Takedown

“Then it should be a piece of-” said Harvath who suddenly realized what she was saying.

The last bomb Tracy Hastings had attempted to defuse had detonated, taking her left eye, half her face, and life as she’d known it along with it.

Sixty-Nine

Walk me through what you did on the last bomb,” said Harvath, trying to help Tracy hold it together.

“It was pretty unsophisticated,” she replied.

“Unsophisticated, how?”

“Everything. The plastique, the initiator, everything.”

“Okay, if it was so unsophisticated textbook, what went wrong?”

“I don’t know. I never knew. I did everything right, but it didn’t make a difference.”

Harvath had to work on keeping his cool. He was no good to himself or Tracy if he lost control. For both of their sakes, he had to remain calm. “Let’s just focus on this device. Can you go back under the platform and pop up one of the adjacent panels so I can see what you’re doing or at least talk to you a little more easily?”

Hastings nodded her head and disappeared back below. A few seconds later a floor panel next to Harvath popped up, and Tracy slid it out of the way.

“Perfect,” he said. “Now we can talk. Is there any way we can immobilize the pressure plate?”

“I already checked that,” said Hastings. “We can’t.”

“Then we’re going to do everything from scratch, okay? Do it for me. Just check it one more time.”

Hastings did as he asked, but her response was the same. “The pressure plate is a dead end.”

“Excellent choice of words, Tracy.”

“Sorry.”

“What about the main charge? Can you separate it?”

She looked at the device and then back up at Harvath, slowly shaking her head.

“Do you see any place to insert a safety pin of any sort?”

Hastings scoured the device, but came back with the same answer, “None at all.”

Harvath was running out of options. “What about minimizing the damage then? What can you tell about the projectiles?”

She took several moments before responding. “It looks like a lot of it has been cobbled together on the spot. They’re using broken glass and bits of Lexan for the projectiles.”

“Is it a directional device?”

“No. The projectiles are set to radiate out in all directions. Effective range about two hundred meters, I’d say. Apparently they didn’t want anybody getting out of here.”

The same thought had gone through Harvath’s mind. The fact that the bomb appeared to be cobbled together with materials found on the scene was also running through Harvath’s mind. There was something else, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. The rational part of his brain kept avoiding it, blaming the stalemate on Hastings, a trained EOD technician who should know what to do. Because he couldn’t stand the silence, he posed a very stupid and very obvious question: “Is there a way to interrupt the detonator?”

“C’mon, Scot. Like Rick said back at the VA, I might have lost my job, but I didn’t lose my training. That was one of the first things I looked for.”

He didn’t know what it was, but something about what Hastings had just said raised a heavy curtain in his mind a fraction of inch, teasing him with the answer he was looking for. Damn it. It had been so long since he had worked with explosives. The majority of his explosives training as a SEAL had been in the detonation, not the diffusing department. The joke in the Teams had been the only explosives equation a SEAL needed to remember was P for plenty. Even in the Secret Service, there were dogs and specialty technicians to handle the bombs. And yet, something kept knocking at the back of his brain. What the hell was it?

Harvath looked down at Hastings and said, “You’re sure the device looks rudimentary?”

“Totally.”

“Why is that? What we’ve seen of these guys so far is anything but simple. They seem pretty sophisticated and definitely know what they’re doing, correct?”

“Yeah. So?”

“So why are you not seeing the same level of tactical sophistication in that device down there?”

“Who knows,” replied Hastings. “There could be a million reasons. They were probably in a pretty damn good hurry. People often resort to the basics when they’re pressed for time.”

Harvath shook his head. “I don’t think so. Not these guys. I think they want you to believe that bomb is paint-by-numbers.”

“What for?”

“So that you’ll miss something. Something you wouldn’t have missed if you were being extracareful.”

Just then, something clicked, but it wasn’t for Harvath, it was for Hastings. “Jesus, you’re right,” she said.

“What is it?”

“Hold on” was the last thing she said before disappearing once again beneath the floor.