Chapter 11
CHAPTER 11
The thump of boots on the stairs was her only warning.
Melina stuck the growing ball of duct tape to the bottom of the chair and quickly placed her arms back in their original position. The CHAZ was still mostly covered. All she could do at this point was pray that they didn’t notice.
TT stood in front of Melina and leaned over, getting so close she could smell the jalape?o peppers he’d eaten for lunch. “You ready to make another movie? Pablo says it’s almost time.”
Time was one commodity they didn’t have. Maybe she could reason with him. “This bomb in my lap is real.” She hoped by saying it slowly, it might sink in.
Scarface walked over and stood beside TT. “No fucking way. You saw Pablo eat a piece.” The man looked down at Melina’s hands. “Nice ring. Is that a Colombian emerald?”
Thinking fast, she offered, “Yes, it is. You know it’s worth a lot of money. I’ll give it to you if you’ll let me go free.” It was the most precious thing she owned. But if it meant her freedom, she’d give it to him.
Scarface ripped it off her finger. He examined the large emerald closely. Green dots painted the gray walls as he rolled her ring under the stark lights of her cell.
“I will keep this.” He slid the jewel into the front pocket of his jeans.
“Then you’ll let me go free?” she asked in a rush.
A deep chuckle burst from his chest. “Hell, no.” He stepped over to Melina and ran a finger down her cheek, grabbing her chin when she tried to pull away. “I’m looking forward to spending time with you.” He slid a glance to TT then returned his gaze to her. “We’ve already decided I get you first.” With his other hand he cupped one of her breasts.
Melina cringed as he pinched her nipple. She hoped she could hold it together for just a little while longer.
“You’re going to be a good little girl for me, aren’t you?” Scarface taunted.
“Don’t touch me again, you pig!” she shouted.
The crack of his slap was deafening in the small room.
“You’ll do exactly as I say.” Anger permeated from the man’s voice.
The door flew open.
Melina expected to see more of Pablo’s goons, but broad shoulders dressed in black camouflage filled the doorway. With an M4 rifle at his shoulder, the man ordered, “Step away from the woman and live.”
Scarface reached for the gun at his waist. Before he could get his fingers wrapped around the handle, brain matter coated the wall.
A second person had stepped in while Melina was distracted, pistol pointed at TT after quickly sweeping the room left to right. As Terrible Teeth pulled up his arm, gun in hand, two pops put the man on the floor.
Nearly deaf from the gunfire, Melina could barely hear the first man’s question. “How many more?”
When she finally processed his words, she answered, “I think just these two. The others came and left with Pablo Valez.”
Another man, face smeared with blacks and grays for covert night operations, stepped to the doorway. “House is clear.”
Melina knew that voice. “Jacin?” No. She must be imagining it. He was in a hospital bed recovering from the beatings he’d taken for her.
“Oh, baby.” He rushed to her and kneeled in front of her. Tenderly he cupped her face. “You’re safe now. We’ve got you.” He pulled out his knife and leaned to the side to cut her free.
She easily lifted her hands and cupped his face. “My hands are free. I was working to get the duct tape off this damn bomb.”
“Bomb?” The word was in four-part harmony repeated by her rescuers, including the ones who had just stepped through the door.
Only then did Melina look down at the block in her lap. “It’s CHAZ.”
“Who the hell is Chaz?” Jacin asked.
“CHAZ isn’t a who, it’s a what,” Harper, the second person through the door who had put down TT, explained as she tore off her helmet and fell to her knees in front of Melina. “Everybody out. Now!”
“Griffin, get those Deltas to evacuate everyone within a mile.” Harper tilted her head, examining every aspect of the bomb without touching it.
Griffin gave the order then asked, “A mile? Isn’t that overkill?”
“You heard me correctly.” Harper picked up the receiver and carefully rolled it over. “This little block of polymerized CHAZ will turn this house and everything within two hundred fifty feet into dust. That includes you and Jacin, so I need you both to get the hell out of here, now.”
“Harper, if you’ve got this, I’m going to go help with the evacuation.” Griffin stared at the woman on her knees.
“There’s nothing you can do here. Go help the others,” she replied without ever looking at him.
Soundlessly, Griffin left the room.
“Get a move on, Jacin,” Harper warned.
“I’m not leaving Melina.”
“Jacin, you need to go,” Melina begged. “If Pablo Valez decides to make that phone call, we’ll all be blown to hell. I didn’t save your ass from Solis’s torture chamber in Cali just so you could die beside me here in Texas.”
“Told you, I’m not leaving.” Starting at her fingers, in a brushing motion he ran his hands up and down each arm before massaging her shoulders. “I’m right where I want to be. With you.” He stepped around to face her. “Forever. If that means we die in the next minute, then so be it. At least we’ll go together. Besides, Valez is too busy watching Rafe slowly drive toward the airfield,” Jacin said.
“How do you know that?” Melina stared into the face of the man she would love forever. If this bomb went off right then, she would die happy knowing Jacin wanted to be with her.
