The Last Second (3 page)

In fact, no one had a signal, and Trish said, “Come to think of it, every time I’ve come, I haven’t been able to get ser­vice on this hill. I just thought it was my phone.”

“They must have a jamming device,” he said.

“What does that do?” Trish asked.

“Used by the military to block radio or phone signals that might detonate a remote-­controlled improvised explosive device. A good idea if you’ve got something wired to blow.”

“That,” Sydney added, “is a mighty sophisticated piece of equipment for a two-­bit town like this. So where do you think they have it?”

Griffin looked around the property, eventually spying an old wooden shed about fifty yards down the hill. “Probably in there.”

“We could always shoot it. The wood looks like it’s ready to fall off anyway.”

“Not a good idea when you’re sitting on top of who knows how much explosives. Right now, the jamming device is a good thing.”

“One of us could leave and call for help,” Sydney suggested, and he knew she meant Trish, hoping to keep her safe.

Unfortunately there was not enough cover between there and the gate. “Too risky.”

“I don’t understand,” Trish said. “Why would they need a jammer if no one’s coming in until tomorrow to set up the detonation?”

“A very good point,” Griffin replied. “I think it’s time we find out.” He turned to examine the door.

Trish looked aghast. “Do you really think it’s safe to go in there?”

“No choice. I can’t tell where the biggest threat comes from. The cop shooting at us or in the basement. Any chance you can keep watch out here while Sydney and I check?”

“Sure,” Trish said.

Sydney reached out, touched her shoulder. “Stay out of sight and let us know when anyone else arrives or they start moving this way.”

Trish nodded, then focused on the officer. “He’s just standing behind his door, the rifle pointed this way.”

Figuring they had about ten minutes before reinforcements arrived from town, Griffin examined the door, hoping no one had thought to booby-­trap it. Seeing nothing that alarmed him, he gave it a good kick. It flew open, hit the interior wall, then bounced back.

He pushed it wide, took a look in. The place appeared as though someone had started gutting the house, but stopped midway. Walls were torn down, jagged piles of Sheetrock remnants filled one corner, and an extension ladder leaned against the wall in the other. The wood-­planked floor was warped, but felt solid beneath his feet. To the right, stairs ascended to the second floor. And to the right of that, there was a partially open door. Before he could determine where it led, the dog bolted forward, pushed through the door, then on down another staircase.

“Max!” Griffin called out.

The last thing they needed was a dog loose in a basement filled with explosives.

He relaxed slightly when he discovered that the door at the bottom was closed tight. Max scratched at it, whining.

“Guess we start there.”

“Right behind you,” Sydney said.

The stairwell wasn’t the brightest, but they weren’t about to see if there was any electrical power in the house. One did not turn on light switches or any other power source in proximity to explosive devices. When he reached the bottom, Max scratched at the door again, then looked up at Griffin.

“Sit.”

The dog obeyed.

Griffin grabbed his collar, held tight, and after a cursory check of the door, turned the knob and opened it. He was glad to see that there was enough light from outside filtering in through the basement windows, and he took a look around before making a move. It appeared they were storing some of their building supplies down here, possibly doing some work. There was a stack of plywood sheets leaning against the wall to his left, and about an inch of sawdust on the ground in front of it.

More importantly, there were four cases of military-­grade explosives stacked in the very center of the basement on the concrete floor, between two support beams. To Griffin, it seemed an odd choice for someone involved in illegal trafficking of any kind to store their explosives right where someone could see if they happened to look into any of the basement windows.

“Sydney. Grab Max’s collar and don’t let him move from the doorway.”

She took the dog and he stepped into the room, walked to his right, surveying the floor first, making sure there were no trip wires.

Even though the outsides of the boxes indicated that they were military explosives, he wasn’t about to assume that’s what they contained. The first thing he looked for was signs of crystallization that would indicate any nitroglycerin had degraded.

“Clearly they lied by reporting it as too unstable to move.”

“And you’re surprised by this?” Sydney asked.

