Chapter 8 Carolina #2
The mercury switch is housed in a small glass vial, and I need to stabilize it before I can disconnect it.
I use a small amount of thermoplastic putty, warming it in my hands until it's pliable, then carefully wrap it around the vial to hold it in place.
Every movement is glacially slow, my hands as steady as I can make them despite the adrenaline singing through my veins.
Flint's breathing behind me is slow and controlled, a rhythm I can match to keep my own breathing calm. His presence is a constant reminder that I'm not alone, that someone is here witnessing this, that my life has value beyond just being the person who fixes my own mistakes.
The thermoplastic sets after two minutes, which feels like two hours.
I test the vial’s stability gently, feeling for any movement.
It's solid, held in place well enough that I can work with it.
I trace the wires from the trembler to the primary circuit, identifying the connection point, and prepare to cut.
"This is the tricky part," I murmur. "The trembler is wired in series with the primary trigger. If I cut it wrong, if there's a voltage spike or a moment of disconnection, the primary might interpret it as a trigger signal."
"Can you prevent that?"
"I'm going to use a shunt to maintain voltage while I cut, then remove the shunt after the trembler is disconnected." I'm talking myself through it as much as explaining to him. "It should work. It worked in training simulations."
"But Greer knows your training simulations."
"Yes." That's the fear that's been gnawing at me since I saw this device.
Greer knows how I teach, knows the protocols I drill into my students, knows the exact approaches I'd use to disarm this. Has he built in a counter for this, too?
Is there a trap I'm not seeing?
But I don't have a choice. The clock is ticking, and people are counting on me to get this right.
I position the voltage shunt, double-check the connections, and cut the wire to the trembler. The device remains stable, no sudden changes. I remove the shunt carefully, and the trembler is isolated, disconnected, and no longer a threat.
"Two down," I say, and my voice shakes slightly. "One to go."
The primary trigger is my design, and I know it intimately—which should be an advantage but might be a curse if Greer anticipated my approach. I study the circuitry, looking for the modifications he's made, the ways he's adapted my elegant training system into something lethal.
There. I see it.
He's added a fail-safe that wasn't in my original design—a backup timer that activates if someone tries to disable the primary trigger using my standard teaching method.
If I cut the wires in the order I taught him, in the sequence that every EOD student learns from me, the backup timer will drop to zero immediately.
He's betting I'll follow my own protocols. Betting I can't overcome my training even knowing it's compromised. It's psychological warfare wrapped in electronics, and I feel a flash of pure rage at his arrogance.
"I need to go off-script," I say to Flint. "He's modified this to counter my standard approach. I need to think like him instead of like me."
"Can you do that?"
I close my eyes briefly, forcing myself to breathe past the rush of panic. I have to let go of Caro Sutton—the teacher, the careful planner, the woman who worships procedure.
None of that will save us now.
Think like Marcus Greer. Reckless. Brilliant. The man who never met a boundary he didn’t want to cross.
What would he do?
My first instinct is the same as always: check the obvious sequence, the clean linear logic. I start tracing it in my head, fingers twitching in rhythm with the pattern I drilled into my students. It should make sense—but it doesn’t. The numbers won’t align, the timing feels wrong.
“Come on, Greer,” I mutter under my breath, frustration tightening my chest. “What did you hide?”
I retrace again, slower this time. Stop. Start over.
My gaze skims the components, lingering on those that fit too perfectly. He wouldn’t leave the fail-safe there. He’d bury it under arrogance, in plain sight, but wearing a smirk.
The realization hits in a rush that feels almost physical. Not the obvious path. Not the logical progression. He’d tuck it somewhere no one disciplined would ever look—inside the piece that looks decorative, redundant, a flourish meant to distract.
“There,” I whisper, pulse spiking. “I see you.”
I hold my hand out, palm up. “Wire cutters.”
Flint hands them to me, and I position them on the wire that shouldn't matter —the one most EOD techs would leave for last. I squeeze the handles slowly, feeling the resistance of the wire, and cut.
The timer display flickers. My heart stops.
Then it stabilizes, and I see the backup circuit go dark on my scanner. The fail-safe is disabled.
"The bastard," I whisper, almost admiring despite myself. "He hid it in plain sight, betting I'd overthink it."
Now just the primary trigger remains, and this one I know cold.
It's my design, unchanged by Greer's modifications except for being wired to a larger charge. I work through the disarmament sequence I developed over years of testing and refinement, each cut precise, each connection verified before moving to the next.
Time seems to slow and stretch, the world narrowing to just my hands and the device and the steady breathing of the man behind me.
Final wire. Final cut.
The timer goes dark.
The device lies silent—dead, harmless.
For a moment, I can’t move. Then the tremor starts in my hands, adrenaline bleeding out of my system until all that’s left is the hollow thud of my pulse.
Flint’s hands find my shoulders, firm and steady, the heat of them cutting through the cold shock settling in my skin. The contact shouldn’t matter as much as it does, but the moment he touches me, everything inside me shifts. Relief, exhaustion, something fiercer—all tangled together.
He’s too close, his breath warm against my temple, the roughness of his palms a counterpoint to the careful strength in his grip. It feels intimate, too intimate for two people who’ve known each other less than a day. But I can’t bring myself to pull away.
For once, I don’t want distance. I want to turn into him, to let the solidity of his body erase the tremor in mine, to be held instead of holding everything together alone.
It shouldn’t matter, but it does. God, it does.
“You did it,” he says, voice roughened by more than exhaustion. “Carolina, you did it.”
The sound of my name in his mouth slides through me like a caress, low and unguarded—each syllable spoken as if he’s tasting it, claiming it. It wraps around me, grounding and electric all at once, and before I can stop myself, I’m leaning into his touch, chasing the warmth in his voice.
