TICK TOCK (EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) Book 1) Page 5

  She stumbled backwards away from me, slamming the door and muttering to herself.

  I didn’t know if I was amused, insulted, or just as surprised as her. My dick twitched with appreciation of her curvy figure and a nice pair of legs.

  I hadn’t expected the woman to be so young, maybe mid-twenties, maybe late-twenties—my age. I definitely hadn’t expected her to be attractive. I’d imagined some sour, bitter bitch, her sharp tongue cutting chunks off men who got in her way.

  But this woman was beautiful. It was probably just as well she covered herself from head to toe in that black sheet. Being attracted to a CIA asset was a terrible idea—and we both had a job to do.

  Clay appeared from the other cabin.

  “It’s a beautiful morning, brother,” he smiled.

  My brain took a second to reboot then I shook my head in amusement. This guy was congenitally happy—it wasn’t normal. My smile faded when I took in how he was dressed: sandals on his feet, and a loose white robe, similar to those I’d seen Iraqi men wear.

  “What’s with all that?” I asked, nodding at his robe while I sipped my coffee.

  “Have some respect, brother,” he said, pointing a finger at me, and nearly dropping a handful of sweets in the process. “Damn! You almost made me drop my Gummi Worms. Damn, you made me cuss and I’ve only just said morning prayers.” He sighed. “You’re a bad influence, James. And put some damn clothes on.”

  “What are those sweets you’re eating?”

  Clay looked shocked.

  “You’ve never had Gummi Worms?”

  “Don’t think so. They look too much like, well, worms. What are they made of? Gelatin?”

  He closed his eyes for a second then squinted up at the rising sun.

  “Damn,” he said softly. “Gelatin—that’s definitely not halal. You want them?”

  I pulled a face and he dropped the colourful sweets in the dirt, shaking his head sadly.

  “This shit is hard.”

  “But you’re not really a Muslim, are you?”

  He grimaced, still staring at the dust-covered sweets by his feet.

  “I’m a seeker,” he said finally. “There are a lot of fine words in the Qur’an, but I don’t subscribe to any religion in particular.” Then he looked at me seriously. “But I’d better damn well convince the ISIS cell that I’m a convert.”

  “That’s why you’re dressing like one of them?”

  He nodded and stroked the straggly beard that he was growing.

  “The robe is a Didashah: white for the summer, and darker, heavier fabrics in the winter.” He grinned at me. “It’s surprisingly comfortable in this heat. Free-balling is mighty fine.”

  I groaned.

  “Mate, I don’t want to think about your meat-and-two-veg—that’s just nasty.”

  He laughed and fished in his pocket for some different sweets.

  “This hard candy should be okay, don’t you think?”

  “No idea. Probably not.”

  “Harsh, brother,” he sighed, putting the sweets away again. Then he nodded his head at my cabin. “Better get dressed, James. It will be disrespectful for Amira to see you like that.”

  I didn’t tell him she already had. Instead, I took another swallow of coffee and tossed the rest onto the dusty ground.

  “We need to come up with a training programme,” I said over my shoulder. “Brain work in the morning, physical training in the afternoon. Okay with you?”

  “It’s hotter in the afternoon,” he pointed out.

  “Yeah, but I need you awake and alert for what I’m going to teach you. Working with explosives isn’t good if you’re half asleep after lunchtime.”

  “Whatever you say,” he grinned. “You’re the man!”

  As I walked inside to the cabin, the heat was already growing, the dark interior stuffy and airless. I pulled on my desert camo trousers and olive green EOD t-shirt with the badge that said I was 321 EOD & Search Squadron. I was proud of that badge; I’d earned that badge, with blood and sweat.

  I began running through what I needed to teach Clay and Amira in the next eight weeks: what was essential to stop them blowing themselves up, and what was ancillary to that. It had taken me seven years to become a high threat operator—how the hell was I supposed to teach them that in eight weeks? It was an impossible task. I’d just have to keep it simple and hope to hell that we all survived.

