Operation Certain Death

by Kim Hughes

  Stock half-laughed and half-coughed. With the clock ticking and two ATOs being better than one, Stock had come to join him at the Halo Trading area to check the exterior for traps. They were standing in the outside, open-air portion of the box. They had gone over the door and the sliding partition, but in truth they knew immediately where the bomb was. It didn’t so much speak to them as bellow at the top of its voice. It was a steel trolley, of the sort used everywhere to deliver hot food in hotels, hospitals. This one was designed to deliver something else altogether. Next to it was a coil of thick hose, although it wasn’t clear if that was part of the set-up or not.

  They had both examined the device through the glass using monoculars. As far as they could tell, the two metal cubes that made up the device were completely sealed. There was no orifice for them to put in a flexi-camera scope and check out the interiors. They’d have to drill a hole for that. And even with a ceramic drill, there was no guarantee that a stray curl of metal couldn’t complete the circuit. The upper cube did have some sort of lid on it, which looked as if it could be removed. But the procedure was never to blithely remove anything, just because it was inviting you to. Riley knew he would have to approach that very carefully indeed.

  Stock looked at his watch. ‘Best get to it. You still want to take point?’

  ‘More than ever.’

  It was fully dark now, the whole stadium spookily empty and lit by floodlights. They had called off the fingertip search of the stalls for now. They had no idea how powerful the trolley-bomb was. Best that nobody was in the line of fire.

  ‘You sure we shouldn’t X-ray it?’ asked Stock.

  ‘No time.’ It wasn’t easy to interpret the sort of X-rays you got from complex IEDs. ‘The FBI had about 33 hours to study their version of this, remember, and still got it wrong. We have about ten minutes’ left. Maybe a bit longer. But not days, pal.’

  Stock nodded, threw his half-smoked cigarette down and ground it out with his boot. ‘I’ll be listening in.’ He hesitated. ‘You know most US bomb squads have a rule about married men not doing this shit. And I’m single.’

  ‘I’m separated.’

  ‘Or fathers.’

  Well, he was still that. For the moment. He tried, and failed, to keep an image of Ruby out of his mind. It didn’t help with the concentration, wondering how your daughter would get on without a father. He forced himself to focus on the task in hand. ‘God bless America. But we’re not so squeamish,’ Riley said. ‘Go back to the ICP, Alex. I’ll give you a full report before I try anything.’

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Promise.’

  Riley adjusted the headset he was wearing and turned on the radio and the camera. He walked up to the glass partition and peered in, as if expecting the device to have moved. But there it stood, with its odd-looking rectangular box where the tea urn normally was and that coil of hose.

  He pulled the mouthpiece close to his lips. ‘Hilton?’

  ‘Yes, Skip?’

  He slid back the panel. ‘I’m going in.’

  As he crossed the carpet to the silver contraption on the far side of the hospitality area, he felt himself detach from his physical form. For a fleeting second he was floating up near the ceiling, looking down on himself, staring at the steel trolley. No, it wasn’t Riley down there. It was Nick. He looked up and spoke to Riley.

  ‘Fuck me, Boss. You know what this is? It’s the Rolls-Royce of IEDs.’

  * * *

  Riley ran his hands over the outer casing, as gentle as the most considerate lover. His fingertips were searching for hotspots or vibration, something that might give a clue to the inner life to this object.

  ‘That’s four minutes, Skip.’ Hilton again, the speaking clock.

  ‘I know.’

  He moved round to the side, examined the hose. It didn’t seem to be part of the rig. He put it to one side. Careful not to jar the device, he lay down and examined the underneath. He could see soldered joints, but no screws or nuts. Of course, one couldn’t just randomly undo a screw or a nut. They were very easy to turn into lethal traps.

  ‘Two minutes.’

  Riley got to his feet and examined the switches once more and the panel behind it, looking for scratches or smudges left by human contact. But it had been buffed clean. The single red switch stared at him, defying him to touch it.

  ‘Speak to me,’ Riley commanded.

  ‘Ninety seconds.’

  ‘I was talking to the bomb,’ he said to Hilton.

  ‘Sixty seconds.’

  Hilton waited for a response that never came. ‘Skip? Fifty. Skip, for fuck’s sake. Thirty seconds.’

