The Heart Heist (37 page)

"Of course you don't," Rogers returned. "That's why I'm going to do it for you." Frowning, he reached toward one of many switches. "This one?"

Miserable, Victor shook his head. "No, you have to signal the remote. It can only detonate from the remote's position. There, with that." He pointed toward a square box with an LCD dial.

"Fine." Rogers pressed a button and the LCD display immediately lit up. All four pairs of eyes locked onto it.

5:00 it read. Then, 4:59.

"Okay, son, it's time for us to leave." Rogers took the gun out of Victor's hands.

4:58 4:57

Victor couldn't take his eyes off Gary. "What about Kerrin?"

Rogers vouchsafed her a brief, dismissive glance. "She's free to leave."

4:56 4:55

"I think we ought to take the front door," Rogers told his son. He took his arm and turned him down the aisle. "And let's make it snappy."

Gary looked after the departing duo with unspeakable hatred. Then he turned sharply toward Kerrin, who hadn't moved an inch to follow them. Red flames danced in his eyes.

"You! Get going! Get the hell out of here!" If a voice could have cut through steel, Gary's would have.

4:40 4:39

But Kerrin was made of something tougher than steel. "I'm not going anywhere without you."

4:38 4:37

"Shit!" Gary's eyes moved upward, following the line of the thick metal pipe to which he was attached. It went straight into the solid concrete ceiling. Then he lowered his gaze, meeting her eyes with almost unbearable appeal. "Please, Kerrin, I'm begging you. Don't put your life on my score card. I've got enough black marks against me."

4:36 4:35

"I think it's special agent Rogers who gets the high score for black marks." Kerrin walked around the bomb and up to Gary. Her eyes lowered to the heavy-looking metal cuffs around his wrists. "Come on, hotshot, don't you know how to get out of these?"

4:34 4:33

Gary's expression turned incredulous. "In four and a half minutes? These babies were built to hold on to mothers like me."

4:32 4:31

"Well, buster, you'd better get started." Kerrin glanced at the timer display.

"Shit," Gary repeated, near tears. His gaze went to her hairline. "Give me one of those bobby pins, then, and your nice tiny hands. I'm gonna give you a crash course on picking locks."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Matt sat brooding in the dark, his father's rifle cradled in his arms. He didn't know why he bothered holding the gun. All the excitement was going on down below at the DWP plant. If he thought about it for two seconds, Matt had to agree with Gary's reasoning. Tracking down a mad bomber was hardly the place for a guy who couldn't walk. A familiar helplessness washed over him, followed by a good dose of terrified guilt. The guilt was new, having started up after his discussion with Dr. Flanigan.

He could walk again, maybe. He didn't have to sit helpless in this chair.

Oh, but didn't he?

He was still alive. He didn't deserve even that.

An unusual noise startled Matt out of his grim reverie. It was a sound he'd never heard before, an excited, electronic chirping. It echoed all the way through the house, pouring out of the speakers his parents had set up in every room.

Holy fucking cow
! It was the alarm for the array. The sound pouring through the house with such triumphant joy was the signal his Dad had set up to indicate they were receiving a transmission.

In the middle of everything else, the Hortons were getting a message from outer space!

Matt raced through the house, his wheels barely skimming the floor. Skidding to a stop in the dining room, he stared through the wide window up toward the array, as if he were going to see a flying saucer setting down even then among the copper leaves.

It was just a radio signal, Matt sternly reminded himself. Nothing more than that. Then his brows shot up his forehead. His heart gave a big kick against the wall of his chest.

A radio signal!

Every bomb Mr. Holiday had ever set off had been detonated from a remote location -- using a
radio signal
.

"Oh, Jesus Christ," Matt moaned. It wasn't Columbus Day yet. This wasn't supposed to be happening. Not yet.

But it was happening. Right up there in the array.

Matt gave a shove to his wheels and landed at the back door. "Oh, fucking
hell
!" The detonator was up there in the array and he, Matt, was the only one who had any chance of getting to it. Five minutes was all he had. Five minutes was all Mr. Holiday ever gave of warning.

Five lousy minutes. In five minutes he was going to have to get up there, find the damn thing, and then figure out how to shut it off.

