Chapter Ten

Jason’s stomach plummeted as he examined the man claiming to be the dad he never knew. He did resemble an old picture his mom had, but it was a passing resemblance, nothing more.

He made the conscious decision to ignore that declaration and focus on more pressing concerns. Like their lives.

“Who has to disarm the bomb?”

A devilish smile cracked the man’s face. “You. I hear you’re the expert here. Consider it a parting gift from me. One last challenge.”

“Well, that’s fucked up, Dad.”

A nod was the only response, and the man moved to the side, revealing a much more sophisticated looking bomb than the one the bubbas had set at the document company. This one was C-4 and had wires to fuses all over it, and there was no telling what sort of fuses they were.

They could be temperature-sensing fuses or motion-sensor fuses or resistance-sensing fuses, or anything, really. There were multiple circuits, where breaking one circuit could blow the entire thing.

Jason could probably disarm it if he were in a different environment, with some protective gear, but right now, he had Mae clinging to his back like a turtle shell, and he couldn’t think beyond her safety.

In short, they were fucked.

A soft chuckle sounded from the man, who watched him with an eager glint in his eyes. “I gotta say, I’ve been watching you for a while now, and I’m proud, son. Real proud.” He leaned on a cabinet behind him, leisurely crossing his arms. “I’ve got the big C. About six months left to live. I figured I could go out this way and spend my last minutes with you.” He smiled, sending a shiver down Jason’s spine. His heart thudded in his ears, but it was Mae’s voice that had him looking at her.

“Why do things this way? Why not just call him and say you want to catch up?” Her voice was tiny in the room yet still overwhelmed with the absurdity of the situation. Jason turned and took her in his arms, enjoying the comfort of her softness.

It was probably the last time he’d get to feel her like this.

“Why? Because I’m on every most wanted list on the planet. And this way, I get one final paycheck. The Saudis are very invested in this fracking business, you see. They want the oil companies to pay big time. When they started putting out word they wanted the defense for these lawsuits to go under, I did a little research and found my boy here actually had a job working with the company collecting all the shit, and voila!” He waved his arms at the simplicity, but Jason was still trying to absorb everything. “Besides, isn’t this fun?”

Jason squelched the nasty glare he wanted to give the man claiming to be his dad and gave Mae one last squeeze. He turned back to the giant pile of explosives, trying to decipher it without touching anything.

In his training, he’d been taught to still his mind and block out distractions. If this man really was his father, and he really was on the world’s most wanted lists, then he would know all of that. He had planned this perfectly. Somehow, he’d gotten the inside track and figured out what would hurt Jason the most .

There had to be some sort of trigger to the bomb, but there wasn’t a visible timer, so Jason scanned the area around it, looking for something that would set it off. Eventually, his eyes settled on a tube snaking under the table. He bent to his knees and let out a low breath.

He didn’t have as much time as he’d hoped.

**

Mae didn’t know what had Jason gasping, but it seemed to please the asshole calling himself dad. She understood enough to know this whole thing was orchestrated for Jason to fail, so she did her best to not be an added distraction.

Keeping her voice low and soothing, she tried to engage the man. “Who are you? Your name?”

“Edgar Smalls. That’s the main one. The one his mother knew.” He nodded to Jason, and Mae noticed his eyes soften slightly from the mad tinge he’d had. He almost looked as if he cared for Jason.

“So you’ve been keeping track of him? All this time?” She didn’t really care. This man was a monster; her heart thudded it like thunder in her ears. Madman. Madman. Madman.

“Yes, off and on. When he went into the Marines, I knew they would instill some false sense of ‘Murica in him and he’d be lost to me, but when I found him again at Amir’s, it wasn’t hard to see where he’d be an asset. Especially with you in his sights. Not that I knew about you at first, but …” Shrugging, he walked to the wet bar and poured himself something amber. “Like father like son. I always loved blondes. So sweet. So pure. His mother was, too. Blonde. Pure.” His voice tapered off as he seemed a little lost in his musings, holding the drink under his nose.

They were interrupted by a knock at the door. “I would say the Delta forces are an hour out.” The voice belonged to a shockingly familiar man. “The live feed went to the White House press corp contact list, so it’s probably a matter of minutes before a team scrambles together.”

“Agent Harper!” Mae couldn’t help the expletive that left her mouth. “Fucking hell.” The faux agent winked at her.

“So I’ll be leaving you to this?” Harper asked Edgar, who had tossed back his drink and already poured another.

“Sure. This is handled. Go on.”

“Were you behind the other attempt at my company?” Why she felt such an ownership to the document company, Mae would never understand. But somehow, she did. This asshole was messing with her normal. Her livelihood. The place she had found her happiness.

Edgar waved his hand as Mae risked a glance at Jason. He was under the table, sweating bullets while he examined something down there.

