Pushing Fiona out of the forefront of her mind, she focused on the task at hand. She needed to finish out her profile, but first, she needed more information about the bomb. With her metal canteen of water in hand, Morgan left her desk and took the elevator down. This time she went to the basement where their crime scene gurus were located.

  Knocking on the door to the laboratory, Morgan waited until she had someone’s attention before just walking in. The young man sitting at the desk had the brightest blue eyes. His hair was curly against his head, but left long enough that should could probably twist her fingers around it twice before tugging. Grunting at the inappropriate thought, Morgan knew she had been right in her assessment earlier when she’d asked Adena over.

  “I’m Stone. Do you have an update on the bombing investigation?”

  “You mean Operation Time Lord.”

  Morgan raised an eyebrow at him, trying to keep the smirk off her lips and the chuckle out of her throat. “The what?”

  “Operation Time Lord.” He gave her a funny look. “Isn’t that the name of the case?”

  “Uh…no. But yes, the bombing at the factory.”

  His cheeks turned bright red. “I’m so sorry. I’m…I’m new here. The guys must have been playing.”

  Morgan put her hand out to calm him down. She didn’t need some upset newbie on the lab squad to be so embarrassed he couldn’t tell her anything. “If you’re new, what’s your name?”

  “Kenny King, ma’am.”

  Letting a sweet smile grace her lips, Morgan leaned onto the desk he was at. “No need to call me ma’am. You can call me Stone or Morgan. Your choice.”

  He nodded at her.

  “So my case?”

  “Right.” He clicked a few things on the computer and pulled up an analysis, then moved his hand, indicating Morgan should look at it. Having forgotten her glasses upstairs, she wasn’t much help in seeing the screen itself, but even then, she wasn’t sure she could interpret what it was saying anyway. She was just about to ask him a question, when a door opened and closed.

  “Morgan.”

  “Marsha Walsh.” Her sweet smile turned seductive.

  “I see you’ve met Kenny.”

  “I have.”

  Kenny’s gaze bounced between them both.

  “I assume you’re here about the bomb.”

  “Yes.”

  “This way.”

  Morgan followed Marsha into a small office where they sat. Marsha was at a desk littered in papers, and Morgan sat in the only chair not covered with papers. She had no idea how Marsha managed to keep everything sane and organized in there or how she managed to find anything. Surely someone would have told her to clean it up already.

  “Do you have an update for me?”

  Marsha sent her a sly look. “There was one bomb.”

  “I knew that.”

  “It was simplistic enough someone could have ordered the items needed to make it or picked it up at the local store. There was a timer on it, kitchen timer. Some of the other materials can be bought pretty cheaply.”

  “So this isn’t someone who has a good amount of money?”

  Marsha stared at her directly, her dark eyes close to a void of information. “Perhaps. We found a partial print, but it’s not going to get you much. It was very difficult to piece everything back together. Whoever it was must have added something to use as shrapnel in the blast.”

  “Added what?”

  “Haven’t figured that out yet, but the materials used for the making of the bomb were pretty much decimated.”

  “Okay. You have a report for me?”

  “It’ll be finished within the hour.”

  Morgan rubbed her palm on her thigh, her canteen still firmly in her other hand. “I look forward to reading it.”

  Standing up, she made to leave the office, but Marsha’s voice caught her attention. “Don’t scare the new kid, Stone. He’s quite smart, and I’d like to keep him around as long as possible.”

  “All right.” She waved to Kenny on her way out. Morgan had one more stop to make before she’d go back up to her desk and hope someone had sent her a report to read by then.

  Morgan stopped at Adena’s floor, but she bypassed Adena’s desk and found another of the analysts there. As much as she knew she could have asked Adena, she didn’t want to annoy the woman to the point that she would renege on their date that evening. She really needed to have a proper roll in the sheets. Adena would no doubt deliver on that.

  Jaime Alverez had seen her come through the elevator and watched just about every step she took toward his desk. She beamed at him. “Got a question for you.”

  “You’ve already been down here once today.”

  “Observant.” She flirted back. “Have we had anything on BMAP show up recently?”

  “How did I know you were going to ask me that? They put you in charge of Operation Time Lord?”

  “Jesus, why does everyone think it’s called that.”

  He smirked. “Because it is.”

  “It is not. I haven’t named the case yet, and if I’m in charge, I get to name it.”

  “You can think that.” He stared directly at her. “But to answer your initial question, no. Nothing has come up on BMAP. I no doubt would have found you and told you.”

  “Fine. You keep an eye on it for me? We’re looking for regular run of the mill stuff, nothing fancy.”

  “Scout’s honor.” He saluted her.

  Morgan rolled her eyes, a flush hitting her cheeks as she turned around and went back to her desk. When she saw Pax coming over from the copy machine, he muttered at her as he sat down. “Have a good walk?”

  “Excellent.”

