Catch a man a fish and you can sell it to him.
Teach a man to fish and
you ruin a wonderful business opportunity.
—KARL MARX
WEST BERLIN
Summer and Faith looked through the half-moon slit in the leather satchel. Four rows of white rectangular bricks stacked two high, each one wrapped in clear plastic. Summer pulled out a package of something that looked like Play-Doh. “You really got this from the East Germans?”
“What is it?” Faith said.
“C.”
“What the hell are the East Germans doing with American explosives? Are you sure that’s what it is?”
“I’ve never actually seen Semtex, but it’s supposed to look a lot like C-3, kinda yellowish, but not as brownish. More orange. But I’d recognize C-4 anywhere, and this is it. They could’ve stolen it from the military or a private firm. We use it all the time—all the EOD units do. Our allies—the Brits, Australians—they all use it. Even civilians with the proper ATF licenses can order it. I think it comes from a place in Texas.”
“And there’s a black market for everything,” Faith said.
“You oughtta know. Whatever this is about, I’d say someone wants it to look like it’s an American job.”
“Can you really tell whether it was Semtex or C-4 after something’s blown up? I thought they were chemically about the same.”
“They both use the same stuff, but lab boys can tell them apart. About ten years ago, the government started encouraging manufacturers to include something called taggant—microscopic chips coded so you can tell where and when it was manufactured. Now I think this was mainly for the stuff they sell to civilians. I’m sure it’s not in what we use in the field in SpecWar—SEALs don’t always want to leave a calling card.”
“Would the East Germans know about taggant?”
“It’s not highly classified.” He dropped the explosive onto the table. “You owe me an explanation, and I don’t think this can wait until a beer.”
“Promise me you won’t get mad and you won’t even think about trying to get involved.”
“At this point, Faith, I can’t promise you much.”
“I’m sorry, then I can’t tell you much, but I do have a craft project I need to tackle after we’re done with this. I’m going to need you to buy some Play-Doh for me in the PX or Exchange or whatever it’s called.”
Summer began packing his tools.
“What are you doing?”
“Pulling my things together because, as much as I care for you, I can’t do this for you unless you’re up-front with me. And I’m going to have to confiscate this and take it to a base to disarm and dispose of it.”
“You can’t do this to me.”
“Or you me.”
Faith sighed. “They’ll kill me if I don’t deliver it on time. I’ve been blackmailed into transporting it.”
“Where? Can’t you do better than that? I’m a naval officer, and that means I can’t stay on the sidelines if this is going to terrorists that might hit a US or allied target.”
“It’s going to an East Bloc capital.”
“Moscow? The East Germans are using you to smuggle C into Russia? You’ve gotta be kidding.”
“I didn’t say Moscow.”
“Well, hell, where else would they bother with? The Germans think they’re better than everyone else, so you don’t think they’d go to such lengths to blow up some frickin’ Romanian, do you? You’re in over your head—and I don’t mean just a couple of inches. I’ve got contacts in the DIA—”
“Don’t even think about Defense Intelligence. The Stasi would think I’d turned on them. They’d kill me if they knew I was meeting with you, personal history aside.” Faith brushed her hair from her face and felt sweat gathering on her forehead.
“So then why did you risk meeting me?”
“They wouldn’t tell me what I was dealing with, and for all I knew they could have been setting me up to carry a bomb on a plane. They made it clear it was booby trapped, but I knew nothing was tamper-proof with you—you proved that when I was sixteen.” She flashed him a smile.
“So why are you going along with them?”
“I told you, they threatened me.” She forced herself to make eye contact with him, but couldn’t; she looked away.
“That’s not good enough. You could get away from here or get help from the government. Why, Faith?”
“I didn’t want to tell you because it’s so far-fetched, but I’ve received information from the Stasi about Daddy. You know how Mama would never say anything about him or about how he passed away?” She blinked rapidly, fighting back tears.
He nodded as he turned a chair around and sat in it backward.
“They claim he’s still alive, and if I cooperate, they’ll help me find him. I’m guessing he’s been held in a gulag or in one of their special psychiatric hospitals, like the dissident physicist Sakharov.”
Summer removed a pair of scissors from the kit and snipped away the leather flap, widening the hole, gradually exposing a metal cylinder wrapped in duct tape. The end of the soup-can-sized container was recessed like the bottom of a wine bottle and its top was cut away. It was stuffed with C-4.
He set down the scissors. Four colored wires disappeared into the plastique; a third set linked everything together. His eyes followed each wire as if he were searching for hidden patterns, decrypting a secret code. “Not good.”
Faith held her breath, afraid to speak. Summer snatched up a handful of X-rays. His eyes darted between the X-ray and the case. He held up one after another to light, all the while shaking his head. He tossed them on the table with enough force that they slid off the other side. Faith crawled under the table and retrieved the film, blowing away the dust.
“Son of a buck.” He traced an ellipse on the X-ray with his index finger. “See this shadow at the bottom of the battery? It’s got to be a capacitor. I missed it before because of the angles of the pictures. Too many wires and they’re so tightly twisted together I thought they were singles.”
“I still don’t get it.”
“They really didn’t want you messing with this. If it was only single wires, it would be a matter of snipping any one of them to prevent the circuit from closing. You know how in the movies you see two wires going into the bomb and the hero has to decide which one to clip—one will stop the timer; the other will blow ’em to kingdom come?”
“I’ve seen that flick a couple times.”
