Blowback

Though he knew better, Reynolds wondered if maybe the radio was having trouble penetrating the warehouse’s cinderblock construction and decided to try his cell phone. When the phone showed full signal status, he knew they were in trouble. Zafir was not a man who would abandon his post.

Activating the voice-dial feature of his phone, Reynolds said, “Zafir, cell.”

The phone rang several times before dumping Reynolds into the Pakistani’s voice mail. Looking up at Harvath and Alcott, Reynolds didn’t need to say anything-they all knew they were in trouble.

With all of the windows blacked out, they were completely blind to what might be going on outside. “Back out the way we came?” asked Harvath. “Or do we try another door?”

For all Reynolds knew, the entire place was surrounded and any of the doors would be suicide. As far as he was concerned, the exit that put them the closest to his Land Cruiser was the one they wanted. That meant either going back through the office or to the door about twenty feet to their right. Either way, the rooftop sniper support he’d hoped to have from Zafir if things went bad was now out of the question. “We’ll take this one, “He said, selecting the door twenty feet to their right.

As they reached the door, Reynolds saw that it was locked and needed a key to be opened, even from the inside. Keys in hand, he was already searching for the right one when Harvath grabbed his arm. “What are you doing?” he demanded as he tried to twist away.

“Look,” replied Harvath, pointing to a pair of barely discernible wires leading from behind the doorframe.

Glancing up, Reynolds now saw them as well. “What the hell?”

Tracing the wires, Harvath discovered that they led to enormous blocks of C4, which were in turn attached to remote detonators. “It looks like somebody was expecting us.”

“Not us,” said Reynolds as he studied the devices. “Me. I think they knew I’d be back and wanted to teach me a lesson.”

“Well, this is one hell of a lesson.”

“That’s what I get for terminating one of their guys without permission.”

“That’s what we get,” corrected Harvath.

Reynolds forced a smile. “Can you defuse it? I don’t know shit about explosives.”

“I’m not sure,” said Harvath as he scrutinized the setup. “This can’t be the only door. It’s a one-in-six shot they would have been able to get us with this one.”

“We need to check the other doors.”

Harvath took the doors in the back while Reynolds checked the doors in the front, and Jillian checked all the windows. When they met back up, she said, “All the windows are wired.”

Reynolds used the sleeve of his dishdasha to mop the sweat from his forehead and added, “Same thing with all the doors up front.”

“And in back,” replied Harvath, “but with one slight difference.”

“What?”

“When we came in through the office door, we must have armed the system. It’s now officially active.”

“So we’re okay then as long as we don’t try to go out one of the doors or one of the windows,” said Jillian. “Right?”

“That’s the way it looks,” replied Reynolds. “All the exits are connected to each other. Open any one of them, and it triggers every charge in the building. There’s got to be enough C4 here to take down half the block.”

Harvath looked at them and said, “We’ve got an even bigger problem.”

Jillian and Reynolds both looked at him.

“There’s a padlocked electrical panel near the office. I was able to pry it open enough to sneak a peek inside.”

“And?” said Reynolds.

“I found the system activator.”

“Then let’s go get it.”

“Not so fast,” cautioned Harvath. “The panel door is wired. Open it up any further, and all the charges will be set off.”

Jillian set her bags down and threw up her hands in defeat. “That’s just great. What else could possibly go wrong?”

“Actually, that’s only part of our problem. The other part’s the timer.”

EIGHTY-FIVE

By pressing his face up against the wall as tight as it would go, Harvath had been able to peer inside the electrical panel and read the numbers on the digital timer. They had less than ten minutes left.

With its cinderblock construction, the warehouse was a virtual bunker. Punching through the roof was immediately ruled out, as they had no ladders to get up that high, and even if they did, there was no telling if the roof had been reinforced like the rest of the building. There had to be another way.

Scanning the sparse contents of the warehouse, Harvath’s eyes fell upon the forklift, and a plan began to form in his mind. With its two flat tires, there was no way they could drive it anywhere, much less straight through one of the walls, but it still might be useful in another fashion-as their very own homemade bomb.

Harvath kept his idea to himself until he got a closer look at the machine. Even from across the room, it was apparent it wasn’t an electric model. According to the label on the gas gauge, it was a diesel and more than half full. Locating the vehicle’s toolbox, he opened it up but only found a roll of duct tape and a metal claw hammer.