by John Weisman
She was sweating, even though it was no more than fifty degrees. At least she wasn’t worried about radiation. The core of the device was adequately shielded. Oh, yeah, she’d ascertained that significant factoid immediately. But the Chinese Pentolite was unstable. Over the years it had turned a sickly grayish-greenish yellow, and because of the temperature fluctuations it was weepy with drops of nitroglycerine. She would have liked to pack all two hundred or so pounds of the explosive in ice.
She hadn’t seen this kind of timing device before, although it was similar to some of the timers they’d found on the special atomic demolition munitions, or SADMs, that Soviet covert operatives had prepositioned during the Cold War. Which scared her a little bit. Wei-Liu had learned to respect Soviet design, because although it was less complex than U.S. product, it was much more cold-blooded. The Soviets were more concerned with winning a war than they were with preserving the lives of their troops or their scientists. They’d willingly absorbed more than twenty million casualties during the Second World War. Fifty million in a war with the U.S. was not unthinkable. So the lives of a couple of thousand nuclear scientists or Spetsnaz Special Forces troops didn’t matter worth a damn.
She examined the bundles of wiring, all of it colored black and all neatly ganged together in bunches of six wires, which she’d sliced out of four pliable rubberized conduits. Not what you saw in Hollywood. All of Hollywood’s atomic devices, every one, from James Bond to The Peacemaker, had neatly colored wires. Yeah—right.
Oh, if the filmgoing public ever knew the truth, Wei-Liu thought, they’d be scared out of their wits. Real bombs weren’t built with colored wires. All the wires were black. Or white. Or red, green—whatever. You tagged your wires during construction with strips of colored tape so you knew what went where. And then, when it was all finished, you pulled the color strips off and voilà: instant confusion. Not that the tactic would stop a good EOD 23 team. But it would give them pause—and keep them busy for a few hours.
Then there were timing devices. All the timers she’d ever seen in movies either ticked off the seconds analog or blinked them digitally. In real life, it didn’t quite work that way. The timers on small and medium-sized U.S. atomic demolition munitions—SADMs and MADMs—had no clocks. You armed the weapon using a highly complicated arming sequence, then set the detonator timer by punching numbers on a keypad that resembled a touch tone telephone. There was no readout.
The Soviets had much more sinister timers on their pocket nukes. They were analog jobbies, which could be set at one, three, six, nine, or twelve hours. But in point of fact, it didn’t matter. Whichever selection you made, the device was actually designed to detonate the instant you moved the switch itself. The Sovs, after all, didn’t trust their people to make individual decisions. And so the state took care of things for them.
She ran a voltmeter over the wire bundles, then gingerly separated each strand and tested them one by one. When she’d examined all thirty-six and was confident about what she’d found, she quickly snipped all but twelve. These she examined once more, using a second device. Then she separated the twelve wires into two groups of six and labeled them with red-and green-colored tape. She moved quickly now, still working carefully so as not to disturb the explosive layer that surrounded the plutonium core of the weapon. When she’d isolated the capacitor wiring and run a new ground wire from the MADM to the antistatic pad, she rose off her knees, walked to the tailgate, swung off the rear end of the truck, and searched until she located the big sergeant major. “Rowdy, I’m ready.”
0832. X-Man looked over the inventory. It was pretty sparse. He had four two-and-a-half-kilo blocks of Semtex, a hundred yards of firing wire, three blasting caps, and a single Chinese firing device. Blowing the truck was no problem. The truck had been pulled off the road to camouflage it. It sat slightly askew, its nose and right front wheel elevated. All he and Kaz had to do was fashion a shaped charge. Then they’d set the charge under the uphill side of the truck positioned between the front axle and the motor. The upward force generated by the Semtex—X-Man figured on using more than six pounds of the Czech explosive—would be more than enough to flip the vehicle. Flip it, hell. They’d blow it into next week.
But Ritzik and Yates also wanted shaped charges—which was going to be tough. It wasn’t that X-Man couldn’t build an improvised charge. Unlike Kaz, a computer-science wonk who’d reluctantly taken the one-week basic dynamite and crimp-the-blasting-cap-without-losing-a-finger course because it was required of all technical personnel, X-Man had requested every one of the explosives programs the Agency offered at ISOLATION TROPIC, which was the code-name designator for the Agency’s boom-boom school at Harvey Point, North Carolina, just outside the small town of Hertford. He was fascinated by the subject.
