For an instant, Ken could only stare at the boy. Then his brain kicked into high gear, weighing, assessing. Jay could be wrong about what he’d heard. Or this could be a trick designed to disrupt the ceremony and make them look foolish.
Could be—but it wasn’t a risk he was prepared to take. He met the guard’s appalled gaze over Jay’s head.
“You heard him. Quietly—we don’t want to cause a panic. Start moving people out.”
“Right.” The man’s voice shook.
A vivid image flashed in Ken’s mind of people rushing against the doors, of innocent people hurt in the crush. “Clear the doorways as quickly and quietly as possible. The last thing we need is a panic, but the exits have to be cleared by the time we make an announcement.”
The guard gulped. Then he nodded and moved quickly to the entrance, speaking to people in a low voice as he went.
“Come with me.” Supporting Jay, he led him across the rotunda to Quinn.
“A bomb threat,” he said softly, cutting off Quinn’s startled exclamation at the sight of Jay’s bloody face. “Jay says someone paid Theo Crale to set a bomb to go off during the ceremony. I’ve already started the guard moving people out.”
“I’ll call the police.” Quinn’s jaw went rigid, but he gave no other sign of what he must feel. He pulled his cell phone from his pocket. “You get on the loudspeaker.” He nodded toward the reception desk.
“Right.” Adrenaline flooded through him, and he had to force himself not to rush. He led Jay the few steps to the desk and propped him against the counter. “Hang in there, buddy. We’ll get you some help soon.”
His heart thudded in his ears. This was too much like those moments when his jet had gone screaming toward the earth. He’d known what to do then. And no one else’s life had been at stake.
He scanned the array of connections behind the reception desk. It was just like scanning the control panel. Don’t rush. Steady. There—there was the line marked loudspeaker.
His brother Michael loomed up on the other side of the counter. “What’s going on? Can I help?”
Ken’s heart clenched at the sight of him. Mom, Mike—too many people he loved could be in danger.
“No. Just get Mom and Layla out of here. Fast.”
Without a word, Michael loped away. That must be a first, for Mike not to argue with his kid brother.
Ken snapped on the loudspeaker connection. By the time he’d lifted the receiver, he saw Mike ushering Mom and Layla toward the nearest exit.
He paused for a second, hand on the switch. Please, Lord. Give me the right words. I don’t want to cause a panic.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we have to ask you to leave the building.” His voice sounded smoother and calmer than he’d have believed possible. “The police are on their way to investigate a threat against the hospital. Please move in an orderly way to the nearest exit and continue away from the entrance.”
For a moment, no one moved. Then the crowd began to flow toward the door. Except for one person. Colleen Montgomery darted toward them.
He repeated the announcement, forcing his voice to remain calm. No one seemed to be panicking, thank the Lord. He glared at Colleen, gesturing her toward the door. She disregarded him, of course.
“Where did the threat come from?” Colleen yanked a small recorder from her pocket, switching it on. “Was it phoned in? How reliable is the source?”
“Out.” Quinn reached them in a few quick strides. He pointed, glaring at her. “Get out or I’ll have someone remove you.”
“You can’t make me leave.” She stood her ground. “Do you really want to waste time trying?”
She had a point. “Just stay out of the way.” Ken turned to Quinn as a thought struck him. “The upper floors. Is anyone there?”
Quinn’s face whitened. “Not supposed to be, but if so, they’ll have heard the announcement. They’ll start down. If they’re caught in the wrong place—”
Ken swung toward Jay. “Do you have any idea where the bomb is?”
Jay pressed his hand to his head. “I heard somebody say something about it bringing the whole building down. That’s all I know.”
“It’s hard to guess where they thought that would be.” Quinn shook his head, clearly as aware as Ken that a mistake could be fatal. “My guess would be they’d try for the center of the building.”
Ken nodded, flipping the speaker switch. Sometimes you just had to go with your gut reaction.
“If you are on the upper floors, please exit as quickly as possible by the east or west stairwell. Do not take the central staircase.” Please, Lord, let us be right. “I repeat, do not take the center staircase.”
He scanned the rotunda. Empty and silent. The guard waved to him from the doorway, indicating that it was all clear. He gestured for the man to go out. There was no point in keeping him here.
A siren wailed, somewhere in the distance. He glanced at his watch.
“We’ve still got a few minutes before the scheduled time, but there’s nothing else we can do here. We’d better—”
The world ripped apart, exploding into darkness and chaos.
