My fingers tighten on the back of Amelie’s neck. “Five minutes. Keep your shit together for five more minutes and I’ll get that fucking thing off you. But if we stay here, we’re dead.” I grab Philippe’s hand and meet his terrified gaze. “I’m going to get you and your mom back home, kid. But you have to do exactly what I say.”
He nods so hard, his head is practically a blur.
“Headed for an empty stall. My two o’clock. Griff? Status report!”
“On my way.”
Thank fuck. “Zephyr, how are you with remote detonators?”
“I only work with code,” she says. “But I’m deep in the bowels of the dark web. Get me better visuals and I might be able to talk you through disarming it.”
We pass under a large red umbrella, and I tip it onto its side. It’s more than ten feet across and should hide us from view. “Philippe, go stand against the far wall and don’t move. Amelie, lift the cape so I can see what I’m working with.”
The belt wraps around the undermost garment that covers her from shoulders to ankles. She turns around in a circle as I take a video to send to Zephyr. Six pouches, evenly distributed, one holding a black plastic box with a red light blinking on top.
The fucking wires are wrapped around the belt so tightly, there’s no way to get it off her without cutting them.
“Don’t shoot me,” Griff says in my ear, then slips past the umbrella.
The man’s jaw sports a fresh bruise, and a bit of blood stains his pants. Amelie shrieks when she sees him. “He’s one of the good guys,” I say. “Got two more outside the market. Hold still now. I’m going to slice some of the nylon away from the C4.”
Griff positions himself between me and the kid, then taps the temple of his glasses. “Camera on. Zephyr can see what we see,” he says.
The minutes tick by so slowly, they feel like hours. Sweat trickles down my back. Amelie’s breathing is getting more and more erratic. Each block of plastique has a secondary tripwire coming frombehindthe explosive, and we have no way of knowing if removing them will set off a chain reaction. “How long has it been, Zephyr?”
“Twenty-one minutes. Lisette’s GPS signal stopped moving. She’s at Raziq’s house now.”
Austin breaks in. “At least a dozen men searching for you up and down the stalls. You’ve got five minutes. Max.”
That asshole could be hurting her already.Killingher already. My hand shakes, and I sit back on my heels. Twelve wires disappear inside the detonator box through a hole in the back. “I don’t see any fucking screws.”
“Pry it open,” Zephyr says. “But for fuck’s sake, be careful.”
“Griff? Need your bionics here.”
He urges Philippe to sit with his back to us and wrap his arms around his head. It won’t save the kid if the whole belt blows. But if I can neutralize even half of it, he might have a chance.
“Hold the detonator steady. If I fuck this up…”
Amelie whimpers softly. “Take Philippe and run. Please. Leave me.”
“No.” I push to my feet and stare through the fine black mesh covering her eyes, “The man who took you is going to die today. Painfully. You and your son—along with Lisette and Mateen—are going home. Your husband’s asking for you. We’re doing this.”
“L-Laurent? He…is alive?” she squeaks.
“He is. He lost a lot of blood, and he’ll be in the hospital for a few weeks, but he should make a full recovery.”
Amelie’s hand covers her mouth—or where I think her mouth should be—and she nods. “Go on, then.”
I adjust my grip on the multitool and look to Griff. “If the box slips…run.”
“It won’t.” A muscle in his jaw flexes as he closes his left hand around the detonator. “Prosthetic fingers don’t sweat.”
The flat of the blade slides under the cover. For the first time in decades, I pray.
With a loudsnap, a piece of plastic flies halfway across the empty stall. Inside, the wires wind around a circuit board in a demented maze of bright, happy colors. “Zephyr, tell me this makes sense to you.”
“Give me a minute. Maybe three,” she says in my ear.
