TICK TOCK (EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) Book 1) Read online

  I shook my head, ideas and fears spilling out of me.

  “I guess I thought that you spent all your time dealing with terror attacks.”

  “There’s that. But you’d be surprised how many times I get called to schools or homes because little Johnny has been playing with the chemistry set and something has gone bang.”

  I laughed, half surprised that he could so playful. Or maybe he was deflecting. I didn’t know him well enough to tell the difference. But I didn’t call him on it, I was enjoying talking to him too much. Much too much.

  “I kind of imagine you were like that as a kid—seeing how big a bang you could make.”

  Again, I heard his quiet laugh, half lost as the wind howled outside.

  “I may have had my share of emptying the powder from fireworks to see what else I could make.”

  “I definitely believe that,” I said, glad he couldn’t see me rolling my eyes.

  We sat in silence as the storm shook the cabin with an angry fist, the rain rattling against the windows like bullets.

  “Tell me about your tattoos,” I said abruptly. “Sorry, I was just wondering. I know tattoos can be personal.” He didn’t reply. “It’s none of my business.”

  “No, I’m just surprised … I forgot you’d seen them.”

  I was so glad he couldn’t see me blushing in the dark as I remembered the way my eyes had travelled over his back in the half-light of dawn, trying to understand the shadows I could see.

  “I have two, they’re separate and were done at different times, but they’re linked, as well.”

  His chair creaked and I wondered if he was leaning back or leaning forwards.

  “The one across my shoulders was my first. It says, ‘The game starts after you score.’ I used to play basketball when I was at school and it was something my coach used to say. It stuck with me.”

  Now I understood.

  “He was someone important to you.”

  “Yeah, you could say that. He was the first person who believed in me. He taught me that when the other team scores, you have to set up the offence then score, then have a defensive strategy so they can’t score again. It’s like when life knocks you down, that’s when you have to stand up and fight. I got the tattoo at a time in my life that was hard and I felt … I guess ‘lost’ is the word that fits.”

  He gave a small huff of embarrassed laughter.

  “A metaphor, yes, I can see that. And the other one?”

  “It’s a compass with the word ‘pathfinder’. I had it done just before I joined the Army.”

  “So the Army was you finding your path.”

  He paused.

  “Yeah, I guess you could say that.”

  “Working in bomb disposal?”

  “I didn’t plan that, it was just one of the trades—one of the specialities—on offer. It sounded interesting.”

  I shook my head in amazement.

  “You risk your life to do this because it sounded interesting?”

  “Why does anyone do what they do? Everything is a risk. Why are you here, Amira?”

  “Because I have to!”

  I blurted out the words without thinking.

  “You have to?”

  “I can’t talk about it.”

  He sighed and his chair creaked again.

  “No, I guess you can’t.”

  Once again, the raging storm filled the emptiness between us.

  “I heard you screaming,” I said quietly. “Twice now. I wondered if…”

  “I can’t talk about that either,” he said, his tone turning from surprise to something darker.

  “Okay. Sorry.”

  He gave a dry laugh.

  “Is there any topic out there that we can talk about?”

  We sat in silence, listening to the wind moan, and the cabin creak and groan.

  “You don’t have to answer,” I said at last. “There’s no reason why you should … but why do you shave your head? I know it’s not because you’re bald—so, I just wondered…”

  My words limped to an end. It was another personal question, but no more so than him telling me about his parents or his tattoos. Even though the conversation was one-sided, I didn’t want it to end.

  “Have you ever had lice—body lice, hair lice?” he asked.

  “What? No! Is that why?”

  “When you’re deployed in some shitty stone-age village where there’s no access to running water and you’ve got two hundred blokes all crammed in together, it happens. They get in your hair, in your clothes, in your armpits … and elsewhere—it’s miserable. There’s no way to wash your kit because water is flown in and rationed, so you hang your uniform over a fire and smoke the little bastards. Then heat up your bayonet or your knife and press it against the seams like an iron to get rid of their eggs. But for your hair, best thing is to shave it off.”

  “Wow! I never thought about that!” I reached up to scratch my head.

  Now he’d talked about it, I imagined that my scalp was itching.

  “That’s just horrible!” I said, recoiling slightly.

  “Yeah, not nice.” He hesitated and I could hear him drumming his fingers on the table. “But it’s not the real reason I shave my head. Although I would have. A lot of the lads shaved their heads on that deployment—a battalion of baldies!”

  “So if it wasn’t that, why did you?”

  He gave an embarrassed laugh.

  “I did it when I was 17.” He hesitated. “You really want to hear this stuff?”

  I nodded even though he couldn’t see me.

  “Oh definitely! I can tell there’s a story here!”

  “Okay, fine,” he sighed. “Everyone at school called me a pretty boy, so I shaved off my hair so I’d look hard. Then it grew back a little bit but I didn’t like it afterwards, so I just kept shaving it off.”

  I burst out laughing.

  “A pretty boy? Well, sorry to burst your bubble, James, but you’re still pretty!”