  Morgan ignored him and focused on typing out her profile and waiting on the reports to come in from all the other departments. She knew they were working as fast as they could, but still, she had hoped she would have more information already. Wexford would no doubt be knocking on her metaphorical door asking for updates and intel as soon as she had to stop avoiding and as soon as it truly came out that Morgan was the FBI portion of the task force.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The festival had been the perfect choice. Ian drove up, parking six or seven blocks away. The three of them made a note of where the car was, knowing they were to meet back there in an hour and a half. That meant Ian would have to blend in for that time, so would the others. He would have to pretend like he wanted to be there and was enjoying himself.

  “Set it for around twelve,” Ian whispered.

  “So this timer isn’t like the others?” Spencer asked.

  Ian shook his head. “No, not a specific time. A countdown. Aim for noon, and then we’ll catch them all by surprise when they don’t all go off at once.”

  Spencer grinned. Ian clenched his jaw as he shifted in his seat behind the wheel of the car. Tim looked pale as a ghost. If Ian was going to guess anyone was going to chicken out that time, it was going to be Tim. Their factory attempt at starting a war had failed miserably. The news had covered it only as an accidental explosion, which had meant no one was scared, no one was nervous about going to work or gathering together, no one wanted to leave the country and go back home.

  “It has to work this time,” Ian muttered. “We have to make an impact.”

  “We will,” Tim whispered and shifted his gaze into the backseat to look at Spencer. “Right?”

  “Yeah.” Spencer nodded. “We’re going to do this right this time.”

  Ian lit a cigarette and sucked it down, the smoke filling his lungs and calming his jittery nerves. He had no idea why he was nervous. It wasn’t the first bomb they had set, and the entire purpose was to begin their defense of their country and take it back. The government could fight wars overseas all they wanted, but unless they kept those dogs off their turf instead of just opening the doors and letting them in, there was never going to be a difference made. Fighting a war overseas was pointless if they were just going to bring them all back here anyway.

  Spencer smoked down his own cigarette in the back, but Tim remained stoic, sitting next to them. Ian left his pack of cigarettes in the car, not wanting to leave any trace of himself where he set his bomb, and he knew if he brought them with him he would smoke the entire pack in the meantime while he waited to find the perfect spot.

  There were white people and brown people wandering toward the pier, but to him, they were all on the same level. He knew it would be a mix of whoever was there, the festival some sort of religious gathering.

  Women walked by them with their husbands and children in tow. He wondered briefly if that was Tim’s hesitation, the kids. But those kids would just grow up to be adults with the same viewpoints, the same beliefs, the same goal of taking over their country as the parents who raised them. They were just as much the enemy.

  “You ready for this, Tim?” Ian asked.

  “Yes.” His answer was firm and confident, but he didn’t look it.

  Ian grabbed one more cigarette and lit it. “We need to defend ourselves. We can’t keep letting them in here to take over so we have no control. This country won’t be ours if we don’t do something about it now. In fact, we have waited far too long to do something about it. We can’t trust the government to stand behind us any longer. They’re just letting them in here freely to do as they want.”

  “I know,” Tim whispered. “This will be the second step toward making this country the place we want to raise our kids in.”

  Ian nodded his agreement, staring directly at Tim with hope bursting in his chest. If Tim could understand it, and risk everything for it, then Ian had no doubt others would follow soon. Glancing in the rearview mirror at Spencer, Ian took another long drag from his smoke.

  “What say you, Spence?”

  “I say we light them up. Let them know who’s boss. Show them that we will defend our country with our lives.”

  Snubbing out his smoke, Ian turned the engine in the car off. Reaching behind the passenger seat, he pulled out a small black backpack and handed one to each of them. Gripping his own firmly, he set his jaw. “Let’s do this.”

  Ian smiled at the people who passed him by, and he started up small talk. He knew exactly where Tim and Spencer were, but they didn’t talk to each other. There were brown-skinned folk, black-skinned folk, and white-skinned folk all around the festival. It made his stomach churn. They should not be celebrating some deity who could bring them nothing, who was nothing more than pure fable. Anger pooled in Ian’s belly as he wandered around the streets.

  Spencer had been right. It was the perfect place to launch their second defense against their way of life. Nothing could be more true than turning such a celebration into what it really should be, a day of reckoning, a day when the reality of who’s God was the real God would shatter the glass and allow these people to know truth.

  Ian stepped up to a street vendor. He’d been at the festival for a little over an hour. He paid cash for a small meal. He was to drop his bag somewhere in a one block radius. Tim and Spencer were doing the same. The timer set for thirty minutes. It would give them enough time to get away from the explosions, but also to finally see his masterpiece at work.

  Clenching his jaw, Ian ate the chicken on a stick slowly while he wandered around to find the best place to leave his bag. He’d have to do it subtly, in a way that no one would suspect. He found a street sign and leaned against it as the parade from the mosque started. Chewing on his food, his stomach settled. He was about to make his stand.

  It was the end of Ramadan as Spencer had explained it. He would know. He worked with many of them in his own factory job. Ian took Spencer at his word, listened about what they would be doing that day, all things his co-workers had told him would be happening. They had decided during the parade would be best, that it would make the most impact. But it was hard to judge when it would be by right where they were going to set up their defenses.

