Chapter Fourteen
“Chief, I think we have another.”
Instinctively, Jake turned his head from side to side, grateful to have someone else confirm what he thought he was seeing. But the call had come over the radio.
No one was there with him. Maybe he was seeing things?
Jake turned back to the Ferris wheel, locking onto the sign once again.
Someone droned on about finding something at the dining area across from the main stage, but Jake could barely take in the information.
Blinking rapidly, he tried to process what he was seeing.
And hearing. A blast of chatter came through on the radio and things clicked into place.
Two bombs. They’d located two bombs, but only one of them was marked for imminent detonation.
His heart hammering, he spoke, cutting across the other transmissions. “Sir, I have five o’clock.”
There was a prolonged pause, then Aronson came on the channel. “Yes, almost five o’clock. Everybody fall back. Now!” He barked the last word with enough urgency to snap Jake’s momentary paralysis.
He and Max took off toward the carousel at a trot. “No, sir. I mean I have eyes on the sign. It’s posted at the Ferris wheel.”
“Fall back, Donovan,” Aronson ordered again. “We’ll deal with whatever you’ve found after the top of the hour.”
Jake didn’t break stride. Nor did he change direction. If there was a bomb planted at the Ferris wheel, Cass was too close for comfort. She needed to take cover.
“Come on, boy.” Jake and Max prepared to leap onto the spinning ride. His feet landed with thud loud enough to make her head swivel. Their gazes met, and they both started talking.
“You need to get down,” he told her.
“Troy Baker was released two months ago.”
“Get down,” he repeated. “Now.”
Breath coming fast and heavy, he reached the bench where she sat perched on the edge. When she didn’t move, he stepped into her space, closed his hand around her upper arm and pulled her from the seat.
“Hey,” she cried when her knees hit the corrugated metal.
“Bomb,” he growled into her ear as he lowered himself on top of her.
Cass craned her neck and snarled at him, but he didn’t care. The only thing that mattered was her safety. All he wanted was the chance to talk to her once all this was over.
“There’s a bomb between us,” she reminded him in a voice dripping with acid.
“The Ferris wheel is set to blow at—”
Before he could finish the sentence, the explosion split the still evening wide open.
The flash. The bang. The acrid smell of accelerant followed by a hailstorm of dirt and debris. He held her down until the last bits of fallout dropped. Then, as he was pushing up on his hands to let her rise, a bone-chilling screech rang out.
“What the—” He looked up as they spun past.
The bomb had been placed under the Ferris wheel’s landing platform and had blown out the rear of its base. He should have been relieved to see the blast pattern had spewed away from the midway, but he was too horrified by what he didn’t see.
One of the wheel’s rust-speckled support posts was missing.
There was a creak. A groan. Then the enormous wheel seemed to hunker down and keel over.
Jake squeezed his eyes shut as he realized the top of the ride would land on the carousel.
Cassidy reared up in a futile attempt to push him off her, before he flung his full body weight onto her once more.
“Jake!” she yelped, indignant.
But there was no time to argue. And no chance of jumping.
The best they could do was hang on and hope they were on the opposite side when it hit them.
The creaks and groans gave way to distressed shrieks as gondolas wobbled wildly and rivets popped, setting spokes welded into place years, if not decades before, free.
“Wha—” Cass gasped as an unholy screech sang out.
“It’s coming down! Just stay down, Cass!”
He pressed his face into her hair and covered his helmeted head and hers with both arms. The structure hit the canopy with a tooth-jarring crash.
All around them, horses sprang from their tethers.
Bits of gilt and glass shattered. The metal platform tipped and tilted.
Gears ground. The carnival-painted top dipped precariously as the motor worked to push through the obstacle.
The hiss of hydraulic release drowned out most of the other noises.
The whole contraption shook and shuddered as it strained.
And at last, the crippled carousel ground to a halt.
They lay there in stunned stupor. Unfolding his arms, Jake brushed pieces of splintered sparkly wood from her hair.
“Are you okay?” His voice was hoarse from either the smoke rising around them or strain. Maybe both.
“Yeah…” It was clear from her shaking voice she was reassuring herself as much as him.
He licked dry lips, then chanced a glance at the debris all around them.
The wreckage struck ahead of the bench where she’d been sitting. The canopy top was now tilted at a rakish angle, its edge a mere two feet higher than a seahorse’s head. If they hadn’t ducked, it would have knocked them to the floor.
