The House Under Birchwood Lane

In the fraction of a second that Arthur Brody raised his eyes toward the groaning ceiling, Officer Rayden fired a single, non-lethal tactical round from her specialized compressed-air launcher.

*POP!*

A heavy rubber baton round struck Arthur squarely in his right wrist with crushing force.

Arthur screamed in pain, his fingers involuntarily opening. The handheld radio detonator slipped from his grip, falling through the air in agonizing slow motion toward the muddy floor.

Ethan didn't think. He didn't check for cover. He threw his body forward in a full-length diving slide across the slick clay floor.

His outstretched fingers caught the rubberized casing of the detonator just two inches before it slammed into a sharp rock on the ground.

Ethan slid across the wet mud, clutching the detonator against his chest, rolling over onto his back. "I'VE GOT THE DETONATOR!" he screamed.

"MOVE! MOVE!" Cordero barked, leaping forward to tackle Arthur Brody to the ground. Rayden was right behind him, her heavy boots pinning Arthur’s legs as they wrestled the screaming, hysterical man into heavy steel handcuffs.

"Lies! It’s all lies!" Arthur shrieked, thrashing against the dirt floor as Cordero snapped the cuffs shut. "You can't stop it! The timer on the secondary charge is already running!"

Ethan’s heart froze. He scrambled to his feet, sweeping his flashlight beam across the six C4 blocks mounted against the primary support pillar.

Affixed to the central block was a small digital countdown timer.

*01:42... 01:41... 01:40...*

"Cordero! Secondary mechanical timer!" Ethan yelled, pointing his flashlight at the flashing red LED numbers ticking down from one minute and forty seconds. "It’s hardwired into the primary charge! The handheld remote was just a backup!"

Cordero swore violently, rushing over to inspect the charge. "Rayden! Get Brody out of the shaft! Move!"

Rayden grabbed Arthur by his collar, dragging the thrashing suspect back toward the narrow dirt exit shaft. "Lieutenant, you have ninety seconds! We need to evacuate!"

"We can't evacuate!" Cordero yelled, inspecting the wire weave attached to the digital clock. "If this charge goes off, the support pillar collapses! The entire street drops, and the water main ruptures! It will wipe out the foundation of the treasury building and the school!"

"Can you cut the leads?!" Ethan asked, his voice tight as he held his flashlight steady over the ticking clock.

*01:15... 01:14... 01:13...*

Cordero pulled his tactical wire cutters from his belt. His hands, normally steady as a rock, were visibly trembling. Four colored wires—red, blue, striped yellow, and solid green—emerged from the digital timer box, disappearing into the gray dough-like mass of the C4 block.

"It’s an anti-tamper circuit," Cordero breathed, his face dripping with cold sweat. "If I cut the wrong lead, it completes the loop and triggers the primary blasting cap instantly."

"Which wire, Ray?!" Ethan demanded, watching the seconds tick away.

*00:48... 00:47... 00:46...*

"I don't know!" Cordero admitted, his voice cracking with rare desperation. "This isn't standard military ordnance! It’s a custom improvised rig!"

Ethan grabbed his radio headset, slamming the side toggle switch. "Janet! Janet! Put me through to the Bomb Squad staging desk NOW!"

Through his earpiece, Janet’s voice cut through the static. "Ethan! I’ve got Captain Myers from the EOD unit on the line! He’s looking at your telemetry feed!"

"Captain!" Ethan yelled into his mic. "Custom ANFO/C4 rig with a four-wire digital timer loop! Red, blue, striped yellow, solid green! Which lead is the ground loop?!"

Over the comms, a calm, authoritative voice answered instantly. "Dispatcher Miller, listen to me carefully. On that specific commercial digital clock module, the yellow striped wire is a decoy live-feed designed to detonate if snipped. The green wire is the primary battery bridge. You cut the solid GREEN wire first, then the BLUE wire within three seconds!"

*00:22... 00:21... 00:20...*

"Ray! GREEN then BLUE!" Ethan barked. "Cut the green wire NOW!"

Cordero positioned the steel blades of his wire cutters around the solid green wire. He looked at Ethan for one brief second.

"If he’s wrong, Ethan..."

"Cut it, Ray!"

Cordero squeezed the handles.

*SNIP.*

The flashing red LED clock froze for a fraction of a second... then accelerated its beep sequence.

*00:08... 00:07... 00:06...*

"BLUE! CUT THE BLUE WIRE!" Ethan shrieked.

Cordero slammed the blades around the solid blue wire and snapped his hand shut.

*SNIP.*

The digital display went completely black.

The high-pitched beeping stopped instantly.

Silence swallowed the dirt chamber, broken only by the heavy, ragged gasps of the two men standing in the dark, surrounded by six blocks of live high explosives.

Cordero dropped his wire cutters onto the dirt. He slowly lowered himself onto his knees, resting his forehead against the cold concrete of the support pillar, his entire body shuddering with released adrenaline.

Ethan let out a long breath he felt like he had been holding for four years. He looked down at his hands. They were covered in slick mud and grey explosive residue, but they were perfectly still.

Through his headset, Janet’s voice came through, trembling with emotion. "Ethan? Ray? Do you copy?"