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He went back to Kara. “Looks like the boss is coming, so let’s get you out of this mess before he gets here.”
“Just don’t make a bigger mess, like with my guts, okay? I kind of like the way my body is all in one piece.”
“I kind of like the way your body is, too.”
“Flirting, Agent Harris?”
“Just telling it like it is.” Michael wasn’t looking at Kara, he focused on the box. The angles, the tilt, how much C-4 might be inside, how little motion would set it off. He wouldn’t know until he could actually see the bomb. “No matter how the box starts to lean, keep it at exactly this angle. I need to remove the papers so I can see what I’m doing.”
“Just do it.”
“I need to talk—it helps me with stress, and to work through the problem, okay?”
“Whatever floats your boat.”
He started to take out files one by one, carefully putting them on the desk two feet away. He couldn’t rush this. If he bumped the box, they were both dead. He had to be methodical. He’d disarmed bombs dozens of times under far more intense situations than this.
“During my first tour we ran an op in Fallujah,” he said. “A kid ran up to us. We were nervous—two weeks earlier, a kid ran up to a squad with a bomb strapped to him. Anyway, this time was different. He was six, he and his big brother were playing ball and his brother stepped on a land mine. It didn’t go off, but he didn’t think he could move. My team went to him—half were watching for snipers, because this was exactly the kind of situation where you get ambushed. But it wasn’t a lie.
“That kid, his name was Noor, was a rock. Just like you. And he knew if he moved that mine would explode. Those triggers are touchy. Sometimes you can trick them with a sandbag, sometimes you can’t. Some are old as fuck—those are the unpredictable ones. And my commander said we were under no obligation to do this, he would take care of it and we could go. Hell no, so he could have bragging rights? He stayed with me and ordered the rest of our squad to a safe distance. Too many people in the area could set it off, too, you know? So my commander, Sketch—”
“That was his name?”
“His name was Lieutenant Commander Steven MacNamara. We called him Sketch.”
“Like they called you GQ.”
“I never should have told you about that.”
“What? It’s cute.”
“Cute?” He chuckled. “Shit, girl, it’s because I was the most handsome, best-dressed stud in my unit.”
“I’ll bet you were. What happened to Sketch? Do you still talk to him?”
“Died a fucking hero. But that’s another story. Anyway, Sketch filled the sandbag at fifty-five pounds. A ten-year-old kid, fifty-five scrawny little pounds.” As he said this, he took out the last of the files on top of the C-4. Looked inside. The level was all the way to the right. Why hadn’t it already detonated? Maybe...maybe it had to move back? Did it have to go from one side to trigger, then the other to detonate...? Yeah, that was it. That made sense.
“I told Noor I had him. On three. I looked in his eyes and he didn’t want to trust me, but he did. And on three, I grabbed him, Sketch had the bag on the mine, and we bolted.”
The good thing about C-4 was that it was relatively easy to disarm. Michael had to get the electric probes out of the clay without disrupting the liquid that would send a spark into the C-4.
He took out his long needle-nose pliers.
“I ran with that kid as fast as these legs would take me. I was in better shape then. I mean, I’m in great shape now, but then? Totally Superman. You would have fallen head over heels for me.”
“You’re probably right.”
Two prongs. There didn’t look to be a fail-safe, this was a pretty standard setup. But he wished he could take them out simultaneously, just in case he was missing something.
“What?” Kara asked. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t lie to me.” Her voice was steady. Calm. But her eyes...they were terrified. He shouldn’t have looked into her eyes. He couldn’t screw this up.
“It’s the tricky part. But I know what I’m doing.”
“Do it. Just do it, Michael.”
