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Jennings nodded and lightly pushed Olivia. “You heard your mother.”
There was a knock on the door, and Jennings looked at Sandra.
“That will be them with your gold,” she said.
“No way I’m getting that. You do it.”
“Okay, I’m coming to the door.” She spoke loudly, projecting her voice for the agent on the other side.
“I heard you,” a familiar voice called back.
How does he do it?It was Nolan. She opened the door, and he was standing there with the crate. He set it at his feet.
“The girl,” he said. “Then you get your gold.”
Jennings’s eyes trailed Nolan’s huge size from his combat boots to the top of his head. “You unarmed?”
Nolan held up his hands, lifted his shirt to expose his waist. No holsters, no guns in sight.
“Go.” Jennings ushered Olivia to the doorway, and she left with a quick look at her dad and Sandra.
She took a deep breath knowing that her girl was finally safe.
Jennings put his gun on Nolan. “Now bring the gold inside.”
Nolan grabbed the crate and did just that. He gave one glance to Sandra, and she had a bad feeling he was up to something. It had probably occurred to everyone the risk involved of bringing in the fake gold. Nolan would be prepared to do something, and she had to be ready for whatever that was.
“Set it over there. Hurry up.” Jennings was waving his gun around and slammed the door shut with a back kick.
“Did you want me to open it for you?” Nolan asked Jennings, as if he were offering to do a grand kindness for the man.
“That’s not necess?—”
Nolan had it opened and whacked Jennings on the head with one of the gold bars before he had a chance to react.
Jennings screamed and dropped his weapon.
Sandra swept in and grabbed the gun, and held it on Jennings. “Game over.”
Jennings was writhing on the floor and bleeding from his head wound. “Is it?” He pulled something from his pocket, and by the time she got a good look at it, Jennings was telling them what it was. He flipped a switch on the device. “In case you don’t know, this is a detonator. I’ve got this place rigged to blow, so if you don’t want pieces of yourself everywhere, I suggest you listen and listen well. All I need to do is remove my finger from the button and the whole place goes, you along with it.”
“You love yourself too much to kill yourself,” Sandra told him.
“Quite an assumption you’re making.”
But surely, he was bluffing. Everything he’d done so far was with his own interests in mind, even killing his childhood friend. Also none of their background research or intel on Jennings revealed an understanding of bomb making. There was no laptop, tablet, or computer recovered from the house, but the worldwide web was accessible from any smartphone these days. It certainly made it easy to learn anything.
“I see your brain working, Agent Vos,” Jennings said. “How could someone like me pull this off? The internet is a glorious thing. It helped me track down your daughter’s school. She was posted in some picture wearing their branded shirt online. I just went there, waited it out, followed her. The rest, well, we’re here, aren’t we? The internet also taught me about mobile VPNs. Where did the trace take you, by the way?” He smirked.
She refused to satisfy him by answering. “Why are you doing this? You have your gold.” She pointed at the crate. “The rest is outside. I came through for you.”
“Well, now you’re going to let all your buddies out there know to leave me alone or I will blow the place. It means nothing to me. I’m going to leave with all the gold in peace. Got that?”
“There’s no way that’s going to happen, pal. You’re delusional,” Nolan told him.
Sandra cringed at his approach. Always coming at people with a fight, not willing to compromise.
Jennings laughed. “The only one who is disillusioned is you.”