Lost in Shadows (29 page)

The sound of the other men’s footsteps disappeared, as did the sight of the tankers and their cargo of death. Lucky’s entire being focused on The Preacher’s form looming over him, standing at the edge of the platform.

“Hold still, Agent Cavanaugh,” The Preacher crooned, his eyes locked onto Lucky’s. “Wouldn’t want me to accidentally blow up those tankers, now would you? Ever see anyone killed by chlorine gas? A frightening sight. The gas burns their skin, eats their eyes and mucus membranes, melts their lungs from the inside out.”

His hands moved as if they were scales, offering Lucky a choice, weighing lives in the balance. And Lucky saw his chance.

He pushed off with his legs and launched them both back. Over the edge.

The Preacher’s shot went wild into the air above them as they plummeted onto the tracks below. A sickening thud reverberated through Lucky’s body when they hit. The Preacher’s head slammed against the steel tracks. Both the stun gun and the forty-five went flying, skittering in the water around them. 

Lucky pulled his head back and smashed it into The Preacher’s face. His vision blurred with the force of the impact. The Preacher’s head bounced off the track, and he went limp.

They had landed on the tracks, in the middle of an ankle-high puddle. A weak groan emerged from The Preacher. Lucky head-butted him again, this time was rewarded with a crunch and stream of blood from The Preacher’s nose, then scrambled for a weapon.

He scuttled backward, searching the cold water. His fingers found the stun gun first. The Preacher began to stir, his hand reaching to grab Lucky’s ankle. Lucky kicked back, climbed to his feet and ran for dry land. 

He held his hands as far away from his wet body as possible as his numb fingers cranked the stun gun up to the maximum setting and turned it on. The Preacher pushed himself up onto all fours, shaking his head like a dazed prizefighter intent on finishing the round.

Lucky hurled the crackling stun gun into the puddle. 

Sparks flew. A piercing, inhuman scream escaped The Preacher’s lips as the puddle lit up like lightning. Lucky backed away, unable to see anything for a few precious moments. 

Then his vision cleared. The Preacher was bowed backward in an unnatural pose. Hungry blue sparks of electricity arced over his body. His body jerked, then collapsed into the water and was motionless. Steam began to rise from his clothes. His eyes were open, staring at Lucky, and had turned a milky white color.

The smell of burnt flesh brought Lucky to his senses.

He had to help Vinnie. Had to stop the bomb. 

Pain louder than the yowling of a banshee tore through his shoulder as he put his weight on his hands and maneuvered his legs past the handcuffs, bringing his hands around to the front. He climbed to his feet, his gaze darting from the tankers to the tunnel Vinnie had disappeared into.

How the hell was he going to disarm a bomb with only one good hand?

How the hell was he going to stop three armed men before they killed Vinnie?

He wavered, off balance. Footsteps rang out from the tunnel. He whirled. Vinnie stopped at the entrance, staring at him, her eyes widening as she spotted The Preacher’s body behind him.

Then she rushed into his arms and his world was back in balance again.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

She stepped back, took in his handcuffed hands, glanced at The Preacher’s corpse and blinked slowly. A deep breath tore through her. 

“Yeah.” Her hand gripped his good arm. “I’m fine.”

Lucky looked from the tankers to her. “You need to leave, now.” 

As usual, Vinnie had plans of her own. She didn’t waste time debating their lack of options, instead she jogged past The Preacher’s body toward the tankers. 

“Don’t think so,” she said. “You’ll need my help with your arm out of commission. There’s the bomb.” Vinnie knelt in the gravel alongside the tracks to point it out to Lucky.

Lucky craned his head into the darkness below the first tanker. “Son of a—” he gave a low whistle, then pulled out. “He’s added a default circuit. We’ll have to bypass that.”

Vinnie’s stomach tightened at Lucky’s look of dismay. This was bad, very bad. Maybe The Preacher had spoken the truth, maybe he was the only one who could disarm the bomb. Her fears were confirmed when Lucky turned to her, his eyes searching her face but never quite meeting hers.

