Page 128 of Silver Fire
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“What? How?”Marissa demanded, rounding on the other side of Sophie.
“You all need to get out of here,” Sophie stated flatly, as she quickly lowered her backpack, unzipped the top, and pulled out her tools. She tuned out the flurry of arguments that broke out behind her as everyone tried to figure out what do. Getting down on her knees, she loosened the screws of the front panel and said louder, “Get out of here! I can’t work with all of you talking at the same time.”
“Sophie—” Derek began softly.
“Especially you, Derek.” Sophie’s head twisted slightly and stared up at him. “I can’t work when you’re here. Get out. Now!”
“The hell! I’m not leaving you,” Derek growled, his jaw set in a stubborn line.
Sophie glanced at Manning. “Get Derek out of here.”
“Dr. Leroux—” The big guy was uncertain.
“Ahhhh, just do it, Manning.” Sophie turned back and continued working on the panel. Her message was clear: Derek was a distraction.
There was a rustle of movement behind her and a cocking of a pistol.
“You take one step toward me, Manning, I will shoot you!” Derek warned.
“Jesus, Lockwood. Calm down!” Marissa hissed. “Sophie, no one is leaving. Under eight minutes, it’s not enough time to get away, so you suck it up and work to disarm that bomb. You hear me?”
Sophie heard her but did not reply. She finally removed the cover and realized what she had suspected. Damian Stolz had tampered with her design to program a remote detonator.
“Chen!” Sophie called out. “Remove the panel from the rest of the devices. I need to make sure they were not altered for remote triggering. If they were, we have to work on them at the same time.”
The bomb specialist quickly got to work. Sophie returned her attention to the tangle of wires before her. She quickly unscrewed the circuit board to check the wiring beneath. She snipped a wire and checked the timer.
6:45
6:44
6:43
Shit. The electronic trigger, once activated, was meant to be failsafe and tamper free. She hoped the backdoor she had planted worked.
Tension was thick in the room. Everyone was deathly quiet.
“Done,” Chen said. “Care to take a look?”
Sophie shifted her attention to the other two devices and was relieved that they were not enabled for remote detonation.
“Those are fine,” she said tersely. Concentrating on the web of wires underneath the board, she exposed the extra wires she had added. In that moment, it was life or death. If this did not work, they were all dead and that was when she realized she had never told Derek how much she loved him.
She paused.
“Derek,” she said, her voice shaky.
She felt him crouch silently beside her. Sophie turned her head and stared straight into his worried eyes. It wasn’t worry for himself; it was for her. This man loved her, and he would sacrifice everything for her.
“What do you need, baby?”
“You.” Sophie saw the confusion in his eyes, so she added quickly, “I love you, Derek.”
Warmth flooded his eyes, and his lips broke into a wide smile. “You’ve got rotten timing, Angel. Nevertheless, I’m glad you’ve finally figured it out.”
There was a clearing of a throat behind them. “Uh, sorry to interrupt this intimate moment, but sweetheart, you’ve got a bomb to disarm,” Marissa said dryly. The rest of the team broke out in nervous laughter.