  ‘I’m out,’ said Riley.

  * * *

  There were around twenty-five people milling around at the ICP when Riley made it back there. About twenty too many. Kate Muraski intercepted him, a concerned look etched on her face. He gave her a minuscule shake of the head.

  ‘Is it safe?’ asked a tall, well-built man in a grey suit who was standing next to Liz. Riley ignored him and went over to the table where Hilton and Stock were sitting. ‘You got that?’ he asked Hilton, meaning his final communication.

  ‘Yes.’

  The grey suit strode over. ‘Oscar Turnbull. I represent the owners. Is it safe?’

  Riley turned. ‘I didn’t make it safe. It just didn’t blow when I expected.’

  ‘Can you make it safe?’

  ‘It’s definitely a Viper of some description,’ said Riley, talking to Stock as much as Turnbull. ‘You could see that on the camera feed?’

  Stock nodded.

  ‘When I lifted the cover off the square box on the top there were twenty-one switches. Three rows of seven. Only one of them was pointing down, a red one, the rest were up. Are you a betting man, Mr Turnbull?’

  ‘The odd flutter. What’s that got to do with it?’

  ‘When a Viper is initially activated by flipping one of the switches, it activates a randomiser circuit. Like something from a fruit machine. It cycles through all twenty-one switches and makes one of them the “off” switch. And it’s most likely not the one in the “down” position, which is the one most beginners would choose. The red one. The problem is, there is no way to tell which one of the twenty left is the active one that will shut the whole system down. What do you think of those odds?’

  ‘So you’re going to let it blow us up?’

  Riley thought they were probably a safe distance away, but it paid to be cautious. There might, after all, be a secondary. ‘Well, I suggest you all get out of here.’

  Some of the observers didn’t need telling twice. The crowd began to shrink rapidly.

  ‘It might cause millions of pounds’ worth of damage,’ said Turnbull. ‘We spoke to the architects—’

  ‘Sell a goalkeeper or two,’ suggested Riley. ‘You’ve got about ten on your books.’

  ‘Staff Sergeant,’ admonished Liz. ‘That is hardly the point.’

  ‘No. The point is this: if that really is a Viper, which I believe it is, it is a modified version of something called the Harvey or the Harvey’s casino bomb. It was planted in 1980. It contained eight triggers. The double wall trigger was the casing – two slabs of steel separated by rubber. Any drill would act as a bridge, closing a circuit. Even if you could make a hole, the next step was often to inject water at high pressure to try and disrupt the electronics.’

  Riley was at risk of mansplaining and he could see his audience was getting impatient, but it was important that he conveyed how serious this was. When Turnbull made to interrupt him, he ploughed on. ‘But this fucker had a float, like the one you find in a toilet bowl. If it rose up because of water, again it closed a circuit that was encased in a steel box to isolate it from the disrupter jets. The tilt trigger was very simple. A piece of foil wrapped around a plastic pipe. The foil was connected to a wire. If the bomb moved and the foil touched metal, the circuit was completed… boom. The panel screws were holding back spring-loaded triggers.
Undo the screws and the contacts closed. Do you want me to go on? It had a timer that could go from forty-five minutes to eight days. Rendering it safe involves a little bit more than: which one do I cut, red or blue?’

  Riley waited for Turnbull to make his point, but he simply shook his head in dismay.

  ‘What happened?’ asked Liz, as if she didn’t actually want an answer but felt compelled to put the question. ‘At the Lake Tahoe casino?’

  Stock answered. ‘It blew up, is what happened. The FBI’s best couldn’t disarm it. Even today, it is set as a test on bomb-disposal courses around the world. Everybody fails. Everybody.’

  ‘We always say it’s the Kobayashi Maru of IEDs,’ Riley explained. ‘As in Star Trek. A no-win situation. But that’s in the movies. The Viper is the more evil son of that bomb in Lake Tahoe and it’s the real deal. It’s concerned with just two things: causing maximum damage and killing anyone stupid enough to mess with it.’

  ‘How big is this bomb?’ Turnbull asked.

  Riley shrugged. ‘The original left a five storey-deep crater in the casino. It was close to a thousand pounds of TNT. I doubt this is that big. But I think we should all move out to the Met’s ICP and let it do its worst.’ The Met were outside, near the statue of Tony Adams.

