CHAPTER 49
THE SECOND OUR VAN comes to a full stop in the motel parking lot, Rizzo opens the rear door and jumps out.
“Anna! Wait!” I’m right behind her.
Ned Mahoney is right behind me.
A few other doors in the motel pop open. Troopers wave the gawkers back inside. Mahoney and I move in front of Rizzo. I have my Glock at the ready. As we get closer, I can smell the smoke from the flash-bang.
One of the entry-team officers comes out and takes off his helmet. He looks at Mahoney and shakes his head.
Mahoney kicks the bottom of the doorjamb with his boot. “Damn it!”
When I lean in through the open door, another agent stops me.
“Careful,” he says. “The bomb disposal tech is taking care of business.”
Rizzo is right behind me. “What’s in there? Explosives?”
“Slowly,” the agent says. “Don’t crowd around.”
Inside, I see an FBI tech on his knees closely examining a curved gray-green plastic case that’s sitting on short legs a few inches off the floor.
My gut flutters. I’ve seen hundreds of these things.
It’s a Claymore mine.
Embossed across the plastic in bold letters are three words: FRONT TOWARD ENEMY.
Meaning us.
“Impressive,” says Rizzo. “He didn’t just pick that up at an army surplus store.
” She’s right. The Claymore is one of the deadliest antipersonnel weapons ever devised.
The curved plastic case contains shaped C-4 explosive and about seven hundred steel balls, each about an eighth of an inch in diameter. A perfect close-range killing device.
If the Claymore had gone off, the entry team and anybody within about fifty yards of the front of the device would have been shredded.
But it hadn’t gone off.
“Why didn’t it detonate?” asks Rizzo.
The tech picks up a nearly invisible length of fishing line. “It should have,” he says. “One end is tied to a triggering device. The other end was tied to that eye hook in the door. Either he didn’t have time to tie it off or the knot didn’t hold.”
I walk over to the bed, where two agents are standing.
Twisted under the covers are two electric blankets, radiating heat.
“Smart little bastard,” says Rizzo from behind me.
I holster my gun. “Right now, he’s smarter than us.”