  “Oh, cheers for that,” he said, his tone ironic. He laughed lightly. “I’ve never told anyone that before.”

  His voice sounded contemplative.

  “Yes,” I acknowledged quietly. “It’s easier to tell the truth in the dark.”

  I realized that we were heading for dangerous territory again—I couldn’t afford to tell him the truth about myself.

  “What reaction did you get when you first did it?” I asked quickly.

  “Well,” he said slyly, “girls liked me even better but the boys couldn’t say anything after that. I suppose they were still pissed off—maybe even more so.”

  “Hmm, I bet they were. Is it typical, in the Army, I mean? If a guy’s naturally bald…”

  “I just about got away with it. The grooming standard is about being smart and uniform. I don’t think a commander would object,” he paused again, “unless it was tied to something like the National Front.”

  “Oh, is that a political party?”

  He snorted.

  “Just a right wing fascist organization. I don’t want to be associated with those arseholes.”

  “But it can be slightly intimidating,” I said. “It’s aggressive.”

  “No, I don’t see it like that. Buddhist monks shave their heads.”

  “Buddhism doesn’t equal pacifism,” I pointed out. “Buddhist teaching doesn’t stop their believers from fighting in defence of their way of life.”

  There was another of the silences as I waited for his reaction.

  “You sound like you know a lot about it.”

  “I had a friend who was a Buddhist … not now, of course.”

  “You can’t have Buddhist friends?”

  “We were roommates at college but lost touch after graduation.”

  “But can you? You seem pretty hardcore about your religion—can you have non-faith friends?”

  I sighed, not really wanting to get into this.

  “It’s always easier to be friends with peopl
e who are like you, from your tribe, you know?”

  “My tribe?”

  “Well, your tribe is the Army, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, right, I guess. What’s yours?”

  I can’t tell you. I hesitated, uncertain what to say.

  “The Quran says: ‘Do not take the Jews and the Christians for your allies’, and that part gets quoted a lot by those who are intolerant of the faith. But you have to read the whole book to understand, because later on it says, ‘God does not forbid you to show them kindness and to behave towards them with full equity: for, verily, God loves those who act equitably’.”

  “You didn’t answer the question, Amira.” James’ voice had become sharp. “I asked if you could have non-Muslim friends. What you’ve quoted to me says that you can be kind towards them but it doesn’t mention friendship.”

  I slipped my niqab back on and stood up. The conversation had run its course.

  “I can’t be friends with you,” I said.

  I ran back to my room, my hurried footsteps lost in the fury of the storm.

  James

  SHE WAS DRIVING me crazy. Warm, friendly and funny one minute; cool, distant and hostile the next.

  It also pissed me off that she was more relaxed with Smith and Clay than she was with me. I knew that was my fault, but there was a push and pull between us that I couldn’t ignore.

  In the darkness, with the storm battering the cabin, I’d found myself talking to her in ways I never usually did with a woman, not for a long time. I’d told her personal stuff, things that were private that I never told anyone, and for all I knew she could use the information against me. I’d let her get inside my head, and that wasn’t good—it was very, very bad.

  I sat at the wobbly kitchen table with my head in my hands, frustrated that I’d given so much away.

  Jesus, I’d even told her about the World War One mine that I’d been called out to, although I hadn’t told her the details. I hadn’t told her that I’d spent nearly 11 hours up to my thighs in mud that kept trying to suck me down, trying to force open a rusted mine that was covered in barnacles and not get blown to kingdom come. And I hadn’t told her that I’d earned the Queen’s Gallantry Medal for that job.

  I hadn’t told her about the nights I woke up gasping for breath because I dreamed that my hands had been blown off or turned to blackened stumps in front of me, curled and burned into claws, the nightmares that plagued me.

  I hadn’t told her about the high risk training with IEDs, the roadside bombs I’d worked to stop detonating in Afghanistan, or the ones we didn’t get to in time, the ammo demolition that went so badly wrong.

  And I hadn’t explained that it’s not about individual glory or even individual achievement: every bit of knowledge was saved and stored and taught to the next generation of ATs. All the knowledge accumulated from UXB teams during the two World Wars, the years of living with the threat of IRA bombs in Northern Ireland and on the mainland, it all added up. We’d learned to adapt as the terrorists had adapted. We even had a museum of devices so new recruits could learn from the ground up. Because although terrorists were becoming more sophisticated, you could equally be called to a primary school or a building site, and you had to be ready for what you’d find. Although conventional tasks of making ordnance safe added to our explosives knowledge, so granddad’s grenades had little bearing on our counter terrorism expertise.

  Even so, I’d told her more than enough.

  I thought about the very tiny pieces of information that she’d given away: that she had a brother and sister; that she’d gone to college and roomed with a Buddhist, so presumably she hadn’t always been so … was ‘devout’ the word? Maybe that’s why she seemed to schizo—at times joining in with us naturally, at other times stand-offish and awkward.

