by Janie Crouch
A FEW HOURS later they got the confirmation Sawyer had been dreading. A text came in on Megan’s phone, telling them to call Aunt Susie when they got a chance. Since Megan didn’t have an Aunt Susie, they figured out Juliet had news for them.
They had spent the past few hours driving around. Sawyer had made two calls in to Omega. The first, immediately after the conversation with Juliet, to tell them he thought they were being followed and therefore wouldn’t be going to the safe house. The other about an hour ago to say they were stopping at a supercenter for some items Megan needed due to the break-in. Which was true—they had stopped to get a few things.
Most important, clean, untraceable phones that could be used once Sawyer stopped using his current one to feed false info to Omega.
But generally they were just stalling and it would become obvious soon, so Sawyer was thankful to see his sister’s text.
But he definitely wasn’t thankful for the news.
“Evan found explosives, Sawyer,” Juliet told him when they stopped at a payphone and called a few minutes later. “He’s on the other line with us.”
“Somebody’s definitely trying to take you out,” Evan stated, seriousness evident in his tone. “But all home-baked stuff, nothing that would raise red flags in an arson investigation. Given the location—a remote building, nonresidential neighborhood—it looks like someone might be trying to make it look like an accident.” Evan explained a few more details.
The expletive that came out of Sawyer’s mouth was not one he would normally use around his sister, or any woman. “If DS-13 is willing to kill Megan, then things have just gone from bad to hell-in-a-handbasket. Especially if they’ve got Omega’s resources at their disposal.”
Sawyer wrapped an arm around Megan, pulling her closer to him. He needed to get them off the street as soon as possible. But they wouldn’t be able to hide for long.
“I think your plan is the best one, Juliet,” he told his sister.
“What plan?” Evan asked.
“Megan and I are going to give them what they want. We’ll go to the safe house and make them think we’re staying. But we’ll get out immediately. They’ll blow it up like they planned and will think we’re dead. But we’ll be gone.”
Evan chuckled wryly. “Juliet, your plans get more crazy each time.”
“Hey, my crazy plans have saved your life more than once, Evan.”
“I’m going to need you to have a car waiting for us there, Evan,” Sawyer interrupted. “And once we leave the not-safe safe house, we’ll need a hotel in Asheville.”
“This won’t hold them off forever, Sawyer,” Juliet told him. “It won’t take long for the official arson report to read that no bodies were present. I can probably stall the report, but not for long. This whole stunt will only buy you forty-eight hours, tops.”
Sawyer looked down questioningly at Megan, who was standing close enough to listen to the conversation. She nodded.
“Forty-eight hours will be enough. It has to be.”
Chapter Seventeen
Megan felt as though the world was spinning at a pace out of her control. Having someone after the countermeasure, even wrecking her car and breaking in to her house felt like a game compared to this.
DS-13 was trying to kill them.
Megan had sat mostly silent for the past few hours as Sawyer had fed misinformation to his workplace and formulated plans with his team. Plans to escape, evade, misdirect. But most importantly, survive.
On one hand, Megan could appreciate the logistical nature of what they were doing—the elaborate planning going into all of it. It wasn’t unlike the projects she worked on and developed for Cyberdyne. It all had to fit together perfectly to work. The planning appealed to her giant brain, as Sawyer so loved to call it.
But on the other hand, Megan was just downright frightened. She hadn’t said much of anything today because of Sawyer’s phone possibly being used to transmit data. What if Megan accidentally said something that gave away important information about the plan? What if she blurted out something about traitors?
Better to keep as quiet as possible.
Megan wrapped her arms around her midsection, not sure if she might fly apart any second.
She was outside, sitting on the trunk of the car. Sawyer’s phone was inside, so there was no need to monitor their statements for the moment.
Sawyer had removed all the countermeasure equipment from the backseat and was carefully packing it in two backpacks. They’d need to travel a couple of miles carrying the equipment, to get to the vehicle Evan had left for them.
“Once we get inside the house, you need to immediately announce you want to sleep,” Sawyer told her, not looking up from his careful packing. He was in full mission mode. “I’ll say that I’m going to unwind for a couple of hours and unpack, and mention that we won’t plan on leaving the safe house for multiple days.”
Megan nodded.
“Once we get the house dark, we’ll immediately want to leave. I don’t know when they’ll trigger the explosives. Evan says it’s on a remote detonator, so it can be detonated from anywhere.”
“Sawyer.” Megan hardly recognized her own voice. “How do we know they won’t set off the explosives as soon as we walk into the house?”
Sawyer stopped packing and stood, walking over to Megan and standing right in front of her. “That is a possibility.” He unwrapped her arms from around her stomach and put them on his shoulders instead. “But it is far more likely that they will wait until we are more settled in for the night. Especially if they’re trying to make it look like an accident. Plus, if the mole doesn’t want to blow his own cover, it will be much less suspicious if the building doesn’t blow up ten seconds after we walk in.”
He kissed her briefly, gently.
Megan could agree with the logic of his statement, and the odds. But she was still not thrilled about the thought of them walking into a building—even just for a few minutes—designed to kill them. But it didn’t look as if there were many other options.
