Nicholas walked him down the hall. He realized the fire alarm had been turned off. He hadn’t even noticed until now.
Bo said, “The pass is in my pocket. Put my hand in the reader, then swipe the pass.”
Mike followed his directions, and the door beeped. “Good job, okay, the code is 35767336.” She keyed in the code and the air lock clicked open.
“Stay here, Bo.”
“Ready,” Mike said, her Glock raised. She held up her fingers, one, two, three, and in they went.
No smoke or gas in here, just two FBI agents sprawled on the floor, unmoving.
“Paulie, Louisa?” Mike dropped to her knees by her people, felt for pulses. There was blood coming from the back of Paulie’s head. Both Paulie and Louisa had taken blows hard enough to knock them out.
She knelt up. “They’re not dead, thank the good Lord above, but knocked out cold.”
There was something wrong, Nicholas knew it. He heard something—
Tick. Tick. Tick.
“We have to them out of here, now!”
She didn’t waste her breath. They dragged Paulie and Louisa out into the hall where Bo was waiting, still blinded by the gas, Sherlock and Savich beside him.
Nicholas said, “There’s a bomb in the exhibit space, Uncle Bo. Savich, no, you and Sherlock stay put, you’re still half blind. Mike, get Zachery to evacuate everyone and call the bomb squad. I’ll see what we have so I can brief the bomb squad when they get here.”
Bo lurched toward him. “No, Nicholas, wait—”
But Nicholas cut him off, “I know what I’m doing, Uncle Bo. Mike, get everyone to safety.”
When he ran back into the exhibit room, he stopped cold and listened. He’d swear the ticking was louder in the now empty space.
He heard Bo shout, “You have two minutes!”
Nicholas ran to the vitrine cases that held the crown jewels. All looked fine. No, wait, the center vitrine case, the one that held the queen mother’s crown with the fake Koh-i-Noor gracing its center—the case was cocked open. The closer he went, the louder the ticking became.
The crown was tilted at an angle away from him. He expected to see the case wired, but what he saw instead was a gaping hole in the crown. The fake Koh-i-Noor was gone—no, it hit him. Not the fake, he thought. Bloody hell.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
No time to waste. He knelt and pushed under the case, saw the bomb attached to the glass.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
There was little light in the room, but still he could see there was no clock on the faceplate, so no way to know how much time was left before he and the room exploded into bits. He looked closer, saw the bomb had multiple wires attached to a cell phone. The sucker could go off at any second; all that was needed was a call to the number.
“Bloody, bloody hell.” He needed more light. He pushed himself out from under the case and ran back out into the hall to see Mike standing by the open elevator.
She grabbed his arm. “Everyone’s out. We’re last. Let’s go; the bomb squad’s close.”
“No time—the bomb’s set to a cell phone trigger. I’ve got to defuse it myself. You get out of here.”
He pulled away, ran into the comm center, grabbed a Maglite, and took off back down the hall.
28
Mike didn’t think, she simply ran after him. When she got to the exhibit room door, she saw him on his back under the center case.
“Nicholas, are you insane? Get out of there!”
“I should have known you wouldn’t do what you’re told.”
She shimmied under the center case to lie on her back beside him. “I’m here, I’m staying. Tell me what you’ve got.”
“It’s a standard cell phone–activated explosive, like they use for IEDs in Afghanistan and Iraq, and suicide bomb vests. Vibration sets it off; the ringer will be set to vibrate, and if the number is called, the movement will cause the trigger to go. I’ll use a jamming frequency, remove the phone’s faceplate, cut the wire to the ringer.”
“I sure hope you know what you’re doing. Give me the Maglite, you need both hands for this.”