He pointed to his ear. “I’m listening in on Bravo team’s progress. Alex decided we needed to free you first, just in case Valez pulled a stunt like this bomb duct taped to your lap. Harper, any chance I can cut the tape away so I can get Melina out of here?”
“No. Not yet.” Harper squinted at the device. “I need to make sure he didn’t connect a backup system. Melina, did you see what he did when he connected the bomb?”
She closed her eyes and focused on the memory of the minute before Valez placed the bomb in her lap. “He brought in a container that looks like the kind you store food in your refrigerator. CHAZ was written on top. Of course, I remembered that name from when you blew up Turi Solis. Anyway, he set the damn thing on my lap then attached the little black box with the two wires to the detonator. He then slid the long metal probe of the detonator into the block. Then he duct taped me and the bomb to the chair.”
“He didn’t hide any wires underneath?” Harper clarified.
“No. He was actually careful not to cover the wires with the tape.” She thought about it for just a second. “It surprised me, but he seemed to know what he was doing.”
“The cartel has enough bomb experts, and this looks and reacts like C-4; I’m sure someone showed him what to do.” Harper grimaced. “This is my own damn fault. I should have destroyed all the CHAZ we made back at the Narváez western compound before Rafe and I went to Cali. We certainly had no idea how things would end that night, or I never would’ve left all those explosives behind.”
“This isn’t your fault.” Melina managed to raise her hand to Harper’s shoulder. “It’s mine. I’m the one who used Rafe to make Jacin jealous and give Valez the impression Rafe and I were more involved than agent and handler. I’m sorry I pulled you into this mess.”
Harper didn’t look away from the bomb but smiled. “You didn’t pull me in. I came willingly. I wasn’t going to let Rafe face Pablo Valez alone.” Refocusing the conversation, she asked again, “These are the only two wires he connected?”
“Yes,” Melina confirmed.
“Thank God he’s an idiot.” Without taking her eyes from the bomb, she reached down to her duty belt and grabbed her knife. She popped the back cover and extracted the battery. She slowly slid the two-inch long cylinder from the white block. “Done.”
The only three people left in the tornado shelter all breathed a sigh of relief.
“Alpha two confirming bomb has been disabled.” Harper stood up and took a deep breath. “Let’s get Melina untied and out of here. Alpha one, evacuation is no longer needed. Anyone displaced can return to their homes.” Using the knife still in her hand, Harper cut the tape on each side of Melina’s thighs and ripped it off her and the now defused bomb.
Jacin finished cutting Melina’s ankles free from the chair legs and scooped her up.
“Put me down,” she insisted. “You just got out of the hospital. You have broken ribs. I can walk.”
“I like you right where you are.” Jacin leaned forward and gently placed his lips on hers. The kiss was far too brief. “Let me take care of you for once.”
As he was about to step through the door, Melina caught sight of Scarface in her peripheral vision. She began to wiggle and twist. “Let me down. Right now!” she insisted. “He stole something from me, and I have to get it back.”
Jacin carefully set her feet on the floor and caught her when she started to collapse. “What’s so important?”
“I’m not leaving without it.” With Jacin’s help she went to her knees and dug in the dead man’s front pocket.
She smiled, splitting her lip open again, when her fingers wrapped around her emerald ring. Beaming up at Jacin, she showed him the ring he had given her. “It’s the most important thing I own.”
He kneeled beside her, enveloping her in his arms. She wasn’t sure she heard him over the ringing in her ears from the gunshots moments ago, but she would have sworn he said he loved her. She certainly hoped so, because she loved this man with all her heart.
She tried to stand up, but her legs were too weak. In one swift movement he was carrying her through the door and up the steps.
When they emerged outside, Melina slowly dragged in the clean air of freedom. As she glanced around the middle-class neighborhood of two-story homes and tidy green yards, for the first time in years she yearned for that lifestyle. She collapsed into the comfort of the man who held her.
“You came for me.” Stretching up, she kissed the side of his jaw, the only thing she could reach, as he carried her down the sidewalk to an awaiting ambulance.
“Of course I did.” He leaned down and brushed his lips across hers. “I would never allow anyone to hurt the woman I love, and if Rafe hadn’t already killed Valez, I would have hunted the son of a bitch down and killed him myself.”
“He’s dead?” How did he know that? Oh, yeah, his headset. He was connected to Rafe.
“Bravo team had taken him down, but he tried to escape and Rafe shot him,” Jacin said matter-of-factly.
“Then it’s over.” It was a statement, not a question.
“It’s over, babe. You’re safe.” Jacin laid her down on the awaiting gurney and EMTs began checking her vital signs.
The corners of Melina’s mouth turned up. “Until the next time someone from a Colombian cartel decides to get even.”
“Melina.” She recognized her brother’s voice and looked in that direction. He was completely geared up in his Delta uniform, and she watched him push people out of the way. “They wouldn’t let me enter the building with the breach team.”
The cringe on his face told her everything she needed to know. She looked like hell. “Jacin got me out.”
“Jacin Torres.” The love of her life held out his hand to her brother. “I’m going to marry your sister.”