  My old trainer used to say that neutralizing bombs made by the IRA was easier than devices made in Iraq or Afghanistan because they had a better build quality. That sounds messed up, but the truth was, the ISIS leaders didn’t care if their bomb-makers had short careers—although it was the suicide bombers carrying out the attacks who were completely disposable: they didn’t care about them at all.

  Smith was waiting for me outside. I’d heard his truck leave in the night soon after I’d kicked dirt over our small campfire, and Clay had blown out the candles in the old hurricane lamps. But now he stood in front of me, his face lined with tiredness. He looked as though he’d been driving all night.

  Pulling an all-nighter on deployment was never fun. Either you were on edge, aware of every noise, squeak, bump or bark; or your eyes were weighted with lead, and forcing your body or brain into action was the only way to stay alert.

  Smith jerked his head at the back of the truck.

  “Got your supplies. Everything except the projector screen—you’ll have to do without that. Help yourself. Laptop’s on the passenger seat. I’m going to get some coffee.”

  He didn’t wait for me to reply but headed for the cabin he shared with Clay.

  I wondered about that. Wouldn’t it have made more sense for the two trainees to share together? If Clay was with Amira, he could have learned more about how a Muslim man was supposed to behave, and I assumed she’d rather share with him than me? Shouldn’t they be bonding as a team? But what did I know.

  Larson hadn’t reappeared and Smith hadn’t said where he’d gone. I didn’t ask.

  The truck was parked in the shade of a towering beech tree. My grandfather had taught me to recognize trees, and I’d loved going traipsing through the woods with him. Nothing like an old poacher for teaching you forest craft.

  Although it had been years since the old man passed, the sense of loss was still fresh as I squatted under the tree and let the dry soil run through my fingers. I’d been laid up in Selly Oak at the time, a hospital where they sent all the military’s injured personnel, so I hadn’t gone to his funeral. I’d visited his grave a month later, my arm in a sling, a patch over one eye, and missing six teeth. Grass and weeds were already growing over the mound but he wouldn’t have minded that.

  “Nature in the raw, lad. That’s the only way it should be.”

  His voice rang through my memories, his laugh turning into a hacking cough, the sweet scent of pipe tobacco clinging to our clothes.

  I pushed back the echoes where they belonged and jumped into the back of the truck, rummaging through bags and boxes. Smith had done well. It was enough to start with.

  He’d also taken the time to visit a supermarket, and I grabbed an apple and a banana, shoving them in my pockets for later.

  MREs couldn’t compete with fresh food.

  I poked through the rest of the swag, mentally detailing the resources I had to play with, then Clay wandered out and helped me unload everything into an old lean-to that seemed watertight.

  Amira appeared a few minutes later, the black niqab in place, but I couldn’t forget the image of her standing in the doorway, sleepy and sexy, wearing just a t-shirt. I turned away and gestured to my ‘classroom’ which was a shady patch under one of the trees, and sent Clay to find Smith.

  Amira sat gracefully, arranging her niqab around her in the dirt while I stood waiting for my other two students. She kept her eyes down, her restless hands shredding the dry leaves that covered the ground.

  I couldn’t help wondering about her. Why had she volunteered for this
? What drove her to put her life on the line? I was about to teach her skills that would make her a very valuable terrorist asset. Clay was military and had seen action overseas, so I understood why he might have volunteered for this.

  Smith arrived and sat on the ground with a grunt, rubbing his eyes as he sipped his coffee. Clay was his usual friendly self, and from the expression on his face you’d think I was giving a cooking lesson, not talking about efficient ways to kill people.

  Obviously, I couldn’t train them the way I’d been trained. Normally, I’d impart knowledge in the safest way possible, describing the explosive train, the parts of an IED and so on. But that risked using terminology or certain phrases that would be signature to military training. I needed to work differently.

  I gathered my thoughts then dived in.

