Lethal Authority (Wade Hanna Series Book 2)

by Joseph D'Antoni

  He jumped back, pointing his weapon toward the sound of the falling fruit as the bird took flight. The experience rattled Wade’s nerves, which were already on edge. A few steps later Wade’s foot stepped on and broke a twig on the jungle floor. A howler monkey answered with the scream of a child under siege. Wade assumed a crouched position with his weapon extended. He turned toward the sound as the agitated monkey belted out another scream. The noise reverberated within the dense foliage sounding like it was coming from every direction.

  Finally, the two men met at the center of their circle. Max was calm, and Wade was inordinately relieved to see a friendly face.

  Max was going to need Wade in a relaxed state and decided not to wait for more nerves to develop.

  “Let’s unpack the car.”

  Wade wasn’t sure what Max meant; Max hadn’t bothered to mention that he’d picked up the cases, which were already tucked in the trunk of his car. Max opened the trunk as Wade stared in disbelief.

  “When did you get these? I thought we were out here just surveying the site.”

  “Think of it as a picnic.”

  The two men each picked up a black case and proceeded to the clearing, then Max returned to the car for the gym bag of tools and a small generator. He pointed to a large fallen tree at the side of the clearing. Kicking away leaves and small brush, he quickly uncovered solid ground. Then he pushed the leaves back to expand a semi-circle around the fallen tree trunk.

  Peering down at the trunk, Max eyed the surface. He took out his jungle machete and scraped off some bark to reveal a clean, even surface.

  Wade volunteered, “I can get that cleaned off for you. It’ll keep me busy.”

  “We need about this much space.”

  Max used the spread of his arms to demonstrate the size clearing he wanted. As Wade worked on the tree trunk, Max retrieved the remaining boxes from the car.

  The layout of tools for Max had to be precise. He laid a multi-colored blanket of blue and red stylized flowers over the hard dirt, giving the area somewhat of a picnic feel. Max set out each tool on the blanket in precise order, with measured distances between them. With the tools in place, the picnic blanket now looked more like an operating table. Wade helped, speechless and unsettled about what kind of surgery would soon take place.

  A thousand questions tumbled over each other in Wade’s mind, but he hesitated to ask, unsure that he wanted answers. The precision of the layout was clearly important to Max, and Wade decided not to break his concentration except for one question: “Will you need me during this process?”

  “I certainly will. This is a two-man job all the way through to the end. You’ll be right beside me all the way.”

  “I know little or nothing about disarming explosives. The courses I took just taught me how to set them off. ”

  “I’ll take care of the disarming. I just need a steady hand.”

  Wade held his hands out before him. The visible trembling bore little resemblance to ‘a steady hand’.

  “You’ll get a hand, but I’m not sure about the ‘steady’ part.”

  “Take some slow, deep breaths, and let them out slowly.”

  At Max’s suggestion, Wade dropped to the ground, crossed his legs in a yoga position and started slow breathing. His eyes were closed, trying to find the “zone.” When Max pulled the cord to start the small generator, Wade almost levitated. His body tightened. I never liked explosives, even firecrackers as a kid. All of a sudden this jungle clearing will be on fire with human and monkey parts dangling from the branches. The patient is a highly explosive device in a black box, and the surgeon isn’t sure about how to conduct the operation. One wrong move and we’re all dead.

  Wade shook his head, focusing on the task at hand, and asked, “What happens next?”

  “I want to smooth out the top of this tree trunk you scraped to make sure it’s as flat as possible.”

  Wade got up and turned to watch Max. Using his jungle knife, Max went about smoothing the top of the trunk. After cautiously setting one of the cases on the smooth surface, Max checked to make sure it was resting in a stable position before commenting, “I think we’re good.”

  With one hand, Max plugged the cord of the electric drill into the generator and locked in a half-inch drill bit. He was about to drill.

  Wade’s eyes widened in horror. “What the hell are you doing? Are you going to drill a hole in the damn case? I’m not sure that’s a smart thing to do.”

  “Well, now that you’ve broken my concentration, I’m wondering if this drill bit might be a little too large.”

  Wade’s nerves were frayed from the uncertainty. “Are you sure we’re supposed to drill into it?”

  “Yes, I just think I should start with a smaller hole. I can always go larger,” Max quickly followed. “Listen, Wade, at this point I have to ask you to stop questioning everything I do. It’s going to take all of my concentration to get through this. I can’t have you second-guessing me.”

  “Sorry, partner. I won’t ask any more questions. I don’t mind saying that I’ve got some serious jitters, but I’ll try to be as quiet as I can. At this moment your concentration while drilling into an explosive box is more important to me than anything else in my life.”

  “Thank you.”

  Max asked Wade to move to the other side of the tree trunk to hold the case steady. Wade complied, jumping high enough to clear a small building. A smaller diameter bit was locked in the drill, and Max began slowly cutting through the hard plastic case one slow and cautious revolution at a time. He had to be careful not to pierce much farther than the outer wall. Wade watched, silently counting each revolution of the drill bit.

  The bit quietly broke through the interior space to a measured distance. Max withdrew the drill bit in reverse with even pressure and slow rotations. When the drill bit cleared the surface, Wade exhaled as he watched, pale and silent.