“They were a bunch of yahoos I found at a militia meeting, but they weren’t loyal to anything but the almighty dollar. I honestly thought I could save a few bucks there, but they ended up helping me find so much more.” His eyes cut to Jason and grew misty, even as he sipped his third drink. “They were dumbasses, but the USB drive they installed was crucial to my plan. Even though the explosion didn’t happen then, it still gave me the data on the server. All the digital documents, the emails back and forth, and Amir was too stupid to realize it before he sent that virus into my space. I got what I needed way before that.”

“What did you need?” Mae was almost too afraid to ask.

“Initially, just court documents so my client could pay me for the job. Ultimately, information about my son, like who he’s seeing now, where he lives, his new promotion.” He took another slug of his drink like they were sitting at a bar, catching up. Mae wanted to throw up. “You two send some spicy emails on company time.” He winked at Jason, as if sharing a secret.

“If your family is so important, why are you killing him? Why all this? Help me understand, Edgar.” She didn’t want to understand. She wanted to go home. With Jason. But this lunatic was opening up to her, and she felt like it was something to do besides sweat bullets alongside Jason and possibly distract him from what he was doing, which was an attempt to save them all.

“There’s no way to help you understand, sweetheart.” The term of endearment coming from this man was almost too much, but Mae cringed through it. “His mother was too good for me, so I left, but I couldn’t leave leave. When she’d raised a good boy, if not a little apathetic, I knew I would only screw him up.” Another drink poured, and Mae had the slight hope he would get drunk and spill the secret to disarming the bomb if she could get him to open up some more. “But facing your mortality changes things. I’m not invincible anymore. And I’m pissed at whatever higher power there is that gave me all these fucking killer cells in my body that are mutating and eating me alive.” Another drink tossed back, and instead of pouring another, Edgar grabbed the neck of the bottle. “I’m dying. I’m pissed about it. I’ll take everybody I can with me. Drink?” He held out the bottle to her, and as tempting as it was to numb the fear, Mae resisted.

“No, thank you.” She looked over at Jason, who was still under the desk, totally silent and remarkably still. She didn’t want to do anything to distract him, which had been her purpose in talking to Edgar so much. But Edgar’s words only served to make her want to vomit. Mae saw a door that opened to a balcony. “I need air,” she murmured before making her way to it.

Edgar’s voice flitted over her shoulder. “Of course,” he said solicitously, as if he weren’t holding them all hostage.

Mae opened the sliding-glass door, noting the oddness of the feature on such a rugged structure. But as soon as the Gulf wind whipped through her hair in a blast of brine, all thoughts of CEO rooms and terrorists fled. If they made it out of here alive, she could handle this view the rest of her life. That thought gave her a sense of serenity. If she didn’t make it out alive, she was okay with this being her last sight, as long as Jason was close. Seeing the blue Gulf waters so deep and clear was absolutely breathtaking. The view was immense, water and sky for as far as the eye could see. Different shades of blue brought an immediate peace to her thoughts. She was almost able to forget why she was here and what was going on.

And then a fluttering in her peripheral vision turned her head.

It looked like a parachute flapping to the ground, but she had no knowledge of parachutes or what they would look like. But in her head, the head that so desperately wanted out of this mess, that’s exactly what Mae saw.

A strange sound came from her. It was a muted, strangled whoop of joy, one she felt a strange need to let out, yet her circumstances dictated she rein it in. Her eyes stayed focused on the base of the crane on the corner of the rig where she’d thought she’d seen the fabric waving. It wasn’t far from where her balcony was. As she focused on that, she saw other flutters.

They were parachutes. Some landing on the rig, some in the water.

Her heart soared with joy, and a smile came to her face. They were being rescued.

Then, the words of Mr. Chase came back to her. There were a hundred and twenty people on this thing. And a bomb set to blow any minute. She needed to get their attention and get them over here to diffuse this thing.

Looking back behind her, she realized she was in full view of Edgar and Jason. Jason was fully focused on the bomb, the frown on his face marring his features as he examined the bundle of wires and clay in front of him. She would not distract him.

Edgar, however, was leaning against the bar, looking at Jason with a mild expression on his face. He wasn’t focused on her, but he faced her, so any movement on her part would draw his attention. Thinking quickly, she felt around in her pockets for something. Anything.

There was lipstick in there. The lipstick itself wasn’t much. She couldn’t write anything big enough to be seen by anybody. But the lipstick was a fancy one with a built-in compact mirror.

She opened it, and holding it in front of her, flashed it at the parachuters. Any of them. All of them. Somebody had to come over here. Hopefully, they would know something about bombs.

A head peeked around from the bottom of the crane where she’d initially seen the movement. Her heart pounded as his lips moved before he disappeared. Mae looked around to see where he’d gotten to, and after a minute or two, he appeared below her, scaling the wall.

Her heart was in her throat as she watched him climb effortlessly up the wall. She had no idea who they were, but he could only be a good guy. Right?