A plume of dark, acrid smoke billowed in from the platform of the Ferris wheel. Another, scented with the stench of burning rubber, seeped out from the carousel’s center column. He coughed, but it was impossible to take in any good air.
“We have to go,” he said, scrambling up from his prone position.
“But I—” She pushed her hair back from her face as she rocked back onto her knees. “He said—”
“We’re done letting him call the shots,” Jake snapped. “This is coming off,” he added, looping his hand under one of the straps of the backpack.
“But, Jake—” Cassidy started to protest, but whatever words she had were translated into a yelp when he dragged the straps of the pack down her arms.
“All bets are off,” he growled. “We have to get you off this thing. It could catch fire, bomb or no bomb. We have to go.”
“But what if they see us taking it off?”
He tugged the pack off her and flung it into the tangle of Ferris wheel wreckage mere feet away from them. “Hopefully, the wreckage took out the cameras. If they can’t see you, they won’t detonate.” He pulled her to her feet and propelled her to the edge of the platform. “Now, run!”
“But we have to—”
He grabbed her hand and pulled her down off the platform. “We have to get clear.”
Cassidy stumbled against him as she landed, her legs buckling. “We can’t just take off. Look at this.” Her voice rose as she gestured wildly to the destruction. “He’s not going to let me go, Jake. He has me in his sights and he has nothing to lose.”
Jake stepped forward, cupped her elbow and gave her a gentle but insistent tug. “Then we need to get to him before he can get to you.”
“Wait, I need my phones.” She groped around on the debris-strewn bench, tears from the smoke streaming from her eyes.
Then realization hit him full in the chest. Time slowed. So did his movements. For a moment. He stared at Cass, flexing his jaw as if testing whether it would hold or not, then whirled in a circle, head swiveling from side to side.
“Whoa there,” she said, brow puckering. “We stopped spinning and you want to start all over again?”
“Where’s Max?”
He snapped his fingers and let out a short, sharp whistle.
But Max did not come.
Cassidy dropped to her knees amid the wreckage they’d shaken off. “Here he is.”
Jake closed the gap between them in two long strides. Blinking rapidly and waving his hand to disperse some of the smoke, he peered over her shoulder and found his dog tucked under one of the benches. Max blinked blearily but made no move to crawl out from his hiding place.
“Come on, boy.” Jake reached for him, but his partner recoiled. “We have to get off this thing.”
She bit her lip as she stroked his partner’s fur. When she spoke, her tone was calm but urgent. “Jake, I think he’s hurt.”
He crowded into the cluttered space, gently urging her to move aside. When she pushed up onto one of the benches, he slipped into her spot and looked deep into Max’s dazed amber eyes.
“Hey, bud.” He ran a hand along the dog’s back and flank. Max flinched and bared his teeth when Jake’s hand grazed something sharp protruding from his hind leg. “Oh no.” His heart lodged firmly in his throat.
Max was his partner. They lived together. Ate together. Depended on one another. And he’d failed to keep him safe.
The dog blinked lazily, then rested his huge muzzle on his front paws again.
“Oh, buddy, I’m sorry,” he crooned as he slid his hand back up the shepherd’s back, looking for the lead attached to his vest. “I’m gonna get you out of here,” he promised.
The sound of running footfalls and motorized vehicles filled the eerie aftermath. The cavalry was coming, but he needed to make sure Cass was away from the area before their bomber figured out she’d slipped free of his trap. And he had to get Max out into an area where he could check his wound.
Glancing around wildly, he spotted her blazer. “Can I borrow your jacket?” He nodded toward her. “I need to muzzle him so I can l lift him.”
Cass shrugged out of the jacket. “Muzzle him? Are you afraid he’ll bite you?”
“He’s hurt and in pain. I’d bite anyone who tried to move me, too,” he said, speaking in a reassuring lilt meant to soothe both woman and dog. “Toss it to me, then jump down. Try to stay toward the back of the ride until we can scope out who’s out there.”
To his relief, she didn’t argue with him. He heard the slap of her feet hitting asphalt. Slipping the jacket over his dog’s head, he spoke in a firm tone as he slid one of the sleeves up over the shepherd’s powerful jaws. “Only for a minute, buddy.”
The dog’s growl of displeasure dissolved into a keening whimper as Jake slid his arms under Max’s lax body and rolled him up against his chest. Bracing their combined weight against the bench opposite, he levered himself onto his feet, holding his ninety-pound partner in his arms.
“Hope you had fun while it lasted,” he huffed as he shuffled to edge. “We’re never riding one of these things again.”