X’s first instructor had been a private contractor, a Brooklyn-born, seventysomething World War II veteran who called himself Roy (although it was probably an alias, since just about every instructor at Harvey Point worked under an alias). Whatever his real name might have been, Roy was irrefutably a heavily tattooed, bulldog-faced retired chief boatswain’s mate, a former member of the Navy’s Underwater Demolition Teams. He had first practiced his craft as a nineteen-year-old, blowing up miles of coral reefs and beach obstacles in the Pacific to create channels for Marine landing craft. He’d refined his abilities during the Korean and Vietnam conflicts. According to the scuttlebutt, he’d left the Navy in the early 1970s and been “sheep-dipped” by the Agency, going to work for Bill Hamilton, Langley’s smooth-talking, genteelly diabolical head of maritime services.
Roy’s instructional style had been … unique. He flapped bent elbows against his rib cage, almost as if he were trying to fly, when he growled at his students. And The swore exactly like the chief petty officer he had once been. But he knew his stuff, and more to the point, he was Old Navy—the Navy of oral, not written, instruction. And so he passed his tradecraft on through vivid example, memorization, and anecdote, not the sort of sterile PowerPoint presentations or dry, pseudo-academic lectures they were used to. X-Man had found it hugely energizing.
Roy had started them out with the basics: two days of blasting-cap crimping. “You people at Christians In Action got friggin’ money to burn,” Roy told them the first day, tempering his language because of the three women in the course. “And so they’ll give you all the friggin’ toys money can buy. If its electronic, or cyber, or automated, they’ll buy it for you.”
The old guy paused, then fired for effect. “But lemme tell ya: that don’t mean squat. Because when you’re gonna need this stuff, you’re gonna be out in the boonies in some friggin’ sixth-world country where they ain’t got no friggin’ electricity, or friggin’ satellite-enhanced detonators, or what have you. And all you’re gonna be able to friggin’ lay your hands on is the same kind of blasting cap I used fifty years ago. Which is why I’m gonna make sure you won’t blow your friggin’ hands off when you handle your basic Mark One Mod Zero keep-it-simple-stupid blasting cap by crimping it too damn high.”
And so, X-Man and the rest of them learned. And after a while they progressed to newer-design electric and non-electric blasting caps, pencil detonators, pressure switches, and radio-controlled detonators. They set off ammonium nitrate bombs. They learned to deploy shaped-chain and cable-cutting charges, and how to position Mk-133 and Mk-135 demolition packs to collapse suspension-bridge towers and highway-overpass abutments. In the second week, Roy taught them about improvised demolitions. They learned to make shaped charges out of number-ten cans and C-4, and cobble together blasting caps out of plumbing pipe, ground tetryl, wire, and pencil lead. They learned (one of the women with some noticeable embarrassment) how to waterproof firing devices using condoms.
By the time X-Man took the three-week advanced explosives course the following year, making the earth move was a sure thing. He could flip a bus, vaporize a limo, or even collapse a bridge. Now he learned how to build car bombs, and wire cell phon
es so he could blow the target’s head off when the son of a bitch answered, but not disturb the hairdo of the person across the table. He made huge bombs out of fertilizer and diesel fuel, powerful enough to bring down a ten-story building. He absorbed the intricacies of platter charges, ribbon charges, breaching charges, and roof-cutters.
But no one at Harvey Point had ever taught X-Man alchemy. Making claymores without some way to contain the plastic explosive and direct its explosive force precisely where he wanted it was going to be tough.
He pulled himself to his feet and wandered over to the charred hull of the chopper. Maybe he’d be able to find something else usable inside. But after three minutes, he came up dry and decided not to waste any more time.
He watched as Rowdy and four others gently slid the MADM into its shipping container then moved it out of the truck bed. He stayed where he was: he’d had enough of It’s company. But after they muscled the damn thing up the ravine wall into a protected position some two hundred yards away, flanked by rocks and shaded by sparse trees, he and Kaz climbed into the truck and poked around.
