Page 139 of Montana Manhunt

“Bombs first.” He held up a hand as Noah protested. “I get it. I’ll release you as soon as I can. Where’s the closest bomb?”

Noah motioned to the little girl on the ground with her mother weeping at her side.

Maddox glanced at Grant. “Can you handle Rayne on your own?”

“Yeah. Go.”

“Let’s see what we have, Noah, and we’ll go from there.”

They crouched beside the girl and studied the vest she wore. Noah’s heart sank. The timer was down to 20 minutes and still ticking. He glanced at his boss. Maddox’s grim expression told him this wouldn’t be an easy bomb to defuse. “Can you defuse this?” he asked softly.

The Fortress CEO gave a slight nod. “We’ll need every minute we have.”

Noah blew out a breath. “We must find the second bomb.”

Rayne hissed and growled at Grant. “Ouch! That hurts.”

“I know, baby,” Grant murmured. “I’m sorry, but this will slow the bleeding until we get you to a hospital.”

“Go after Violet. We can’t leave her in that creep’s hands. She’s counting on us.”

“We’ll take care of both of you,” Maddox said softly, his attention fixed on the wires and ticking timer. “Grant, stabilize her as best you can and take over here. Noah and I have to find the other bomb.”

“Copy that, sir.”

“This is good enough,” Rayne insisted. “You’re EOD, Grant. You save that little girl.”

Grant stood, pulled a few tools from his cargo pocket, and handed them to Maddox. “You’ll need these.”

“What about you?”

“I always carry extras.” He shrugged. “You never know when they’ll come in handy.”

The mission clock ticked in Noah’s head. He had to help find this bomb so he could go after the woman he loved. “We should go, sir.”

“Did Hanson give you any hint about where he planted the second bomb?”

“No, sir.”

“All right. Let’s find someone from hotel security. We need to look at the security cam footage. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

They jogged toward the hotel only to be stopped by a man in a jacket identifying him as hotel security.

“Wait with the others,” the young man said.

Maddox held up his identification. “I’m with Fortress Security. You have a bomb inside your hotel.”

Blood drained from the man’s face. “Are you sure?”

“Do you know how to pull up security footage?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Take me to the office right now.”

Two police officers jogged toward the security guard. “What do we have?”

“The fire alarm went off, and now these two men say there’s a bomb in the hotel.”

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