Headed for Trouble - By Suzanne Brockmann Page 0,42
to work and helped him dig—Nash and Lindsey and Tess and Sophia and Jenk and Decker—heaving the bigger stones and chunks of brick out of his way, using their bare hands to scoop away any loose dirt.
As Lindsey kept her countdown going, Sam felt sick because he knew he wasn’t going to make it, he wasn’t going to break through in time …
“Ten seconds,” Lindsey said, and he just kept digging. “Six … Five …”
Nash and Decker each took one of his arms and hustled him back to a safe distance, with the others. No …
“Three,” Lindsey said. “Two …”
“Please God, let Lindsey be wrong,” Sophia breathed the words they all were thinking.
“One,” Lindsey said.
Silence. And more silence.
Sam kept his eyes shut, not daring to hope …
Boom.
The blast was far noisier than it felt. It didn’t shake the ground or even rain dust and dirt on their heads. Of course, they weren’t trapped in a small area with it. His wife and best friend could well have just been turned into grease smears on the tunnel floor.
“Help me,” Sam said, his voice rough, as he again started to dig.
No one said a word. They just silently got to work. Dave was back by then, too, and he joined in. Please God, please God, please God, please God …
“I think I’m through,” Jenkins said, and sure enough, there was a small hole.
“Alyssa!” Sam shouted through it. He could smell smoke and … see light? There was light on the other side, and it wasn’t fire from the blast.
“Sam!” That was Jules’s voice. “Are you all right?”
Was he all right? “Yeah, is Alyssa with you?” Sam reached his hand through the hole, which was crazy—he should have been using it to keep digging. But, God, he just wanted contact.
“She’s here,” Jules told him—words that made him sag with relief. “She’s hurt, but she’s gonna be all right …”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Thank God …”
Jules closed his eyes as he clasped Sam’s hand through the hole in the rubble. Thank God, indeed.
“How badly hurt?” Sam asked.
“Her leg’s broken,” Jules told him, “just above the ankle. I don’t want to move her. She’s back aways, along the far wall. It’s pretty smoky in here—we could both use some water …”
“Someone get me water,” Sam shouted from his side of the rubble.
“She’s very happy to hear your voice,” Jules told his friend. “We both are. Did you get ’em all? It was the New Reich, Starrett. There were at least ten of them—that we knew about. You need to be careful—they’re armed with—”
“We got ’em all,” Sam assured him. “How badly is Lys’s leg broken?”
“She’ll need a team of medics—a stretcher to get her out,” Jules told the former SEAL.
“I will not,” she shouted from across the dusty little room.
Sam laughed. “We’ll see about that.”
“I can hear you.”
“I love you,” Sam called to her. That shut her up.
“Any other casualties on our side?” Jules asked, bracing himself for bad news.
“Nothing serious,” Sam said the words both he and Alyssa were hoping to hear. “Jimmy Nash got what some folks might call cut, but what he calls a ding—a knife slice in the fleshy part of his arm. But everyone else is okay. Tess is going to bring Jim to the surface to meet the ambulances after we dig you out. Other than that … We’ve got guards posted, reinforcements and medics both on their way.”
“There’s a shitload of explosives in here,” Jules told him. “We couldn’t keep the bomb from going off, but we removed as much of the C4 from the timer as we could.” C4 was like putty—he and Alyssa had pretty much pulled the bomb apart, then put the part with the timer and the blasting caps as far away from them and the rest of the C4 as they possibly could. It had gone off with a percussive bang, but had done little damage.
“I’ve got some under my fingernails. I’m going to set off all kinds of alarms when I try to fly home.”
Sam laughed. “We’ll get you a special Navy SEAL manicure, but first let’s get you out of here,” he said. “Move back and just … sit tight.”
“Thanks, SpongeBob,” Jules told his friend.
“Thank you, for staying with Alyssa,” Sam said quietly.
“Like I’d leave her,” Jules scoffed.
“My point exactly,” Sam said. “You’re a good friend.”
And okay. Jules had to clear his throat repeatedly as he returned to Alyssa. And it wasn’t just from the dust and smoke that still hung in the air.