Holt was outside on the bridge wing now, talking to the George Washington, giving them a situation report. Senior Chief Daranchak walked around the bridge slowly opening doors and cabinets.
T-Ball looked at the ship’s captain from behind the anonymity of his balaclava. The captain was short and thin with a very dark complexion. He appeared more African than Arab. The captain’s hair and three days of beard growth were white and his eyes looked glassy. He held the helm steady and looked back and forth between the compass and the forward bridge window.
T-Ball caught the man stealing a glance toward him.
Again, he sensed something different about this captain. Most masters would talk really fast and act nervous, especially if they had contraband onboard. This one, despite his words to the contrary, seemed calm.
Though Holt was just a few feet away out on the bridge wing, Daranchak called to him over the radio.
“Kermit, Kilo One. Jackpot. I say again Jackpot.”
“What ya got?”
“Five Aces, over.”
“Be there in a second,” said Holt.
T-Ball walked to the back port corner of the room where Daranchak had opened a set of accordion doors to what appeared to be a closet. He stepped past the senior chief through the door into the shack. It obviously did not fit for a common merchant ship. He counted four separate consoles and guessed there were four separate systems, at least one of which was encrypted.
Absent-mindedly, T-Ball swiveled the chair at the center console and saw an olive drab rectangular shaped canvas bag sitting on it. Though a flap on top hid most of its contents, through an opening in the corner he could see what appeared to be four large green blocks with bright orange cable running into them. The EOD Tech knew immediately what it was.
“Kermit, all in Kilo, this is Echo One. Clear the house. Now!”
“What!” exclaimed Holt and Daranchak together.
T-Ball turned on his heel toward them.
“No time, sir! Clear the house now!”
Holt keyed his mike. “Kilo, this is Kermit. Clear the house!”
Daranchak and Holt handcuffed the captain again and dragged him off the bridge. They knew the ship would not go far at such a slow speed.
From his belt, T-Ball removed his K-bar knife. He flipped open the top of the pouch. Inside were a total of sixteen blocks of plastic explosive. Each block was about twelve by three by three inches. The orange cable running into each was probably some form of detonating cord.
It was a military destruct charge. The crew did not place it precisely. That meant that the explosives had enough power to destroy the room easily, and it would probably take out the whole bridge.
T-Ball had to determine how the explosives were initiated. On destruct charges it was usually a timer. He pulled a penlight from his vest and shined it into the sack. On one side he saw a black box. Undoubtedly, it held an electronics package designed to initiate the charge.
Next he pulled a pair of cutters from his vest and cut the satchel from top to bottom on both sides, opening a flap on the face where the box was. He studied it quickly. It was a black metal rectangle, about the size of a hardback book.
T-Ball knew that he had to act fast; the timer on this device was probably initiated just as they got onboard. The crew knew that SEALs would be on the bridge quickly, therefore the timer probably had no more than ten minutes on it. In a microsecond he realized that the runner may have been afraid of them, but he was more afraid of this bomb.
T-Ball dropped his response pack to the deck and unzipped it fully. Inside was a collection of mesh compartments. He opened one and pulled out a small pouch. From the pouch he extracted a handle with a square fixture on the end and a circular saw blade slightly larger than a silver dollar. He attached the blade and pushed a button on the handle. It sung to life.
Next T-Ball selected a small suction cup with a handle from another compartment. He leaned over the metal box that contained the electronics package and placed the suction cup on it with his right hand. While still holding on to it, he pressed the button on the saw with his left hand.
With the saw, he traced a rectangle just inside the outer edge of the box. As he cut, T-Ball was careful not to go any deeper than the thickness of the metal. He winced as hot shards pierced into his gloved hand and forearm.
As he finished the trace, he pulled on the suction cup, removing the cutout. Now he could see the circuitry inside.
It was a smorgasbord of chips, diodes, resistors, and lots and lots of wires. In the bottom right hand corner was a digital timer. When he first looked at it, it read, “0:05:16:21.”
He had just over five minutes.
T-Ball studied the wires. He knew the answer was there. From his vest he pulled a pair of wire cutters. He cut the plastic sheathing of one of the wires, careful not to cut through. He stripped off the sheathing, pulling it back like the skin of a banana. Now the bare wire was exposed.
Then he pivoted back over to his response kit and grabbed a clear plastic bag. T-Ball pulled down his hood and brought the bag to his mouth opening it with his teeth.
The first number on the timer was now a “4.”
Out of the bag popped a small one by two inch box. It had two wires protruding from it. Each had an alligator clip. T-Ball clamped each alligator clip to the wire he stripped. Then he snipped the wire between the clips.
He looked at the timer. It was now under four minutes.
T-Ball continued to study the circuitry to ensure his procedure was correct. Then he stepped out onto the bridge wing and keyed his radio.
“Kermit, Echo One. Procedure complete, standby.”
“Kermit.”
T-ball strode back onto the bridge and into the hidden communications shack. The time read, “00:00:00.”
The destruct charge did not detonate. Smiling, T-Ball clicked his mike again.
“Kermit, Echo One.”
“Go, Echo One.”
“Rendered safe.”
SIX
After going to Mass, Jazz and Melanie loaded their kids in the car for a trip to Annapolis. The strained relationship with his father prevented Jazz from enjoying being near his parents these past few months. The one positive thing of living close to them was that his mother watched the kids from time to time to give Melanie a break.
As they turned from Maryland Route 301 to Route 50 Melanie said, “So, what are you going to tell the Admiral?”
“What can I say? I’m going to have to tell him. He’s probably going to flip. I’m going to get yet another lecture on how I’m wasting my career wearing cammies, diving and blowing shit up, and how I need to be driving ships and subtly highlighting the flaws of my peers.”
“And how are you going to respond?”
“I’ll tell him that I’d rather be an ex-Navy Diver coaching little league than a retired war hero whose family refers to him by rank.”
“Oh sure fine,” she said with a sarcastic tone. “Please do it after dinner this time so at least the boys are fed before I have to put them back in their car seats for the hour long ride home.”
Jazz breathed heavily. She knew he wasn’t going to respond to the Admiral with a rebuttal. Jazz grew tired of that long ago. It was easier now to just keep quiet and let the Admiral rant and rave at him like he was a derelict sailor standing before him at Captain’s Mast or a negligent Officer of the Deck standing by to be fired after running his ship aground.
“Jazz, I’m sorry,” Melanie said after a moment of silence. “He makes me tense too.”
“I know.”
“I was letting myself get excited again about getting back to our house. I mean, you are going to deploy and I’m going to be alone with three kids in Texas while all of our family and friends are here or in Virginia.”