“Just stating a fact,” he said, slowly walking the perimeter of the basement. The anticipated timer and detonation device was on the far side, and he stopped short at the sight of bright red coming from the timer. It took a moment before he realized that it was just the sun angling in from the window reflecting on the LED light.

He knelt down. Used his cell phone to take a picture of it and the serial numbers on the closest box of explosives. The serial numbers could be traced back to where it originated, and as long as Griffin’s phone wasn’t blown to bits, and him with it, he’d have some proof of where it came from.

“Can you disconnect it?”

“Too soon to say. There’s a secondary wire on the timer and detonator, running straight down to the floor. It looks like it’s running back underneath all the boxes.”

“Booby trap in case you move them?”

“Maybe.” He got up, continued his path around the room, and realized the wire continued on past the boxes across the floor to the left of the stairwell, then straight underneath the sheets of plywood leaning against the wall. He hadn’t noticed the wire earlier, because of all the sawdust covering it, undoubtedly to conceal it from the casual observer.

He knelt down beside the plywood, noting the space between the bottom of each sheet. No pressure device. “Where the hell is the wire running to?”

“Can’t you just cut it?”

“Not until I know its purpose.” He only hoped it was straightforward, a matter of simply disconnecting the wires, but this setup had him stumped. Careful not to disturb the wire, he lifted the sheets of plywood one by one and stacked them against the wall a few feet away. He moved the last piece and saw a wooden cupboard door about four feet high, barred from the outside and secured with a padlock. The wire ran beneath it. “I’d say something’s in there. The wire isn’t thrilling me, though.”

Max whined quietly, and Sydney reached down to pet him.

Griffin found a hammer in a toolbox in the corner and gave the lock a solid hit. It popped off. “You might want to move inside the stairwell.”

“Seriously, Griff? If that stuff blows, this flimsy wall isn’t doing either of us any good.”

“Stubborn as ever,” he said, then pulled open the cupboard.

The moment he did, the dog tried to escape from Sydney’s grasp.

“Easy, boy,” she said.

“There’s a tunnel,” he told her, when she tried to angle over to see. “Meter wide by a meter high.” Griffin hated dark, tight spaces, and this was definitely dark and bordering on tight.

Max pulled Sydney forward.

“Don’t let him go.”

“I’m trying not to,” she said as the dog’s claws scratched at the concrete.

He leaned down, peered inside. The area was dark, and he could just make out the rough-­hewn walls of the tunnel. The wire snaked along the bottom off to one side, and he pulled out his phone, turned on the flashlight feature. “Another box of explosives farther in.”

“Why would you blow up a tunnel that is hidden from view?”

“You wouldn’t, unless there was something down there you didn’t want anyone to find.”

The sound of metal hitting metal startled them. It came from outside, somewhere near the gate, Griffin thought.

Max barked, broke free, then scrambled for the tunnel. Griffin dove for the dog.

Max darted to the side, raced past him down the long passageway, right toward the box of explosives.

“Max!”

The dog never stopped. Griffin tensed. But the dog jumped over the explosives, then on past it, disappearing around a corner.

And then Trish called out from upstairs.

“You better get up here!” Trish said. “Some cop just crashed his car through the gate. He’s parked at the bottom of the hill. There’s another car right behind his.”

Sydney looked toward Griffin.

“I need to see what this wire’s for,” he said.

“Be careful, Zachary.”

He wasn’t sure he’d ever heard her use his first name before. “You too.”

“Aren’t I always?” And then the sound of her footsteps as she raced up the stairs.

Griffin, phone in hand as his only source of light, entered the tunnel. He took a deep breath, and then another before starting forward. He’d had to train himself to get past the tight spaces, relax enough to let the claustrophobic feelings pass. The tunnel was not going to come down on him, and he kept his eye on the wire to the right, careful not to disturb it. At the same time, there was the box of explosives up ahead, and with the phone angled that way, the light bouncing as he moved, he half imagined there was another source of light shining on the dirt wall near the box in front of him.

He stilled.

It wasn’t his imagination. Nor was his phone
the
source of the light.

Even worse, the light he saw reflecting off the rocky wall looked suspiciously like it was some sort of digital device flashing in countdown mode.

