Page 7 of Denied Access (Mitch Rapp #24)

D AUGAVPILS , L ATVIA

S AY that again,” Joe said.

“A bomb. There’s a freaking bomb in the stall of the men’s bathroom.”

Joe stopped himself from asking the obvious question— Are you sure ?

Before coming to the Unit, David had been part of a team that manned listening stations designed to scoop up RF energy transmitted by foreign adversaries.

These stations were often situated on remote hillsides and mountaintops, meaning the men and women who lived there had to be able to repair the sensitive radio equipment if it malfunctioned.

David knew the difference between a bomb and a bundle of wires.

“Could you tell what kind?”

David shook his head. “I don’t know shit about bombs, but it looked straight out of central casting. A bunch of nails wrapped around a couple of sticks of dynamite and a glass bottle full of liquid. Maybe gasoline.”

Perfect.

Just perfect.

The prudent course of action would be to get the hell out of Dodge, but even if they could convince the patrons to leave with them, there would be questions after the device exploded.

Questions asked by trained professionals, who were suspicious by nature.

He and David were traveling as tourists on Canadian passports.

Joe was confident that their legend would stand up to the coming scrutiny, but he was less sure about their ability to withstand sustained questioning by Latvian or Soviet counterintelligence officers.

Members of the Unit often traveled surreptitiously, but they were not CIA officers trained for deep-cover operations.

Joe needed to resolve this situation in a way that didn’t lead to an interaction with the police, but neither could he walk out of the bar and hope for the best. Latvia wasn’t an ally at the moment, but neither were the Latvian people enemies.

Joe didn’t pretend to be a geopolitical analyst, but it didn’t take a genius to see that the tiny country’s populace yearned to be free of Russian oppression.

Joe couldn’t stand by and allow innocent people to perish in the name of operational security.

Which left just one option.

“Let’s take a look,” Joe said.

“Thought you’d never ask,” David muttered, but the thespian headed for the bathroom all the same.

The bartender fired a burst of Russian at Joe as he followed David’s lead. The man’s accent was too thick and his diction too quick for him to understand what he’d said, but based on the laughter that echoed from the other patrons, Joe could make a guess.

Nothing like being the butt of a joke from the very people you were trying to save.

Joe quickened his stride and entered the bathroom on David’s heels.

Closing the door behind him, he threw the bolt home on the simple latch screwed into the wood and then turned to see what awaited.

David had already opened the cabinet above the toilet.

“I was looking for toilet paper and found this.”

This was a package of wires and dynamite about the size of a child’s lunch box.

Joe leaned closer, careful to keep his hands at his sides.

Only now did the enormity of the situation fully register.

He knew as much about bombs as he did calculus, which was to say not a whole hell of a lot.

He supposed he’d been hoping to see something that looked familiar from the movies.

Perhaps a bright red LED with numbers steadily counting downward or maybe even an old-school alarm clock connected to a pair of red and black wires.

Instead Joe was confronted with five sticks of dynamite, a bundle of wicked-looking roofer’s nails, and a brown glass bottle filled with an ominous liquid.

Not great.

“Now what?” David said.

“I’m thinking,” Joe said.

“Love that for you. Maybe think faster?”

“I don’t know how to disarm a bomb. Do you?”

“Of course not, but I’m not the one who said we should take a look. Remember?”

Joe did remember and that decision was beginning to feel dumber by the second.

He had to imagine that whoever had planted the device had done so with the intention of detonating it.

He had assumed that the trigger would be linked to a timer of some sort, but he didn’t see anything that looked like a clock.

Nor did the bomb appear to have buttons or dials that would enable someone to set a countdown timer.

Maybe he was approaching the problem the wrong way.

“You’re a radio guy, right?” Joe said.

“And a theater major. I also have a decent singing voice, but I’m not sure any of that’s gonna be super beneficial at the moment.”

“Stay with me, jackwagon. Could this thing be designed to be detonated remotely? Like with a radio?”

David shrugged. “Possibly. Lemme take a look.”

That David hadn’t dismissed his hypothesis outright seemed like a good sign.

Or maybe the new operator was just happy to have something to think about besides what it would feel like to be disemboweled by a piece of ten-gauge galvanized steel.

And if the nails or concussive shock wave didn’t kill him outright, he could always look forward to being burned alive courtesy of whatever accelerant was probably sloshing around in the glass bottle.

Maybe David wasn’t the only one who needed something to focus on.

“I don’t see any antennas, so it’s probably not radio-operated. I’ve heard of bombs that were configured to use pagers or cell phones as receivers, but I don’t see those either. Maybe there’s something at the back of the bomb. Should I take a peek?”

In for a penny, in for a pound. “Yeah, but try not to jostle it too much. Sometimes they have anti-tamper devices.”

“Care to specify what constitutes too much ? Never mind, it’s probably better if I don’t know.” David balled his hands into fists and then shook them out. “Here goes nothing.” The thespian cleared his throat. “ We few, we happy few, we band of brothers .”

“What are you doing?” Joe said.

“I quote from Henry V when I’m nervous. Want me to pick a different stanza?”

“Maybe just concentrate on the bomb?”

“If you’d like to switch places, say the word.”

Joe bit back his reply and tried to remember that David was a newbie operator on his shakedown trip. Aside from the snide comments and weird theatrical tics, he wasn’t doing half bad.

