“Muriel?” Cassie whispered. “Is she okay?”
“She’s fine. They never hurt her—had some woman scream as if she was being tortured, but all they did was drive her around in circles.”
“You need to leave. Take the children with you,” Cassie begged. “Please, Drake. Think of your mother. And those kids need you. Start with the smallest, they’ll need treatment faster than the others.”
Footsteps sounded from the same direction Drake had come from. A woman carrying a toolbox and wheeling what looked like a tiny cement mixer joined them.
“I’m Mandy Devlin. I’ll be your friendly neighborhood bomb removal expert today. Now let’s see what we have here.” She put her hand on Drake’s shoulder. “You need to step back now, Drake.”
He nodded and moved reluctantly to one side, ending up at the body of one of the guards. He bent and retrieved his service weapon, holstering it, then stepped as close to Cassie as he could without getting in Mandy’s way. Too close. Cassie felt her strength ebb, knew she couldn’t hold out much longer.
“No,” Cassie said to both Mandy and Drake. “Get the children out first. He poisoned them, I don’t know with what, but they need to get to a hospital.”
“Sorry,” Mandy answered. “I can’t let anyone else in here until we defuse this. Can’t risk it.”
“Drake, you have to do it, then.”
Mandy concentrated on a dental mirror she used to examine every nook and cranny of the bomb vest. “She’s right. Go. Now. Just make sure you follow the same path out as you did coming in. We can’t completely clear the building of the other IEDs until I finish here.”
Drake crouched down, one palm on each side of Cassie’s face. “I’ll be back.”
He left Cassie and ran to grab the two smallest of the children, one slung over his shoulder, the other in his arms, and left. Mandy took his place in front of Cassie, her toolbox open beside her.
“How come you’re not wearing one of those bomb suits?” Cassie asked, not sure if that was a good thing or not.
“You ever try one of those on? They take forever to get into, weigh like ninety pounds, and smell like a football team’s unwashed jockstraps. Ugh. Trust me, something like this, we’re both better with me going hands-on—not like the suit would actually save me from this kind of blast.”
“Why didn’t it go off when you killed Kasanov?”
“We jammed the radio and cell transmissions. Thanks to Drake giving us a head’s up so we had time to get here and have our equipment ready to go. I don’t think your friend,” she jerked her chin at Kasanov, “was anticipating us getting here so fast.”
“No. He was expecting you to storm in—” Cassie remembered something Kasanov had said. “Did you deactivate the motion detectors? He said they’d trigger the bomb. He also said there were more.”
“That’s why I’m the only one here. But yes, we got the motion detectors. We’ll clear the rest of the building—” She was interrupted by Drake’s return. “Thought we got rid of you.”
“Told you, I’d be back. I’ll get the kids out—no need to risk anyone else. You just get her free of that goddamn bomb.” He grunted as he hoisted another kid, this one bigger, across his shoulder, and then squatted to lift a little girl into his arms.
Mandy withdrew a small aerosol canister along with some wire from her toolkit. “Here’s how this will work. First, I’ll set up a bypass circuit. Then I’ll freeze the mercury switch and cut it loose so you can move. Finally, I’ll disarm the secondary trigger and cut the vest off you. Easy-peasy, one-two-three.”
Cassie nodded. Her legs had gone numb beneath the weight of her body kneeling in the same position for so long and her arms were trembling from the pressure of holding her upright. “Just hurry.”
She couldn’t see what Mandy was doing, but the bomb technician hummed a merry tune—Drowning Pool’s, “Bodies,” the same song Cassie used to teach CPR to first responders—as she clipped and snipped wires near the mercury switch. Then she used the aerosol spray. Freezing cold droplets hit Cassie’s breastbone.
“Sorry about that,” Mandy murmured. She finished spraying and moved in with wire clippers. “Okay, that’s done, you can move a little.”
“I’m kinda stuck. Are you finished?”
“Hold on, just one more second.” She moved around to Cassie’s back and began to work there. Drake returned, smiled at Cassie, and gave her a thumb’s up as he gathered a teenaged girl into his arms.
“Hey, lover boy,” Mandy called to him. “Tell my guys they can come in and remove the other casualties—only them, you show them the route. Got it?”
