Headed for Trouble - By Suzanne Brockmann Page 0,41

Jazz Jacquette were here. The XO of SEAL Team Sixteen wasn’t just a wizard when it came to blowing things up. He was also an expert in keeping bad things like this one from going boom.

“Which way is out?” Alyssa asked, still focused on the run-like-hell part of their plan. It had been a good idea—before complications such as broken legs and blasted-shut passageways had come into play.

Jules gave her the bad news point-blank, shining his flashlight onto the pile of rubble that had once been the way out of this shallow room just off the tunnel. “That way.”

“Plan B?” she asked.

“Grab some wires and pull?” he suggested.

She shifted herself closer, which had to have hurt her leg like hell. As Jules watched, she took note of the amount of explosives that the New Reich had left behind.

This was a tad surreal. Yes, there was a timer on the bomb, as Jules had expected. But he hadn’t considered the fact that if the NR was aiming to frame an Iranian group, to make it look as if said group adhered to fundamentalist crazy-ass thinking, then they would have to leave a “suicide bomber” behind.

A man that the NR leader addressed as Heinrich was that unlucky soul. One minute he’d been laughing and joking with the others as they’d set their bomb in place. The next, he’d been elbowed in the nose and kneed in the balls, and left retching and bleeding on the tunnel floor as his esteemed leader had placed a second, smaller bomb and run away. The det-cord on that piece of work had given the NR mere moments of lead time to run, but the amount of C4 had been far less. Still, the bomb had gone off with an earthshaking boom, caving in part of the tunnel, and effectively trapping them all here.

Not that the New Reich had known Jules and Alyssa were in here. No, their intention had been to trap old dead Heinrich. They’d probably already planted a Koran and a pledge to al-Qaeda in his apartment, for the authorities to find.

“Don’t pull that wire,” Alyssa warned Jules now. “Look—it’s booby trapped. If you pull it …”

“I won’t,” Jules said.

But shit. They had only three minutes and fifty-seven seconds.

“Okay,” he said, as the sound of machine-gun fire penetrated their enforced seclusion, as beside him, Alyssa tensed. “Here’s what we’re going to do …”

CHAPTER SEVEN

The firefight was over before it started.

The enemy, whoever they were with their fucking swastika tattoos, couldn’t shoot for shit. Three were dead, and one was on his stomach, hands on his head in surrender, shitting his pants and crying like a baby.

“Take him to the surface,” Sam ordered Dave, because he didn’t quite trust that crazy Jimmy Nash and his K-bar would get the son-of-a-bitch up there alive.

Besides, Jim was already shouting for his freckle-faced fiancée. Damn. That was a match Sam didn’t really understand. It was like Little Mary Sunshine hooking up with Count Dracula. “Tess!”

The sound of machine-gun fire echoed from a distant tunnel—Sam could only hope it was Jenkins and Decker taking out whoever was jamming their radio frequencies.

“Jim!” That was Tess, shouting back. “I’m all right!” Sam shouted now, too. So much for needing the radio … “Is Alyssa with you?”

“No!”

“Alyssa and Jules were going to try to defuse the bomb.” Jesus. Lindsey Jenkins—Mark’s wife—was suddenly right there, in front of him, concern in her brown eyes. She was scary good at that ninja shit. “The second bomb,” she clarified.

Oh, good. There were two bombs …?

“So they hid near where they planted the box. Down this way,” she told him, and he followed her farther into the tunnel, Nash on his heels. She glanced at them over her shoulder. “The second bomb’s significantly bigger. I saw it as the tangos were carrying it in. It has a five-minute timer.” She looked at her watch. “A minute thirty-two left, and counting. Alyssa and Jules are trapped in with it.”

Once again, Sam kicked it up into a full-speed run. It didn’t take long for them to reach the spot. A haze of dust was still in the air from the recent blast. Debris filled the passageway, keeping Alyssa and Jules from getting free, keeping Sam from his wife.

“Get back,” he ordered as he shone his flashlight on the walls and ceiling. Structurally, the tunnel still seemed sound. But if there was a second bomb, even bigger …

“Fifty-seven seconds,” Lindsey announced as no one obeyed Sam. They all got