Page 93 of Lethal Game

He saw the terror in her eyes, but there was nothing he could say to diminish it because Novikov's target was a huge multiplex where thousands of people were spending their Saturday night.

"Do you know what time it's happening?" he asked, hearing Beck already on the phone to Flynn.

"Eight-thirty."

Shit! They had less than two hours to evacuate the area and disarm the bombs. "Let's go," he said to the others. The HDU team can wait for law enforcement to pick up these guys."

"They can watch over Alisa, too," Nick suggested.

"No," Alisa said fiercely. "I'm not staying here. I'm not staying with anyone I don't know, Jason. I'm going with you."

It went against protocol to take her with him, but he didn't give a damn. He didn't want to let her out of his sight, either. "Fine," he said as he grabbed her hand, and they ran out of the building and back to the car.

Mick was gone—no surprise. He'd probably been listening in with the HDU team and knew exactly what was going on and was already on his way to the hotel.

Alisa got in the front seat as the other three squeezed into the back, and Jason sped out of the parking spot.

"Do you know how many bombs there are?" he asked her.

"There were two cannisters." Alisa turned slightly in her seat to face him and the others in the back. "They forced my dad to make the bombs. They were going to torture me if he didn't comply. He didn't want to do it. He didn't have a choice, but he did have a plan. He built a remote device to set off the bombs before they could get to the multiplex, but once they strapped him in the vest, he couldn't access his pocket where the device was. He was going to kill Novikov and himself and anyone else in the van, but now he can't." She drew in a breath. "When they left, Novikov told the man with me that he'd text him when it was done. That's when I was going to be killed."

His gut twisted at her words, at what might have happened to her if her father hadn't complied and what might have happened if they hadn't found her. His heartbeat was so fast that he had to forcibly calm himself down. He couldn't think abouthow close he'd come to losing her. There was still an entire city to save and a madman to stop.

"But when everyone left," she continued. "The guard said he wanted to have some fun."

He drew in another forced breath. Every word coming out of her mouth felt like a knife going through his heart. He never should have allowed any of this to happen.

"When he untied me, I knew I had just one chance…" Her voice faltered. "I can't talk about it."

"You don't have to," he said. "What's important is that you're all right, and we have a chance to stop the attack."

"I want my dad to be all right, too. I want everyone in that complex to be safe," she said desperately.

"Evacuations have already begun," he assured her, not mentioning that it would take a long time to get everyone out of that thirty-story hotel along with the shopping center and office buildings attached to it. It was seven-twenty now. There was a movie theater in the mall. The shops and restaurants would be open. The hotel was probably packed. And they had one hour and ten minutes to find the bombs and dismantle them.

They had to make it in time, Alisa thought. There were too many lives at stake, and she couldn't lose her father now. Not after she'd fought so hard to survive back in the warehouse. After he'd released her from her ties, she'd attacked him with a ferocity that had surprised both of them. He'd expected her to be scared and weak; she'd been anything but. He'd hit her several times, and her face and eye felt swollen and painful, but none of that mattered now. She'd found a way to get to the gun he'd set on the table. Seeing him rush toward her had compelled her to pull the trigger, something she had never done in her life. It had felt like they were in slow motion.

For a moment she wasn't sure she'd hit him because he wasstill moving forward, and then he'd screamed, or maybe she had; it was blurred in her mind. He'd grabbed his stomach and fallen to the ground, and she'd watched his blood spread across the dirty floor. She'd been mesmerized by the sight, not even hearing Jason and Savannah come into the room, until they were suddenly there.

And thank God they were there because the other guards would have come running in when they heard the shot, and she didn't know how she would have killed all of them.

She'd gotten her miracle. But the miracle couldn't stop there. It just couldn't.

As Jason drove across town, she barely registered the conversation going on around her. There was back and forth on different phones, various plans of attack being discussed, and an air of tension and determination. She knew the four people in this car along with all the other first responders would do everything they could to stop the catastrophic explosions.

Finally, they arrived at the Kensington Hotel. There were dozens of police vehicles lined up outside the hotel and the attached mall. The spinning lights made her feel dizzy, and she looked down at her hands to escape them, which only made her realize that one finger on her right hand was swollen. Her brain hadn't even acknowledged that pain. She had a feeling a lot of things would hurt later.

After parking the car, Jason and his team jumped out, and she followed them over to a command center that had been set up in the parking lot of the hotel. There were two vans fully equipped with monitors and other equipment and techs working on those computers, probably picking up the security feeds from the adjacent buildings.

Flynn MacKenzie, Jason's boss, filled them in. Evacuations were underway, but the vice president had left the penthouse party he was supposed to be attending, and the Secret Service was looking for him, which was complicating the evacuation of the top floor. Homeland Security and the local and state policewere focused on the mall and adjacent office building, while his team and the entire LA FBI Field Office would be concentrating on the hotel.

More manpower was on the way, but until they arrived, they needed to focus on finding the explosives, which according to her father should be somewhere in the hotel. She hoped she was right about that information, but it was certainly possible her dad hadn't even known exactly where Novikov wanted to place the bombs. But she couldn't think about the worst possible scenario; she had to focus on the positive. They were here. And they had a chance to stop the attack. They just didn't have much time.

"You'll stay here, Alisa," Jason told her. He turned to one of the men in the van. "This is Alisa. Keep an eye on her, Kyle."

"Will do," Kyle said shortly.

Jason gave her a sharp look. "Don't go anywhere else, Alisa. We will find your father. But I can't do that if I'm worrying about you."

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