“Got it.”
The sound of wires being cut came as Mandy’s hands moved over the blocks of explosives. “Most people don’t realize it, but trigger devices—in this case, blasting caps—can cause a heck of an explosion on their own. And we don’t want that, do we?”
“No, ma’am.” It was nice to be able to breathe and shift her weigh—although the movement released a barrage of stabbing pain up her legs.
Mandy kept working. Drake returned, accompanied by three more men—enough to remove the rest of the kids. He came and sat in front of Cassie, letting her lean her weight onto him, her arms over his shoulders, their foreheads bowed together. “You know, after this, my wedding surprise for you is going to seem really, really lame.”
She couldn’t stop the laughter that shook through her.
“Can we save the jokes for later?” Mandy asked. “Just a few more to go.”
Cassie and Drake sat obediently silent, simply staring into each other’s eyes. Somehow, with him there, Cassie wasn’t afraid of anything. Mandy deposited the blasting caps into the same special container she’d placed the mercury switch into then pulled a pair of trauma shears from her toolkit. “Ready to cut this sucker off? As a fashion accessory, it kinda clashes with your dress.”
Before Cassie could say anything, Mandy sliced the vest down the back. Drake stood and steadied Cassie’s arms as Mandy slid the vest, the chains, and padlock, now dangling useless, over her head.
And she was free.
Mandy carefully packed the vest into her bombproof container and rolled it out. “Follow me out,” she ordered. “Drake, you know the way. We still need to get the dog in and clear the building of any other IEDs.”
“We’ll be right behind you,” Drake said.
Cassie tried to move but her legs rebelled. “I can’t stand.” Her words came out as a stutter while chills shook her entire body. Drake took his windbreaker off and helped her into it.
“I’ve got you,” he said as he raised her in his arms, cradling her against his chest. She threw one arm around the back of his neck and hung on. “I seem to recall having to carry you like this when we met at our first crime scene.” He carefully followed Mandy’s route past the offices toward the side door. “Is it going to be a habit?”
“I vote for no,” she answered, too exhausted to come up with anything clever.
As he turned down the short corridor leading to the exit, she glimpsed movement from the corner of her eye. Natasha rushed forward, holding a dagger, eyes wide with fury.
“Drake,” Cassie called out a warning.
He spun around. But of course he couldn’t reach his gun—he had his hands full with Cassie. She stretched her hand down to where his gun was holstered over his kidney and slid it free. Natasha screamed incoherently as she lunged toward them.
Cassie brought the gun up over Drake’s shoulder and fired it just as he’d taught her, aiming for the center mass and not stopping until the threat was taken care of.
The booming sounds of the shots fired in the cramped space were deafening. Natasha staggered forward despite the first shots hitting her chest, then finally fell to the ground. Cassie realized she wasn’t the only one shooting; Mandy was taking aim from beyond them in the doorway.
Drake rushed Cassie outside as Mandy and her teammates moved in to check on Natasha. Jimmy met them at a junked-up Impala that was missing its doors but still had its rear seat. He helped Drake lower Cassie onto the seat.
“You two okay?” he asked as he pried Drake’s gun from Cassie’s hand.
His words reverberated through Cassie’s brain, mixing with the pound of the gunshots. She frowned at Drake. “You didn’t drop me to go for your gun.”
He grinned down at her. “Of course not. There was no time. I knew you could handle it.”
“Have to say,” Jimmy said, “that was some pretty good teamwork in there.”
Cassie glanced at the gun in his hand. They wouldn’t know until the autopsy if she’d killed Natasha or if Mandy did. She wasn’t sure if it mattered. “How are the kids?”
Jimmy answered. “Paramedics said it looks like some kind of sedative. They’re using a reversal agent. Said they should be okay. We got to them just in time.”
As if hearing that relieved him of the burden of remaining professional, Drake sank down to crouch in front of her, tears in his eyes. If she had the strength left, she’d be crying as well. She took his hands in both of hers; they were trembling. The aftermath of adrenaline… and more.
She tried to lighten the mood. “See what happens when you insist on a wedding? Your mom is going to kill me when she sees this dress.”