Page 76 of Cyn
They all nodded, and seconds later, she was jogging down the stairs with her three colleagues behind her. When she hit the landing, she stepped to the side, and Joe, Six, and Anthony came to a stop beside her, each of them surveying the room. There were boxes and some scattered equipment—a folding table here, a couple of chairs there—but for the most part, it would be easy to work around. And work they would—the room ran the entire depth of the Jewish Center, which took up half a block. Not a huge block, but half a block, nonetheless. The size aligned with the dimensions on the schematics, but maybe because time was running out, it felt vast.
“You two start here,” she said to Six and Anthony, pointing to the wall near where they stood. “We’ll start at the back, and we can both make our way toward the middle.”
Anthony and Six nodded and moved off, but Cyn called Anthony back. He turned at the sound of his name. “About how many devices would it take to bring the building above us down?” she asked. The answer wouldn’t guarantee anything as the suspects could have placed any number of devices, but a rough idea would be good.
Anthony glanced around, then grimaced. “It would depend on their strength, so it’s hard to say. At least four to do it properly, but if it were me, I would have put at least ten—one in each corner, then one in the middle of the short walls and two more along the longer walls. They couldn’t have gotten to the actual building supports since those were sunk into the ground behind the brick when the building was rebuilt, but setting the charges like I described would definitely be enough to bring down the floor above us. Then gravity would take over, bringing the rest of the building down. Especially if there are charges on the other floors.”
Fabulous. Anthony’s assessment wasn’t a surprise, but as her eyes skated upward, she wondered how much time they had to stop what they believed was going to happen.
“All right,” Cyn said on an exhale. “Let’s do this.” Leading the way to the back of the basement, Joe stayed close to her side. Nothing obvious jumped out at her as they wound their way around boxes, but by the time they reached the back wall, she’d received a text from Nora.
“Four devices along the walls up here. Fawkes is on them.”
“Fuck,” Cyn muttered.
“What?” Joe demanded, already examining a corner.
“The location has been confirmed,” Cyn called out loud enough for Six and Anthony to hear, then she filled them in on Nora’s text.
Quickly, Cyn sent Anthony’s contact information to Nora. He’d need to know from Fawkes what they were dealing with. Just as fast, a reply told her the two had already connected and Fawkes was walking Anthony through what he was seeing. In the rush, Cyn had forgotten that Fawkes was a family friend of the DeMarcos.
“Is Anthony good, Six?” Cyn called out.
“He’s listening and looking,” she replied.
Not wanting to waste any more time, Cyn slipped her phone into her pocket and started searching. It didn’t take long to find what they sought. In fact, it happened so quickly that it was almost anticlimactic. Well, it would have been anticlimactic if it had just been one device. But as it was, fifteen minutes later, they’d uncovered eleven. Each of them was on a timer and scheduled to go off fifteen minutes after the start of the celebration, which was twenty-two minutes away.
Anthony had started to defuse the bombs as they found them, but now that they were fairly certain they’d identified the location of all of them, she, Joe, and Six were observing him work on the fourth, hoping it would be easy enough that they could then jump in and help. Ideally, Fawkes would have joined them, but Devil had found four more devices on the main level, and he was working on those.
After watching Anthony defuse the fourth bomb, she gestured for Joe to follow her to the next one. There were three in a row along one wall, and by unspoken agreement, Anthony passed by them and took the one in the middle with Six on his other side. As he began to dismantle the one he’d stopped at, he verbally walked them through what he was doing so they could mirror his actions and, hopefully, speed up the process of neutralizing the weapons.
Cyn glanced at her watch as Joe sorted out the four wires. This wasn’t a movie where the wires were all a standard color, which meant that Anthony had to describe which wires to cut and when based on what they were each connected to.
They were down to eight minutes and, even after taking care of three bombs at once, they still had four to go. It would be so much easier if they had four sets of wire cutters, but while Anthony’s bag was well stocked, it wasn’t overstocked.
But wait…
“Six,” Cyn said, leaving Joe’s side to get to her friend.
Six looked up from where she had already moved on to the next device. Thankfully, each was designed the same. No doubt it had made it easier for the young men to assemble them, but it also made it easier for their crew to dismantle them.
“Your switchblade,” she said, holding out her hand. It was a sign of the stress they were all feeling when Six slid it from her pocket and handed it over without giving Cyn any shit for the shit Cyn had given her earlier for wanting to bring it.
Without another word, Cyn hurried over to the last of the eleven bombs they’d found. With one more quick look at the time, she estimated she had four minutes to get the job done and get out of the building in case they missed any. Defusing the bombs had been straightforward so far, and putting her faith in the fact that it hadn’t taken more than a few minutes to take care of the others, Cyn removed the top of the shaped charge and focused completely on the task at hand.
“We’re clear,” Devil said as she jogged down the stairs. Cyn paid her no mind as she traced one of the wires.
“Clear out of the building,” Joe answered for her. “We’re wrapping up here and will meet you outside in four minutes.”
Devil didn’t speak, but both Anthony and Six called out that they’d finished with the last ones they’d been working on. Now it was left to Cyn and Joe, but Cyn suspected Joe would finish shortly. Before that thought left her head, Joe was at her side. His presence was steady and sure, but he didn’t interfere with her concentration.
“Go,” he ordered everyone. “Cyn will finish this last one, and then we’ll be out. It’s a waste of time to argue and will only distract her if she knows you’re all standing over her shoulder.” That was a little bit of a stretch since she and her friends often created high-stress situations to train in, but Joe’s point was well-meaning.
Knowing that even as much as Devil, Six, and Nora liked Joe, they would want her assurance, she called out, “He’s right. I’m nearly done. Go, and we’ll meet you out front in less than two minutes.” Despite the chilly basement, Cyn felt a bead of sweat drip down her back as she leaned in to concentrate. She only had one more wire to cut to be clear.
The sound of footsteps pounding on the stone steps of the basement filled the room as she sliced through the last wire with Six’s switchblade. Cyn held her breath, then released it slowly when the timer stopped, then flickered out.
“Done?” Joe asked, his voice soft.