  ‘There’s nothing to be done?’ Liz asked, horrified at the thought.

  Riley hesitated just a second too long. ‘Not really.’

  ‘Fuck it, Dom,’ said Stock. ‘I know you. You’ve got an idea.’

  ‘I have. But shift the ICP to outside,’ Riley said to Hilton. ‘Or as far away as you can before you lose comms. Alex, any advice welcome, so patch yourself in. My next best guess is we’ve got just under forty-five minutes. If it hasn’t gone at kick-off, it’ll blow at half-time, I think, when everyone comes back inside for sandwiches and a drink. They don’t allow alcohol in the outside area.’

  Riley looked to Liz for confirmation. She nodded and then asked: ‘Is that a guess? About half-time?’

  ‘Of course. From now on everything is a guess.’ He turned to Stock. ‘By the way, I’ve remembered how Captain Kirk solved the Kobayashi Maru.’

  ‘Well, that’s reassuring,’ said Stock. ‘And if you’ve got an idea, I’m coming in with you.’

  ‘It’s an OCD,’ Riley reminded him.

  ‘Shit, we’ve all got that,’ said Stock, deliberately misunderstanding him. He started gathering his kit.

  ‘Alex,’ Riley said.

  Stock looked up from his bag. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘You don’t have to. One idiot is enough.’

  ‘I know. But maybe between us we can make one whole brain cell.’

  Riley laughed. ‘Don’t bank on it. But before you rush in like the fool you are, we need to start here. I want some strips of wood. This long. About this wide.’

  ‘Behind the champagne bar,’ said Turnbull, pointing across the acres of carpet. ‘Over there. Lattice work. You can rip that off.’

  ‘Good. Alex? Can you get me a dozen strips.’

  The EXPO didn’t need asking twice. He scooped up pliers and a screwdriver and jogged off towards the bar.

  Muraski almost whispered her question in his ear. ‘Dom, do you know what you’re doing? Or is this just bravado? Or a real OCD.’

  Riley rummaged in his bag, found the battery-operated drill, a tape measure and a handful of screws. He put a length of det cord, battery, wire, pliers, two rolls of tapes and snips into his jacket pockets. ‘We’re about to find out, aren’t we?

  FORTY-SEVEN

  Riley laughed to himself at the irony of it. He had often said that there was never a big digital clock ticking down in any EOD situation. That it was pure Hollywood. Timers from washing machines, dishwashers, DVDs, yes. But never a Mission: Impossible-style display. Well, he was wrong this time. In several places around the Emirates stadium giant digital clocks showed that, under normal conditions, there would have been eight minutes left, plus stoppage time. Had the bomb-maker factored that in? What was the most injury time given? Four minutes? Five, maybe? He hoped they had more margin than he had thought to take the Viper out.

  ‘How did Kirk pass that test then? The Koba-whasit Maru?’ asked Stock as they studied the device.

  ‘You don’t remember?’

  ‘The name’s Stock, not Spock.’

  ‘He reprogrammed the computer before the test began.’

  ‘That’s cheating. I don’t think we have that option.’ Stock groaned. ‘You going to tell me why we built a bit of garden trellis just now?’

  ‘In a minute. Let me think if we have an alternative.’

  Riley looked over the device one more time, wondering if he had this right. He was now convinced that Safi had wanted him to discover this bomb, no matter what the Russians had intended. Maybe Moe had been told to shout those clues. Safi wanted Riley to face the Viper, knowing he couldn’t just walk away and let it blow without trying something.

  Don’t play the big man, Dom.

  This time, he wasn’t entirely sure who was speaking to him. Nick? His grandpa? Maybe it was Moe, from wherever he had landed. Whoever it was, it was good advice. But somehow this felt like unfinished business. Which, of course, the bomb-maker would have been banking on. That an ATO like him doesn’t live like normal people, doesn’t obey their rules, doesn’t walk away from danger. Those who thought ATOs and EXPOs were a breed apart weren’t far wrong. What you did most days out there in Afghan, it was beyond sane. And so was this. Which is why he needed to try and beat this bomb.

  Because it’s what we do.

  He knew the voice now. Yes, Nick, because it’s what we do.

