Page 5 of On Fire

Chapter Two

Nic Silvano

That something else is raw fear.

“Where are you?”

His voice shakes as I grip the phone, hitting the overhead light with my elbow, zipping my pants up in the next second.

“It’s a bomb. I'm looking at it. It's in a bar. It's at the . . . what?” he asks someone. “The Blue Wave.”

The Blue Wave is a gay bar three blocks from here.

“What kind of bomb is it?”

“I don't—I don't know.”

“Timer?”

“Not sure.”

Jackson is not an explosives guy. That's Bryce and Mateus’s area of expertise and Broadkirk, the tall glass of milk in the Boston office, is in Chicago at a funeral.

“I don't know what to do,” he says. “Wait. It is counting down. Thirty-six seconds.”

There’s no time. I’m snatching socks up off the ground. Shit. “Where are you—”

“Blue Wave—”

I shrug on yesterday’s shirt, switching hands on the phone and cut him off. Everything out of my mouth is an order, no questions. “No. Where. Exactly.”

“Kitchen.”

“Where.”

“It’s on a shelf under the stove.” I hear him yell, “Jamal, turn that off—the gas. Yeah—turn it.”

Whoever set this is hoping to leverage more bang from the natural gas of the ovens. It might take out a whole block, or more if that pipe isn’t closed. I slip on shoes, grab keys, and take off down the stairwell, hitting the pavement in less than a minute and not pausing before sprinting down the street.

The night is a blur of colors that don’t register.

But I keep talking. “To your right is the basement door. There's a bank vault at the bottom. Throw it in there and shut the door. Go. Keep talking to me.”

There are rustling sounds and Jackson yells at someone to open the basement door. Jackson is doing exactly what Jackson does best: solve a problem. I remember the first time I saw Jackson at the airport in Portland. There was a guy with a knife who took a woman hostage. Then Jackson comes out of nowhere, short, built like a gymnast, and throws the guy—who’s a good foot taller and had fifty pounds on him—to the ground.

Now all he has to do is get that bomb downstairs.

Outside, the streets are black, empty. Boston, unlike New York, does sleep. Though sprinting, I measure my breath, trying to sound calm while I guide him from memory.

There’s the sound of footsteps hurrying down a stairwell.

“When you hit the bottom, make a left. It’s in the far corner.”

“I see it.”

“Set it in there, close the door and get out.”

More rustling, Jackson says something to himself, probably swearing.