Chapter 36
What the fuck happened?
Noelle had been watching the FBI camera feeds in the sheriff’s mobile command center, listening to the disappointment about finding empty bunkers.
Then a bomb had gone off. Monitors flashed and they lost most of the feeds.
A fire raged on the views that remained, unintelligible shouting from the site filling the RV.
“Holy fuck,” whispered the county SWAT team leader, frozen as he stared at the monitors. Abruptly jumping into action, he’d yelled for the green team to get in the BearCat and dashed out of the RV. Noelle followed, running for her SUV.
It was a trap.
Where is Max?
She didn’t have a headset or earpiece to listen with, and her arms shook as she drove behind the BearCat.
She didn’t know what was going on. After the longest silent minutes of her life, the armored transport stopped, and the sheriff’s SWAT team swarmed out, racing toward the dying glow of the bunkers.
Where is he?
She parked and ran after them. Most of the flames were gone, but her lungs burned as she got closer. Heavy, acrid smoke hung in the air, snowflakes floating through it.
Or is that ash?
The area lit up as two portable lights switched on, dragged through the snow from the FBI’s mobile command unit.
Several SWAT agents maintained a perimeter.
Three groups of agents huddled around people down in the snow.
Orders were yelled. Agents tore back and forth.
Two fire extinguishers were cast aside near the smoking bunker.
It was chaos.
Where is Max?
Noelle darted to the closest group working on an injured agent spread out in the snow.
It took Noelle a few seconds to realize it was Agent Keyes, her face and scalp severely burned, her hair mostly gone.
Agents bustled around her, desperate to help.
She was wrapped in several emergency blankets.
One agent pumped her chest while another hovered at her mouth.
An agent lifted away part of a blanket to start an IV, and Noelle saw Keyes’s clothes were burned away, her skin black and bloody.
She can’t survive that.
The faces of the men doing CPR were grim.
Noelle stumbled away, her stomach threatening to empty itself into the snow. Snow battered her face, and she rubbed the icy cold into her cheeks, seeking its distraction. A similar group worked on another person nearby.
I can’t see that again.
What if it’s Max?
She swallowed the bile that crept up her throat and cautiously approached the other group.
Another severely burned victim. Again covered in the silver blankets.
But there was no energy around this group, and she watched someone pull the blanket over the victim’s black and bloody head.
She touched an agent’s arm, startling him. “Who is that?”
“Reed. From the ATF.”
Her heart cracked in pain as relief simultaneously poured through her that it wasn’t Max.
“Do you know where Agent Rhodes is?” she asked.
The man looked over at the third group bustling around a victim. “Not sure.”
Noelle followed his gaze to the group. At least they were still trying to help the victim. There had to be hope.
She made her legs move, taking her to the other group.
Please. If that’s him, let him be okay.
Noelle scanned the area, the SWAT members easily identifiable from their heavy gear and helmets.
The sheriff’s SWAT team moved around the FBI members, checking for burns and injuries, taking over the perimeter and sending the wounded SWAT agents to their command center.
“Don’t put snow on your burn,” she heard one say. “You’ll make it worse.”
Two agents stepped away from the third victim before Noelle reached him. She stopped them with a hand to one’s chest.
“Who is that?” she asked, her heart in her throat.
“SAC Stevens,” said the agent. “Our commander. He’s gonna be okay. Concussion. Some contusions. He wasn’t in the bunker when it went up.”
“Do you know where Agent Rhodes is?”
One shook his head, but the other said, “Check the RV. He was injured.”
“How badly?” Noelle forced out.
“He was walking, so can’t be too bad. Keyes and Reed were inside when it went off. Everyone else was back a bit.”
Relief nearly made her legs give out. “Thank you.”
Stevens appeared to be talking to the men grouped around him, so she turned toward the FBI’s RV. Someone had driven it in from the staging area.
As she got closer, she saw a familiar profile.
Noelle blinked rapidly, forcing back tears.
An agent was slathering something on Max’s face as he leaned against the RV.
What would I do if he’d been killed?
It would have left a giant hole in her soul. The man had slipped under her defenses and set up camp in her heart.
It happened so fast.
He spotted her and pushed the agent’s hand from his face. He strode toward her through the snow, but she saw he was unsteady.
“Oh my God.” She halted and stared at his face. Two-thirds of it was bright red, and a large part of his beard was gone. He was missing an eyebrow. And some lashes. Some of his hair had burned away, and the agent had slathered something on the back of his head, making more hair stick out.
“That bad?” he asked, lifting a hand to touch his hair.
“Don’t touch!” She pulled his arm down and wrapped herself around him.
He’s so lucky. I’m so lucky.
“Am I hurting you?” she asked.
“Not really.”
She let go and lurched back.
“I’m kidding. Come here.” He enveloped her with a hug, and she felt him shake. “I thought I was dead,” he said in a rough voice.
“He’s probably got a concussion,” said the agent, who’d approached and was putting more goo on his neck.
“He landed on his back and hit his head, but the snow may have softened that. He’s lucky.
SAC Stevens’s head hit a rock under the snow.
You’re gonna hurt tomorrow,” he told Max.
“Bruises will pop up that you had no idea were coming.”
“I’ll take you to the hospital.” Noelle tugged on him.
“No. I’m not leaving until everyone is taken care of,” said Max. “I’m not the priority here.” He glanced at the other agent. “Go help someone else. I’m okay.”
Noelle held back her response that he was a priority to her; she understood what he felt.
“I wasn’t far from the first bunker,” Max told her. “Reed and Keyes had just gone inside. Either they triggered something, or it was on a delayed timer.”
“To give a false sense of security and cause the most casualties. This was murder.” Noelle looked Max in the eye. “Reed didn’t make it. And it doesn’t look good for Keyes. I’m sorry.”
He closed his eyes and exhaled. “Shit.”
“I know.”
“No one will go near the second bunker,” Max said.
“They’re bringing out more specialists tomorrow.
They’ll disarm it if needed.” He grimaced.
“The two ATF agents that blew the doors are blaming themselves, believing they missed a booby trap.” He shook his head.
“The bunkers were buried in snow. No one could blame them.”
“Did we act too fast?” Noelle whispered.
“I don’t know,” said Max. “I requested that someone find Ricky Dowd. I need to know if we were deliberately sent into a trap.”
“I didn’t feel he was lying,” said Noelle.
“Maybe he was used,” said Max. “Someone knew we’d interview him after Chisholm was identified. Was he misled somehow?”
“By Hammaker?” asked Noelle. “Dowd said he hadn’t seen the man in years—oh!” She told Max about the photos of him found in Hammaker’s room.
“More evidence that he had it in for me.” A stunned look crossed his red face. “Was I supposed to die here?”
“I can’t see how Hammaker would have arranged that,” said Noelle. “But we’re back where we started, trying to figure out what big event is going to happen . . . or was this their plan all along? A federal agent is dead, and another probably won’t make it. It could have been a lot more.”
“You think this is what the chatter was leading up to?” asked Max.
Noelle thought for a long moment. “My gut tells me no.”