

“He doesn’t need to blow it up,” Gage said. “He just needs to create an incident. If he causes a traffic jam big enough to get news attention, commuters will opt for the subway.”

They edged closer to a toll booth, and Kelsey looked enviously at the lanes for people with fast passes. They didn’t have one, and even with eighteen toll booths their progress was slow.

Kelsey looked at Gage. “You sure you don’t want to bag this theory and head down the coast? If you speed, you might still be able to make it in time.”

Not really, but she wanted to throw it out there. She didn’t want to get blamed for making him late to report for duty, even though in her mind saving the lives of potentially thousands of people should get him off the hook.

Gage still didn’t say anything. He had that
look
again, the one he’d had earlier when he’d been kneeling beside the IED. Kelsey stifled a shudder. They’d come minutes away from disaster, and yet he’d been rock-steady. How he did it, she had no earthly idea.

She dug money from her purse as they neared the toll booth. Gage rolled down the window and they heard a faint chorus of horns up ahead. Kelsey glanced around. A tow truck sped through the fast lane, yellow strobes whirling.

“What’s going on?” Gage asked the attendant.

“I don’t know.” The woman glanced over her shoulder. “Maybe a stalled car? Something’s got traffic tied up on the bridge.”

Gage looked at Kelsey. “That’s him.”

•   •   •

Eastbound traffic was light, and Elizabeth and Derek made it across the bay without incident. As they looped around for the return trip west, Elizabeth’s phone rang.

Derek glanced at her as she took the call. Her eyes widened. “When?” she asked, and he got a very bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. “Okay, thanks.” She hung up and looked at him. “Marissa Ramli just walked into the FBI’s Chicago office. She says her brother plans to blow up this bridge today.”

CHAPTER 25

Gage trained his gaze on the swirling yellow lights as the tow truck pulled over. Traffic had ground almost to a halt, and he wanted to leapfrog all of it and see what was going on.

“Can you see the car?” Kelsey asked, craning her neck.

“No.” They were looking for Ramli’s white sedan, but he could be driving anything by now.

Kelsey rolled down her window and the sound of blaring horns filled the SUV. She shimmied out and sat on the windowsill to get a better view.

Her phone rang, and she slid back into her seat to answer it. She listened a moment and looked at Gage. “The FBI just got a bomb threat about this bridge.”

Gage cursed.

“From Marissa Ramli.” She stuck her head out the window again. “Gage, I see it!” she yelped. “It’s a yellow Mini!”

Gage spotted it about fifty yards ahead. Marissa Ramli’s Mini Cooper was perpendicular to the traffic flow, blocking two entire lanes.

Gage pulled over. “Stay here,” he ordered, yanking out his SIG. He slid out of the SUV, careful not to get smacked by an oncoming car, but the roadway was practically a parking lot. He ran for the Mini, darting his gaze around for any sign of Ramli. Sirens wailed behind him, drowning out the horns.

Gage reached the daisy-yellow car. No Ramli.

The tow truck driver—a 350-pound Giants fan, by the looks of his T-shirt—waddled toward the car. “Hey, where’d he go?” He spat tobacco juice on the asphalt and glanced out at the bay. “He a jumper?”

Gage ignored him as he peered in the window. His heart skipped a beat. The backseat was packed with explosives.

•   •   •

“I hear sirens,” Elizabeth said, glancing around.

“Other side of the toll plaza,” Derek said.

More sirens and she turned around. Another pair of police units bumped over the shoulder and bullied their way through the traffic to reach the fast-pass gates.

“Fucking A, there he is.”

Elizabeth whipped her head around. “Where?”

“Right there. Black hoodie. See him?”

Elizabeth spied the pedestrian cutting across a patch of grass between two roads.

Derek thrust the truck in park and shoved open the door.

“What are you doing?” she demanded.

“Taking him down. What are
you
doing?”

Elizabeth got out, too. She watched the figure moving diagonally away from them. What if it wasn’t him? How could they be sure?

“Adam!” she shouted.

A slight turn of the head. He broke into a run.

Elizabeth took off after him, whipping out her gun.

