Irish Throwdown (What Happens In Vegas Book 4) by Matt Lincoln (short books for teens .TXT) 📕

There was an unmistakable mocking tone in the man’s voice, and I balled my hands up into fists reflexively as I thought back to the explosion at our headquarters not long ago.

“If you can get to the bomb and defuse it in time, you’ll be able to find him,” the voice explained as it repeated the exact words we’d heard earlier in the broadcast. “If not, the bomb will go off. You have twenty-four hours left before the timer attached to the bomb reaches zero.”

The pub broke into a panic once more as people began to shout and run for the door. The broadcast restarted again but was suddenly cut off a few seconds later and replaced by a standby screen.

“We need to go,” I muttered blankly as I stood up from my chair. I had barely even touched my beer, but I had suddenly lost any desire to unwind. Junior got up and followed me out the door. We went with the flow of the crowd as it spilled out onto the street. It was obvious that we weren’t the only ones who had seen the broadcast, as there were people all along the strip shouting about what they had just seen.

“This is bad,” Junior remarked as we looked around at the chaos erupting on the street.

I restrained myself from making a sarcastic comment in return. Obviously, this wasn’t good, but I couldn’t blame him for being shell-shocked right now. This was obviously way bigger than we’d anticipated, and the stakes had suddenly become much higher.

“We need to call Wallace,” I rasped.

The perp had threatened to set off a bomb “somewhere in Dublin.” As far as capital cities went, Dublin wasn’t huge, but it was bustling with people, and someone could easily cause a massive amount of death if they targeted the right place. Even the pub we’d just been in had been overflowing with people. We only had twenty-four hours to prevent a potential tragedy.

23

Fiona

I leaned back in my office chair and stared at the hairline cracks spider-webbing their way across the glass walls of my office. I wasn’t sure what Howard had used to smash it in his attempt to break into my office, but whatever it was, I was glad he hadn’t been able to get in. I’d locked it out of habit when I left to buy coffee for Nelson and myself, and I was immensely grateful that I had. If Howard had destroyed my equipment, I wouldn’t be able to help Charlie and Junior figure out who was behind that mysterious broadcast.

Wallace had received a call earlier this afternoon from Charlie informing him about the cryptic broadcast that had obviously been targeted toward us. Even if he hadn’t, we would have heard about it anyway since it was all over the news in less than an hour. Someone had very publicly threatened to carry out a terrorist attack on one of the United Kingdom’s most major cities, so it was no surprise that the entire world was tuning in to discuss it.

I rubbed my eyes in an attempt to ward off the drowsiness that was beginning to creep up on me. It had already been six hours since Charlie had called to warn us, which meant we’d lost one-fourth of our allotted time to find and defuse the bomb.

I was still in the hospital when the call had come in. The only reason I even knew about it was that Wallace happened to be in my hospital room at the time. I’d immediately jumped out of bed and insisted I be released. The doctor didn’t want to, but they couldn’t actually keep me there against my will, so I’d left anyway, against medical advice. Fortunately, I didn’t need surgery and would just have to keep my arm in a sling for a few weeks, so I wasn’t too worried about it. Typing was difficult with only one hand, but Charlie and Junior were depending on me.

“I never did get to drink that coffee,” I muttered to myself as I left my office and walked out into the bullpen. The other agents and Wallace had cleaned up the office while I was in the hospital, but the signs of a struggle were still apparent.

Several of the tables were sporting new chips and scratch marks, and Junior’s work computer was entirely gone. It had been smashed to pieces, along with a decorative glass elephant that Naomi had placed on her desk. Then, of course, there were the cracks and splinters all over my office. Wallace said that he’d made an appointment to have them repaired but that it likely wouldn’t get done until after Halloween. I didn’t really mind. They fit the season, and, weirdly, I felt a sense of pride looking at the tiny cracks that had almost buckled under the force of Howard’s assault but managed to weather the storm.

“That’s so lame,” I chuckled to myself as I walked into the break room to make myself another cup of coffee. Wallace was the only other person in the office at the moment. Nelson, Miranda, and Naomi had been sent home so that they’d be rested for tomorrow, and, of course, Howard was still in the hospital. I was relieved when I’d been informed that he was doing alright and would probably make a full recovery, much to Miranda’s consternation.

I understood that she was upset with him for what he’d done, but he was still our fellow agent. I couldn’t understand the level of vitriol she kept directing toward him. She’d searched his office as soon as he and Naomi had left and had found a plethora of drugs inside his personal backpack, including several doses of rush. She’d stormed out of the office and insisted to Nelson that he was a traitor and a liability and demanding that he be fired. Maybe it was her military training, but I had never seen Miranda act that way before. Nelson had tried