Ricochet (Renegades #3)(42)
Author: Skye Jordan

“Sounds like I’ve got my foreman.” Nathan set the laptop aside and grinned at her when she looked up. “One down, a dozen to go.”

Rachel’s stomach dropped. This would be the longest three weeks of her ever-loving life.

“But first,” Nathan grabbed the plans he’d set on the floor and spread them on the opposite desk, speaking to Jax again. “Let me walk you through the changes in the action I made after we talked last night.”

Rachel pulled out her legal pad and tried to listen, occasionally adding notes to the ones she’d made last night as he, Jax and Josh had discussed the plan with the other guys popping in and out of the conversation to add their thoughts, their expertise.

“You’re looking for maximum reality with minimal risk,” Nathan started, repeating the agreement they’d come to last night. “So the best option to create a staggered, machinegun-like pattern to the gunfire is to work this in two filming shots. For the first, I’ll drill into the asphalt at an angle and place shallow charges. Each group can be configured to detonate in a precise pattern, and the holes can easily be covered to match the road for filming purposes.”

“Sounds great.” Jax’s brows drew together in concentration, one arm crossed over his chest, the other hand supporting his chin. “What have you got for the second sequence?”

“I thought a lot about it last night.” Nathan said. “We can’t start rigging the explosives for the second blast until the first one has been filmed. But if you figure they’re shooting the missiles at the speeding car, and missing because it’s swerving, I thought the best way to handle that would be to take the bridge out in sections.”

He leaned forward and pointed something out to Jax on the plans. “So we’ve got portions of the bridge exploding, one after the other, here, then here, then here, etc. Now, we need exploding concrete, but we also need fireballs, because missiles carry a shitload of fuel—”

“And this is Hollywood,” Jax added with a grin.

“That too. To get the concrete to explode, I’ll use C4, but to get the fireball I’ll use a handmade mixture of Tannerite and gasoline, and what you’ll get is—“

“A cinematographer’s orgasm,” Jax finished, a familiar excitement glowing on his face, but only for a moment before it vanished. “What about the fire hazard? This whole state is tinder.”

Tannerite? What the hell was Tannerite? Rachel noted the name and opened a browser on her computer, typing the word into Google.

“The ammonium nitrate in the Tannerite burns out almost instantly,” Nathan continued, “which is why we need the gasoline—to extend the fireball for filming. But there are no trees near the bridge, so the explosion will eat up the gasoline before it ever reaches anything flammable. And the powdered aluminum we add will give us that thick black smoke that makes the fireball ridiculously dramatic.”

“Where would we buy this Tannerite?” she asked, looking up from the computer. “Says here it’s a name brand explosive.”

“Hardly,” Nathan said. “I’ll make it. Way cheaper. It’s just ammonium nitrate and aluminum powder—“

“But it’s a patented formula,” she glanced back at the screen.

“The brand might be,” he said. “But not the concept. What are you looking at?”

“Wikipedia.”

He chuckled. “Honey, I’m your Wikipedia on explosives.”

She rolled her eyes and jotted more notes about the compound.

“Why not acetyln?” Jax asked.

Rachel jotted that name down too. Lord, she was going to get a serious crash course in explosives in the next week.

“Acetyln produces percussion,” Nathan said. “Percussion kills. If we don’t need it, we shouldn’t use it. With this…” he tapped the plans where he’d scribbled some notes, “you’ll get a lot of movie flash-bang. Now,” he moved his finger to the bridge’s metal canopy. “This portion will be rigged with shaped charges that will cut through the metal and another combo pack of Tannerite and gasoline that will send it flying with another fireball.”

“Slow down,” Rachel muttered, writing down all this new language.

“I got this, Rach. Don’t worry about it.” To Jax Nathan said, “Everything will be timed down to the millisecond. But I don’t want to start planning that level of detail until I know you’re on board.”

Jax nodded. “I’m there. And I think Josh will be, too.”

“Hello,” she said. “I’m the one managing this. Could you slow the train so I can jump on board too?”

Nathan grinned at her, and those pretty eyes of his sparkled, setting off fireworks in her belly.

“Josh is going to want to know,” Jax said, pulling Nathan’s gaze back, “how you’re going to limit debris from ricocheting off the rock outcroppings on the ground.”

“Handling ricochet is one of my specialties.”

“Be careful,” Rachel said, voice heavy with sarcasm, “you’re starting to sound like an expert in everything.”

“Everything explosive maybe,” Nathan said. “But don’t ask me to give you a grilled vegetable recipe.”

He’d obviously been listening her conversations with Josh the night before when she’d believed him totally absorbed in the planning process with the guys. She narrowed her eyes at him, but only got that annoyingly adorable grin before he returned his attention to Jax with a plan for using something called Geotex to limit contact between the bridge debris and the rocks below, as well as protect the buildings of the ranch.

“Do you spell that the way it sounds?” she asked, “Geotex?”

“Rach,” he said. “I got this.”

She dropped her pencil and leaned her head into one hand before she met his eyes. “Well, you’d better figure out a way of making sure I get it too, because I’m going to have to find and purchase all these materials for you.”

“I’ll make sure,” he said, voice low, “you get everything you need.”

Heat melted through her lower body, and irritation flared. She so didn’t need this.

Jax didn’t seem to notice the innuendo. He opened the door to a small box hanging on the wall and grabbed two of the many sets of keys stored there. “Sounds great. Now we just need to get it all in writing after you see the bridge. I’ll bring the trailers up from the storage area and start loading. Rachel, finish up whatever you’re working on so you and Ryker can get out of here.”