  Ian settled his bag against the bottom of the street sign as he continued to eat. He nodded to those who walked by him, plastering on a smile to pretend like he was enjoying himself. It was harder than he thought it would be, but he was well-practiced. He’d had to do to it every day at his last job before they shafted him within his ninety-days.

  With tense shoulders, Ian looked around. No one was looking at him. He bent down and set the timer for thirty minutes. Ian leaned against the street sign once more, counted to sixty twice over, and then walked away. Their bombs wouldn’t go off at the same time, but that would help increase the panic. He knew it would.

  It was their most brilliant plan yet. He put his head down and stepped out of the crowds and down the streets to where he left his car. Sliding into the driver’s seat, he waited. Tim and Spencer should be joining him any minute. He watched the clock tick down. When he got to twenty-two minutes left, Spencer slid into the back seat.

  “Where’d you set it?”

  “On the pier.”

  Ian nodded. “Time?”

  Spencer glanced at the clock. “Should be about twenty minutes now.”

  Ian nodded. His bomb wouldn’t be the first to go off. It irked him, but he let it slide. The point wasn’t for him to make the most impact but to make a point that they would not let their country be overrun by people who had no claim to it, they would not let their jobs be taken any more, and they would not let their children grow up in a world where they didn’t have grand opportunities to thrive.

  “Tim?”

  “Don’t know.” Spencer pulled out his phone. “He hasn’t called or texted yet.”

  They waited with bated breath and in silence. Tim finally showed up, seven minutes later. Ian’s excitement rose in his belly, the gurgling making him want to get out of the car and walk around. He wanted to see the panic on their faces when they didn’t know what was happening, when that first bomb went off and they would be running. He wanted that rush of adrenaline and power.

  But he didn’t move. He stayed in his car, hands on the steering wheel. They really should leave. They didn’t want to be caught in the throng as people ran to get away, but he couldn’t help himself. He wanted to see his creation explode.

  “We should go,” Tim whispered, his leg bouncing off the floor board in the front seat.

  “Not yet,” Ian muttered.

  Tim turned to him with wide eyes full of fear. “Ian—”

  “Not yet. Wait until the first one, then we’ll go.”

  “No. That’s stupid.”

  Ian twisted and glared at Tim. “I want to make sure it works this time.”

  “They’ll work. It did last time.”

  “Barely,” he said through clenched teeth.

  Tim turned to look in the back seat at Spencer. “Don’t you think we should go? That was the plan.”

  Spencer nodded. “Yeah, but he’s the one driving, and I don’t think we really get a say.”

  Ian focused his gaze out the front windshield. They weren’t in a busy part. He had specifically parked a good distance off. They wouldn’t see anything except the flood of people running from the explosions. But he wanted to see it. Next time, he’d have to work it so that the other two could leave and he could stay—if that was what they really wanted. He wanted to make sure their defense had the best impact it could, and he wanted to see that impact first hand, not through some stupid news media that would no doubt spin it in a different direction because of all the liberal influence.

  “How much time on yours, Tim?”

  “Uh…twelve minutes.”

  “It’s last.”

  Tim nodded his understanding. Ian stared down at the clock again. Two minutes to when Spencer’s was supposed to go off. Four until his. Tim might be lucky in that his would make the biggest impact since there was so much time in-between, or it would make the smallest since most people would have vacated by then.

  “Where’d you set it?”

  “Two blocks out from the pier by a bunch of parked cars. I put it underneath a car.”

  Ian turned to him with appreciation in his gaze. “That was smart.”

  “I thought so.”

  Somehow, they had worked it perfectly. Spencer’s would go off first, shoveling people toward Ian’s bomb, which would go off shortly after. Then they would all run toward Tim’s. Perhaps this would be the perfect influence to mount their defense on.

  The first shock ricocheted through Ian’s chest. Excitement built up as he leaned forward to stare out the windshield and maybe see some of what was happening. They were too far away. He waited impatiently for the second blast to go off, the one that should have been from his or Spencer’s bombs, but nothing happened.

  It took a full two minutes before the wave of people running toward them started. Tim bounced in the seat next to him. “We should go.”

  “Not yet.”

  “We don’t want to get stuck.”

  Ian’s breathing was heavy, joy reaching deep within him. “It’s working.”

  “It is,” Tim answered. “And if we want a chance to do it again, we need to get out of here.”

  Just as the first person ran by their car, Ian pulled out of the parking space and headed down the street at a snail’s pace. He wanted to see it all. He kept glancing in the rearview mirror, hoping to catch some glimpse of the damage he had done, but there was nothing to bring him that satisfaction other than the scared looks of fear on those running toward them.

  Tim’s bomb must have gone off because those who were running stopped or picked up their speed. Ian wanted so badly to turn around and see it all, but he’d have to settle for watching on the news. Tim leaned into his chair, closing his eyes and taking deep breaths. Spencer was halfway through the back seats into the front of the car as he looked around.

  “Let’s go,” Spencer whispered.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Ian answered.

  When they got back to Ian’s basement, they flicked on the television and turned it to the local news station. Sure enough, the reporters were already there, lining the streets as they interviewed people who were running. The police were barricading things off, dogs running around, ambulances.