  It had been good talking to her tonight. She said that the truth was easier to say in the dark.

  And then I remembered something else … when I asked her why she was here, she said, because I have to.

  What did that mean? That something was driving her to go through with this, or that some outside force was compelling her. She’d certainly shut up quickly enough afterwards, and I guessed that she was even regretting telling me she had a brother and sister.

  The CIA or NSA or whoever Smith worked for—they would have trained her not to give away personal information because it can be used against you. She’d been a hell of a lot better at keeping quiet than I had.

  But it had seemed like something else at the time, that there was another reason she wouldn’t talk about her family. I wondered if they knew what she was doing.

  And then it struck me: had I been chosen for this op because I didn’t have any family? After all, who would notice if I never came home? Noddy would hold onto my bike and maybe ask around, but what if the ‘paperwork’ just got lost? I moved around so much, would anyone from my regiment realize before half a year had gone by? And by then, the trail would be cold.

  I was being paranoid. The British military was so small, we were down to 80,000 personnel. Just enough to fill Wembley Stadium, although the Navy would have to park their battleships outside. But there were even fewer ATs, maybe 350 to 400, and only 30 operators on teams in the UK. Surely someone would notice? Eventually.

  A prickle of unease swept over me: what the hell am I doing here?

  I was tired, and maybe that was the reason I was seeing conspiracy theories everywhere. With the storm still raging around us, I knew that sleep would be far away, so I put my restless brain to work on planning tomorrow’s … today’s lesson.

  BY MORNING, THE storm had blown itself out. The day felt fresher and I could see things more clearly.

  The first job was to get rid of the branches, twigs, leaves and other debris from around the cabins, then restarting the generator that coughed and gurgled painfully.

  We all knew how to make a fire and boil water in a mess kettle, but the Army has a saying: any fool can be uncomfortable. I was very happy turning on the generator to make use of the coffee machine.

  I made two cups and left one outside Amira’s door.

  She ate alone, as usual, and I felt a pinch of anger mixed with sadness. It was hard to bond with the team when you isolated yourself for long periods of rec time. But maybe that would work in her favour when she was moved on.

  Clay clapped me on the shoulder.

  “Deep thoughts, brother?”

  “Nope, I’m paddling through the shallow end right now.”

  He laughed.

  “I somehow doubt that. So, Teach, what pearls of wisdom will you be casting before us today?”

  Amira poked her head out of the door, once again dressed in her black niqab. I was beginning to hate the sight of it. There was no sign of last night’s shared secrets.

  “Timers,” I said. “How to make them and how to use them.”

  Once we’d cleared a space outside, we made ourselves comfortable on the ground and I began.

  “Okay, first lesson in making a device with a timer. You need a non-digital alarm clock and some silver paper. Take one of the hands and wrap it with silver paper. Push a nail or tack into the clock face. Take a battery, nail file, dental floss, glue, pliers, a pop gun and a mousetrap.”

  I laid out the components in from of me—all easily available.

  “Strip the wire, silver paper over the top, bend the wire back and glue to the clock. Take the caps from a pop gun and glue to the mousetrap. Attach the battery and clock, then wire together. Glue the unit to the mousetrap. Thread the dental floss through the mousetrap—or cotton if you don’t have floss—and glue to the battery. Lift up the mousetrap and you’ve armed the device. When the hand hits the nail, it’ll trigger the caps of the pop gun … which you’ll have attached to a bloody great explosive device.” I paused. “Easy. Kids make them all the time.”

  I saw Amira’s eye twitch. I’d learned to read a lot from those dark, expressive eyes, probably because that was all I could see o
f her. And I could tell that this made her uncomfortable.

  Smith didn’t join us today. He’d seemed distracted during breakfast and had disappeared into the forest. He didn’t say where he was going.

  It occurred to me that if he didn’t come back, we’d be stranded here or have to make our way out on foot. And none of us knew where we were. Oh well, survival training 101—follow the river downstream.

  But Smith returned in the afternoon, just as Clay and I finished a workout. Amira said she’d train in her room. I didn’t know if she was avoiding me. It gave me a headache trying to second guess her all the time. It would be a hell of a lot easier if I could just ignore her.

  But I couldn’t. Those eyes. Those damned eyes. I felt her watching me, and even when she wasn’t there, I found myself looking for her.

  Smith jerked his head at me, indicating that I should follow him.

  He walked a couple of hundred metres into the forest then sat down on a log.

  “How’s the training going?”

  “I’ve really only just scratched the surface of what they need to know. Clay might remember a few things, but Amira … I’m not so sure. She makes mistakes that will get her killed. Even Clay is nowhere near competent. Why? We’ve got seven more weeks yet.”

  He sighed and shook his head.

  “We really don’t. Can you get them ready in ten days?”

  I thought he was joking but the smile froze on my face.

  “Is that a serious request?”

  He grimaced.

  “An order from above. There’s been a significant increase in radio chatter from the terror cell—my bosses think something is brewing, and they want the assets in place now—yesterday would be better.”