Chapter 28 #2
“I’m fine, considering. I need to talk to the fire chief about the Pagets, my neighbors…” Daisy’s voice broke, and he wrapped his arm around her and pulled her tight, only to be bitten, again.
“What the hell is in that rucksack?” He winced as he looked at the teeth marks in his arm.
“Renfield.” Daisy took off the pack, and he saw there were bloodstains on her clothes.
“The Pagets’ cat.” Her eyes were huge, face filthy, hair almost gray and stinking of smoke.
He didn’t think he’d ever seen anyone more beautiful.
“I won’t dare let him out until we’re somewhere he can’t escape, but the poor thing has to be terrified. ”
He stroked a hand down her arm. “We’ll get to a hotel shortly for a debrief. You can let him out there. He’s lucky to be alive.”
“Ron and Alma doted on him.” Tears brimmed in her eyes and one spilled over making a track in the dirt. “They never hurt anyone, Jordan. They were kind. That bastard slaughtered them without a care just to get to me.”
“To get to me.” He squeezed her elbows. “None of this is your fault.”
“It’s not yours either. Don’t you see that?”
Jordan shook his head. Maybe one day he’d be able to let go of the guilt, but he wasn’t there yet, not when Bocharov had so nearly taken Daisy, and Cisco, and had murdered two more innocents.
His throat hurt. He desperately craved water and guessed they would too. But he needed to check out the TacOps van first. And Daisy’s car. In case the danger wasn’t over.
“You stand over there,” he pointed to a house thirty feet away.
Daisy opened her mouth to argue.
He dragged his fingers through his hair in frustration. “Look, I can’t concentrate on finding explosives if I’m worried you’re in the blast zone.”
She closed her mouth and nodded. “I’m not going to argue. I was just going to say, be careful.” She lowered her voice. “And if you find Regan dead, don’t let Florence see.”
He nodded.
“Agent Cisco, watch Daisy,” he instructed firmly.
Daisy took the other woman’s arm and went to stand where he’d told her, which was a goddamned miracle. Alex was telling other people and first responders to clear space around the vehicles.
Jordan walked around the van and did a thorough visual inspection without touching anything. He wished he had Gold Team’s tools, but if Regan was inside, he might be hurt. If there was a bomb, it could go off on a timer. Who knew how much time they had left?
Sweat dripped down his back, drenching his shirt.
It had already been quite the twenty-four hours, from the best sex of his life to rescuing a woman he cared about so much he’d have willingly thrown himself into that fire to save her.
That wasn’t care.
That was love.
Whether he liked it or not, he loved the independent, scared-of-commitment hellcat who’d somehow stolen his heart.
Now wasn’t the time to be distracted from what he was supposed to be doing.
He couldn’t think about the fact that the chance of winning her over was next to zero.
He couldn’t think that after all these years of pushing people away, he’d fallen for someone just like him.
Isolated, focused on their career, unwilling to open up.
Though their reasons were different, the results were the same.
He didn’t miss the irony.
He had to focus. He had to focus and then track down and eliminate Bocharov once and for all. Putting him in a cage wouldn’t keep Daisy safe. Only Bocharov’s death would do that.
Then he could think about love and a new chapter of heartbreak if he couldn’t persuade her to take a chance on him.
He circled the van again, saw nothing suspicious. There was nothing obvious inside the front of the van. He crawled onto the ground, wet from water running off the hoses. He inched his way beneath the vehicle, working section by section, knowing the clock could be ticking.
He found the improvised explosive device attached to the fuel tank. Wiped the sweat from his eyes as Alex crouched down and peered at him.
“Got any wire cutters?”
Alex handed him a multitool with the cutter extended.
“You might want to move farther away.”
Alex shook his head. “I have faith.”
Fuck. Shit.
How many people had he gotten killed in the past? “Fool.”
“On the contrary, but don’t make me regret it.” The guy smiled.
Jordan nodded, wiped the sweat from his forehead again. He used his fingers to feel around the package and discover the simple mechanism connected to the cargo door.
You opened the door, the bomb went BOOM!
He closed his eyes and saw the device clearly in his mind, followed the circuit. Mapped out the whole system before isolating the wire he needed.
“Last chance,” he warned Alex as the sharp blades caressed the plastic covering on the wire.
“Do it.”
Jordan offered a silent prayer, and then cut the wire. When nothing happened, his heartbeat slowly returned to normal.
