The beeping of the computer had been joined by something else-something barely audible just below the surface of the first noise. Harvath hadn’t been able to hear it until he neared the work station. It sounded like the high-pitched whine a professional photographer’s flash makes as it charges back up. The funny thing was, Tracy Hastings had heard it too and she wasn’t even standing on the platform. That could mean only one thing-the whining noise hadn’t actually begun until Harvath neared the computer.

“Stay put,” cautioned Tracy. “Don’t even shift your weight. Do you understand me?”

“What’s going on, Tracy?”

“I think you tripped a pressure switch.”

“A pressure switch?” repeated Harvath. “Are you sure?”

“EOD’s all about attention to detail, right? You said so yourself.”

As Tracy tried to find an access panel to get under the floor and see what they were dealing with, the rest of the team stood there, not knowing what to do. Harvath looked at Herrington and said, “If you want to watch me wet my pants, we can do it later once I down that bottle of Louis XIII you owe me. In the meantime, why don’t you guys figure out how our terrorists got out of here. If this ends badly, I’d rather face Allah by myself. Speaking of which-”

“Those three outside?” replied Herrington. “Yeah, I noticed. They were all left facing east towards Mecca.”

“What do you think?”

“If they’re Caucasian Muslims allied with al-Qaeda, then they’ve gotta be Chechens.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” said Harvath.

Bob was just staring at him wordlessly, so Harvath said something for him. “Get the hell out of here. Can’t you see Tracy and I want to be alone for a while?”

Herrington forced a smile and replied, “See you soon.”

Harvath nodded and watched as Cates and Morgan followed him out of the room. Once they were gone Harvath asked, “How are we doing down there?”

Several moments went by without a response so Harvath tried again. “Talk to me, Tracy. What are we looking at?”

Still nothing.

“Hey, Tracy. How about a situation report already?”

The waiting was interminable, especially when it was his ass on the line and he could do absolutely nothing about it. He was about to call out again, when Hastings popped her head up over the edge of the platform. Harvath was going to ask her if it was actually a bomb and if she could handle it, but he didn’t have to. The look on her face said it all.

“It’s a bomb. A big one.”

“Great,” replied Harvath as he began to shift his weight to his other foot and then caught himself just in time. “So what’s the bad news?”

“I don’t think I can defuse it.”

“Oh yes you can.”

Hastings turned her scarred face away.

“ Tracy, you can do this stuff in your sleep,” said Harvath. “Let’s just take it one step at a time.”

“I can’t, Scot.”

“Did I ever tell you what a good dancer I am?”

She looked back over at him, unable to keep the smile from her face. “What does that have to do with any of this?”

“It has everything to do with this,” he replied. “I was going to wait for a more romantic opportunity to ask, but I was hoping I could take you out when we’re all finished with this.”

“You want to take me out? Dancing?”

“That depends. If you don’t defuse this bomb, I think our budding friendship is going to be a little bit strained.”

Hastings smiled again.

That was what Harvath needed to see. “You can do this, Tracy. Get back down there and tell me what you see.”

“I can tell you right now,” she replied, the smile disappearing from her face. “It’s almost identical to the last bomb I handled.”

“Then it should be a piece of-” said Harvath who suddenly realized what she was saying.

The last bomb Tracy Hastings had attempted to defuse had detonated, taking her left eye, half her face, and life as she’d known it along with it.

Walk me through what you did on the last bomb,” said Harvath, trying to help Tracy hold it together.

“It was pretty unsophisticated,” she replied.

“Unsophisticated, how?”

“Everything. The plastique, the initiator, everything.”

“Okay, if it was so unsophisticated textbook, what went wrong?”

“I don’t know. I never knew. I did everything right, but it didn’t make a difference.”

Harvath had to work on keeping his cool. He was no good to himself or Tracy if he lost control. For both of their sakes, he had to remain calm. “Let’s just focus on this device. Can you go back under the platform and pop up one of the adjacent panels so I can see what you’re doing or at least talk to you a little more easily?”

Hastings nodded her head and disappeared back below. A few seconds later a floor panel next to Harvath popped up, and Tracy slid it out of the way.

“Perfect,” he said. “Now we can talk. Is there any way we can immobilize the pressure plate?”

“I already checked that,” said Hastings. “We can’t.”

“Then we’re going to do everything from scratch, okay? Do it for me. Just check it one more time.”

Hastings did as he asked, but her response was the same. “The pressure plate is a dead end.”

“Excellent choice of words, Tracy.”

“Sorry.”

“What about the main charge? Can you separate it?”

She looked at the device and then back up at Harvath, slowly shaking her head.

“Do you see any place to insert a safety pin of any sort?”

Hastings scoured the device, but came back with the same answer, “None at all.”

Harvath was running out of options. “What about minimizing the damage then? What can you tell about the projectiles?”

She took several moments before responding. “It looks like a lot of it has been cobbled together on the spot. They’re using broken glass and bits of Lexan for the projectiles.”

“Is it a directional device?”

“No. The projectiles are set to radiate out in all directions. Effective range about two hundred meters, I’d say. Apparently they didn’t want anybody getting out of here.”

The same thought had gone through Harvath’s mind. The fact that the bomb appeared to be cobbled together with materials found on the scene was also running through Harvath’s mind. There was something else, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. The rational part of his brain kept avoiding it, blaming the stalemate on Hastings, a trained EOD technician who should know what to do. Because he couldn’t stand the silence, he posed a very stupid and very obvious question: “Is there a way to interrupt the detonator?”

“C’mon, Scot. Like Rick said back at the VA, I might have lost my job, but I didn’t lose my training. That was one of the first things I looked for.”

He didn’t know what it was, but something about what Hastings had just said raised a heavy curtain in his mind a fraction of inch, teasing him with the answer he was looking for. Damn it. It had been so long since he had worked with explosives. The majority of his explosives training as a SEAL had been in the detonation, not the diffusing department. The joke in the Teams had been the only explosives equation a SEAL needed to remember was P for plenty. Even in the Secret Service, there were dogs and specialty technicians to handle the bombs. And yet, something kept knocking at the back of his brain. What the hell was it?

Harvath looked down at Hastings and said, “You’re sure the device looks rudimentary?”

“Totally.”

“Why is that? What we’ve seen of these guys so far is anything but simple. They seem pretty sophisticated and definitely know what they’re doing, correct?”

“Yeah. So?”

“So why are you not seeing the same level of tactical sophistication in that device down there?”

“Who knows,” replied Hastings. “There could be a million reasons. They were probably in a pretty damn good hurry. People often resort to the basics when they’re pressed for time.”