Short Fuse: Elite Operators, Book 2

by Rebecca Crowley

  “Warren, I don’t—”

  Her words were lost in the blast that rocked the ground beneath their feet.

  Chapter Six

  The vibration juddered through Nicola’s bones as a cloud of dust rolled across the dry grass. The clap of sound was deafening, seeming to surround them, and she was utterly disoriented as she squeezed her eyes shut against the grit in the air.

  In one fluid motion Warren pulled her over and down to the base of the outbuilding. He bundled her against his chest, spreading his palm over the back of her head and tucking her face under his chin. As she registered the clacks and thuds of debris hitting his hard hat she pressed into him gratefully, stifling a terrified whimper as the reality of the situation struck her like a cold slap.

  This mine wasn’t safe.

  After what felt like hours but couldn’t have been more than twenty seconds, the crackling roar of the blast gave way to distressed shouts and motion-triggered alarms bleeping discordantly from various places around the site. Warren thrust her away from him, holding her at arm’s length as he scanned her for injury. She stared at his peculiar, silvery irises, absurdly wishing she could crawl back into his arms and stay there until nightfall.

  “Are you all right? Nothing hurts?” He ran a hand through her hair, parting it in sections to check for blood.

  “I’m okay. I’m fine,” she said shakily, trying to reassure herself it was true as she tightened her grip on her towel. Oh God, she wasn’t even dressed.

  Warren’s exhale carried more relief than she would’ve expected, then he dragged her to her feet. Her knees were weak and her heart pounded, but she stayed upright.

  He removed his hard hat, examined the dent made by the chunk of charred metal now at his feet, then put it back on. “I need to inspect the bombsite, and you need to keep everyone calm. The more time I have to look things over without interference, the better.”

  “Of course. I’ll get the area sealed and have everyone moved away.”

  “Maybe put on some clothes first.”

  His smile was lopsided. She managed to return it. “Killjoy.”

  “Do you want me to walk you to the office?”

  She shook her head. “Go do what you need to. I’ll change back into the boiler suit. I have a feeling I might need it.”

  He hesitated, looking like he wanted to say something more. Instead he nodded briskly and left, sprinting in the direction of a billowing plume of smoke. She peered at it, trying to place it in the context of the site. It was on the eastern side, probably among the row of equipment sheds. It wasn’t far from the central office.

  And it wasn’t far from their cabins.

  She shivered, despite the bright sunlight, then darted inside the outbuilding and slammed the door shut, suddenly full of the creeping feeling she was being watched. As before the door refused to stay closed, slowly swinging forward on its hinges when she released the handle, only now she didn’t have Warren to lean on it. She gathered up her folded boiler suit and underwear and hurried into the nearest shower stall, yanking the flimsy plastic curtain into place.

  She’d never dressed so quickly in her life. Her tight breaths echoed off the tiles as she pulled on the sweaty, grimy clothes with trembling hands, straining to listen for movement while she kept her eyes trained on the gap between the curtain and the wall.

  She wrenched the front zipper closed, shoved her feet in her boots, plunked her hard hat on her head and bolted from the outbuilding.

  Pull it together, she chided herself as she jogged toward the east end of the site. There’s no reason to assume the blast was deliberate. It was probably an accident—you saw the sloppy way those explosives were stored. Don’t jump to conclusions and don’t let fear cloud your judgment. You know what you’re doing. This is your job.

  When she reached it, the expansive area east of the office was chaotic, as clumps of gossiping mineworkers trying to inch forward for a better look competed with irritated shift leaders urging them back. The air was still cloudy with dust, and as Nicola moved closer and saw smoke rising into the air from one of the more far-flung equipment sheds, she was finally able to establish the location of the explosion.

  She exhaled heavily. According to the site map, that shed stored a lone earthmover that’d had so many mechanical faults it was on its way to being replaced. If there was any spot at the mine that could be blown up without hurting anyone or causing significant material damage, that was probably it.

  She elbowed her way through the crowd to stop next to Roger, who held a blood-soaked gauze against his temple. He stood about twenty feet away from Warren, who was shining a flashlight over the crater in front of the shed. The roof and a chunk of the bottom half of the double doors were gone, but the heavy padlock hung intact.

  “How’s your head?” she asked without preamble.

  “Little knock from a stone, not worth fussing over,” Roger grumbled. “Two aspirin and a shot of whiskey and I’ll be good as new.”

  “There was debris falling near the hoist house as well, but that’s too far away to have been from the shed. It doesn’t even look that badly damaged.”

  “Your friend over there says the vibrations from the blast probably knocked loose slates off roofs, that sort of thing. All I know is one minute I was standing outside the office talking to Alex and the next I was on the ground.”

  “Can Warren tell if it was an accident?”

  “How the hell should I know?” Roger huffed irritably. “He keeps nagging me to go find the key for the lock, like I’m his errand boy.”

  As if he had a sixth sense, Warren chose that minute to turn around.

  “Roger, any progress on that key?”

  The site manager muttered something in Afrikaans that didn’t sound at all complimentary, and as he barged back into the crowd Warren gestured for Nicola to join him. She walked to the edge of the crater, wrinkling her nose against the stench of scorched wood and metal.