  ‘The FBI had the right instincts,’ Riley said eventually. ‘If you sever this upper box from the lower at the junction where they meet, you should cut all the connections to the charge. They used a shaped C-4 charge to beat the electrical impulses.’

  ‘Nice idea. But it was booby-trapped, wasn’t it? There was extra dynamite in the top box which the X-rays didn’t pick up.’

  ‘That’s true,’ said Riley. ‘But I think they were in the right area. Hand me that thing.’

  Stock passed over the frame that Riley had constructed from the woodwork of the bar. Riley slotted it over the switches.

  ‘Fuck you doing?’

  ‘So, this jig is designed to throw every switch at once into the off position.’

  Stock looked at the jerry-rigged frame and shook his head. ‘Dom, I’m the reckless one here, remember? Even I wouldn’t do that.’

  ‘Which is why I want you to leave.’

  ‘I can’t do that. This is crazy. You’re banking on the shut-down mechanism being faster than the initiation. That didn’t work for the FBI.’

  ‘You got a better idea?’

  ‘We get out of here, let the fucker blow.’

  ‘Not this time,’ said Riley. ‘You go. Now.’

  ‘It’s a bad move.’

  ‘And I’m still going to try it.’

  ‘Fucking up this bomb won’t bring him back, you know.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Nick. Your mate. That’s why you want to do it, isn’t it? To beat the man who built the bomb that killed Nick. Well, he’s dead, Dom. Safi is dead too, mate. He won’t know fuck all about whether you render this safe or blow yourself to bite-sized pieces.’

  Riley nodded his agreement. ‘But I’ll know.’

  ‘Only if it works. Otherwise it’s straight into the Big Black for you. Operation Fucking Certain Death. Sooner or later, that comes true.’

  Riley spoke softly, his words carrying a plea for understanding. ‘I have to try, Alex.’

  Stock hesitated, then seemed to deflate a little, knowing he was defeated. ‘Okay.’ Then, ‘Good luck, soldier.’

  Stock held his hand out. Riley took it and Stock yanked him in towards him, swinging a fist at his head as he did so. Riley was shocked at the sudden ferocity, but instinct took over and he dipped back from the waist and felt the rush of air as the blow passed him
by.

  Stock shifted his weight from side to side, keeping Riley guessing. ‘I am trying to save your life, Dom.’

  ‘It isn’t yours to save.’

  Even before he had finished the sentence, Stock hunkered down and drove at him. Riley leaned in to take the force, letting some of his rage stiffen in his muscles. They collided with an explosion of grunts. Riley punched down onto the back of Stock’s head and his knuckles burnt with the pain. Stock had him round the waist and forced him down onto the carpet. The beer-soaked smell of a thousand hospitality events rose up from it. Riley pulled at Stock’s hair, got his face up and stabbed a finger into one of his eyes. Stock yelped, but didn’t shift. A blow landed on Riley’s ears and his head sang. This wasn’t going how he envisaged it at all.

  * * *

  Kate Muraski was standing next to Hilton, who was trying to make sense of the confused sounds coming over his headset. One of the SO15 commanders came up behind them. ‘What the hell is going on?’ he demanded. Before Hilton could explain, he said: ‘We have eyes on them from across the stadium and your two fucking idiots appear to be fighting.’

  ‘Sir,’ said Hilton, looking at the blurred camera feed. ‘I think you’re right.’

  ‘Over what, for Christ’s sake?’

  ‘How to tackle the bomb?’ offered Hilton, without any real conviction.

  The commander put his fists onto the table and leaned in, a vein in his temple throbbing. ‘Thirty more seconds and I’m going to send someone in to bang their heads together.’

  ‘Sir.’

  Hilton looked at Muraski, who asked: ‘What the hell are they doing knocking seven kinds of shit out of each other?’

  ‘From what I can tell, my skipper is trying to stop Riley killing himself.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake,’ she said, pulling out her pistol and breaking into a sprint, so that Hilton only just caught the final word. ‘Men.’

  * * *

  As Riley managed to flip Stock off him, the younger man rolled away and pushed himself upright. Riley lashed out and kicked his knee. There was a satisfying crack and Stock lost his balance and began to stumble backwards. Towards the bomb.