“Don’t say it,” she told him. “We’re in this together.”

He planted a kiss on her forehead. Then he sighed. “All right, you and me, Smokey, just like from the beginning.”

Vinnie gave a small shake of her head. He could do this, she knew he could. He retrieved the Leatherman from his belt, fumbled it. Vinnie took it from his fingers and followed him under the railcar. 

Silly man, to think she’d leave him alone at a time like this. He cursed as he banged his shoulder, then rolled over onto his back. 

Vinnie sidled near, slid face up between his legs so that she could act as his hands. She gave him Rose’s small flashlight to hold. His belly muscles tensed beneath her, his breath fluttered her hair as he examined the bomb in detail and exhaled another curse. 

“Eleven minutes.” Vinnie’s voice came in a whisper as she watched the digital timer count down.

“Yeah, copy that.” The light bobbed back and forth as Lucky’s fingers traced the wires leading from the bomb. He muttered words that had no meaning to her, as if he were intoning some archaic incantation about resistance, amperage and circuits. 

“Okay.” His voice startled her as it echoed from the undercarriage of the tanker. “Go ahead and remove the face plate.”

Vinnie saw the four screws he pointed to and quickly unfolded the multi-tool. Her hand shook when she raised the screwdriver to the first screw. Lucky’s hand closed over hers, steadying it. 

“Easy now,” he breathed into her ear. “You’ll do fine.”

She hoped so. How could he be so calm at a time like this? His hands weren’t shaking at all, she could feel his pulse vibrate through her hand, it was slow and steady. Like this was an everyday occurrence.

She almost laughed. For Lucky it was. Bombs were his life, after all. Just as moving quietly through the woods, past wild animals was hers. How could they ever dream of a life together, coming from worlds so far apart?

The faceplate fell forward into his waiting hand. He let it drop, dangling by a few wires that connected the clock face to the innards of the bomb. Vinnie saw several bricks of what looked like modeling clay and a nest of wires. They were all the same color, black. In the movies they always cut the red wire. But these were all the same, like a jigsaw puzzle with no picture to follow.

She turned her head to look back at Lucky’s face and was surprised to see a wide grin cross his features. 

“I got good news and bad,” he said. He didn’t wait for her reply. “The good is he stole one of my designs. Bad news, I need more wire to bridge the connection to the default trigger before we defuse it. And we have to move in absolute synchrony, or it will blow.”

“Will stripping one of the extension cords do?” Vinnie asked.

“Might. Not perfect, but it’s all we have.”

That didn’t sound so encouraging. Vinnie had a better idea. She squirmed, unbuttoning her shirt pocket. She pulled out Lucky’s rabbit foot, dangled it above them. 

“How about this?” She began unweaving the lanyard of electrical wire.

Lucky’s whoop of delight rang through the small space. “Vinnie, you’re a genius.” 

As soon as Vinnie had a length long enough to suit his needs, Lucky snatched it from her fingers. He took the Leatherman from her, efficiently stripped both ends with one hand, the copper wire gleaming in the light of the headlamp. They moved several feet toward the second car, following a wire hidden behind the inch thick cable that connected the cars, to a second box, this one without a clock. 

Lucky stretched the wire out, checking its length. It reached around the box to the wires on either side. 

“Here’s where it gets tricky,” he continued. “I need you to shave away the coating on my left side, but without cutting the wires inside. Give me about a centimeter or so to work with.”

He demonstrated with his good hand, then handed his Leatherman back to Vinnie and directed her to a location on his bad side. She reached up to the now minuscule appearing wire. She was supposed to cut off the outer plastic, something maybe as thick as a few strands of hair, but without slicing too deep? What did he think she was, a brain surgeon?

“Like whittling tree bark,” he told her. “Peeling an apple. Just don’t yank too hard on that, now.”