  “Today I’m going to show you how to make a basic pipe bomb. Pipe bombs are anti-personnel fragmentation devices that wound, maim and kill. They’re simple, cheap, portable and easily made from components available at any hardware shop. I wouldn’t say they’re unstable, but they’re easy to get wrong; for example, you end up with the black powder functioning if it’s caught in the screw threads and just as likely to injure the bomb-maker as the intended target. So do what I say and only when I tell you.”

  I definitely had their attention.

  I squatted down in front of them with the laptop, but the small size of the screen was frustrating and hard for everyone to see at the same time, so I swept leaves from the ground in front of us to make a clear, flat space, and sketched diagrams in the dirt. Then I pointed at the supplies in front of me as I described them.

  “The bomb is made from a pipe. Any pipe, like this plastic one a plumber would use—you can get it from a hardware store. Yes, you can use metal pipes, too.”

  Clay raised his hand.

  “I’m guessing you need more explosive power with a metal pipe?”

  “Nope, the opposite: you’d use low order explosives like black power, and the compression still gives a decent effect. Plastic pipe can work just as effectively. In 1999, a bastard named Copeland targeted several gay bars in London using plastic pipe bombs. It needed more violence and additional frag—firework-mix and nails. He picked weekends, when there were more people around. Each bomb was hidden in a hold-all and contained up to 1,500 four-inch nails. He killed three people, including a pregnant woman, and injured 140 others. Four of those people lost limbs. Don’t underestimate the homemade pipe bomb.”

  Clay was listening intently but I saw Amira shudder.

  “What happened to him?” she asked.

  “Who? The bomber?”

  She nodded.

  “Who cares?”

  She dropped her gaze to the floor.

  “I was just asking…”

  My gaze narrowed on her, but she didn’t look up again.

  “He was convicted of murder and is serving six life sentences.”

  Smith had told me she was an ER nurse—maybe she knew exactly the kind of injuries I was talking about. I continued with the lesson.

  “The pipe has threaded ends into which two caps are screwed. You drill a hole into one cap and place a fuze inside. Your first choice for that is military grade or civilian burning fuze; second choice is firework fuze. School kids are always using string and constantly have accidents.”

  “School kids?”

  I glanced up, irritated by another of Amira’s interruptions. Was she really that shocked?

  “Yeah, kids. Happens all the time.” I turned back to my explanation. “And det cord isn’t used. Low order explosive is then poured into the pipe—I’ll show you how to make that from fertilizer and sugar—and then packed tightly with a wad of tissue paper. This prevents the explosive being caught in the thread of the pipe exposing it to friction—that would be bad as it could cause accidental initiation.”

  Amira raised her hand again.

  “Yes,” I asked testily.

  I was being an arse. Don’t ask why.

  “Could a … a pipe bomb this size cause much injury? You said the London one had 1,500 nails packed into it, so…”

  “Of course it can cause injury.”

  “It looks so small.”

  I gave her a hard look.

  “One of the first incidents I was called to was where paramedics were treating a 39 year old man for blast injuries: they intubated him at the roadside because he had a scorched oesophagus from inhaling superheated air; he was bleeding from his ears so they suspected ruptured tympanic membranes—plus various shrapnel injuries.”

  She didn’t look away as I described the scene, heard again the shouted chaos, felt the man’s fear and panic as his body thrashed while medics fought to sedate him.

  “He’d been a passenger in the back of an open pick-up truck when an unstable pipe bomb exploded in the driver’s compartment—they’d gone over a speed bump at 25 mph.” I paused. “The driver’s head was found by police 30 metres away. Does that answer your question?”

  Her eyes widened but that was the only reaction I could see.

  “That’s what you’re being trained to do, Amira.”

  She shook her head.

  “No, I need to look like I can construct a bomb and…”

  “Are you that naïve?” I asked softly. “Do you really think that they’ll trust you with the intel you’re being sent to collect without having to prove yourself? And how do you think you might do that?” I let the question hang in the air.

  “Come on, man,” said Clay, his eyes darting to Amira.

  “She has to know. There are always casualties of war.”

