Bomb Squad by Richard Esposito

Author:Richard Esposito
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hyperion

May 26, 6:20 A.M., under-vehicle surveillance, Fifty-fifth Street at the Hudson pier: Sergeant Coughlan, Jimmy Carrano, Jimmy Schutta, John Scomillio, and Bobby Schnell, the squad dog trainer, were huddled beside their blue surveillance van. The rain had blown in with the fleet, and slashed across what were now the battleship gray green waters of the Hudson.

WARNING RESTRICTED AREA KEEP OUT

USE OF DEADLY FORCE AUTHORIZED

In accordance with

DOD Directive

5216.56

This was a federal issue valet parking sign. It greeted each car that approached the checkpoint.

The Bomb Squad team manned the checkpoint’s under-vehicle surveillance system. It was a simple system. There were two cameras. One, mounted to face an approaching car, recorded the license plate. A second array of video lens and lights was mounted in a thick rubber speed bump that lay across the road. This lens conveyed images of the car underside to a monitor inside the van.

Fleet Week was a test run for the use of the system at the Republican convention. The team watched as cars refused to slow down, unless the driver was threatened by a sailor with an M16. It watched cars knock the rubber mounted cameras out of line because they drove over the bump too fast, and it watched water collect on the lens. By the time of the convention, there would be metal barricades that popped up in front of the car, holding it in place until the search was completed. The lens array built into the speed bump would be embedded in the road, and the lens of the camera mounted to face an approaching car would have a proper rain shroud.

The other Bomb Squad teams on duty had spotted, properly identified, and disposed of three suspicious packages that morning, before the fleet had even docked.

Patrolling between the Bomb Squad and the vessels was a dog handler, Benjamin Woods, United States Navy, E-5. He was standing in his poncho in the rain. His dog was trained to bite, to hunt explosives, and to work well in a gunfight. This was not the way the PD preferred dogs to be trained—one dog, one mission, was the preference there; certainly no mix of aggressive response-attack and passive response-sitting, when a bomb was found.

The Navy fleet protection teams had a different mission and therefore a different doctrine. Their dogs needed to serve a small force in various combat situations that required every member, including the dog, to have multiple skills. But the fleet protection detail and the Bomb Squad detail had one thing in common: The members were a team, and a calm one at that.

“To do this work, you’ve got to be laid back; you’ve got to be willing to be part of a team and to not stand out. But there is no point in playing a percentage,” said Woods. It is the same reason the bomb techs wear their heavy suits, try to disrupt bombs from a distance, and walk instead of run toward danger. Benjamin Woods, United States Navy, E-5, took his dog, his automatic pistol, and his long gun and continued his patrol.

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