“FBI! Freeze!”

He kept going, but Derek was gaining on him as Elizabeth pulled up the rear. Horns blared from all directions, and she felt a revolting sense of déjà vu as they darted through the cars.

Ramli cut left into a grassy area between a road and a parking lot. Derek burst forward and tackled him to the ground.

•   •   •

“What is it?” The driver stepped closer. “He inside?”

“Stay back,” Gage said, looking for wires that might indicate a booby trap. He spotted them right away, connected to the seat. The bomb was rigged to blow if someone tried to dislodge it.

Gage rushed around to the other side and saw a timing device.
Shit.
This guy liked timers, obviously, and this one was set for six minutes.

Sirens grew closer, but even the police were stuck in the quagmire.

“Hey!”

Gage turned around as a pair of cops approached on foot. Luckily, they didn’t see the gun, and Gage quickly tucked it under his shirt.

Gage raised his empty hands in a
back away
gesture. “I’m with the bomb squad!” he yelled over the noise. “This vehicle is rigged with explosives.”

The cops exchanged looks. Was he a wacko or was he for real?

“Listen to your radio,” Gage said. “It’s all over the scanner.”

One of them spoke into the receiver clipped to his shoulder, listened to something, and then gave his partner a nod.

“We’ve got units on the way,” the man called.

“Listen up—you guys need to
clear this area
,” Gage ordered. “You understand me? This thing is on a timer.”

They looked dumbstruck.

“You have five minutes!”

They leaped into action, and Gage turned back to the car. The driver of Tommy’s Towing must have heard what he’d said because he was waddling back toward his rig at top speed.

“Can you defuse it?”

Gage glanced at Kelsey.
Shit,
why did she have to be here right now? He took her shoulders.

“Kelsey, listen to me. You need to leave.”

She nodded. “I leave when you leave.”

Fuck.

“So can you defuse it?” she repeated.

“Not in five and a half minutes.”

He glanced around, tuning out the traffic noise, the horns, every goddamn thing but the problem at hand.

And Kelsey. She was impossible to ignore.

“Can we evacuate and just let it blow?”

He shook his head. “This is a double-decker bridge.” Gage glanced toward the traffic jam, where the cops had already set up wooden barricades and were attempting to turn traffic around. “Even if they get the upper deck
cleared in time, there’s all that traffic under us.” He looked at the car. “I have to move it.”

As the words left his mouth, the tow truck grumbled to life. Gage sprinted over to it and pounded on the door.

“Hey!” he shouted through the open window. “We need this rig!”

Tommy shook his head. “Sorry, bud.”

Gage whipped out his SIG and pointed it at the man’s face. “I’m commandeering this vehicle. Now, you can leave, but it’s going to be on foot.”

The man stared at him. Anger flickered in his eyes. But something else was there, too. Guilt? Conscience?

“Now.”

The door squeaked open. “You take the wheel,” he said, lumbering down. “I’ll handle the winch.” He spat tobacco juice. “Sometimes she sticks.”

Gage jumped into the still-warm driver’s seat as Tommy jerked open the Mini’s passenger door and popped the car into neutral. Gage checked his watch. Four minutes. He glanced at Kelsey, who stood calmly beside the SUV, watching him with that crazy mix of fear and trust in her eyes. She wouldn’t leave, just like before, at the train station. She was terrified, but she wouldn’t get the hell away from him.

He put the truck in gear and lurched forward a few feet, then reversed and maneuvered in front of the Mini. This was a platform rig, and his plan was to back it up against the side of the bridge and slide the little yellow car into San Francisco Bay.

But he only had three and a half minutes. He glanced at the rearview mirror.

“Let her out!” the driver yelled.

Gage flipped the red switch. He heard a groan as the winch started to go out and the platform tilted down to touch street level. Gage jumped down and rushed back to help him secure the hook, but he seemed to have it under control, so Gage slid behind the wheel again and flipped the switch to reverse the process. The groan changed pitch. The line pulled taut. The car moved forward and Gage waited an eternity for the platform to level out. It was still moving when he threw the truck into reverse and backed right up to the wall of the bridge.