Matt began pushing himself with all his might up the hill. His lungs burned with the effort of his exertion, his heart punched at him like a sparring partner. It didn't matter, he only pushed harder.

Five minutes to save the whole frigging town and God knew, Matt had a lousy record when it came to rescues.

~~~

2:00 1:59

Gary was swearing at Kerrin in one soft, steady stream. Interspersed with a variety of choice and unusual cuss words were a series of pleas, threats, and orders, all to the effect that she should give up and leave him to his fate.

Her patience wearing thin as she fiddled with the bobby pin, Kerrin commenced swearing back at him. She wasn't nearly as creative about it, simply repeating the same tried and true phrases over and over. Perspiration dripped off her forehead and she had to keep blinking it out of her eyes as she struggled with the lock.

"Forget it, sweetheart, you did your best. You might just have time to make it out of here."

Kerrin spared a precious millisecond to glance at the clock.

1:30 1:29

"I don't think so. This bomb looks too powerful to get far enough away in ninety seconds."

Gary groaned and laid his forehead against the metal pipe. "I never wanted to hurt you."

"I know that." Kerrin felt a subtle shift inside the metal lock. A spurt of hope rose inside her. "Oh, Gary, I think I got one of those thingy-ma-jiggers."

"Tumblers?" Gary asked. "Oh, good. You only have ten more to go."

"You're such a pessimist," Kerrin complained. "Oh God, there's another one," she exclaimed, as the second tumbler went.

Gary looked at her. "Has it occurred to you that even if you get these off of me we'll never make it out of here?"

1:10 1:09

Another tumbler went. "There's the tunnel," Kerrin reminded him. "We'll have a chance in there." Yet another tumbler went. "Oh Gary, I'm halfway there. We're going to make it."

His eyes met hers. In them she didn't see a drop of hope. Instead they were brimming with a completely different emotion.

"Have I ever told you, Kerrin sweetheart, that I love you?"

:60 :59

"No, you haven't, and a fine time you pick for it, Mr. Sullivan."

:58 :57

"You let me know," Gary requested, "when's a better moment."

~~~

Matt came to a gasping halt at the outer edge of the array. Above him, perched on a rocky outcropping some ten feet in height, stood a tripod holding a neat, spare, single-reflex camera. It was, Matt was sure, the source of the radio signal. The camera was set up to explode the bomb while simultaneously taking a picture of its destructive power.

Ingenious.

And also unreachable. Those ten feet might as well have been ten stories. A person needed legs to climb up the steep path that led to the camera. Matt felt as helpless as he had on that afternoon on top of Mr. Miller's barn.

Andy Miller, his best friend, had sat at the far side of the high ridge of the roof, his fingers clenching the wood shingles. He'd only gone up there because he'd seen Matt do it the day before. But Andy wasn't quite so reckless as Matt, and he'd panicked, frozen, unable to move back over the ridge to the loft door. Matt had gone up to get him.

Now Matt blinked at the spider-like silhouette of the camera and tripod against the stars. He reached out and tore two copper leaves from their moorings. They were flimsy when flat, but by rolling them into cylinders he could have a decent pair of crutches.

Crutches, however, weren't going to do him a damn bit of good getting up that hill. With a squint and a deft movement of his arm, Matt shot first one and then the other of his copper leaves up toward the tripod. Both landed gently on the flat space behind the metal legs.

So far so good. Now for the hard part.

Rocking his chair, Matt tipped it over so that he fell into the dirt.

Like a sack of potatoes.

It seemed to take forever to drag his half-useless body up the nearly vertical path. Tears of frustration blinded his eyes as his hands grasped boulders, shrubs, whatever they could find to pull himself along.

He'd come close that day on Andy Miller's barn. He'd almost been close enough to touch him. If only Andy could have waited one more cotton-picking second.

Matt winced as he tried to use the weak muscles in his thighs. If those legs weren't going to help him, the least they could do was get the hell out of the way.

He could still remember how Andy had reached up with both arms, reaching for him. Precipitously, before he was in range. And then, off-balance, Andy'd started to tumble. Matt had grabbed for him, missed, and dived, far enough to lose his own balance.

