“Hey,” he said. He wasn’t looking at Julie, but instead up at the sky, which was growing darker as the sun prepared to set.
“What’s up?”
“Thanks for coming back for me.” He finally looked back down, turning his head to catch Julie’s eye.
“You knew I would,” she said, smiling, as she stood up. “Now let’s get this thing out to the lake.”
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Ben was shocked that Julie was actually driving. Unfortunately, she’d volunteered to drive the Dodge Charger police cruiser that she’d “borrowed” from the officer earlier, leaving Ben to drive her own truck. He tested his leg, finding it in pain but not broken, and he walked in a few circles outside of the cave before continuing.
They’d lifted the bomb up and over the tailgate of the truck and slid it against the cab, opting to stand it up on its base rather than leave it to roll around. Julie didn’t have any tie-downs or rope in the truck, so Ben asked her to follow behind and make sure the bomb didn’t fall over. If it did, and Ben couldn’t hear or feel it himself, she’d agreed to flash her headlights a few times to let him know.
But it was overkill. The road they’d turned onto curved around the lake, for the most part following the shoreline. Ben knew the road was paved almost entirely and was free of potholes, bumps, and irregular surfaces like the dirt back roads they’d been on.
The plan was to find a spot to dump the bomb into the lake, trying to get it as far out onto the water as possible, and that meant they’d get to higher ground and find a hill or raised location from which they’d roll the bomb down and out over the lake.
It was a pretty meager plan, Ben admitted to himself, but it was still a plan. He’d been at a loss for what to do after he found the explosive device, and only after they’d secured the bomb in the back of the truck had he realized why.
He hadn’t expected to even find it in the first place.
Ben thought it was a miracle they’d stumbled across the bomb’s resting place, and even more of a miracle that it hadn’t yet detonated, but he wasn’t holding out hope that this next phase of their hacked together plan was going to work.
Still, he pressed on. What good is a plan if it isn’t tried? he thought to himself. He wasn’t sure if that was a real quote or just something that seemed to make sense, but he held on to it.
He now knew what it felt like to truly hope. To long for something to happen; to wish with all he had to accomplish something.
He’d felt pangs of it when his father had been in the ER, and then later as they stabilized him, but he’d forgotten the feelings of hope, longing, and even true despair.
This, he knew, was desperate.
They were racing at a breakneck pace, carrying a who-knew-how-massive explosive device that was guaranteed to blow in less than half an hour, trying to find a place to dump it in a lake.
In a lake.
The thought struck him as funny for some reason, and he couldn’t help but laugh out loud.
We’re dumping a nuclear warhead into a lake.
He didn’t know if the bomb was actually nuclear or if it was something else entirely, but semantics didn’t matter to him at this point.
I’ve gone off the deep end, and I’ve taken Julie with me.
But as soon as he thought of Julie, his mind seemed to relax just a bit. They were still on a mission that would change the course of their nation’s history, but knowing that she was with him — even in a separate car — made him feel better for some reason.
He hoped they’d get through it.
Flashing lights in the rearview mirror snapped Ben back to the real world.
Shit.
She flashed the lights again, and Ben stretched up a little to try and peer out the mirror and window into the truck bed.
He slowed the truck slightly, trying to get the fallen bomb to roll around. He couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary, and he didn’t feel anything bump against the sides of the bed.
What’s going on?
He slowed, then stopped. Julie pulled the police car up beside him, and he pressed the button to roll the passenger window down. He began speaking before the window was fully open.
“What’s wrong? You okay?”
“Chill, Ben. Everything’s fine,” she responded.
Ben let out a breath and relaxed. He was starting to freak himself out with the way he was acting around her. “Sorry. What’s up?”
“I saw a boat down there.”
The words struck him as odd at first, until he realized what she was implying. “Really? Where? Sorry, I wasn’t even looking at the lake.”
“I know — you told me you’d be looking for high ground; a place to roll the canister off of. I thought it’d be helpful if I took to looking for any other options.”
Ben was struck by the obviousness and the foresight she’d portrayed in making that decision, and once again chided himself for ever trying to rid himself of her.
“Uh, yeah,” he said, “that seems like a better idea than what we thought of before.”
“You mean what you thought of before,” she said, verbally nudging him a little.
Man, this girl doesn’t let up, he thought.
“Right. That. Well, anyway, let’s head down there and see if it’s worth the trouble.”
She nodded, already trying to find a road that led down to the lake. “I’ll bet there’s a turnoff up ahead. Keep your eyes peeled.”
Ben nodded and began to roll up the window.
“Hey,” she said.
He stopped and looked over at her.
“What’s the time?”
He’d almost forgotten he’d been tracking the bomb’s countdown timer with his watch’s built-in timer, and he suddenly felt a wave of anxiety wash over him.
15 minutes.
“15:14,” he called to the other vehicle. Saying it aloud made him even more nervous.
They’d decided that they would try to allow for a five-minute window before the countdown timer reached zero, as a “safe zone.” It was an arbitrary number, but Ben didn’t want to take any chances that Stephens — or whoever else was behind this — hadn’t programmed the timer to detonate the bomb before it reached zero.
That meant they had about ten minutes to get the bomb out onto the water.
He pulled away from the police car, suddenly aware of the one-way trip they were both on.
They didn’t have time to get to the boat and get to a hill or raised area over the lake.
If they chose the boat option, it was their only option. Either the boat had fuel in it or it didn’t, and if it didn’t…
He didn’t waste energy computing the outcomes of that scenario. Ben focused on the road in front of him, watching for a left turn that would lead them to the lake.
Another variable I’ve got to get right.
They didn’t have the time to search multiple roads.
Luckily, the road they wanted was the first one that appeared in front of them. Ben wasted no time turning the truck and bouncing over the unkept mud and dirt, all the while accelerating as the truck sped up downhill. He barely even checked behind him for Julie’s car — it wouldn’t matter much now if she was there or not.
The road ended at the water in a sort of boat ramp, the kind you might use in a worst-case scenario. Mud and rocks made up the bottom half of the ramp as the road disappeared into the gently lapping waves of the lake, and Ben made sure to stop the truck well enough in front of the ramp so as not to have any trouble leaving the location when they were finished. Time was working against them, more than he’d ever experienced.