He doubled his pace, dirt and rocks digging into his palms and knees, and he wondered if the dog had somehow set off a detonator on this secondary device. The box of explosives was nearly in the middle of the tunnel, and he leaned over it to view the timer.

Two minutes, thirty-­nine seconds. And counting down fast. A mercury switch. The dog must have brushed against it and set it off.

He heard something. Panting.

Max, he realized, but turned his attention to the detonator, vaguely aware that the air here smelled. Of urine.

Dead men didn’t urinate. Men who were trapped in tunnels did.

Trish’s brother was going to have to wait. He had a bomb to disarm. Using his phone as a flashlight, he examined the device on all sides. Whoever had set this up had used a simple connection. Finally, something going his way. He dug out his pocketknife, then cut the wire. The timer stopped. But then came that millisecond of worry, until nothing more happened. He took a deep breath, sat back, and was about to start down the tunnel again, when he eyed the mercury switch, suddenly getting a bad feeling. Why have a mercury switch
and
a wire connecting it to the other detonator? The mercury switch on this detonator would have set it off just from the vibration when the main cache exploded . . .

The answer suddenly became clear—­fail-­secure—­and he hurried back through the tunnel toward the basement, jumping out, then racing over to the four boxes of explosives sitting in the middle of the floor. Sure enough, the LED timer flashed down the seconds at warp speed. He cut the wire, grateful it was such a simple device, then stood there, his heart racing at the close call.

Not quite a dead man’s switch. More like a delayed dead man’s switch.

Just when the adrenaline started to leave, he heard Max barking.

Time to see what the dog found.

He reentered the tunnel, noticing that it widened at the curve just before he saw a thin stream of light filtering in through the grille overhead. Undoubtedly where the rocks covered the grille opening he’d seen from above. The shaft, slightly more than a half-­meter wide, allowed enough light to see the dog at the feet of a man who sat with his back against the tunnel wall. The dog looked up, his tail wagging. The man merely watched him, perhaps trying to decide if he was there to help or hurt.

“Calvin Walker?”

“Yes—­” He cleared his throat. “Who . . . ?”

“A friend of your sister’s.”

“Any—­” He stopped. “Sorry. Laryngitis . . . Shouting.” And indeed his voice was raspy. He held up his handcuffed wrist, the silver marred with his dried blood from trying to pull out of it. A long chain snaked from the handcuff to a large eye hook anchored in the rock wall of the cave. “Key?”

Griffin examined the locking mechanism. Standard handcuff, double locked, which made it more difficult to open, but not impossible. “No. But I have the next best thing.” He pocketed his phone, took out his wallet, removing the money clip, which, had anyone examined, was noticeably slimmer than what came with the wallet. About the thickness of a large paper clip, its end turned up slightly. In his line of work, it wasn’t a good idea to carry around a handcuff key, especially when working undercover. Too often identified with law enforcement, whereas a lock pick designed as a money clip was usually overlooked.

“How’d you end up here?” Griffin asked, inserting the tool into the lock, fishing it around to get a feel inside.

“Politics.” Calvin gave a weak smile. “I refused to join the chief’s party.”

Griffin found the double-­lock mechanism, turned the tool, and heard a click. Now for the main lock. “Who’s behind this?”

“A guy named Quindlen.”

“You know him?”

“Met him a few times. He’s a friend of the chief. I think they got to my informant, killed him. Haven’t seen him since my arrest.”

“So why keep you alive down here?”

“Quindlen’s idea. Harder to explain a bullet hole in an autopsy. Hence the water,” he said, holding up an empty bottle. “Don’t want your body—­if it’s found—­dying of dehydration. But an explosion? It fits the scenario they cooked up.”

“Quindlen’s behind this?”

“He’s behind everything here. But someone’s behind him. Someone big. Don’t know who.” The lock popped open, and Calvin rubbed at his wrist. “Thanks.”

Griffin replaced the pick into his wallet. “So this big investigation they have on you?”

“Set up by Chief Parks and Quindlen.” He reached out, scratched Max behind his ears. “Never saw it coming.”