Juli’s gaze jerked away from the computer screen as the office door flew open, hard enough to bounce against the wall. Angel snapped to her feet, letting out a warning bark.
Juli silenced her with a gesture, her eyes fixed on the security guard’s face. “What is it? What’s happened?”
The man sagged against the wall, panting. “It just came over the radio. There’s been an explosion. At the hospital site.”
It was all she could do to keep from crying out. “How bad?” She shoved her chair back.
“Bad.” His face was white. “Brought down a big part of the building, sounds like.”
Ken—
Her heart cried his name as her phone rang. She snatched the receiver, knowing what the call would be.
“I’ve just heard. Call the rest of the team. Angel and I are on the way.” She hung up, trying to force herself to think calmly. No time to go home for her equipment. She had to get there. “Come, Angel.”
The dog gave a short, eager bark, ears pricking alert. Angel knew what was happening. A search dog always seemed to know when it was the real thing.
She hurried to the door, grabbing the guard’s arm. “I’ve got to get down there. Give me your keys.”
Now was not the time to be stranded, waiting for a ride from Grandfather.
He nodded, tossing her a key ring. “It’s the green pickup next to the gate. Take care.”
Clutching the keys she bolted out the door, running across the gravel. Angel bounded by her side.
Ken. Lord, keep him safe. Be with those in danger at this moment. Help them.
She reached the pickup, Angel leaping into the passenger side as she held the door. She ran around, jumped in, jammed the key in the ignition.
Help us, Lord.
She pulled out of the lot, gravel spurting under the tires. Once on the main road she hit the gas, hearing the sirens wail ahead of her.
Let us be in time. Please let us be in time.
An EMT truck loomed ahead of her. She slipped behind the emergency vehicle, riding his tail, taking advantage of the siren that cleared the way in front of them.
Please. Please.
She couldn’t seem to form a more coherent prayer than that. Maybe she didn’t need to. God knew the desire of her heart as they roared through the city streets, her heart reaching ahead, moving faster than the truck could.
One last turn, the pickup seeming to shudder beneath her, and the hospital wing was finally in sight. Her breath caught.
Not the hospital wing as she’d last seen it. The side walls still jutted upward, red brick catching the afternoon sun. But the central section was a jumble of concrete slabs, girders, twisted metal and unidentifiable rubble.
Her heart wrenched painfully. She didn’t need anyone to draw a diagram for her. A bomb had gone off right in the center of the addition, probably just when people had gathered for the ribbon-cutting.
How many had been inside? She’d seen situations like this before, but this time, the victims might well be people she knew, people she cared about.
She screeched to a halt behind the EMT vehicle. A cop started toward her, glaring, and then seemed to recognize her as she and Angel jumped out. He waved them toward a cluster of police and fire vehicles.
“Command center’s over there.”
She ran toward the group, her gaze searching the crowd held back by police lines. Surely she’d spot Ken’s and Quinn’s tall figures if they were there. She didn’t. Her heart clenched painfully.
She reached the fire department liaison to the search-and-rescue team. Thank the Lord it was someone they’d worked with before, someone who knew what they could do. He swung toward her, face grim.
“How bad?” She forced the question through a painful throat.
“No confirmed fatalities yet. They had a warning—got most of the crowd out.”
One of her team members tossed her a pair of coveralls, and she began pulling them on automatically. Angel pressed against her, tense with excitement.
Ken—where was Ken? “Do we know how many are still in there?”
“Not sure. One of the security guards was the last man out before it blew. He says when he came out, Quinn Montgomery was still in the rotunda, along with Ken Vance and a couple other people. They’d been directing the evacuation.”
Of course they had. That’s exactly what they would have done, and so they’d been right in the middle of things when the blast went off. Ken—she couldn’t let herself think of him, of Quinn, of anything or anyone except the job at hand.
“Any evidence of life?” She forced the words to come out evenly as she clipped a radio to her belt.
He shook his head. “Nothing yet.” He patted Angel’s head. “We know what you can do. We’re counting on you.”
She was already orienting herself to the debris field. She had an advantage this time that she didn’t have ordinarily—she’d been in the building. If the guard was right, she knew where they’d be.
Still, it always paid to conduct the search by the book. Nobody wanted to make a stupid mistake out of rushing past usual procedures.
Blueprints spread on the hood of a car, she went over the search site with her team. Four pairs of handlers and dogs, counting her and Angel, and one pair was Lisa and Queenie, who’d never done a real search. Others were on their way, but time was precious. They couldn’t afford to wait.