"Ohmigod." Heaving, Matt pulled himself over the top of the outcropping. Quickly fashioning his copper leaves into two stout sticks he managed to approach a wobbly standing position.

The camera and attached electronic equipment were a lot more complicated than they had looked from down below. Matt frowned at the apparatus with renewed despair. There was a counter on the back of the camera.

"Oh, Christ," Matt groaned. The counter read:

:10 :09

~~~

:10 :09

"Go!" Gary hissed. "Into the tunnel. You're right, you have a chance there."

:08 :07

"I'm on the last one!" Kerrin shouted back. "Leave me alone."

:06 :05

"Kerrin, I'm gonna kill you. I swear I'm gonna kill you." Gary sounded perfectly sincere, although neither one of them commented on the absurdity of his threat.

:04 :03

"There!" Kerrin pronounced, triumphant. The lock sprang loose.

Gary lost no time in slipping his hands out of the contraption.

:02

With one powerful movement, he caught Kerrin and got her flat on the floor.

At the same time he threw himself on top of her, shielding her with his body.

:01

~~~

:07 :06

Beneath the counter on the back of the camera was an orange-colored button. Matt could just make out the tiny letters written on it.

:05 :04

It said: RESET.

No. It couldn't be that simple.

:03 :02

But Matt didn't have a choice. Balancing precariously on one crutch, he hit the reset button and shut his eyes tight, prepared for a blast.

:01

~~~

:01

"Gary?"

"Yes, sweetheart?" His weight pressed her down against the hard concrete floor.

"My ears are ringing."

Gary ran a hand over her hair. "Must be because of the hit you took when I knocked you to the ground. Sorry about that, honey."

"Oh." Kerrin struggled to make sense of this. "I thought it was because of the bomb."

The muscles in his torso shook. He was laughing! "A lot of excitement over nothing. That bomb turned out to be a dud."

"You're kidding!" As he relieved her of his weight, she turned onto her back to look up at him.

His smile was broad. "Test it out. We're still here, aren't we?"

"So we are."

He was propped on one elbow, one leg still thrown over hers.

Kerrin thought the man had never looked more dear to her. "Oh, Gary."

He seemed to know exactly what she meant for he took her into his arms and kissed her, soundly, completely, and for good. At the end of the kiss, Kerrin was astounded to discover that she was actually aroused, that at a time like this she physically wanted him.

The same idea must have occurred to Gary. There was an expression of mild astonishment on his face. "Do you know, I think I could make love to you right here and now?"

Somebody gave a delicate cough.

Gary instantly released Kerrin and they both sat up, startled. Down the aisle and sitting in the entrance to the tunnel was Tom Horton. His smile was vaguely embarrassed.

"Ahem. I'd take it as a great personal favor, Gary, if you'd, er, postpone that sentiment." He turned to look back over his shoulder. "You see, we've got company."

Tom hopped out of the tunnel entrance and a line of men in blue jumpsuits poured out of it after him. On the backs of their shirts were white-emblazoned letters spelling out FBI. Victor, his hands cuffed behind his back, was helped out at the end of the line.

"Come on, time for you to put this baby to rest," one of the blue-clad FBI men told Victor, leading him over to the bomb.

Victor, slanting a brief glance toward Gary and Kerrin, gave an indifferent shrug.

"FBI?" Gary queried, clutching Kerrin about the waist. He turned to Tom, who'd come over to stand beside them. "What's going on?"

"Not to worry," Tom assured him. "Friends of mine. I did make a few of those, during my years working on the H-bomb. Mike Rogers," he continued dryly, "wasn't one of them."

Gary almost smiled. "Then who was it who told you the DWP was planning to use me for security work?"

"That was Victor." Tom inclined his head toward the man. "He'd apparently been sneaking information all along about how his father was trying to catch the Holiday Bomber. A convenient way to avoid getting caught. Rogers, meanwhile, was playing a tightrope game between both sides. Tonight it finally caught up with him."

Kerrin turned to regard Victor. Hard to know what created a man like that. At the same time, she couldn't forget how he hadn't wanted to end up hurting anybody. Now he was frowning at his bomb.