Enemy Unidentified (Brannigan's Blackhearts Book 3) by Peter Nealen

Author:Peter Nealen [Nealen, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-03-14T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

Jenkins was on point as Santelli’s element wove through the girders and pipes on the west side of the platform. They hadn’t seen any more of the barrel bombs, but they were moving slowly and carefully, looking everywhere.

Santelli was right behind Jenkins, with Hart and Childress behind him, and Curtis taking up the rear. Childress was trying to look everywhere at once, knowing he probably looked like a gawking chicken, swiveling his head on his long, skinny neck, but he didn’t care. Better to look a little bad than get blown up.

He spotted it at the same time Jenkins did. The blond former SEAL stopped dead, throwing up a fist, already way too close to the gray box zip-tied to a pipe. It looked kind of like an ammo can or a toolbox, but the IR sensor on the side belied its innocuous appearance. That was an improvised claymore, if Childress had ever seen one. And he’d played around with making some in his day.

Fortunately, the ATF had never found out.

Jenkins shied back and found some shelter behind another big block of machinery. Childress didn’t know what it was; all of the various mechanisms that made the platform work may as well be inert blocks of metal to him. He’d never worked oil drilling, and didn’t know the first thing about it. He just hoped that whatever it was stopped bullets and frag.

“Whatcha got, Jenkins?” Santelli asked quietly.

Jenkins pointed out the box, even as he scanned the catwalks and hatches above them. “Looks like a booby trap,” he said. “Maybe an IED.”

“Or a claymore in a box,” Santelli finished. He looked up and around, sizing up their position. “No other way around,” he mused. “They must have thought this through a bit.” Slinging his rifle, he pulled a multitool out of his chest rig.

“You sure that’s a good idea, Carlo?” Curtis asked. “There might be failsafes.”

“I’m sure there probably are,” Santelli said bluntly. “That don’t change nothin’. We’ve got to get past it, so somebody’s got to disarm it.” That was Santelli’s way. See the problem, fix the problem. Whatever it took. He wasn’t a subtle man or a subtle thinker.

“What if I tried shooting it?” Hart suggested.

Santelli looked at him as if he was stupid. “We’re a little close to try to SMUD it,” he said. Standoff Munitions Disruption was usually done from a lot farther away, and with something a lot heavier than their 5.56mm rifles. It was usually done with a 40mm grenade launcher or a .50 caliber Barrett. “There’s a chance that it won’t blow up in my face. If you shoot it, either it won’t do anything and we’re right back where we started, or it blows up in all our faces.” Turning back to the bomb, he looked up, searching for any enemy, and then started to cross the narrow walkway to the gray box.

He’d gotten about two steps when Childress saw movement up above.

Whipping his rifle to his shoulder, he yelled, “Contact, high!” just before his trigger broke.

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