The teams spread out, moving to their appointed zones. Lisa’s hand was clutched in Queenie’s fur, but she seemed steady enough. This wasn’t what she’d have chosen for their first experience, but everyone had to go in for the first time. Juli gave her a reassuring thumbs-up as she signaled the teams to go to their assigned zones.
She and Angel moved forward. Suddenly the terror that she’d been holding at bay broke loose, clawing at her with sharp nails. Angel whined, pressing against her, sensing the fear. Images spun through her mind, dark images of death, of loss, of failure—
No. She wouldn’t let this stop her. Ken was in there. He wasn’t dead. He couldn’t die without hearing that she loved him.
Please, Father. Please. If I never do another search, I have to do this one. Please.
She pressed her eyes closed for an instant, then opened them, steadied. She signaled for Angel to begin.
With that small movement, something powerful surged through her. The link with Angel pulsed to life, as if God’s hand was on them, guiding them.
Angel felt it, too. With a joyful bark she bounded forward.
Coughing, choking, Ken clawed his way to consciousness. His head was splitting, and his eyes—
Had he lost his sight entirely? He touched his face, his head, feeling rubble shift off his body as he moved.
With the movement came memory. The bomb. They’d assumed they had time to get out. They hadn’t.
“Quinn!” He forced the word out, choking on it. “You here, buddy?”
The only answer was a groan, somewhere nearby. A groan. That was good, wasn’t it? It meant someone was alive.
He tried to stand. His head collided with something and pain ricocheted through him. His stomach twisted. Okay. Stay on his knees. Think. He had to see. If he could see, he could help.
He fumbled in his pockets. Who else had been near him when the blast went off? Quinn. And Jay. His heart clenched. Jay was just a kid with his whole life in front of him. He’d risked that life trying to save others.
His fingers closed on his key ring with the dangling penlight Mom had put in his Christmas stocking. Silly, he’d thought then, to fill a stocking for a grown man. Now he thanked God for it.
He switched on the light. A small, feeble beam, but enough. Anything was better than being trapped in the dark. He shifted the light around, his breath catching.
It looked like the whole thing had come down around them, but the staircase, Quinn’s beautiful, strong central staircase had withstood the blast enough to create a small cavern, sheltering them.
A pile of rubble shifted. Quinn groped his way into the light. “What—what happened?” He clutched his chest.
“We didn’t get out before the blast.” Ken crawled toward him. “You okay?”
Quinn grimaced. “Feels like a couple broken ribs, maybe. Otherwise in one piece.” He moved, groaning slightly. “Who else?”
Ken swung the light around. “Jay.” He scrambled toward the boy, desperately shifting debris off him, feeling for a pulse. “He’s alive. Unconscious. I can’t tell how badly he’s hurt.”
“Someone over here.” Debris rustled. He heard Quinn’s moan. “It’s Colleen.”
Quinn’s cousin. Ken tried to keep his voice steady. “Is she breathing?”
Quinn bent over the motionless form. “Yes.” His voice caught on a sob. “Yes. But she needs help. They both do. We have to get them out of here.”
We have to get them out of here. The words rang in Ken’s head. They had to. He had to. Quinn was doubling up with pain every time he moved. It was up to him to do something.
Help me. Not for myself. For them. Help me find a way to save them.
His heart winced at the thought of all the prayers he’d expended raging at God for what had happened to him. Stupid. He’d been so stupid. As if that mattered now.
Forgive me, Father. I’ve been so selfish. Use me now. Use me to help them. Please, use me.
“Ken?” Quinn’s voice sounded weaker.
“Hold on.” He swung the light around, looking for something that would tell him which way to go.
There—that surely was one of the pillars that supported the rotunda. It still stood, choked with rubble. At its base, there seemed to be a narrow opening formed by a couple of large slabs of concrete.
No way of knowing whether it would lead anywhere or not, but at least it looked like a possible way out. He set the penlight on a concrete slab.
“Do what you can for Colleen and Jay. I’m going to see if I can find a way out of here.”
He crawled to the space, poking at the hole experimentally. Loose rubble shifted, but the concrete slabs seemed stable enough. He thought of Juli and Angel, searching the broken remains of buildings, pulling people to safety.
Are they looking for us now, Lord? Keep them safe, if they are.
The words Juli had said to him yesterday echoed in his mind again. “Hold on to what is good. Hold on to what you believe. Hold on to what you must do, even if it is a long way from here.”
His heart seemed to swell. He started to dig.