  Max nodded. “It looks like we have a clean hole.”

  “That’s great.” Wade followed with another deep breath before asking, “What’s next?”

  “We drill another one three inches alongside the first.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding!” Wade bit his lip, wondering if Max was going to perforate the entire case. The morning temperature was still cool by tropical standards, but Wade’s face was covered in sweat. He checked Max’s face for similar signs, but Max was cool and dry as he readied the drill for the next hole.

  The second hole was drilled with equal precision to the first, and Max seemed pleased that both holes had penetrated the right depth and angle. Wade’s sense of dread remained, anxious for the drilling to end. The thought of watching anyone disarm a bomb in close quarters required a sense of trust that he’d never mastered.

  In fact, Wade’s concentration in the past few moments was so intense that an entire baseball team could have been standing behind him and he wouldn’t have noticed. As if emerging from a dream, he suddenly glanced around suspiciously, jumping to his feet to walk the clearing’s perimeter.

  Max asked, “What are you doing?”

  “I’m checking our perimeter.”

  “I need you beside me right now.”

  “I know we have a close relationship but… never mind, I was going to make a joke.”

  “I don’t think we should be joking right now. I need you to hold the penlight over this hole, so I can look for wires.”

  Wade complied with trembling hands.

  “I need you to move the light up and down slowly, going to the extreme edge of the hole.”

  “Like this?”

  With the interior lit by the pen light, Max took his time, examining the entire area before he replied. “That’s perfect. You can’t see it, but there’s a small white wire running parallel to this ridge line on top of the case near the hole I just drilled. Whatever we do, we don’t want to breach that wire.”

  Wade’s answer was deadpan. “You realize that if you had drilled a half inch above whe
re you did, you would have gone right through it.”

  “I know. That’s part of the uncertainly and luck in bomb demolition.”

  “What’s next?”

  “I need to drill my holes larger, now that I know where the wire crosses.”

  With the larger holes drilled, Max once again probed the case while Wade held the flashlight. Max chose a slender stick from the ground and shaved off the bark. Using thin tweezers and the stick, he pulled the white wire away from its connection near the front of the case, while Wade nervously held the light.

  After changing back to a smaller drill bit, Max turned the case around till he was facing the rear hinges and asked Wade to hold it steady while he drilled out the metal pins holding the hinge in place. Wade complied as Max repeated his routine, slowly breathing through his mouth.

  “Can you get to the other side of the tree and hold this steady?”

  Wade jumped over the tree trunk like a frog, still tense about what was going to happen next. He grabbed the front of the case to steady it.

  “That’s great. The pins for the hinges are underneath the plastic, just like my instructor said they would be. I just have to be careful here.”

  “Please do.”

  After both pins were removed, Max used a flat wooden chisel to pry up the rear of the case. Now that it was opened half an inch, he peered into the case with the penlight. Slowly applying pressure against the edges, Max got the case opened a full two inches. He asked Wade to hold the entire unit in place as he checked inside, gently moving wires away from the edges.

  “I think we’re going to be okay for this phase.”

  “That’s great.” Wade breathed a sigh of relief, although he had no idea what that meant.

  Max took a deep breath and gave an audible sigh. “That handle and locking mechanism turned out not to be wired. I can unscrew the hinges from the inside, and we should be able to lift off the top.”

  “Good. So that wraps it up, right?”

  “No, not even close. Assuming we get the top off, I still have to disarm the detonation device. That’s when things will get dicey.”

  “Oh, my God!”

  After carefully unscrewing the hinges from inside using a screw bit with a long extension, the top lifted off. Wade was overwhelmed by confusion seeing the inside of the explosive. The inside looked like the ghostly inner workings of an alien space ship. Max’s expression was quite different – more like he was staring at an incredible archeological find for the first time, admiring the clockwork mechanism in a crypt.

  “What the hell is it?”

  “What you’re looking at is a very well-designed anti-personnel explosive device. The two glass canisters on either side contain highly-concentrated white phosphorous crystals, which, when ignited, work as incendiary particles that burn through almost anything at very high temperatures. They don’t stop burning until their energy is completely consumed. The ignited particles will burn through a quarter-inch metal plate clear to the other side, and nothing extinguishes them.

  “The gray clay-like material in the middle is a C-4 explosive, used to disperse and ignite the crystals. What’s ingenious about it is that it can either be pre-set with a timer or detonated with a remote device.”

  “I take it that’s all bad stuff?”

  “Very bad. Think of those small white pieces as crystallized napalm. The C-4 charge is equivalent to one or two sticks of dynamite. The device is not designed to take down buildings or bridges. That’s why it’s called an anti-personnel device.

  “The C-4 is a large enough charge to disperse and ignite these crystals over a range of several hundred yards. Once shot out of their container with a blast, the crystals will burn on their own. If the smallest crystal touches human skin, they’ll be seriously burned or killed. This device is designed to cause maximum damage to personnel over a wide area.”

  “The military uses similar material in bombs and artillery shells as anti-personnel weapons. I’ve seen them work in Vietnam. It’s devastating.”

