“So you think that, once I’m not a rookie anymore, they won’t pick on me so much?” Stromberg asked.

Carter laughed. “No, son, I think they’re always going to pick on you. Just try to remember that it’s out of love.”

Strom checked his watch and prepared to move his prisoner, who simply stared forward absently, as if Lamar felt he was already dead or wishing he was.

Carter headed for the door but added, “Tell Nic to be careful taking that vest off. We need this guy in one piece. He’s our best link to the other perpetrators.”

“I’ll let him know, sir,” Strom said.

Carter left Stromberg and moved to the vault room. Taz had pulled most of his team back because of the bomb, but there was still one short black SWAT officer standing guard over the entrance to the vault. Carter nodded to the sentry as he passed by and then walked over to the conveyor system. Pulling out a small tactical flashlight and shining the light down the tunnel which led to the vault, Carter could see the massive steel plates ten feet down the hole. The metal was unmarred and untouched, no signs of someone having cut through or tampered with the barrier. Still, it was the only direction the other two suspects could have gone.

He rubbed his goatee as he stared down the hole, his wheels turning, trying to put the pieces together. But one thought chased away all others. He couldn’t help but consider how close he had come to dying. He wondered why the other terrorists would strap a nonfunctional vest onto Lamar. Just another distraction and stalling tactic, he supposed.

But something bothered him about that, a detail from earlier that someone, he couldn’t remember who, had mentioned during the briefing. They had found traces of C-4 in the van, but later, the blocks stuffed into the white-haired woman’s vest had been fakes, which meant that the perpetrators were likely still in possession of explosives. If Lamar’s vest was just for show, then why acquire actual explosives? It would have been much simpler to create something that merely looked like a bomb.

Unless they intended to use the real C-4 somewhere else …

Or they planned to use a different method to detonate the explosive vest. If the button was the only part of the vest that didn’t function, then how …

When the realization came, Carter felt like he’d been punched in the gut. He ran out of the vault room at full tilt, the sentry giving him a look of fear and confusion.

The detonator would have to be controlled remotely, which meant either a cellular or radio controlled device.

While Lamar was in the building and the jammers were active, the bomb wouldn’t detonate.

But if the jammers were switched off, or if the vest was taken beyond their effective range, Lamar and anyone else still in range of the blast would die.

Chapter 60

Nic needed a place to quickly quarantine all of the hostages and first responders, although he hadn’t told the paramedics that part yet. The choice was obvious to him. They had already set up a triage unit in the garden department of the nearby Walmart. The area could be completely sealed off and was large enough to hold all those who were potentially infected. The doors would be fairly airtight, and they could seal them up even better once everyone was inside. It wouldn’t be nearly as effective as the giant portable bubbles that the CDC would bring in, but it would work well on short notice.