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"As you wish. One unlocked door coming up," Tyler said before folding himself into a cross-legged position on the floor, so he squatted eye level with the doorknob. He pulled a little zippered pouch from his bag of tricks and tried using the silver tools from within to pick the lock, but the door didn't budge. "I think someone broke the knob from the other side. Something is blocking me from opening the door," he said, looking up at Nash for what to do next.
Something about the whole situation seemed off. Nash suffered, as an uneasy tingle built in the pit of his stomach. "Let's have a look inside. Pop it off."
Tyler turned back around, this time coming up with a hammer and a chisel-like piece from his bag. He whaled on it, the pointy end and the force popped the gold metal away from the dark wood that held the mechanism. A few more blows and the whole knob would pop off.
"Wait." Nash touched the tech's shoulder, having him pause. Standing there, though, he couldn't hear anything. Certainly not the faint buzz and crackle he thought he had just barely made out over the pounding. "Never mind, I thought I heard something."
Tyler went back to forcing the lock off until it dropped to the floor, busted and twisted. He put a hand on the door, prepared to put his eye to the opening to see if he could look inside.
There the sound was again.
"Wait! Run!" Nash caught the faintest ticking noise. It seemed as if everything stood still. The soft sound, a dreadful countdown of mini beeps could only mean one thing. Even the rolling and uncomfortable niggling suspicion at the back of his mind. The foreboding sense that he hadn't been able to place before.
Nash yanked Tyler away from the door, while screaming at them—at everyone to head for safety. He realized they would not be able to run fast enough to be clear of the blast. It felt like they were all running in quicksand or in slow motion, away from the bomb secured to the other side of the door.
The four men tripped over each other—in their attempt to all enter the small hallway. Bodies bumped and collided before they fell into a heap, with Nash on top. They lay with bated breath, mere seconds passing with the understanding of what Nash warned rippling through their minds—what the rush was before the explosion blasted the door to smithereens.
A line of flame shot over their heads, roaring down the hall, chasing behind them. The heat so intense, Nash groaned as it melted through the cheap nylon of his FBI windbreaker. He hoped the material would adhere to his Kevlar vest. That it would be a deterrent, offering protection from the burns the skin along his back would endure otherwise. He tried to duck his head far enough under the collar and into a space by the floor. Composed of flame, his whole body had that singed feeling, even his hair.
But he didn't relent—using his body as a human shield, covering his team as the beast raged above. Fire alarms screeched, and pieces of debris pelted them as it rained down. "Shit! Shit!" Nash listened to Cam cursing above him, struggling to help them sit up, to get to them.
Someone, or maybe still Cam, was pushing violently at the jagged pieces of wood, trying to remove the still flaming and smoldering door. More hands were trying to strip shirts and jackets with bare hands, while other people shouted, "They're on fire here!" and called for medics and fire extinguishers.
Foam spewed out from one of the found fire extinguishers as Burgess sprayed them, stepping over to make sure she had a good reach. "Are you hurt?" concern etched in both her face and voice.
Nash lost sight of her though, as Cam pushed his own face alarmingly close to his own, asking his own rapid-fire questions. Nash sat for a second, leaning against the overly warm wall. "No. I don't know. I don't think I'm badly injured." Nash shook his head to clear out the static, the buzzing. He tried to shove hair and foam out of his face, attempting to assess the damage. "Ears are ringing. A little charred around the edges. Anyone else burnt?"
He helped the others to their feet, Nash taking hold of one arm while Cam got the other so that they could bring each man to a standing position. Then Nash ran his eyes over them to check for injuries himself. "No," they all said, each equally subdued and frazzled as he was. Turning, they looked at the charred and smoldering hole. The door had disappeared.
"He's not getting his deposit back," Cam joked weakly, giving his best shot at breaking the tension. A little laughter after a near-death experience got everyone back into the saddle and moving again. Especially coupled with the anger that was going to burst through the pain, the need to find who had tried to kill them.
"I assume he lost the deposit with the dead body." Nash spoke dryly, picking his way through the mess. He noticed that the noise and the flames were more for show than anything else. The blast was smaller than he expected, only blackening whatever had been in the room and just outside the door. "They set the explosion to take out whoever was trying to get in and whatever was inside."
A desk stood on two legs, the contents—whatever had survived—dumped unceremoniously onto the floor. It had turned into ash, smeared across the floor, from what Nash assumed used to be paper. Everything was a dead loss except for a safe sitting, somewhat undamaged.
Ignoring the influx of more shouts and voices approaching, Nash and Cam moved toward it. The safe was on the floor, no longer shiny chrome, but a weird marbled or patinated black and multicolored swirl. Nash bent down, spun the tumbler to see if it would open. "We need the contents of this safe."