  Wade tried to summarize Max’s detailed description. “In other words, if this thing goes off in the stage area at the ceremony, all of the officials and most of the attendees will be killed?”

  “That’s correct. If both of them go off, for sure there will be an untold number of human casualties within at least a 200-yard circumference of each case.”

  “Was this thing put together by some madman?”

  “No. This has military written all over it. If I had to guess, I would say it’s Russian - or at least made to look Russian. ”

  “What do we do now?”

  “Disarm the device.”

  “Okay. Do you need me to do anything now? I have to go pee after all this.”

  “Why don’t we both take a breather?”

  “I’d like you to straddle the tree trunk with one leg on each side.”

  “What? That means the explosives will be right in my crotch!”

  “Near it, anyway.”

  After thinking about Max’s request, Wade straddled the large tree trunk, leaning over, with the C-4 explosives and white phosphorous crystals between his legs.

  Max gave Wade further instructions. “I need you to hold the yellow wire with the tweezers in one hand and grip the red wire with the pliers with the other hand. Keep them steady and the two wires separated from each other at all times.”

  Wade complied with shaky hands, while Max peered into the two holes with the flashlight. He followed each wire to its source, trying to decide which one to cut first, keeping a mental image of some diagram in his head.

  The stress of keeping the wires apart in such close quarters caused Wade’s hands to tremble and sweat to drip onto the case from his brow. He started to ask a question, but Max cut him off before he could get the first word out.

  “I need complete silence now.”

  “Sorry.”

  “I’m pretty sure we cut the yellow wire first.”

  “Pretty sure? Look, man, my crotch is six inches away from this case.”

  “Just kidding. It’s the yellow one.”

  Before Wade could blink, Max cut the yellow wire. “See? Nothing happened. It’s okay to release the wire now.”

  Wade rocked back away from the case and over the tree trunk. He lay on the ground looking up at the jungle canopy, pale as a bedsheet and drenched in sweat.

  Max smiled. “There, you can rest now.”

  After a few minutes of recovery, Wade regained enough control over his nerves to ask the question uppermost in his mind. “I’m afraid to ask, but what’s the next step?”

  “After I remove the C-4 explosives and the crystals, than we get to do it all over again on the second case.”

  Wade just stared as Max carefully removed the wire from the detonation device and removed the C-4. He took out each glass cylinder and gently transferred the phosphorus crystals to another container. He replaced the glass canisters with plain rock salt crystals he’d purchased from the store. Then they repeated the procedure with the second case.

  The C-4 was replaced with inactive training clay Max had brought from his base. After replacing and soldering wires like they were connected to the active mechanism, Max replaced the pins in the hinges with new ones he cut from a small aluminum rod in the gym bag.

  As a final step, the small holes in the case were filled with a black gooey paste that came out of a tube. The gooey substance hardened quickly, and after some light sanding, the patches were no longer visible.

  Max gave Wade the task of smearing dirt over the newly-filled areas so they looked like they’d spent the last several days outdoors in the cemetery. They drove back to Wade’s car, and he took on the task of replacing the deactivated cases at the cemetery. Wade had a strange feeling of kinship when he approached the mausoleum. Perhaps he felt he had almost joined its inhabitants. After replacing the cases in their original location, he looked up for a moment of prayer, thanking the Almighty that he’d survived the disarmamen
t.

  Max then took up surveillance at the safe house in Belmopan, and Wade returned to the library in Belize City to call Yari and Megan. He realized this might be his last call before their intervention would take place, and to be on the safe side, he decided not to share that fact on either one of his two calls. Wade called Yari first.

  “It’s me. Just checking in on your progress.”

  “I’ve confirmed flights for your arriving guests. Both operatives are arriving in Belize from Panama. One’s coming in from Europe, and the other from South America. Both are using assumed names and fake passports. The one from Europe arrives tomorrow, and the other arrives the following day.”

  Yari gave Wade the flight information for the arrival of the two operatives.

  “I tracked down the plane number you gave me. The plane is owned by a couple of guys out of Ecuador. They run a delivery service throughout Central and South America for passengers or cargo, no questions asked. Their flights are said to hug mountainsides and treetops, and they file no flight plans. They seem to have ties with the drug cartels and some arms dealers. Do you want me to turn them over to the authorities?”

  “No, not yet. There may be more activity, and I don’t want anyone alerted.”

  Yari sighed aloud. “Sounds like this disruption op or whatever it is, is really going down fast. I think it may be a day or two after the other operatives arrive.”

  “We’re getting very close. The ceremonies are scheduled over the next four days. I just don’t know which day they’ve picked to do the dirty deed.”

  Yari sounded worried when he said, “If things get hot, do you and Max have an extraction plan?”

  “Yeah. We’re working out those details now.”

  “I wish I were down there with you guys, but I know I’d probably just be in the way, screwing things up.”

  “No, you don’t want to be down here right now. Remind me some day to tell you the bomb-in-the-jungle story.”

  “I’m not sure I want to know.”

  “Do you have any communication from the other two operatives?”

  “No. All of my calls are coming from Stephan’s phone in Belize. I did learn that the guy coming from South America isn’t from there, he’s just on assignment.”