Sawyer kissed her again and went back to packing. Once the backpacks were ready, he placed them in paper grocery bags. He noticed Megan’s raised eyebrow.
“To make it look like we’re planning to stay in the house for a while, in case someone’s watching. Got to have groceries.”
“Oh, right.” There was so much Sawyer thought of that hadn’t even crossed her mind. Megan was obviously not cut out for subterfuge.
Sawyer placed the grocery bags in the backseat, then helped Megan down from her perch. He walked her around to the passenger-side door, opening it for her and helping her inside. Megan couldn’t help but smile, although she knew it was tense.
“Are we on a date?”
Sawyer winked at her. “Not yet, but soon. Believe me, you’ll know when I have you out for a date.”
Despite all the tension, Megan’s heart gave a little jump.
Sawyer walked around to the driver’s side and grabbed his phone. He texted Omega, letting them know he and Megan were heading to the safe house. The sun was setting, providing them the darkness they would use to sneak out before the bomb went off.
They hoped.
Megan wrapped her arms around herself again, stomach twisted even tighter. A lot could go wrong in the next couple of hours. All of which would have the same result: Sawyer’s and Megan’s deaths.
Sawyer put the phone down, his message sent. This was it, the plan was in place whether Megan was ready or not.
Sawyer glanced over at her, concerned. Given the way Megan was manually attempting to keep her body functioning, she couldn’t blame him for his concern.
“Okay, this is it. You ready?”
“No offense intended, but I don’t really have much of a choice, do I?” Megan tried to force herself to relax, but couldn’t.
Sawyer shook his head. “No, neither of us has much of a choice. Let’s get to the safe house so you can get a little rest then get started.”
Megan remembered someone was listening, so she went back to being silent. It wasn’t long before they reached their destination.
The building itself wasn’t what Megan was expecting, although if she was honest, she couldn’t pinpoint exactly what she had been expecting. A haunted mansion, perhaps? Complete with gargoyles?
It was just a small garage/workshop that looked as if it had some sort of living quarters on the top. It backed up against a body of water—maybe a small lake? Megan couldn’t be sure in the darkness. Trees and bushes surrounded it, but no other houses or buildings.
That was good—at least nobody would be hurt by the explosion. Megan hoped the same would be true for her and Sawyer.
“Okay, this is it. I’m going to open that garage door so we can park inside.”
Sawyer had to manually open the garage door, an old-fashioned kind that swung out like a traditional door, instead of up. He pulled the car in and closed the door behind them.
As she watched the door close, Megan fought to keep her panic in check. The walls seemed to be closing in around her. She could only think, Are we about to die any second?
Megan jumped when Sawyer opened the backseat door to remove the “grocery” bags. He raised an eyebrow at her, then gestured with a circular motion of his hand for her to breathe. Megan closed her eyes and took a deep breath letting it out slowly.
She had to keep it together. If she started sobbing right now, the whole ruse would be up, not to mention might cause whoever was listening to trigger the bomb.
Megan forced herself to get out of the car and she and Sawyer walked up the stairs into the living quarters together.
“This isn’t as bad as I thought it might be, although a few windows might be nice.” Megan stood right in the middle of the small living room, unsure where to go.
“Glad it meets your approval, because we’re going to be here awhile.”
Megan didn’t want to draw out the conversation in case someone was trigger-happy. “I’m really tired. I’d like to sleep for a while before I start work on the countermeasure.”
It was almost word for word what Sawyer had told her to say. Megan wasn’t much of an actress.
“That’s fine.” Sawyer nodded. “I’m going to unpack this stuff and just hang out.”
Megan went into the bedroom and turned on the light, walked around a little, went into the bathroom for a while, then came back out and turned off the light. Following the script Sawyer had provided almost down to the letter. Megan heard the TV come on and knew he was doing the same.
Megan lay down on top of the bed. After long moments, Sawyer came into the room, keeping to the shadows, both backpacks in hand.
“Are you ready?” he asked her in a voice barely over a whisper.
Megan nodded.
“My phone is by the television speaker, so I doubt anyone can hear us now,” Sawyer continued. “We’re going to need to go back down the stairs and out the garage door. This place, with hardly any usable windows and only one door, has got to be a fire hazard. Somebody picked it well, if they were trying to trap us.”
“I didn’t even see a window.”
“It’s downstairs and pretty small. I’m not surprised you didn’t notice it. I don’t know if anyone is actually watching the house or not, but we’ve got to keep low. Even once we’re outside, try to blend in to the trees as much as possible.”
“Okay,” Megan whispered.
They each slipped on their backpacks and made it to the bottom of the stairs. Once back in the garage, Sawyer motioned for her to stop.
“I just want to see these explosives for myself.” He walked over to a corner, shifted a few boxes and lifted a blanket.
If that was the bomb, it wasn’t like anything Megan had seen in the movies. It just looked like a couple of fertilizer bags stacked on top of each other, with some cans around it. The only thing even mildly suspicious about it was the really old notebook computer sitting on top of it.
