Derek’s pulse spiked as he spotted him.
Ahmed Rasheed knelt behind a spotlight, his rifle pointed down at the field. He wore the cobalt-blue uniform of the stadium staffers, including a blue ball cap, which reinforced Derek’s suspicion that his plan today wasn’t suicide. He had an exit strategy, and it probably involved blending into the crowd.
Derek crept closer, slowly, soundlessly. The familiar melody drifted up from the field as he neared the target.
A soft rasp as his boot scraped metal. Instantly, he knew that tiny sound was a monumental mistake.
The target glanced up.
Derek launched himself at him as the rifle swung around. They hit the deck in a tangle of limbs. Derek smashed his pistol against the man’s face just as the rifle stock jerked up and caught him in the jaw. Derek clamped his free hand over the barrel and shoved it up against the man’s windpipe, all the while landing blow after blow with the grip of his pistol. A fist connected with Derek’s cheek. He ignored it, focusing every ounce of energy on the gun barrel clamped in his hand, pressing down on the tango’s neck with all his might. Rasheed’s face reddened. His eyes squeezed shut. With a low groan, he heaved himself up and managed to throw Derek off-balance and onto his side.
Derek’s advantage vanished. Panic flooded him. He rolled onto his back, and a sharp pain in his spine told him he was on top of the rifle.
Derek smashed his gun against the man’s nose, and blood sprayed down on him. Teeth sank into his wrist. Derek fought to keep his grip on his pistol as Rasheed struggled to pry it free with fingers and teeth.
The rifle dug into his spine. Derek tried to shift the weight off him, tried to throw his leg around, but he was pinned. Pain shot up his arm as he felt his wrist being crushed and the muzzle of his Sig digging into his side.
I’ll be damned if I’m going to die by my own hand.
Blood streamed down Rasheed’s forehead, into his eyes. More flowed down from his ruined nose and dripped onto Derek’s face, blinding him. He clenched his teeth and forced his wrist around, straining against the weight and the searing pain and the desperate fingers now clawing for the trigger.
* * *
Elizabeth struggled for composure as the agent frowned down at her skeptically.
“You expect me to—”
A gunshot echoed above them. All heads jerked up. There was an instant of stunned silence, and then an army of suits sprang into action, rushing for the exits, shouting into radios.
“Bravo, report!” Walker barked into his radio.
Elizabeth’s heart lodged in her throat as she looked up at the rafters. A shriek from the field below, followed by another. Performers starting screaming and pointing up. Then panic set in. Like a herd of antelope scattering, everyone rushed off the field. People in the stands looked skyward and started moving en masse, pushing and shoving for the aisles.
“Bravo, report!” Walker said again. “Where’s Gray Wolf?”
Whatever response he got was drowned out by the noise. Elizabeth elbowed her way through the crush of agents near the door and stumbled into a corridor. Someone grabbed her arm and spun her around. The agent who’d helped her before.
“Where’s Walker?” he yelled above the din.
“He’s—”
He shoved past her and grabbed his boss, who was standing in the doorway now. “Sir, the bomb dog just got a hit!”
“Where?”
“Concourse level, left-field exit! They’ve got a hot-dog cart down there packed with explosives.”
Chapter Twenty-four
Derek raced down the corridor, trailing blood. Was it his? Rasheed’s? He didn’t know, and he didn’t have time to care as he jerked open the door to the stairwell. Boots thundered up from below. He bounded down the steps, then yanked open the door and darted out of the stairwell just in time to avoid the coming cavalry. He found himself back on the executive-suites level, where people in suits were racing back and forth. Some were agents, and some were bigwigs who’d been enjoying thousand-dollar views until chaos erupted. Derek’s eyes stung from blood and sweat, and he ducked through a door and into a service corridor, where he’d attract less attention. Although not crowded with fans, the passageway was filled with security people. It was only a matter of seconds before someone noticed him and tried to detain him.
An elevator slid open, expelling a scrum of Secret Service agents. Derek dropped into a crouch, pretending to tie his shoe as they hustled past him. He sprang to his feet and hopped into the empty car, then jabbed the button for the ground level as his phone vibrated in his pocket. It was Elizabeth.
“Thank God!” she said. “I thought you were dead.”
“Nope, but Ahmed Rasheed is. He shot himself.”
“What?”
“I’ll explain later. What’s happening there?”
“I need you on the main level. The bomb squad discovered a hot-dog cart packed with explosives by the left-field gate.”
“Shit.” He jabbed the button again. “They disarm it?”
“No, they didn’t think they could do it fast enough. It was on a timer, so they rushed it into an armored vehicle and whisked it out of here.”
The doors parted, and Derek found himself in another corridor, this one flooded with both civilians and stadium personnel. “They need to keep looking,” Derek told her. “One is none, and two is one.”
“What?”
He pushed his way through the crowd. “Demo guys like to back up their charges. They wouldn’t rely on only one bomb. I guarantee you there’s another one, probably on the opposite side of the stadium. We need to search the right-field gate.”
“I’ll tell them.”
“And why aren’t they jamming cell phones yet?”
“I have no idea.”
“This is a train wreck, Liz. The next one could be remote-controlled—”
Sirens pierced the air as the emergency alarm went off. Red strobes started flashing, and a recorded voice came over the PA system: “Emergency evacuation is in effect. Proceed with caution to the nearest exit . . .”
Giving up on his phone, Derek plowed through a door into the main concourse. The surge of people hit him like a tidal wave, and he pushed his way toward the right-field exit, scanning the walls, the corners, the alcoves for any sign of another IED. He reached the ramp but didn’t see anything suspicious. He turned and fought the tide back into the concession area, which had been abandoned by staffers.
He spotted it. Parked right beside a restroom, a lone hot-dog cart.
Derek pushed through the mob. He crouched beside the cart, which had three storage compartments, all secured shut with heavy-duty chain and padlocks. He peered underneath, sensing what he was going to see before he saw it.
Affixed to the base with a hunk of C-4 was a timer.
* * *
Elizabeth forced her way through the throng of people, searching frantically for Derek. She tried him again on her phone.
“Where are you?”
“Main concession area, behind right field. Send your bomb techs over here. I’ve got another one.”
“Another IED?” She pushed through the crowd.
“It’s on a timer,” he said.
“How much longer?”
Silence.
“Derek? Derek?”
The call had dropped. Heart hammering, she elbowed her way through the people, managing not to get swept into the riptide pouring through the ground-level exit. She spied Derek at the end of the corridor, kneeling beside a food cart. He had a pocket knife clenched in his teeth as he manipulated some wires.
She sprinted over. “How long?”
He glanced up at her and took the knife from his mouth. “Where’s Gray Wolf?”
“They got him evacuated.”
He glanced around. “We need to get this thing out of here.”
“Any way to defuse it?”
“Not in four minutes.”
“Four minutes?”
“That’s right. And it looks to be rigged with a backup detonator that’s locked inside.”