But Wendy ran out of the house, the porch door banging shut behind her. “He’s got Ham! He locked him in the barn! He’ll die!” She stopped dead in her tracks before she got too close to Tatro. “Please. Juliet. Do something.”
“Go, Brooker.” Juliet took the knife back, keeping her eyes on Tatro. “I’ll be there as soon as I can. You can take my backup gun—”
“What kind?”
“Snub-nosed revolver. My Glock’s in the lake.”
He made a face. “Keep it. You might need it.” He withdrew a steak knife from his jacket. “But I’ll switch knives with you. I think you can handle this creep with a steak knife, don’t you?”
“Ethan, I think you were right.” She tried to smile. “I am in love with you.”
He winked. “I knew it,” he said, and trotted off with the K-bar.
By the time he reached the barn, Ethan had a new appreciation for the cool Vermont breeze. Trekking back and forth along the lake had him sweating. But concentrating on his breathing, on not tripping on a root or slipping on a mushroom and stabbing himself, kept him from worrying about Ham.
The two doors—one wide, one regular—on the front of the barn were boarded shut. He went around back, finding a mirror image of the doors on the lake side. The regular door was padlocked. He noticed the trampled brush and grass.
At least he knew he had the right barn.
Since it was Vermont, he had no trouble finding a rock, and the cheap padlock broke with two good whacks.
When the door opened, Ham Carhill was in the doorway, on his back, poised to kick whoever came through, never mind that he had his feet and hands bound.
“Twice now,” Ethan said, pulling off Ham’s gag, a red bandanna soaked in drool. “Next time, you get to rescue me.”
Ham grinned weakly. “Always so humble.” But his eyes flattened with pain and fear. “Wendy?”
“She’s with her aunt. They’re fine.”
“Tatro—”
“Under arrest.”
“The other guy, the one with the shaved head?”
“Don’t know.”
“That’s not good.”
Ethan quickly cut the ropes, first on Ham’s hands, then on his feet. The rope had dug into his wrists and ankles, opening up insect bites still healing from his Colombian ordeal. “Ham. Jesus.” Ethan felt his throat constrict. “You’re skin and bones. You’ve got to learn to pick better friends.”
“Me?” Clutching Ethan’s shoulder, Ham got to his feet. “Mia—we need to help her. She’s in a bad way.”
Hell.
With energy that surprised Ethan, Ham darted back into the barn. Ethan glanced out at the pretty, idyllic landscape. There was no way he could cover his tracks with the broken padlock. He tried closing the door, but it popped back open. Well, he thought, he could use the light. He followed Ham inside.
Mia O’Farrell’s situation wasn’t just bad. It was dire.
She was blindfolded, gagged and tied to a chair, and even in the semidarkness, Ethan could see she was deathly pale, barely conscious. But, worse, she was sitting on a bomb. He could see the wires wrapped around the legs of the chair.
“It’s a tumbler switch,” Ham said.
Ethan nodded. The switch was suspended by the wires, a single line attaching it to her.
Ham brushed his mouth with the back of his hand. “If she moves—”
“I know.” And from her stillness, so did Mia. She didn’t need reminding. If she moved, she’d set off the device. Ethan moved toward her. “Mia? It’s Ethan Brooker. Ham Carhill’s here, too. We’re going to get you out of this contraption, okay?”
She let out a sound, too weak to be a groan, but an acknowledgment of her understanding, nonetheless.
“The tumbler’s a plastic pipe,” Ham said. “There’s a lantern battery under the chair. You’ve got wires running from the positive lead into the tumbler. The negative runs into the igniter—”
“Ham.”
The igniter was inserted into a roll of detonator cord. The cord was wrapped around a thick metal pipe, undoubtedly filled with some kind of shrapnel—nails, BBs, metal shavings. Any of them would prove lethal.
A plastic ball inside the pipe, if rolled to either end by any movement, would set off the bomb.
Ham squatted next to Ethan, his breathing ragged, his eyes dark and puffy. “I could disarm it, but I don’t trust myself.” He opened and shut his hands, working his stiff fingers. “I’m shaking.”
“Mia,” Ethan said, “Ham’s not touching you. I’m going to disarm the bomb. I’ve done it before.” He turned to Ham. “I want you out of here. Understood?”
From his expression, Ham definitely understood. If Ethan had miscalculated, or the bomb was improperly constructed and went off, he didn’t want Ham to get blown up, too. But Ham shook his head. “I’ll stay. I can talk you through what to do if—you know, if it gets complicated.”