Will it hurt, I wonder? Will I feel my body blown into smithereens, or will there be no warning just darkness? A welcome relief from the nightmare in my head, or a missed chance at a new life?
Suddenly I know, I want to live, I don’t want to give up.
“Stormy?” A stunned sounding voice asks.
“Get back into your office, Pip. Take Cat. Both of you will be safe in the saferoom. Take App with you.”
App? Who the hell’s App?
“Fuck that. If there’s a chance I’m going to take it. Grinch is out there.” Pip stands his ground. “I’ll give myself up.”
Finn rounds on him, no, that’s wrong. This isn’t my gentle Finn, this is Stormy. More used to barking orders than taking them. “Gun’s not going to leave any of us alive, Pip. But he doesn’t want you dead. We’ve got time as long as you keep your fuckin’ head down. Brute? Make sure Pip stays and keep him safe.”
“I’ll get him into the saferoom.” Brute agrees. “Come on, Pip. Stormy’s right. You’re more useful to everyone inside and alive. And someone’s got to look after Cat and the dog. Swift would have my balls if anything happens to him.”
“No.”
“Fuckin’ go, Pip. You too, Cat,”
“I’m staying,” I tell Finn stubbornly. “You said we’d should stay together. Well, I’m not leaving you now.”
Finn’s growl makes me jump, and Pip glares. “Get him out of here, Brute. Igor?” He motions to the other prospect who must have realised something’s wrong. “You fuckin’ help him.” Pip tries to stare Finn down, but apparently his prosthetics make him no match for the two burly prospects who take him by the arms and none too gently leads him away, one still holding the lead of the dog who’s tail is wagging like it’s some kind of adventure.
Finn’s eyes meet mine. “You will be joining him, Cat. I won’t be able to do anything without knowing you’re safe. But for now, I need your help. I can’t do this one-handed.”
Me help? I squeak, swallow, then notice Goofy’s eyes on me.
“He’s got this,” Goofy says, his husky tone belying his confidence. “If anyone can disarm this, Stormy can.”
Finn isn’t going to give me a choice. “Cat, come around here. See these wires? Very, very gently, slip your hand under them.” When I do, he gives praise. “Good girl. You’ve got small hands which will help. Try to keep them steady.”
I notice he’s got some wire cutters in his hand. “Do you know which to cut?” I’m praying he says yes, a snip and the danger will be over.
“I wish it was that easy. First, I’ve got to try to trace them.”
I swallow. Hard. “Couldn’t he detonate it any moment? Will he suspect what you’re doing?”
He’s staring at something intently and moving to the left slowly. “Gun doesn’t know I’m part of the Satan’s Devils, he won’t expect me to be here. I was in the hospital under a fake identity.”
“He knows all the tech experts of the club are on their way to California,” Goofy reinforces what Finn’s saying. “Motherfucker was talking when he was trussing me like a fuckin’ Thanksgiving turkey. I doubt he thinks one of the prospects is a bomb disposal expert.”
“You’re right, this is booby trapped, in a number of ways,” Finn states, almost in admiration. “Wires leading nowhere, the colours misleading. Anyone who didn’t know exactly what they were doing would have a problem with it.”
“And you do?” I bite my lip as I ask, willing my hand to be steady. It’s the only part of me not shaking.
“Ease your hand down, Cat. No sudden movements. There’ll be pressure senses.”
So much could go wrong. It puts my ordeal over the last three weeks into perspective. If this is my last few minutes on earth, I don’t want to leave without telling Finn the truth.
It’s probably not the best time to tell a man how you feel for him when he’s in the middle of disarming a bomb. “I love you, Finn. I never stopped.”
He doesn’t even look at me, but his lips curve slightly. “Babe, I love you too. We’re going to move past everything, okay? Now, give me a second….” He lifts a wire. “Hold this, will you?”
I watch him close his eyes briefly, his lips move as he closes the blades of the cutter together around the wire that’s draped over my finger, in the deadly silence the snick of them meeting is deafening.
But no explosion.
“Stay still,” he warns Goofy. “That’s one, but knowing Gun, he’ll have a failsafe.”
Goofy doesn’t move, he doesn’t speak. If he wasn’t still standing I’d wonder whether he’d stopped breathing. “Cat, put your hand here. I need you to pull on this wire.”
I do so, gingerly.
“Harder.”
Holding my breath, I tug it, it comes loose, and Finn fast has his hand on a switch underneath and is pushing on it.
“You see the yellow and green wire? Take the cutters and cut through it.”
“Me?” My voice has gone up an octave.
“Yeah, I can’t let this go, and I can’t use my right hand.”
I gulp, swallow, and stare into steady eyes that gaze back into mine. His are full of emotion, leaving me in no doubt he’d not just parroted my words. He really loves me. How did I ever think I could live without him?
Taking the cutters from his pocket, I concentrate, and do what he’s asked me.
Nothing. No explosion. Suddenly there’s a knife in Finn’s hand and he’s slicing through the straps that bind the explosives to Goofy’s chest.
As Goofy struggles out, getting the device off himself, he turns to Finn and hugs him warmly. “What do we do now?”
“Now we get Grinch and Gears,” Finn says seriously. “How many outside, Brother?”
“Ten that I saw.”
“Gun will be getting impatient. He’ll make a move soon if he wants Pip alive, maybe kill one of ours. We’ve no time to waste, let’s get tooled up.”
Goofy doesn’t have to be told twice, he heads down the corridor with Finn on crutches after him. When they come to a cupboard Finn enters a key code and it opens to reveal an armoury. The two men take out a variety of weapons, and a pile of Kevlar vests, one of which Finn passes to me.
I slide into the awkward garment, take the gun Finn hands to me, but without a clue how to use it.
He notices my unease. “Just point and pull the trigger.”
36
Stormy…
I run through what I know of the men at my disposal. Yeah, I’ve put myself in charge. Pip’s an intelligence man, not military, though he’ll be able to use a handgun. Igor is ex-Army, Brute a former Marine. Goofy’s been brought up in the school of hard knocks, and Cat might be new to this, but as long as she doesn’t aim at our team, the spray of bullets from the semi I’ve handed her could come in useful. We might be outnumbered, but I’m confident in my small army. I have to be.
We convene in Pip’s office. Despite my instruction, he hasn’t gone into the safe room. When we appear, Brute passes App into Cat’s surprised safekeeping, with the explanation he’s Swift’s hearing dog and that he wouldn’t like to be her if she doesn’t keep App safe. I’m grateful she’s got something else to focus on, maybe I can use her love of animals to protect him, if not herself.