Chapter 21 Fire Bomb #4
“What!” Vinnie shouted out of the window.
“Mr. Sorrentino, please come with me for a minute, regarding your passport. Shouldn’t take more than a few minutes and then you’ll be on your way,” Agent Luca instructed.
“Yeah, fine. It’s taking you guys long enough! We got a schedule!” Vinnie quipped. Good enough for an Emmy nomination.
The two headed toward the border office and into the interview room where Tyler was waiting.
“They made it!” Tommy shouted, observing the intercepted camera footage on the laptop.
Luca, Vinnie and Tyler shared a quick hand shake before Tyler got back to business.
“Ready, boys?” Tyler asked.
Luca walked over to lock the door.
“Yeah, ready.”
Tyler texted a message to the SUV from a burner phone.
DO IT, the text message to Trevor read.
They crouched down at the far end of the room, covering their ears.
“The go-ahead text came in from Tyler. This is it. Clear?” Trevor asked, holding two portable joysticks in his hands. Each thumb hovered over the domed red button at the top.
“Going over the points to make sure!” Tico said. “Both trucks fully on the Canadian side?”
“Clear,” Tommy confirmed.
“No by-standers around?”
“Wait!” Jake said. “One of the K-9 dogs is near truck-1, just gotta let him pass. OK… waiting for that other guard to get back into the booth. Hold on…Come oooon! OK! And…. 3….2…1 PULL IT!”
EXPLOSIONS
FIRE
BLOOD
Blood on her underwear and the toilet paper.
“Oh my God!” Nicki screamed. “Oh my God, oh my God!”
“What is it? Are you OK?” Christina asked by the washroom counter.
Nicki opened the stall door and ran out.
“I have to go to the hospital! I’m bleeding!”
“Shit,” Christina whispered and immediately called the driver through her watch.
“Get ready to go to the hospital, now!”
The girls busted out of the bathrooms and Sasha led them to the exits where the convoy was waiting.
They raced to the hospital, with a hyperventilating Nicki in the back seat, tears streaming down her face.
Christina held onto her tightly.
“It’s OK, it’s OK! I’m sure everything is going to be fine! Just breathe!” she said.
“No, no, it’s not going to be fine! What if it’s a misc—” Nicki cried out, sobbing now, too upset for Mac to even check her heart rate.
The convoy sped to the emergency entrance of the hospital and the team rushed Nicki inside.
“Check to make sure my baby is OK! Please! Hurry!” she yelled at the first doctor she saw.
“OK, Miss, just stay calm, the doctor will be down in a minute, OK? Lie down here and wait, please,” one of the nurses said.
Nicki lay down and cried, trying to control her breathing.
Christina held her hand while a nurse rolled the stretcher-bed into a more private room.
“Breathe. Breathe,” Christina coached.
Just as Nicki took a deep breath and thought she should calm down for the sake of her baby, she glanced over at the TV screen in the hallway. Some nurses and visitors crowded around the monitor, looking up.
And there, she saw the breaking news coverage from helicopter footage; an explosion at the US-Canadian border.
“No!” Nicki screamed out. “What is that?”
Christina, Mac and Sasha all turned their heads up to the TV.
Nicki walked out of the hospital room into the hallway, holding her stomach.
Her breathing stopped.
“We’re interrupting regular programming with breaking news coming in right now from the U.S.
–Canada border. Just moments ago, two delivery trucks reportedly exploded near a primary crossing point on the Canadian side.
Live images coming in now from News Chopper 24 show both vehicles completely engulfed in flames. ”
“NOOO!” Nicki screamed. She pressed her hands onto her mouth and watched hopelessly with her terror-filled eyes. The delivery trucks had blazing flames blowing out of the broken windows, like an inferno.
Sasha grabbed Nicki into his chest and tried to get her to look away.
She pushed him off of her. Unable to speak. Chin trembling.
The news anchor continued.
“Emergency crews are on the scene and scrambling to contain the blaze. The border crossing has been shut down in both directions as authorities work to secure the scene. The FBI and RCMP Joint Border Taskforce are now treating this event as a potential act of terrorism. Stay tuned as this story develops and we bring you the latest.”
Nicki fell to her knees and started sobbing harder than she ever had.
Flashbacks of her own near-death ordeal with fire came roaring back to her: the sound of the flames, the falling of the burning shelving units around her in the shed where she was locked.
Her throat-ripping silent screams. The smell of burning everything.
The gooey plastic carpet melted into the entire left side of her body as she lay helplessly and screamed through the fire and the black smoke.
“Nooo!” Nicki screamed out again, pulling her hair on both sides of her head. Christina and Mac rushed to help her up and bring her back into the hospital room.
“Shut that off!” Christina shouted.
Nicki kept screaming until the doctor and two nurses ran in to sedate her.