Vinnie took a deep breath, steadied herself. She placed the knife against the wire at an angle, gently skimmed it across the wire. Nothing, not even a nick. 

“That’s right,” Lucky said, his voice soothing, calming her jangled nerves. “Nice and steady, one foot in front of the other. Try it again, just a little more pressure.”

Her fingers obeyed his commands, the thin ribbon of plastic peeling away, exposing the copper filaments below. Vinnie blew out the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.

“Nice work.” 

He smiled at her, then Vinnie realized the flaw in his plan. There was barely enough room for his handcuffed hands to bridge the space, but...

“How are you going to keep your left hand up there?” 

“You’re not the only one around here that’s pigheaded. Get back in position and find the wire that comes from the upper right hand corner of the timer and travels down to the small, copper plate behind the explosives. Tell me when you’ve got that one clear.”

Vinnie tried to ignore the flashlight shaking in her hand as she found the wire he wanted. At least she hoped it was the right one. She stole a look at the timer. Six minutes.

“All right now,” Lucky said and Vinnie could swear that he was enjoying this. “Get ready to cut that wire on three. Then hot foot it over here, cut my wire in the middle. Ready?”

Vinnie changed the blade on the Leatherman. She slid the wire between the jaws of the cutter. 

“Ready.” She turned to look at Lucky. The flashlight’s stark beam made him look pale as a ghost. He was straining to get his left hand into position. Pain crossed his face, but when his gaze met hers, the pain was replaced by a smile.

“Isn’t this more fun than that wretched bridge of yours?” he asked with a grin.

Vinnie laughed, immediately tried to stop her hand from shaking and returned her focus to the wire in front of her.

“Okay, now. One, two, three!”

CHAPTER 46

The pain in his shoulder didn’t bother Lucky anymore. Not as much as the way his entire arm shook, threatening to dislodge the bridging circuit he’d created. 

“Any time, Vinnie,” he called. Sweat was pooling down his back from the effort it took to hold his arm up. 

“I’m coming,” she called out. 

Thank God. Just a few seconds more. He could hold it that long. He had to.

A small hand crept from the darkness and reached up to snip the wire connected to the default detonator. 

“The other side as well,” he said through gritted teeth. 

Vinnie’s hand was sure as she stretched across him and cut the second wire. Then, without his having to tell her, she wrapped her fingers around the left-hand connection, securing it as his fingers fell away. 

Lucky blew out his breath. Damn, the woman had good timing—of course, that was what got them into all this, wasn’t it? If she hadn’t come along that mountain road when she had...

Vinnie squirmed over top of him in a way that made him appreciate the contours of her body once again. She tightened the connections on both sides, then looked up at him.

“So, we’re good to go, right?” 

Wistful thinking. Lucky smiled at her, wishing he had an eternity to fall into those gorgeous eyes of hers. It would be like swimming among the stars, warm, dark, effortless. 

“Sorry, all we’ve done is buy us some time.”

She frowned, opened her mouth to protest and Lucky knew she was expecting something like a Hollywood movie where the good guys always cut the red wire to save the world and the hero rode off into the sunset with the pretty girl.

“What do we need to do now?” she asked, her voice steady.

“Best of all worlds, we’d move these tankers far away from any people, but since we don’t have a locomotive engine handy, I’ll have to do the second best.”

“You mean we.” Her eyes narrowed.

Lucky shook his head. “Sorry, Smokey, this is strictly a one man job. The way The Preacher rigged this bomb, it’s not very stable. I’ve got to get it as far away from these tankers as soon as possible. Then the Metro guys can dispose of it.”

“If it’s so unstable, I should do it.”

He sighed. If only it was that easy. Stopping the timers and the fail-safe detonator had been child’s play compared with actually dismantling the bomb. 

Maybe he should just wait for the Metro guys. But a spark, a vibration in the wrong direction and they and half the city were toast.

Before he met Vinnie, the decision would have been easy. But now...