  My voice was bitter.

  It was Amira who spoke first.

  “I can do it.”

  My lips curled in a sneer.

  “You think you can take another human’s life?”

  Her head jerked, but her voice was confident when she answered.

  “Yes.”

  I leaned toward her.

  “You think you can look a living, breathing human being in the face, and pull the trigger or set the timer and watch as their body is blown apart?”

  It looked as though she’d taken a deep breath, but I couldn’t be sure, and her eyes were hidden by the deep shade of the tree’s branches.

  “Yes,” she said. “I can do that. The same as you.”

  Smith’s gaze bounced between us.

  “Right, James,” he said calmly. “Moving on.”

  My eyes were still fixed on Amira, and she didn’t look away.

  For the rest of the morning, I taught them the basics: what length to cut burning fuze for different timings, and described where to place these IEDs for the best results that would cause the most casualties. Often terrorists prefer high numbers of casualties to the death of a single target: casualties tie up more resources for a longer period of time—maximum impact.

  Amira fumbled, her hands clumsy under the niqab. Her peripheral vision was limited, too, and she stopped me several times because she couldn’t always hear what I was saying. I tried to speak slower, more clearly, but sometimes even my accent confused both her and Clay.

  It was frustrating for all of us.

  But part of me had descended into that ice-cold place where reason and rationality existed without emotion. I was a robot teaching another robot how to kill humans as efficiently as possible.

  I’d been trained to think like a terrorist: that was the slow poison of my job.

  I could never un-see what I’d seen, the bodies ripped apart, the lives mangled and destroyed. But that wasn’t all. One aspect of my job was to collect samples from devices that had functioned so that DNA could be analyzed with the aim of ultimately finding the bomb-makers. And neutralizing them. There could be DNA samples on the Velcro straps used by a suicide bomber, but we collected all samples to be examined—and by samples, I mean body parts. Ears are particularly resilient since they’re just gristle. Heads always pop off because necks are the weak spot. So part of my job w
as to collect body parts of suicide bombers. It was sickening work. And it marked a man.

  Clay worked slowly and methodically, absorbing everything I said. His jaw worked constantly, sucking on sweets or chewing gum, a slight frown on his face.

  The day grew warmer and sweat trickled down my back. I could see beads of perspiration on Clay’s face, and Amira’s head covering grew damp and she kept wiping her eyes.

  I could tell that Smith had done this before—where and when, I didn’t ask. I wondered if he’d worked with EOD in another life. If he had, he wasn’t saying.

  Finally, each of my students had a viable pipe bomb. The last lesson of the day was to see how well they exploded.

  Smith led us through the woods to a small depression in the ground about a mile from our camp. I could see why he’d chosen the place—it was more enclosed, more sheltered, so the blast radius would be contained. I’d have to take his word for it that there was no one near enough to hear us.

  I handed out ear protectors before I tested Clay’s plastic pipe bomb first. It did a reasonable job, blowing apart and sending out an arc of plastic shrapnel that shred the canopy of leaves above the explosion. Amira jumped when the bomb functioned but tried very hard to look calm.

  Smith’s metal pipe bomb was good, as I knew it would be, scaring the crap out of Clay and Amira, and sending a shower of shrapnel thudding into the trees, severing branches and twigs, studding the heavy trunks like a medieval castle door.

  Amira’s plastic pipe bomb fizzed and died without detonating.

  She stood with her hands on her hips.

  “Ah, come on! I did everything you said!”

  “Get down!”

  “What?”

  “Get on the fucking ground now!”

  With wide eyes and a jerk of her head, she did as I ordered, dropping flat, belly down.

  “Listen carefully and don’t ever make that mistake again,” I said, my voice grim. “Burning fuze is unreliable compared to an electric detonation, so there is always, always a mandatory waiting period—in the Army it’s 30 minutes from when the last smoke was seen.” I softened my voice. “That fuze can still function, so give it at least a few minutes before you go check what went wrong. Understand?”