“Ammonium nitrate. Surrounded by paint thinner and gas. All stuff you’d expect at a place this old and remote. Suggesting it was an accident wouldn’t be far-fetched.”
“What is that computer?”
“The timing mechanism. Most of it will get burned away, but if any of it is found, nobody will think much of it.”
The screen of the old laptop booted on, startling them both.
Sawyer muttered an expletive, then grabbed Megan’s shoulders and pushed her forward in front of him, toward the large garage door. “Go, go!”
Megan got to the door and began to push it. It wouldn’t budge.
“Sawyer, I can’t get it to move.”
Without a word Sawyer came around in front of her and put his shoulder to the door. She heard his curse when he couldn’t get it to move, either. It was completely stuck.
Sawyer grabbed Megan’s hand and ran to the window in the back of the garage. He used a hammer to break the glass and used the side of it to clear the glass from the sill, and ripped off both their backpacks.
“That laptop screen coming on means that something has happened with the remote trigger. It could go off any second.” Sawyer was already hoisting Megan through the window as he said it.
Now that Megan understood, she didn’t waste time asking questions. She scrambled through the window, falling the few feet to the ground on the other side.
She immediately got back up, catching the backpacks as Sawyer threw them out in front of him. The brisk air surrounded her, time moving in slow motion, as Sawyer deftly began to make his own way through the window.
Until he got stuck. Megan watched as his large shoulders were jammed in the sill.
“Megan, I need you to run.” He said it to her as he attempted to back out and resituate himself.
“No. I can help you.”
“Megan, just go now. Take the equipment with you. If this building goes up, then what you’ve done with countermeasure has to make it out of here.”
She ran over to him and tried to help as Sawyer struggled to fit through the window. “It’s not more important than your life.”
“Megan, look at me.” Megan stopped her frantic pulling at his shoulders. “No offense, but the countermeasure is more important than either of our lives. Please go.”
Megan felt tears streaming down her face, but she understood what Sawyer was saying. If the bomb went off right now, both of them would die and the countermeasure would be totally destroyed.
Megan grabbed both backpacks and began running. She looked back at Sawyer, but he had disappeared back inside the window.
Damn it, she was not leaving him to die some fiery death; she didn’t care what he said about the importance of the countermeasure. She dropped the bags far enough away that they would be safe, then circled back to the house. The window was too small; she’d never be able to help him out of that.
But something was blocking the garage door in front. Maybe she could get it out of the way.
She ran around to the front of the building knowing that if someone was watching them, it was going to ruin Juliet’s brilliant plan of faking their deaths. Of course, if she and Sawyer both died,the plan was also ruined. She hoped that whoever had blocked the door was gone, although she kept to the shadows on the off chance that it would help.
A crowbar had been lodged in the double-door handles—a simple but effective means of trapping people inside. And an explosion would certainly knock the doors off their hinges or burn them completely—still making an accident look feasible.
Megan slid the heavy door open just a tiny bit and stuck her head inside.
“Sawyer!”
He was over by the pile of ammonium nitrate.
“Megan? What the hell are you doing here?”
“I’ve got the door unblocked. Just come on.”
Sawyer ran as fast as he could toward her. “I was trying to defuse this, but couldn’t. The computer is counting down. We’ve only got a few seconds.”
He gr
abbed her hand as they rushed out the door, sprinting for the trees. Megan could hear a loud sizzling noise behind her, but didn’t look back.
Even knowing the explosion was coming, the force of it surprised her. There was a bright light before heat and pressure threw her to the ground. She felt Sawyer slide his body over to protect hers from any debris. Twigs and branches flew everywhere.
Once it seemed safe, they both turned from where they lay and looked back at the damage. Megan gasped. Flames shot high in the building, the garage already completely collapsed. No one in that building would’ve survived.
Sawyer dragged her into his arms. “Your brain has been officially demoted to huge rather than giant after that stunt. You could’ve been killed.”
“Whatever. Like you wouldn’t have done the same thing.”
Sawyer chuckled at that. “Let’s get out of here.”
Chapter Eighteen
They circled around to the backpacks, then hiked to the car Evan had left for them. Sawyer was still pretty mad at Megan for risking her life like that, but had to admit she had saved his, so he couldn’t be too angry.
At this point Sawyer wasn’t sure if their plan to fake their deaths had worked or not. Someone had obviously been at the house, as evidenced by the crowbar wedged in the garage door. Whether that person had stuck around and was able to see them coming out or had left to avoid the first responders who had arrived not long after the explosion, Sawyer didn’t know.
Regardless, it didn’t change their plans. Everything that tied him to Omega—car, cell phone, even his clothes—had been left in that burning building. There was no way anyone could track them using those items now. Sawyer used the new phones he had bought at the supercenter yesterday to text Juliet and let her know that they’d made it out.
Sawyer drove around for a while to try to make sure no one was following them, then headed to the prearranged and prepaid motel. Evan and Juliet had picked a good one for them, on the other side of Asheville. Sawyer could park directly in front of the door, just steps away from their room if they needed to leave in a hurry.