people who worked under his umbrella, and yet he knew as much about Sam as I learned the other day.
“Mr. Sparrow,” Marsha said, turning the camera around on her. “I can get under there and see what’s happening. As a bonus, I’m well versed in explosives.”
“First, can you see in the windows?” I asked.
With the camera in hand, Marsha lifted it higher to the windows in the back of the ambulance.
“Hold right there,” I said, catching a flash of something within. “Sam, you’re taller. Do not touch the ambulance. Tell us what you see.”
Marsha stood back and videoed as Sam approached the back doors. The large blue ambulance decal partially hindered the view. His head shook. “Boss and Mr. Murray, there’s a body bag in there. It looks like there’s someone in it. Either that or it’s blankets all bunched up to look like a body. Whatever it is, it’s not moving.”
“Ruby?” Laurel asked.
“Can you see a face?” Sparrow asked.
“No, boss. The body bag is zipped up tight and strapped to the stretcher.”
My eyes shut and images of Ruby floated behind my closed lids. I looked again at the trackers. They hadn’t moved from where they were ten minutes ago. “It’s not her,” I proclaimed. “Her trackers—”
“They fucking knew to take Araneae’s and Lorna’s shoes.” Sparrow said, interrupting me. He turned and spoke toward the phone. “Marsha, there’s not much of a clearance to get under the ambulance.”
“I can do it, sir.”
“She’s petite,” I whispered. “About Lorna’s size.”
“Be careful,” Sparrow said. “You’re also important to the Sparrows. I sure as fuck don’t want to lose you either.”
“Not my plan, Mr. Sparrow.” Marsha handed Sam the phone as she stripped off her outer jacket and reached for the Velcro on her Kevlar vest.
“No,” Sparrow said. “Don’t take that off.”
“It adds bulk. Without it I’ll lose at least two inches.”
“It fucking saved my life,” I volunteered. “Be careful.”
We all waited as Marsha knelt down and turned onto her back. With snake-like movements, she crawled where the height was a little greater, beneath the back bumper. Seconds became minutes as time ticked extremely slowly, and silently, we watched the scene unfold.
Finally, Marsha backed out from under the back of the vehicle. Stepping away, she brushed the gravel and dirt from her vest and slacks. “Mr. Sparrow, Mr. Pierce was right to be concerned. The ambulance is rigged. The configuration of the explosives isn’t overly sophisticated. It’s attached with a magnet. There’s only one setup and it looks like a standard VBID with a tilt fuse set to activate when any of the back doors are opened or it’s jostled. If someone drove off the road and hit this vehicle, they’d both go up in flames.”
“What about the front doors?” I asked.
“They’re not triggered, sir, but that tilt fuse could easily ignite with movement from within. Getting a body out of there could cause the vehicle to move and we’d have the same result.”
I looked again at the screen showing the trackers. There were none. “What the fuck?”
Sparrow’s dark stare came my way in an unspoken question.
“The trackers disappeared.” As I spoke, they reappeared, on the move again away from the ambulance. “Fuck, they’re back.” I ran my hands over my eyes, making sure I wasn’t hallucinating. “The interruption could have been a disruption in the satellite signal.” Sometimes signals become momentarily blocked by other satellites or even debris floating around in space.
“Do you think that could be Ruby in that ambulance?” Sparrow asked me.
“I wish I could answer that with some sort of certainty. If we could reach Mason...” I took a deep breath. “Without visual, Ruby could be either place or neither.”
“Marsha,” Sparrow said louder to the phone, “will the explosive device detonate if we wait?”
“Not unless the tilt fuse is activated. Like I said, boss, if a car hit the vehicle or even if what we see in that body bag is a person and that person wakes and freaks out...” She sighed. “Miss Kelly isn’t a big person, but if it is her, she could rightfully panic and there would be movement. Sir, I can’t be certain.”
Sparrow’s frustration at the lack of definite answers showed in the strain of his jaw and the way the muscles strained on the sides of his face. He took another breath. “Marsha, I’ve heard some stories about you. Are they true?” Sparrow asked.
“That depends on what you’ve heard.”
“You said it’s a standard improvised explosive device.” She’d used the acronym, but that was what she