"There's still Device Four." But the words come out weak, exhausted. I disarmed Greer's death trap. I beat him. I didn't fail this time.
The FBI pours into the building, bomb techs moving to secure the device, Parker checking on us with sharp, concerned eyes. Someone wraps a blanket around my shoulders even though I'm not cold, and someone else is trying to get me to drink water.
But all I can focus on is Flint—his hands still anchored on my shoulders, his eyes fierce with pride and something deeper that steals the air from my lungs.
Without thinking, I lay my hand over his, the rough heat of his skin meeting my trembling fingers. The contact sends a pulse through me—warm, grounding, unbearably human.
For a heartbeat, neither of us moves. The world narrows to that single point of touch, the thud of my pulse against his palm, the shared breath hanging between us.
Then he moves—swift, sure—spinning me toward him.
I go willingly.
His arms come around me, strong enough to hold the shaking out of me. The impact is soft but all-consuming, the scent of dust and sweat and gunpowder still clinging to him.
I press my forehead against his chest, feeling the steady drum of his heart—strong, certain, alive. For the first time in longer than I can remember, I stop pretending I don’t need anyone. I let the weight of his arms around me carry what I can’t.
I let myself be held.
He doesn’t speak, doesn’t move to pull away. He just stands there, solid and unyielding, the kind of strength that asks for nothing and offers everything.
His hand comes up slowly, resting between my shoulder blades—not guiding, not restraining, just there. Steady. Present.
For once, I yield, letting someone else be the strong one while I breathe, shaking, against him.
“We need to find Device Four,” I murmur against the fabric of his vest, my voice muffled, uneven.
“We will.” His tone is quiet, sure, threaded with something gentler than command. “But first, you breathe.” His palm presses slightly closer, an anchor more than an order. “You let yourself feel this. You won.”
The words aren’t about victory; they’re about survival. And the way he says them—the warmth in his voice, the deliberate calm—feels like an offering. A promise that, for this heartbeat, I don’t have to hold myself up alone.
I won.
The words feel foreign, unfamiliar. I'm not used to winning, not used to having the story end with everyone alive. But here we are—me, Flint, all the FBI and Guardian HRS personnel outside. No casualties. No failure.
Parker appears beside us, tablet in hand. "Ms. Sutton, I need you to look at something."
I pull back from Flint reluctantly and take the tablet. It shows photos of the disarmed device, close-ups of specific components. One of them makes my breath catch—a small note card, tucked under the primary housing where I would only find it after disarming the device.
I recognize Greer's handwriting immediately. The message is short, meant only for me:
"Congratulations, Girl Scout. You passed the first test. Device Four is where all journeys end and begin. Where the water meets the world. You have until sunrise to find it. Don't be late—you know I hate poor time management. -MG"
“Son of a bitch,” I breathe. “This was all a test. A way to prove I’m good enough for whatever he’s really planning.”
“What does he mean about where journeys end and begin?” Parker asks.
I’m already turning the phrase over in my mind, hunting for the reference only I would recognize. Where water meets the world. Journeys ending and beginning.
The others might think of geography—any coastline, any harbor—but for Greer and me, it was always about systems, thresholds, transitions. The fragile seams where movement becomes exchange.
And then it clicks, sharp and immediate.
“The Port of Los Angeles,” I say.
Parker frowns. “Out of every port on the coast, why that one?”
“Because it’s where we started—and where we ended.”
Images crash through memory: the heat-haze shimmer of container yards, the metallic smell of salt and diesel, the night Greer and I stood overlooking the cranes during training, arguing about control theory and chaos management.
He called it the heart of the machine, where the world’s pulse could be stopped with a single disruption.
“It’s the only port he ever cared about,” I continue, voice steadier now.
“His first field exercise was staged there. His final simulation—the one that got him pulled from the program—was supposed to mimic a cyber-physical strike at the Los Angeles terminal complex. He told me once that if he ever wanted to prove the system’s fragility, he’d start there. ”
Parker exhales, understanding dawning.
“He’s not talking about just any port,” I finish quietly. “He’s talking about our port. The one we built models around, the one we argued over for months. For Marcus Greer, the Port of Los Angeles isn’t a target—it’s the thesis. The beginning and the end of everything he’s trying to prove.”
Parker is already on her radio, coordinating with FBI offices in Los Angeles, requesting satellite imagery and port security footage. But I'm looking at the timer display in the photo, doing the math in my head.
If Device Four is as sophisticated as Device Three, maybe more so, I'm going to need most of that time just to find it in the sprawling chaos of one of the world's busiest ports.
"We need to move now," I say, standing despite the exhaustion pulling at me. "The port is massive. If we don't narrow down the location before we get there, we'll never find it in time."
Flint is already moving, checking weapons, keying his radio to alert Guardian HRS. "Transport time to Los Angeles?"
"Ninety minutes by helicopter," Parker says, already walking toward the exit. "We'll coordinate with LAPD and Port Authority en route. Ms. Sutton, you're with me. Morrison, Guardian HRS can follow in separate—"
"Same vehicle," Flint and I say simultaneously, and there's no room for argument in either of our voices.
Parker doesn't bother fighting it this time.
We move as a unit toward the waiting helicopter, the evening air cool on my face, stars beginning to emerge overhead.
Somewhere to the south, Device Four is counting down toward detonation, and Greer is waiting to see if I'm smart enough, fast enough, brave enough to stop it.
I climb into the helicopter with Flint right behind me, his hand finding mine as soon as we're seated, and I hold on tight. We're not done yet. The real test is still waiting.
But I'm not alone anymore.