Jeff Brackett - Half Past Midnight

“I really think that these six should be plenty to cover the area,” Wayne started. “Hell, from what I read in your books, Leeland, six one-quart charges will probably be enough to completely erase the intersection altogether.”

“You think we should save the rest, in other words.”

“Yeah.”

“All right. Let’s plant the charges and move to a safe detonation distance.” I paused to think. “Uh, just how far do we need to go to be safe?”

Wayne shrugged. “Who knows? Best guess is about a block. Maybe more.”

“You don’ know for sure, though?” Rene prodded.

He snapped, “Well, you know, Rene, it’s not like I do this every day!” I guess he realized how he sounded because he immediately shook his head. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that. Guess I’m a little nervous.”

Surprisingly, she brushed it off. “No problema,” she told him. “Ever’body in the same boat here. We all nervous.”

I turned to the rest of the group. “Billy, you’ve already proven that you can handle this stuff. Pull out six beakers and six caps. Wayne, you know exactly what you had in mind with them. Show him how to assemble the charges.” Wayne turned Billy and led him back to the ice chests.

“The rest of it goes back to the main group. Rene, you and Slim take the chest of Astrolite back as soon as Billy and Wayne have unloaded what they need.” They nodded and went to help unload.

That left six people and six blasting caps. Unfortunately, I needed more warm bodies with me to lay the ambush. Time for a snap decision. “Okay. Matthew, Alan, Emily, I want each of you to grab two caps and take them back to the main group. Same as earlier today. One at a time, slow and careful.” I shone the light on my watch. “It’s ten fifteen. You have half an hour to go three blocks. I don’t care if it takes the whole time. Just don’t get caught, and don’t trip!”

They nodded and trotted off to grab their gear and the explosives.

Turning to those remaining, I continued, “The rest of us get to plant the mines and play decoy. It’s going be up to us to draw that tank and as many foot soldiers over here as we can. The more of them we can draw into the ambush, the fewer our people in the stadium will have to deal with.”

By the dim light of a covered flashlight, I looked at the grim faces around me. “Any questions?” No one answered. “Okay folks, let’s get going.”

I walked over to where Wayne and Billy worked on assembling the second of our charges. The first sat on the floor next to them. “What can we do to help?”

Wayne answered without turning, concentrating on what he was doing. “There’s a car battery, some tools, and coaxial wire in that box over there.” He jerked his chin toward the gear. “Leave one roll of the wiring here and splice the rest of it into six continuous lengths leading over to a building about a block away where you can still see the intersection.” He appeared to think for a second, then shook his head. “I think I can localize the explosions, but I don’t know for sure if it’ll work. Still better to keep a block away. Billy and I will bury these charges and wire them up. You just get the rest of the stuff far enough away that we can set them off without killing ourselves.”

One thing caught my attention. “You say you can localize the explosions?”

He didn’t answer right away, and I knew better than to interrupt his concentration as he carefully replaced the rubber stopper in the beaker with a tube of HMTD. When he finished, the glass beaker was plugged by another rubber stopper with a test tube attached to it, sticking down into the Astrolite. Two wires, each about two feet long protruded from the other end. Using exaggeratedly slow movements, he set the second beaker on the floor next to the first.

When he looked up, my flashlight showed beads of sweat on his forehead. “We use shaped charges,” he replied.

Sam asked before I could. “Shaped? How do you shape a liquid?”

“You put it in pre-shaped containers.” He held up one of the unprimed beakers. “If we bury these suckers upside down, the main force of the explosion should go straight up, assuming that those books of yours are right, and that I understood them.”

I didn’t get it, but there was no time for more explanation. “Okay, I’ll take your word for it.” I turned to get the wiring supplies he had mentioned.

“Leeland!”

“Yeah?”

“Whatever you do, don’t connect the wiring to the battery until we get there. I didn’t have time to get fancy with the detonator. You just connect the wires, and it all goes boom. I don’t want to be wiring one up when that happens.”

I chuckled. “Gotcha.”

“Edwin, you help Wayne and Billy. Sam, Ivory, help me get the wiring set up.”

It took fifteen minutes to complete the wiring, leaving the battery and remainder of the coax behind an old checkout stand inside a long-deserted convenience store. We ran back to see if we could help Wayne and the others.

They were carefully turning the fifth charge upside down and setting it gently in one of the holes. Wayne held it in place, while Billy and Edwin scooped the dirt in around it. I shuddered a bit when I saw Wayne sprinkling a generous pile of nails into the dirt before the rest of us cautiously finished burying it. When complete, all that was left sticking out of the ground was a pair of wires that Wayne rapidly connected to the ends of one length of the coaxial running down the street. I looked up and saw similar wires leading to the other four holes.

I turned away and cupped my hand over my flashlight, letting only enough light through to see my watch.

10:34.

“Almost time!” I hissed.

We all worked together on the final charge. At 10:38, we were carefully laying broken asphalt and gravel on the last spot and scattering debris to cover the wiring.

“Is that good enough to hide the wires?” Billy indicated a few places where wire emerged briefly from small piles of dirt and broken asphalt.

“It’ll have to be. We’re out of time,” I said. “We have smoke bombs that should cover it. Between that and the shooting, we’ll just have to hope they’re too busy to notice.”

I turned away to shine the light on my watch again. “It’s time.” When we left the plant that morning, I had brought along my last eight smoke bombs. I had given four to Ken, passed three more out to my group, and kept one for myself.

It was selfishness that caused me to split the group as I did, sending Ivory, Sam, and Edwin off in one squad, and keeping Billy and Wayne in my group. I justified it by telling my conscience that I would work better with people I knew well, but there was a niggling in my brain that accused me of wanting to keep my friends close at hand. My response was the same one I repeated so often lately. No time to worry about it now.

Moving back down to Dullas, we picked positions just out of sight from the stadium. I saw Sam and Ivory go into a building across the street from us, while Edwin went around behind it, presumably to sight in around the back corner.

Billy stayed outside at the corner of the building into which Wayne and I went. The two of us inside picked windows facing the stadium and waited. I glanced one last time at my watch. 10:44.

Time. I clicked on the radio. “Ken?”

“Ken here. You about to start?”

“Yeah. Make sure everyone knows they have to sit the first few minutes out, or this is all for nothing.”

“Already done.”

“Good.” It seemed that there should be something else for me to say, but nothing came to mind.

“Leeland?”

“Yeah?”

“Good luck, man.”

“Thanks, Ken. You too.” Some things just couldn’t be put into words. “Out.”