Wei-Liu had left the MADM battery unit behind. They examined it. Probably weighed fifty, even sixty pounds. It was seeping a nasty-smelling liquid, too. Not a good sign. The truck bed was empty, so they eased themselves off the rear gate and headed back toward the meager pile of explosive.
Which is when X-Man’s eye caught the empty water cans. There were two of them, slightly dinged and painted olive drab, tossed carelessly into the ditch at the side of the road. He’d never worked with rectangular containers before. But as Roy had told them, never be afraid to improvise, and always use what you have at hand. He looked at Kaz. “What do you think?”
The sensor tech pursed his lips. “Could work,” he said. “Anything is better than nothing.”
“Agreed.” X-Man plucked the water cans off the ground, shook them to make sure they were empty, and tucked them under his arm.
25
125 Kilometers East-Northeast of Tokhtamysh.
0837 Hours Local Time.
X-MAN REACHED under his trouser leg, retrieved the composite knife from his boot, and drove the blade through the metal side of the water can. “Ritzik wants shaped charges—Ritzik gets shaped charges.”
Kaz said, “You play with the Semtex. I can do the scut-work.”
“Great.” X-Man passed the paramilitary officer the pierced can. “Cut that whole side away.”
“Gotcha.” Kaz pulled the water can close and started sawing around the perimeter.
X-Man looked on approvingly, then unwrapped a block of Semtex. “I’m gonna knead some dough.” The security officer set a small sheet of metal from the downed chopper on the ground. Then he began to work the plastic with his hands until it was vaguely pliable. “Kaz—”
“Yo?”
“When you’re done, I need the knife back.”
“Take it.” The tech handed the blade to X-Man, who sliced a second Semtex block in two and added the smaller portion to the mix. When he’d gotten the explosive in roughly the shape he wanted, he reached over and took the water can.
Working carefully so as not to cut himself on the jagged edge, X-Man laid the blob of Semtex in the can, manipulating it until it was about three inches thick and pressed securely against all five interior walls. Then he began to shape the explosive. Starting in the middle, he formed the plastic into an inverse cone. The formula was simple: he packed the plastic explosive so that the cone was approximately one-half as deep as it was high, which formed a cone of precisely sixty degrees in angle.
“What do you think?” X-Man displayed his handiwork.
Kaz cocked his head at the explosive-filled can. “You know more than I do about these things, Chris,” he said. “But it looks a little skimpy to me.”
X-Man pursed his lips. “Roy used to say you can never have too much explosive, only too little.”
“Roy was a wise, wise man,” Kaz said. “I’m sorry I never took the course when he was teaching it.”
“He was so cool,” X-Man said. “Told us how he and two other Frogs once blew a mile-and-a-half underwater trench in Barbados as a favor to some local guy.”
“C’ mon.
“No, I’m serious. A mile and a half.” X-Man began to knead the other half of the Semtex block. “God, I would have loved to see that one.” He rolled the plastic into a salami-sized sausage, pinched off the ends, and flattened what remained. Then he layered new explosive atop the old, giving the Semtex more bulk, still careful, however, to maintain the sixty-degree angle of the cone. The cone would detonate in what was known as the Monroe effect, and would explode in an arc similar to the fan-shaped pattern of a claymore.
Once the Semtex was properly shaped and packed, he passed the can to Kaz, who used the knife to puncture the water can precisely behind the apex of the cone. Kaz inserted a detonator into the explosive. When the detonator was firmly in place X-Man examined Kaz’s handiwork and found it acceptable. Then the two of them repeated the operation with the second water can.
0845. X-Man worked his way up the crest of the ravine and along the ridge until he found where Rowdy had set up one of the two camouflaged positions. He glanced around. All things considered, the Delta men had done a remarkable job—he hadn’t seen the MADM until he was virtually on top of the device. And the firing positions were great. Rowdy’s people commanded the high ground. That alone would make an infantry assault costly. But just as valuable, he’d found positions that afforded the Delta shooters protection from air attack.
Yates was on his radio. X-Man waited until the sergeant major signed off and turned to face him. “Good news and bad news, Sarge.”
