Page 136 of The Search

“Outside the facility.”

“And Logan’s still inside?”

“It’s been only ten minutes.”

“With Rudzak.” She scrambled to her knees. “Why haven’t you gone after him?”

“We’re waiting.”

“Waiting?”

He nodded at the drainage pipe. “That was the way Rudzak got into the facility.”

“Then go after him, dammit.”

“Logan told us to wait.”

“What do you mean? He’s going to blow—”

The earth shook beneath her before she heard the blast.

The drainage pipe erupted into a fireball of flying concrete and smoke.

“No!” She was on her feet and running toward the drainage pipe.

Galen tackled her before she reached it. “Sarah, it’s okay. This is what Logan wanted.”

She gazed at him in horror. “He wanted to be blown to bits? Are you crazy?”

“Logan’s not suicidal. It wasn’t the facility that blew, it was the drainage pipe. We knew about the explosives planted in the basement lab and we moved them to the pipe. Rudzak should have been in the pipe when he pressed the switch.”

Hope surged through her. “The lab didn’t blow?”

“No, just the drainage tunnel.”

“You knew Rudzak was coming through that pipe, but you didn’t call the police.”

Galen was silent a moment. “Logan didn’t want him caught and put in a jail somewhere. He wanted him dead. He made the mistake before of not killing him. He wasn’t going to do it this time.”

“So he made himself bait? What if Rudzak killed him before he left the lab?”

“Logan didn’t think that’s what he had in—”

“What if Logan was wrong?” She was starting to shake. “How can anyone guess what that son of a—”

Another explosion rocked the earth.

Sarah stared in shock at the building. The smoke was clearing to reveal that not only the drainage pipe had been blown. She whispered, “Is it the lab?”

Galen was cursing. It was answer enough.

12:55 A.M.

The firemen were blowing out the drainage pipe, trying to clear it of dust and lethal gases. Sarah’s nails dug into the palms of her hands as she watched them.

“It shouldn’t have happened,” Galen said. “My guys aren’t careless. They wouldn’t have missed any of the charges in that lab.”

“Well, it did happen,” she said dully. “And Logan will be lucky if he’s not underneath a ton of wreckage. Even if he’s alive, I don’t know how the hell anyone’s going to get to him. That corner of the building collapsed.”