ten.” She wanted to kiss him again. Kiss him, and then pull him back to the bedroom, although, wait, that mirror on the ceiling was maybe not the best choice for anyone’s first time together. So, the sofa. Yeah, that would be better, except... “Let’s not die,” she said instead.
“That’s my current plan,” Thomas told her. “Survive this; live long, happy lives.”
Okay. More sentiment that made her want to kiss the crap out of him. Tasha made her mouth form words instead. “What else is on your pre-wait to-do list?”
He laughed a little as he made himself let go of her and even step back, as he gestured toward the lower kitchen cabinets. “I’ve got to dig a bit under the sink. See what’s in there.”
She nodded as she forced her attention back to the peanuts, opening another jar and dumping it into a baggie, wanting to check off this task and move closer to the post pre-wait-prep part of this, which she was hoping would be wait while the bad guys continuously fail to get through the hatch, giving them lots of time to wait, and wait again. “Build a bomb in the kitchen of your mom. What else?”
“Whoa,” he said, laughing. “Did you just...?”
“The cover story for that al Qaida magazine,” Tasha told him as he got to work pulling all of the various cleaning supplies—potential ingredients in a homemade explosive—out from beneath the kitchen sink. “Remember? That stupid rhyme was the headline.” It had been all over the news. “I was so freaked out—and you told me it was propaganda that was supposed to make Americans believe that Muslims as a group were ‘inspired’ by the attacks, when al Qaida was really just a tiny subset of haters, looking for frightened, angry boys to join their death cult. You talked me off the ledge a lot back then. Finding anything good? And by good I mean dangerous and prone to exploding when mixed with other chemicals?”
“Yeah, I think I can work with this,” he said.
“Don’t forget about the gallons of alcohol in the pantry.”
“Oh, I won’t,” Thomas told her. “But I’m looking for something that’ll have a noisier presence. More like a sound effect than a tool of flaming destruction.”
“You want it to go boom,” she interpreted.
“As loudly as possible,” he confirmed.
As Tasha opened another jar of peanuts, she tried to figure out how that made any sense. There was one entrance to the pod—and it was currently surrounded by the nasties who wanted them dead. As soon as Thomas opened the hatch, they’d be fired upon—unless they went out waving a white flag. And even with that obvious symbol of surrender, there was no guarantee they wouldn’t be instantly shot and killed.
Unless Thomas wasn’t intending to open the hatch.
“Do you want them to think something exploded down here?” she asked. “Except that’s not going to make them pack up and go home. I mean, I wouldn’t if I were a bloodthirsty asshole hunting down two innocent fellow human beings who never hurt anyone—except I kinda did shoot one of them, didn’t I? God, I hope he didn’t die. Still, they started this. And they did try to shoot me, too, so actually I’m not sure what I hope, so maybe I’m bloodthirsty now, too. And I’m sorry, I asked you a question and then gave a soliloquy.”
He laughed a little as he moved some of the cleaning supplies to the counter on the other side of the sink. “It’s a potential diversion. I’m really just reviewing our supplies and considering options. Lot of what we do depends on one of the next items on my pre-wait to-do list, as you called it.”
“Which is...?”
“Find this bomb shelter’s escape hatch.”
Rio took the time to shower.
The truck stop might not have looked like much on the outside, but the showers were sparkling clean. He stepped in immediately, already lathering up his hair.
After he’d found the iPhone-needle in the dumpster-haystack, he’d handed it to Dave to wipe down and unlock, see if the prince had left any secrets hidden inside. Not that they needed it. They all knew exactly where the royal pain in the ass was going—back to the now burned-out ski lodge, to search for his girlfriend, the admiral’s niece.
Natasha Francisco.
Rio had, along with Thomas and Mike, his besties from BUD/S training, watched Tasha grow from a tomboyish pre-teen—although Thomas had known her for far longer—into a strikingly beautiful young woman.