Page 1 of Ignited

Chapter 1

Another day, another mission.

Another psycho.

Boomer was kneeling on a gritty concrete floor in a cold, cramped crawlspace underneath an abandoned sugar mill. He rubbed sweat off his hands onto his camo pants, and then went back to disarming the bomb Psycho Dude had set to take the place out.

Along with himself, his hostages, and Boomer’s entire mission team.

On the main floor of the mill his pack alpha and mission commander, Gunn Jorgenson, was in the room with the psycho, doing his best with the hostage negotiations and trying to keep the dude talking. As opposed to blowing them all up.

Gunn was good at that. In a wolf pack full of burnouts and headcases, he was the one who would be voted ‘Most likely to talk a mad bomber off the ledge without losing his shit and just killing the fucker.’

Problem was, it was an uphill battle because this one really wanted to die. He not only had the bomb on a timer—four minutes thirty-six seconds and counting—but he had a detonator in his hand in case he decided death needed to happen right the hell now. Also, to keep Gunn from shooting him while he watched the hostages’ parents beg for their children’s lives over his private video stream.

Just the thought of that made dark rage rise up in Boomer, and he shoved it down. He needed a cool head and steady hands.

The psycho’s detonator had a dead man’s switch on it, meaning he was holding down a button that kept the bomb from going off before the timer wound down. If he let go of the detonator…

Kaboom.

And if he held the button down until the timer ran out, kaboom anyway.

Boomer had finally found a way to get underneath the bomb’s wiring cover without setting it off. He had another member of the Outlaw Ridge bomb squad with him in the crawlspace, holding a tablet that was picking up the video feed from Gunn’s body camera so they could see and hear what was going on in the main room.

Boomer’s eyes were focused on his work, but he could hear the victims crying, hear the sound of Gunn’s voice trying to soothe the perp. Buying Boomer time to fucking save everyone.

He liked his job so much better when he was the one blowing shit up, instead of keeping it from happening.

He traced the circuits in the wiring, came to the end of it, and his heart froze.

“Boomer?” That was Dobe, the second-in-command, over his headset. “Sitrep.”

Situation report. “The fucking situation is that I can’t take out the timer without setting the damn thing off. Not in the time we have left.”

“Fuck.” Silence. “Is there anything else you can do?”

If there wasn’t, they were going to have to pull out and leave the kids to die in here with the psycho. Not happening. “Bro?” Boomer said. His brother should be in sniper position, hidden somewhere near the top of the main floor interior.

“Here. In position.”

Of course he was. He was always there for Boomer. “Good. So Dobe, how long would it take the team to get everyone out? Top speed?”

“Boomer, don’t do anything crazy.”

“Why should today be different from any other day? How long?”

Dobe swore under his breath. “Two minutes?”

The timer was down to two-forty. And Boomer was, in fact, thinking about doing something crazy. He’d found the transceiver that picked up the signal from the remote detonator. Right now he couldn’t disconnect that either—not without a kaboom—but he knew the type. There was a half-second delay before the signal got from the detonator to the transceiver. Maybe even three-quarters of a second, if they were lucky.

His brother said quietly in his headset, “I have the shot. Should I take him out?”

“Not yet. Stand by.”

“Boomer?” Dobe snarled.

“I can cut the power to the transceiver so it doesn’t pick up the signal from the dead man’s switch. Bro can take him down. If we do that in the next twenty-two seconds, you’ll still have time to get everyone out before the timer makes it blow.”