“It’s a bunch of horse hockey. If you only have two wires, it doesn’t matter which one you cut because either one will keep it from getting a current and setting off the cap. But now we’re facing a different story. We don’t know which wire is which. The extra wires and the capacitor muck up everything. Let me take you for a tour.” He pointed at the small cylinder cocooned in duct tape. “This is the battery and this swatch of furnace tape—”
“I haven’t heard anyone call duct tape furnace tape since I left the Ozarks,” Faith said.
“As I was saying, this swatch of duck tape on the top hides the alligator clip with the two sides you don’t want to touch each other, like I demonstrated earlier. I’m not sure how it’s stuck under there so that the spacer would get pulled out, but it doesn’t really matter to us right now. The blasting cap is buried in the C in the can. Now the shape of the can at the bottom makes it kind of nasty. They’ve made a shaped charge to increase effectiveness. When the detonation wave hits it, basically the indented part is going to separate from the sides, collapse on itself and form a little slug that’ll come flying out the end with enough force to go through three or four inches of steel.”
“Glad I didn’t think they were bluffing and open the case.”
“Amen. I’d say it could take out a good chunk of this building if I’m not careful. But don’t worry. I’m always careful.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t be doing this.”
He grinned. “You’re not going to take this away from me now when it’s starting to get fun. Leave me be.”
“You do this for the rush, don’t you?”
“And let me tell you, it’s a damn good one—probably about like what you get from playing hide-and-seek with your KGB friends.”
“Summer, listen to me. I don’t want to blow up this apartment—it’s on loan from one of Hakan’s friends who’s visiting family in Antalya. Actually, it’s not even borrowed. Another friend is supposed to be watering the plants and he gave us the key.” Faith shuffled the X-rays as she stared at the satchel. “And there is this little matter about our own safety.”
“Let’s get one thing straight. If I thought for a second I couldn’t beat this thing, we’d be blasting it with the water cannon. I won’t do jobs if I’m not confident I’m going to win, and I sure as hell wouldn’t put you in danger.”
“Have you ever been in the middle of a job and not been so confident you were going to be able to defuse it?”
“In the middle, of course, but, like I said, I’ve never started a job I wasn’t sure I could finish safely.” He winked at Faith, then turned toward the case, reached into it and grabbed a package of C-4 with both hands. Bending it, he extracted it through the incision.
“Think fast.” He tossed the C-4 to Faith.
She dropped the X-ray and fumbled to catch the explosive and then glared at him. “Am I supposed to think that’s funny? What the hell do I do with this?”
“Whatever you want. I told you it was extremely stable.”
“You made your point. Don’t do it again.”
“If you’re going to be dealing with this stuff, you have to learn its parameters. Now calm yourself down. I’ve played with explosives every day for well over a decade, if you only credit my military time. We won’t count the times when I used to use dynamite to blow stumps out at the farm for my dad.” He pulled out another C-4 package and handed it to Faith.
“Seems like I remember you blowing up the water main to the whole river valley once.” Faith stacked the plastique on the table beside the other slab.
“If Possum had been a better water witch, I never would’ve touched that stump.”
“Yeah, yeah. And you can spare me the story of using dynamite to blast a basement under your grandma’s house.”
“Didn’t hurt that house one bit. And she loved her new basement.” He extracted another package and handed it to Faith.
“I’m assuming you’re unpacking this to minimize any possible explosions.”
“Mainly to get more room to work inside this thing. I wouldn’t expect the packages to go off even if the can high-ordered. It could blow, but I’d be surprised.”
“So I take it then it doesn’t really matter if I stack them on the table or across the room.”
“Wherever they don’t get in the way. When you’re done there, see if you can find a can opener in one of the drawers.” He turned the cylinder stuffed with plastique so that the bottom faced upright. “I need you to hold this very steady for me while I cut it open. You’ve got to be careful not to pull it too high or move it too much because we don’t want to yank any of the wires apart.”
Summer sank the blade of the can opener into the metal and turned the rusty crank, moving it around the cylinder. The metal seemed thicker than an ordinary can and Faith marveled at the strength in his fingers. She missed those fingers.
She contorted her body, ducking under his arms as the can opener worked its way around the cylinder. One small fragment of metal held the conical lid to the rest of the cylinder. Setting the opener aside, he twisted the lid until the metal snapped. He sailed the lid into the trash like a jagged metal Frisbee. He held the metal container and pressed the C-4 through the newly opened hole. It popped out like the orange ice cream push-ups they shared as kids. He held the plastique with the wires running away from him and then pushed both thumbs into the substance.
“There. I feel it.” Summer molded the C-4, kneading it and pulling it out toward the edges, as if shaping clay into a pot. It grayed with dirt as he handled it. He picked away at the C-4 until he exposed the blasting cap. A red and a yellow wire led directly into it. “A number-eight cap. They’re using all American hardware.”
Faith wished she hadn’t noticed small beads of sweat forming on his forehead.
“Hand me the small wire cutters and take a look. Which one do you think we should cut?”
“Don’t ask me. You’re the expert. I thought you’d know.”
“It’s gotta be one or the other. What do you think, red?” He slipped the blades of the wire clippers around the red wire.
Faith didn’t move. She held her breath. “No, don’t. The yellow.”
He removed the wire from the clippers and put the yellow wire between the blades.
“No, don’t listen to me. I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.” He snipped the yellow wire. “I told you, when it’s just two wires going in, you can cut either one. We’re done. The dummy wires were tucked into the C, but not wired to the cap. It’s all over.” Summer stood up, examining the explosive embedded under his nails.
Faith punched him in the stomach, doubling him over. “You son of a bitch.”
“It was a test and you didn’t do too well, honey. You’ve got a lot to learn if you think I’m going to leave you alone with explosives.”