Chapter 7 - TWENTY-EIGHT MINUTESCrane wouldn’t talk.
Not at first.
He sat handcuffed inside the federal vehicle, soaked from the lake, smiling as the countdown fell.
27:41.
27:40.
27:39.
“What’s in the ventilation system?” I demanded.
He smiled.
“Something people will remember.”
An agent grabbed him.
“What did you put there?”
Crane stared through the windshield.
“Call it an insurance policy.”
I wanted to break his jaw.
Instead, I walked away.
Anger wasn’t going to save hundreds of people.
Information might.
The laptop showed four ventilation zones.
Three were green.
One red.
Digital forensics tried to disable the program remotely.
No luck.
Any interruption triggered immediate release.
The building was eighteen minutes away.
Evacuation seemed obvious.
Then Crane spoke.
“Open the doors and it releases.”
I turned.
“You’re lying.”
“Try it.”
Agents analyzed the program.
He wasn’t lying.
The system was linked to magnetic door sensors.
If evacuation began before the countdown ended, whatever was inside would be released immediately.
Lena called local commanders.
“No doors. Keep everyone calm. We’re coming.”
Rachel was inside.
So was David.
Lucy heard her mother’s name and grabbed my sleeve.
“We have to go.”
“You’re staying with the agents.”
“No.”
“Lucy.”
“Titan found the snake.”
Her voice trembled.
“He can find this.”
I looked at Titan.
He was exhausted.
Wet.
Bleeding lightly from the reopened incision.
A veterinarian was already approaching.
Every rational part of me said he was finished.
Then Titan looked toward the laptop.
Specifically, the speaker.
From the live feed came faint mechanical noise.
His ears rose.
Dogs don’t understand countdowns.
They understand us.
Our fear.
Our urgency.
Our need.
“No,” I whispered.
For once, I was saying it to myself.
Titan had done enough.
More than enough.
I knelt.
“You’re staying.”
He stood.
His injured leg trembled.
“Titan.”
He walked toward our SUV.
Lena stared at me.
“That dog is insane.”
“No.”
I opened the rear door.
“He’s a cop.”
We reached the shelter with nine minutes remaining.
Nobody inside knew.
Music played.
Children wore Halloween costumes.
Parents drank coffee.
Rachel was dressed as a witch.
When she saw me enter with Titan and a tactical team, she understood immediately that something was wrong.
“Where’s Lucy?”
“Safe.”
Her shoulders dropped.
“What’s happening?”
“Rachel, I need you to trust me.”
She looked at Titan.
“I already do.”
We began searching without evacuating.
The building had been an old community center renovated into an emergency shelter.
Three floors.
Multiple utility spaces.
The ventilation controls were in the basement.
Titan sniffed an object taken from Crane’s cabin.
Then worked.
Despite everything, his nose went down.
We followed.
Seven minutes.
He bypassed the kitchen.
Gymnasium.
Storage room.
Downstairs.
Five minutes.
At the basement corridor, he stopped.
Air vents ran overhead.
Three maintenance doors.
Titan chose the second.
Locked.
I kicked it.
Nothing.
An agent used a hydraulic tool.
The door opened.
Inside were compressed cylinders connected to the HVAC intake.
Bomb technicians moved in.
Four minutes.
“What is it?”
A technician examined the cylinder markings.
“Not explosive.”
“What?”
He swabbed a valve.
His face changed.
“Carfentanil derivative.”
My stomach dropped.
An aerosolized opioid powerful enough that even tiny quantities could kill.
“How do we stop it?”
The technician examined the release mechanism.
“Electronic actuator. Hardwired.”
“Cut it?”
“Could trigger it.”
Three minutes.
Titan suddenly moved deeper into the room.
“Titan!”
He ignored me.
Again.
Just like the park.
He sniffed along a pipe.
Then scratched at the wall.
The technician followed.
“What’s there?”
“Secondary line.”
We removed a panel.
Behind it was a manual pressure valve.
The digital system controlled the cylinder release.
But the gas still needed airflow.
The pressure line fed the actuator.
“If we close this?” I asked.
“Might prevent deployment.”
“Might?”
“Or increase pressure and rupture the canister.”
Two minutes.
Crane had built redundancy.
Of course.
The technician studied the configuration.
“We need to disconnect the actuator after closing the valve, but the connector is behind the cylinder.”
Too narrow for a person.
Titan stared into the gap.
No.
Absolutely not.
The technician saw what I saw.
“There’s a cable behind there.”
“No.”
“If the dog could pull it—”
“No.”
One minute forty.
Hundreds upstairs.
Rachel watching me.
Titan waiting for a command.
There are moments in this job when every option is wrong.
You choose the one that gives someone a chance.
I attached a tug strap to Titan’s harness.
Showed him the cable.
“Take.”
He crawled into the gap.
One minute.
“Take!”
He bit the cable.
“BACK!”
Titan pulled.
Nothing.
“BACK!”
He pulled harder.
Thirty seconds.
The connector snapped.
The countdown continued.
Everybody froze.
I grabbed Titan.
The laptop display turned red.
SYSTEM ACTIVATED.
Nothing happened.
One second.
Two.
Three.
Still nothing.
Then the technician exhaled.
“No pressure.”
Upstairs, children continued laughing.
Nobody knew how close they had come.
Rachel covered her face.
I sat on the concrete floor beside Titan.
He leaned against me.
“You disobedient psycho.”
His tail moved once.
Lena’s radio crackled.
They had discovered something else.
Crane’s system sent a confirmation message when activated.
Not to Crane.
To another number.
A number registered to someone we knew.
Captain Ellis.
My captain.
The man who had defended Titan publicly.
The man who had pretended to help investigate the leak.
The man who knew every move we made.
I stared at Lena.
“Where is he?”
Her face tightened.
“Gone.”
Captain Ellis had disappeared from the command post eleven minutes earlier.
And according to traffic cameras—
May you like
he was driving toward the Bennett farm.
Where Lucy was waiting.
