Headed for Trouble - By Suzanne Brockmann Page 0,40

they would be—that would ruin Sam’s chances to infiltrate farther into the tunnels, see how many additional men with big weapons might be down there—maybe already having taken certain American hostages.…

“Sir.” Mark Jenkins had news for him. “We’ve located the origination point of the frequency jamming. It’s down a parallel tunnel. Dave’s pulled up a schematic—shortest route is past the three-man ambush.”

“Let me see,” Sam said.

Dave turned his computer to give him a better look at a screen that was a confusing jumble of lines and blotches.

“Point to it,” Sam ordered, and Dave complied, which really didn’t help him that much.

“Is it inside the confines of the base?” Sam asked.

Dave was a smart guy, a graduate of some fancy Ivy League school. He knew exactly why Sam was asking that, and, as he met Sam’s gaze, it was clear that he knew if any bad shit happened in the next few moments, he’d be blamed for providing faulty information. Still he didn’t hesitate. “Yes, sir, it certainly looks to be.”

“Thank you,” Sam said. Finally. Something they could work with. He took Decker’s phone from him, handing him his own cell. “Get me Tom Paoletti,” he ordered Deck, even as he put the former chief’s phone to his ear.

“They may not even have real bullets,” Captain O’Reilly was saying, of the three men in the tunnel. “If you can prove that they do—”

Yeah, by having them unload a full banana clip in their direction? Thanks a bunch, Captain Kangaroo. Maybe you should actually spend some time in Iraq, grow a little battlefield perspective.

“—perhaps then we can consider additional measures,” O’Reilly continued.

“There are at least three fully armed unknowns in that tunnel,” Sam reiterated. “They’re screwing with our radio signal, and we’ve located the source of that jamming—it’s inside the gates of the base. I’m calling this what it is, Captain—a terrorist attack on a U.S. military installation. We’re going in. With force.”

“Mr. Starrett,” O’Reilly responded, heavy on that mister. “I don’t have the authority to allow you to do that.”

Sam was ready to tell O’Reilly to blow him when Jimmy Nash reappeared. Sam hadn’t noticed when the Troubleshooters operative had disappeared, but Nash certainly registered on his attention-meter now, considering that the crazy son-of-a-bitch’s clothing had been sprayed with what looked like blood. He was cleaning off a K-bar knife and the look in his eyes was one Sam had seen a time or two in his own bathroom mirror.

“The tunnel’s clear,” he reported as he put a handful of extremely non-rubber bullets onto the table in front of him.

Jesus Christ. Three against one, yet Nash had done the job silently, without getting so much as winded. Except, wait, he was a little winded, and some of the blood on his shirt was his own.

“Your arm’s bleeding,” Deck told Nash.

He barely glanced at it. “Just a ding.”

O’Reilly was still sputtering on his end of the phone, so Sam just spoke over him. “The bullets are real, the tunnel’s been cleared. We’re going in—”

It was then, before Sam could end the conversation with a cheery “fuck you,” that a bomb went off, shaking the very foundation of the warehouse he was standing in.

O’Reilly even felt it on his end. “What the hell was that?”

Sam didn’t answer. He’d already hung up and was down in the tunnel, shouting orders. “Jenkins and Decker—find the radio jammer and make it stop. Dave and Nash—” Crazy and Crazier “—you’re with me!”

CHAPTER SIX

Alyssa was hurt. Badly.

As the dust settled around them, Jules had been able to tell with only a glance that her lower leg was broken.

She was tough, though, focusing on him, urgency in her voice. “Jules. Are you all right?”

“Yeah.” He was. It seemed impossible, so he checked himself again. He’d hit his head and his ears were ringing from the roar of the explosion, but he was, miraculously, all in one piece—no unwanted piercings of metal or chunks of stone protruding from him.

The man that the Neo-Nazis had left for dead was, indeed, dead on the floor, his head at an unnatural angle, his hair singed, his face burned from the blast.

Alyssa pulled herself into a sitting position. “The bomb?”

And that would be a second bomb to which she was referring.

“They set a timer for five minutes,” Jules reported as he ran his flashlight over it. “Four minutes and twenty-two seconds now.” Dang, but there was a lot of C4 attached to those blasting caps. He looked at the jerry-rigged thing more closely, wishing