“Disarmed. Be careful in case they’ve boobytrapped inside.” It was unlikely, but Bocharov enjoyed inflicting maximum pain.
Alex nodded as Jordan wriggled out from under the van. They stood at the back, and Jordan carefully eased open the cargo door, scanning for wires. Seeing none, he opened it wide.
Jon Regan slumped against a monitor. Blood covered half his face and most of his shirt. It didn’t look as if he was breathing.
Grief hit Jordan unexpectedly hard.
Scanning the area for any tripwires and explosives, Jordan climbed into the back to feel for the man’s pulse, more as a formality than a necessity.
“Took you long enough.” Regan’s voice was a faint whisper from between cracked lips.
Shock and relief rushed him. “We’ve got you now, Regan. Any explosives I need to know about in the vehicle?”
“Don’t think so, but I was out for a while.”
Jordan quickly checked the area to make sure it was safe for others.
“Medic!” Jordan yelled.
EMTs pushed him aside as they quickly put a neck brace on Regan and carried him out. Cisco took her boss’s hand and hurried with him to the ambulance.
Jordan stood there in the cold morning air, looked up to see his colleagues from Gold Team pouring out of the black Suburbans, throwing him worried looks. His gaze went to Daisy as she stood staring at him with huge, traumatized eyes.
An EMT had put an oxygen mask on her, and her color looked a little better than before, but her eyes told the real story.
Cisco jogged back to him, fury twisting her features. “They’re taking him to VCU Medical Center. He said someone beat him with the butt of a gun.”
She jumped into the TacOps van and, ignoring Regan’s blood, pulled up some feeds on the monitors. She had blisters on her hands, but it didn’t slow down her typing. They watched what had happened to Regan replay on the screen.
He glanced at Daisy to make sure she was still close by.
His cell rang. Mac. “They arrested Amed Hussein in his home fifteen minutes ago. He got a phone call warning him to get out shortly before, but Blue Team were already on site. They scooped him up and are busy searching his apartment building now.”
“Regan’s alive but injured. Bocharov left a bomb under the TacOps van for when we tried to rescue him.”
“Sonofabitch. I want that entire street cleared. Every house searched from top to bottom. People don’t want to cooperate, use lidar radar and see if anyone’s inside. Get verification on all identities, just in case he stayed in the area to watch the show.”
“If he was still in the area, he’d have detonated the bomb when I was under the van.”
A sobering thought.
“Cover all the bases. I have a full-blown fucking diplomatic crisis on my hands with this Russian Ambassador fiasco, and Director Rhodes wants all of us fired.”
“You should probably check the news.”
“Why?”
“A little bird told me the Russians are going to be too busy covering their asses denying any involvement in the murder and attempted murder of American citizens on US soil to even attempt to leverage the raid how they’d originally planned.”
Jordan heard the sound of the TV being turned on in the background.
“When can you get back here?” asked Mac.
Jordan stared at Daisy as she laughed up at the medic. Despite all her armor plating, happy was her default. How would she ever be satisfied with a miserable loner like him?
“Jordan? You there?”
Jordan jolted back to the conversation. “Might be better if the task force joined me here. I need to check in with Daisy and figure out the next steps to ensure her safety. And I need to talk to Regan. Talk to the local police. We rescued our own, but two innocent civilians died here tonight.”
“I know it. And those Russian assholes are gonna have quite the conversation with State today by the looks of it. Relocating the task force to Richmond makes sense. I’ll begin the process to set up at the Richmond FO, but I’m gonna be stuck in DC tomorrow in meetings.”
“The joys of being the boss.”
“Tell me about it. Oh, and by the way, tell Alex thanks and good work.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I hope to hell the President expels the lot of them.
They knew exactly what they were doing last night.
They were a distraction while Bocharov was busy committing murder.
” The Russian’s favorite way of doing business.
“They knew his plans and were complicit.”
“We haven’t conclusively linked Konrad Bocharov to Amed Hussein yet.”
“What about the phone call that warned him he was blown?”
“Burner phone. We haven’t been able to trace it, nor find any digital correspondence.”
“Maybe they did it with letters the old-fashioned way.”
“Perhaps. Evidence techs are still going through his house, the university buildings where he worked, and the gym that he had access to.” Mac paused. “We have every law enforcement official from here to Alaska on the lookout for Bocharov. He won’t get away.”
As Jordan stared at the smoke still pouring from the ruined house, he knew it was too late. He already had.