  “See how the circumference of this hole is almost entirely outside the shed? And then there’s this big bite taken out of the wood here, at the top, which compromised the ceiling structure.”

  He talked her through various elements of the damage, pointing to jagged edges and burn marks, but he’d shoved the sleeves of the boiler suit up over his elbows and soon all she could think about were the sinewy muscles in his wrists, the dark hair on his forearms, the agile movements of his finger. The memory of the iron strength in his grip as he’d clutched her to his chest shot through her like a bolt of electricity, leaving tingling heat in its wake.

  “The explosion was deliberate,” he concluded, snapping her back to the present. “Someone was trying to blow the doors open without hurting whatever’s inside.”

  “Absolutely no chance it could’ve been an accident?”

  “None.”

  “Can you see what’s inside?”

  “It looks like construction equipment.”

  “There has to be something else,” she muttered. “No one would bother blowing into a shed to get a semi-functional earthmover. Where’s Roger?”

  They turned to discover that in the site manager’s absence, the semicircle of curious mineworkers had tightened and advanced. The sea of men in blue boiler suits had stretched to surround them on all sides, forcing the shift leaders to stumble backwards as their stay-away gestures went unheeded.

  Warren moved closer, raising his hand to her lower back. “Count to ten, then have a look at the man to your left. He has a shaved head and light eyes.”

  Seven, eight, nine… Nicola glanced over her shoulder and immediately knew who Warren meant. The man in question had hazel-green eyes that stood out arrestingly against his dark skin. His expression was neutral, but his stare was keen.

  Too keen.

  “I saw him at the settlement yesterday,” Warren murmured at her side. �
�He wasn’t dressed like a miner.”

  She allowed herself another ten seconds’ scrutiny before jerking her gaze away. Had he snuck onto the site using a false ID? Was he hanging around to confirm what he thought was in the shed? But why? What did he want? They should clear this crowd, get everyone away before they opened the lock and showed them all what was inside.

  “Hey, I’ve got the key!” Alex shoved his way through the throng, the thick iron object held above his head like a trophy. He was breathless when he reached them, his eyes bright with excitement.

  “Roger really didn’t want you guys to find this,” he explained. “He told Cedric to hide it, but Cedric gave it to me instead and told me to run it down here. He told Roger the key wasn’t in the drawer where it belonged and the two of them are back at the office, turning over chairs trying to find it.”

  “Hang on.” She turned to Warren, trying to cast a significant glance at the watching crowd. “Shouldn’t we—”

  But Alex crossed the crater in one stride and shoved the key in the padlock. The sound of the key turning seemed exceptionally loud, and with a rusty squeak and a cloud of ash, the padlock fell away and the doors hung open.

  A shaft of sunlight slanted across the hulking earthmover, its giant wheels caked in red dust, the yellow paint flaking off the body. Nicola squinted into the darkness, straining to find anything out of place.

  “There.” Warren pointed to the space between the back wheels. She took a step inside and leaned forward, peering underneath the machinery. The sun glinted off matte metal, then black plastic, illuminating the edge of what she discerned to be a tall stack.

  She slapped her hand over her mouth as she bolted upright so suddenly that only Warren’s steadying palm kept her from toppling over backward.

  Automatic weapons were heaped beneath the earthmover, piled almost all the way to the undercarriage.

  She spun to scan the mineworkers gathered around them, but it was too late. The light-eyed man was gone.

  “We need to check every shed on the site.” Warren’s voice tugged her attention back to the task at hand. “If someone will go to this extent to get into one, we need to know what’s inside all of them.”

  She nodded, rolling up her sleeves. “Let’s get started.”

  An hour later Nicola swung open the door of the fifth equipment shed on their inspection tour. The four they’d examined previously had no signs of interference, though Warren had noted a couple of places he thought Roger should install closed-circuit cameras.

  “There should be two front-end loaders in here.” She checked the inventory sheet as they walked around the big yellow machines. “The machine in the first shed was more or less out of commission, but these would be in use almost every day.”

  He nodded, and she followed him farther inside the dim building. “These are all spare tires lining the walls, and this high shelf that runs around the perimeter should be extra parts storage.”

  He squinted up at the wooden ledge situated a few inches above his head. “Let’s have a look up there.”

  “I’ll call Dan and get him to bring us a ladder.”

  “It’s not that high.” He stepped onto one of the protruding tires and hoisted himself halfway up the pile. He glanced over his shoulder, motioning for her to join him.

  She wasn’t tall enough to reproduce his single, elegant leap to the top, and had to carefully work her way up a series of wobbly rubber edges. When she was halfway up he crouched to grab her hands, then pulled her to the top of the pile in one quick motion.

  As she shifted her weight to steady herself, her left foot slid down the curved rubber toward the center hole. Her arms wheeled as she tried to regain her footing, but before she toppled backward he grabbed her wrists and pulled her close. She pressed her palms against his chest to steady herself, and his hands encircled her waist to keep her upright.