“Call me Rowdy.” Yates was preoccupied and in no mood for the spook’s lighthearted banter. “I don’t give a shit which you tell me first.”
“The good news is that we won’t have a problem flipping the truck. The bad news is that there’s only enough plastic for these two improvised devices if you want to do a good job on the truck.”
“You’re wasting my time,” Rowdy said. He held his arms out. “Let me have ‘em.”
X-Man laid the two shaped charges atop a knee-high flat rock, as reverentially as oblations. He was careful to display the explosive without disturbing the detonators. Rowdy’s eyes moved quickly over the plastic-filled cans. Then he looked up and his expression softened. “Thanks,” he said. “Good job. You two need a hand setting the truck?”
“Naw.” Kaz kicked a stone down the hill. “We can do it. We’ll let you know when we’re set to blow it.”
Yates rubbed a hand across his forehead then checked the digital watch on his left wrist. “Work fast,” he said. “We got less than a half hour until the opposition arrives.”
“Wilco, Sarge.”
Yates put on his War Face. “I said, call me Rowdy.”
“Why?”
Yates turned on him, coming up very close, eyes wide, bull neck throbbing, invading X-Man’s space. The sergeant major, X-Man realized, could become hugely intimidating when he wanted to—and X-Man wasn’t easily intimidated.
“Why?” Rowdy stared down at the younger man wild-eyed for a few seconds. Then he growled, “Because ‘Sarge’ sounds like a character played by William Bendix in all those World War Two movies.”
“So, what’s the problem?”
“Bad karma, guy. The William Bendix character always used to die. The negative association could affect my feng shui.”
X-Man blinked twice. He watched as Rowdy’s mustache upturned into a sly grin. He pressed his hands palm to palm in front of his chest and bowed his head in mock reverence to the sergeant major. “I am chastened, Master Rowdy,” he said. Then he turned and scurried back down the ravine with Kaz following in his footsteps.
Yates watched them go. They weren’t bad kids—for spooks. Rowdy looked down at the IEDs 24 with approval. The kid certainly knew his explosives. Still, Rowdy didn’t have much use for spooks. His dealings with CIA had been
mostly futile. In Iraq and later Somalia, CIA had been more a part of the problem than the solution. Rowdy was convinced that for all the help the suits at Langley provided Delta, the Agency’s initials should really stand for Can’t Identify Anything. In Mogadishu, faulty CIA intel caught Rowdy’s platoon in an ambush that cost him two of his troopers and a painful gut wound that took him out of action for six months. During the Kosovo campaign, Delta’s Agency liaison had been a retired Supergrade who’d been station chief in Belgrade in the mid-seventies. He’d had no contacts and no sources, and provided the Unit with no useful intelligence whatsoever. Still, it wasn’t the guys on the ground—the kids like X-Man who had some understanding of the real world—so much as the suits back at Langley who kept things screwed up so badly. Christ, they were such dumb-asses; they might as well be generals.
141 Kilometers East-Northeast of Tokhtamysh.
0844 Hours Local Time.
“HEAR ANYTHING?” Ritzik shook Sam’s shoulder to get his attention, then tapped the spook’s headset.
“Negatory.” Sam shook his head, shouting to be heard over the swash of the rotors. “I think they’re maintaining radio silence.”
“Possible.” Ritzik thought for a minute. He bent his head to get himself closer to Sam’s ear. “How’s your Chinese accent?”
“Kind of like Maurice Chevalier’s English,” Sam shouted back. “I sound like a round-eyes. Why?” “I was thinking,” Ritzik said. “Maybe you could try to convince them the radio was shot up. You know—a syllable or two, and then silence?”
“I could try something real basic like wŏ bŭ-dŏng.”
“What’s it mean?”
“No comprendo—I don’t understand.”
“Could you say, ‘Can’t read you’ instead? ‘Don’t understand’ sounds pretty phrase book.”
“That’s an idiom,” Sam shouted. “I’m not fluent enough to do idioms. But I could try one-word directions to get ‘em where we want ‘em to go—y’know, dŏng, nán, xī, běi—north, south, east, west. And I could probably add left and right: zoŭmián and yòumián.”