The Last Second Read Online Free Page B

reached down to pet him.
    Griffin found a hammer in a toolbox in the corner and gave the lock a solid hit. It popped off. “You might want to move inside the stairwell.”
    “Seriously, Griff? If that stuff blows, this flimsy wall isn’t doing either of us any good.”
    “Stubborn as ever,” he said, then pulled open the cupboard.
    The moment he did, the dog tried to escape from Sydney’s grasp.
    “Easy, boy,” she said.
    “There’s a tunnel,” he told her, when she tried to angle over to see. “Meter wide by a meter high.” Griffin hated dark, tight spaces, and this was definitely dark and bordering on tight.
    Max pulled Sydney forward.
    “Don’t let him go.”
    “I’m trying not to,” she said as the dog’s claws scratched at the concrete.
    He leaned down, peered inside. The area was dark, and he could just make out the rough-­hewn walls of the tunnel. The wire snaked along the bottom off to one side, and he pulled out his phone, turned on the flashlight feature. “Another box of explosives farther in.”
    “Why would you blow up a tunnel that is hidden from view?”
    “You wouldn’t, unless there was something down there you didn’t want anyone to find.”
    The sound of metal hitting metal startled them. It came from outside, somewhere near the gate, Griffin thought.
    Max barked, broke free, then scrambled for the tunnel. Griffin dove for the dog.
    Max darted to the side, raced past him down the long passageway, right toward the box of explosives.
    “Max!”
    The dog never stopped. Griffin tensed. But the dog jumped over the explosives, then on past it, disappearing around a corner.
    And then Trish called out from upstairs.
    “You better get up here!” Trish said. “Some cop just crashed his car through the gate. He’s parked at the bottom of the hill. There’s another car right behind his.”
    Sydney looked toward Griffin.
    “I need to see what this wire’s for,” he said.
    “Be careful, Zachary.”
    He wasn’t sure he’d ever heard her use his first name before. “You too.”
    “Aren’t I always?” And then the sound of her footsteps as she raced up the stairs.
    Griffin, phone in hand as his only source of light, entered the tunnel. He took a deep breath, and then another before starting forward. He’d had to train himself to get past the tight spaces, relax enough to let the claustrophobic feelings pass. The tunnel was not going to come down on him, and he kept his eye on the wire to the right, careful not to disturb it. At the same time, there was the box of explosives up ahead, and with the phone angled that way, the light bouncing as he moved, he half imagined there was another source of light shining on the dirt wall near the box in front of him.
    He stilled.
    It wasn’t his imagination. Nor was his phone the source of the light.
    Even worse, the light he saw reflecting off the rocky wall looked suspiciously like it was some sort of digital device flashing in countdown mode.
    He doubled his pace, dirt and rocks digging into his palms and knees, and he wondered if the dog had somehow set off a detonator on this secondary device. The box of explosives was nearly in the middle of the tunnel, and he leaned over it to view the timer.
    Two minutes, thirty-­nine seconds. And counting down fast. A mercury switch. The dog must have brushed against it and set it off.
    He heard something. Panting.
    Max, he realized, but turned his attention to the detonator, vaguely aware that the air here smelled. Of urine.
    Dead men didn’t urinate. Men who were trapped in tunnels did.
    Trish’s brother was going to have to wait. He had a bomb to disarm. Using his phone as a flashlight, he examined the device on all sides. Whoever had set this up had used a simple connection. Finally, something going his way. He dug out his pocketknife, then cut the wire. The timer stopped. But then came that millisecond of worry, until nothing more happened. He took a deep breath, sat back, and was about to start