  Although it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds before they yanked apart, to Nicola it felt like hours. Her senses were overwhelmed, fighting to process the hard contours of his chest beneath the synthetic boiler-suit fabric, the firm pressure of his fingers brushing the tops of her hips, the tantalizing nearness of his cleanly shaven face.

  Their eyes met, and she was sure she saw something burning in those steely depths that reflected the desire running rampant through her body. But then he dropped his hands like he’d touched a flame. She backed up on the tire’s rim, and the moment was gone.

  Without a word he bent down and wove his fingers together. She put one foot into his hands and he boosted her up on to the wooden shelf and then hauled himself up behind her.

  The air was warm and dusty, and beams of hot, bright light shone through the gaps in the planked walls as they picked their way through mechanical parts stored in heaps and groups with varying degrees of organization. She trailed him in silence, having learned from the buildings they’d inspected previously that it was best to hang back and let him look around undistracted.

  She watched as he moved carefully through the clutter, his gaze sweeping swiftly yet thoroughly, clocking every detail. He was methodical and meticulous, which she supposed were essential traits for someone who spent his days wiring explosives.

  Suddenly he stopped short, and in her reverie she nearly ran into his back. He put up a hand to stop her moving forward, and when he spoke his voice was low and even.

  “Nicola,” he said with such eerie calm that her heart rate immediately began to race with panic. “Back up and get down from the ledge. Go outside and move everyone away from here.”

  Instead of following his perfectly reasonable instructions, she froze, paralyzed by shock and confusion. He knelt slowly, and as he did so he reached into one of the utility pockets on his boiler suit and retrieved what looked like a miniature version of the flat canvas cases that chefs used to carry knives in. As he laid it out on the floor in front of him, she saw that it contained a small set of pliers, wire cutters and other tools.

  As she watched, he gently moved aside a rusted carburetor to reveal what looked like a digital clock from which protruded a messy array of wires. A pile of bright orange, plastic-coated cylinders was stacked behind it.

  “Those are rock-blasting sticks,” she whispered, as though they might go off if she talked too loudly. “One of those can level a whole—”

  “It’s okay,” he murmured soothingly, without turning around. “I can disable this, but I want you to move everyone to safety, just in case.”

  “Just in case?” she echoed, wincing at the grating hysteria that edged her voice.

  “There are only ten minutes left on the timer.” His tone was firmer as he slid one of the tools from its cloth casing. “Go now.”

  Her rational mind chose that moment to abandon her. Any appreciation she’d had for Warren’s professionalism, his high-caliber education or the risks he faced every day in his job was overwhelmed by her terror at the sight of the live bomb, and his proximity to it.

  “Don’t you have a little robot who does this kind of thing? This is the twenty-first century—no one actually defuses bombs by hand.”

  “A robot,” he repeated as if that was an endearingly fanciful idea. “No, I don’t have a robot. This is Africa, not The Hurt Locker. I promise it won’t come down to the decision as to whether to cut the red wire or the blue.”

  “Warren, come outside with me,” she pleaded desperately, suddenly on the verge of tears. “Nothing in here is that important. We can buy new machinery. Please don’t risk your life over construction equipment.”

  “Go,” he repeated with so much authority she took a few reluctant steps backward. He looked over his shoulder, and when he spoke again his voice was gentler, though still brooked no argument. “I’ll be fine.”

  She stood a moment longer, conflicted, and stared uselessly as he studied the mechanism. The digital face abruptly changed fr
om ten minutes to nine, and adrenaline began to pump through her veins. She scrambled back down the tires, bracing herself against the sob of fear and despair that clawed at the back of her throat. When she hit the packed-dirt floor she took one last look up at the shelf. In a thin beam of sunlight she could just make out Warren’s broad shoulders, his dark head bent to his task.

  She set her jaw and jogged to the door, pulling her cell phone from her jacket pocket on the way.

  She tried to invest her tone with as much urgency as she could without sounding frantic. “Cedric, there’s a bomb in shed number five. Warren is working on it now, but we need to get everyone away from the area as quickly as possible.”

  Cedric replied with a string of what she assumed were Latadi profanities, and within seconds she heard the fire alarm ringing out from the canteen. As she emerged into the indifferent sunlight she saw a stream of workers heading toward the muster point for fire emergencies, which was a solid five hundred meters away. She allowed herself a tiny sigh of relief, sprinting in that direction.

  Belatedly she realized she should’ve asked Warren how much of a radius the blast was likely to have—and then she remembered that if the bomb went off, he’d be dead. She skidded to a halt, turning to look back at the shed. It appeared so unremarkable from the outside—just a cheaply constructed, weatherworn wooden building. You’d never have the slightest inkling that inside a man was racing the clock to save his own life.

  She’d made it another hundred meters toward the muster point when Cedric jogged up to her side with Alex at his heels. As she shaded her eyes with her hand she saw Dan coming toward them from the direction of the office, moving slowly, his stocky body rocking with effort.

  “Everyone’s at the muster point,” Cedric reported breathlessly. “The shift leaders will keep them corralled.”

  “Copley’s in there now?” Alex indicated the shed.

  She nodded, assuming Cedric had told him and Dan about the situation. “Have either of you seen Roger?”