“Gonna take that as a no,” David said. “All right, I’m leaning into the cubby to see if I can see the backside of the device. Here we go—”

A boom shook the room.

Fortunately, it was the boom of the bathroom door slamming against its frame as someone tried to gain entry.

Unfortunately, that distinction seemed lost on David.

A second boom followed closely on the heels of the first. A boom caused by the newbie operator’s skull smashing against the wooden enclosure.

“Mother of God,” David said. “I—”

Joe shouted in Russian, hoping to drown out his partner’s English.

“Why did you say that?” David hissed.

“I told whoever’s pounding on the door that the bathroom’s occupied,” Joe whispered back.

“No, you did not.”

The thunderous laughter from the far side of the door seemed to confirm David’s statement. No matter. The bar’s patrons had just witnessed two men head into a single bathroom together. Whatever faux pas Joe had committed would only serve to help their cover.

Probably.

“Nothing on the back side either,” David said.

“I stand by my earlier statement that I don’t know shit about bombs, but I don’t see anything that looks like a receiver or timer.

Maybe you’re right about the detonator being rigged to some kind of anti-tamper device.

Didn’t the Russians do that in Afghanistan? ”

“Yeah,” Joe said, standing to one side so David could climb down from his perch on the toilet. “They put bombs in toy trucks, dolls, teddy bears, you name it. Thousands of Afghan kids were maimed or killed.”

“Animals,” David said, reaching to brush a stray hair from his face.

Joe grabbed his partner’s wrist. “Don’t fucking move.”

“What?”

Rather than answer, Joe snared the thin filament draped across David’s forehead between his thumb and forefinger. Lifting the wire from his face, Joe gently followed it back to the cubby. The filament was attached to the bomb.

“Think I found the trigger,” Joe said.

Like watching a match flare to life, Joe could tell the exact moment his companion made the connection.

The thespian’s emotions flitted across his face, changing from irritation to confusion to the final stop—terror.

David’s mouth opened, and his eyes widened.

For a blissful moment the operator was silent.

Then he began to speak.

“If we are mark’d to die, we are to do our country loss — ”

“Cut that out,” Joe said as he gently settled the filament back into the cubby.

“You kidding me? I almost got a face full of roofing nails. I think I’m entitled to a little Shakespeare therapy. This story shall the good man teach his son —”

“If you don’t stop, I’m going to rip out your tongue.”

“Okay, okay. I’ll use my inside voice. Is that a trip wire?”

Joe wondered the same thing. Hopping up on the toilet, he examined the cubby’s interior, looking for the tamper mechanism.

Obviously, the bomb wasn’t rigged to blow if the wire went limp or else David would now be reciting his favorite play face-to-face with its author.

His gaze tracked to the cupboard door. Then he understood.

“Here,” Joe said, pointing at a divot in the wood.

“This is where the filament was attached.”

His partner clambered onto the toilet next to him. “How do you know?”

“How many times have you seen a nail or tack embedded on the inside of a cupboard door? Whoever set the bomb must have secured the wire to something they pinned to the wood. Did you open the door fast or slow?”

“Slow.”

“Why?”

David shrugged. “I was afraid the hinges would squeak, and I didn’t want everyone in the bar to know I was looking for toilet paper.”

Joe began to chuckle.

“What?” David said.

“Sorry,” Joe said, his chuckle progressing to a full-fledged laugh. “Just trying to wrap my head around the idea that your prudishness is the only reason I’m not a human pincushion.”

David pointed to the toilet paper holder. “It was empty.”

“Because whoever planted the bomb wanted the next person in here to yank open the cupboard door,” Joe said. That sobering thought put a damper on his humor. “They didn’t have a specific target. Anyone who used the toilet would have been fair game.”

“Like the Russians in Afghanistan.”

“Yeah,” Joe said, his mind replaying the earlier argument between the two groups of men. “Were you able to understand what they were yelling about?”

“A bit. The folks seated at the table were ethnic Russian Latvians like most of the people who live in Daugavpils. The pair who got their asses beat were probably members of a Latvian nationalist militia. Some offshoot of the Popular Front of Latvia I’d guess.”

“The what?”

David rolled his eyes. “Did you read any part of the briefing book?”

“I just saved your life. Maybe dispense with the smart-ass comments.”

David glanced at the cubby and swallowed.

“Yeah, okay. Tensions have been high between the Latvian citizens of Russian descent, who reside primarily in the eastern section of the country, and Latvian nationalists like the Popular Front, ever since the Soviet Union tried to institute a coup in Riga a year or so back. Six Latvians were killed and a bunch more were wounded in the fighting.”

Joe digested this in silence. There was something about the argument that was nibbling at the edge of his subconscious, but he couldn’t work out its significance.

Maybe because the five sticks of dynamite were still demanding his attention.

“We can’t leave this here,” Joe said, pointing at the cubby. “It might still explode.”

“So we’ll what—walk out of here with it under one arm like it’s a loaf of bread?”

Joe wanted to tell David to can it, but he didn’t.

For one, his partner’s objection was a solid one, but perhaps more importantly, the kid hadn’t raised the most obvious objection—the bomb could detonate if they moved it.

David might be a bit too sarcastic for his taste, but the newbie operator possessed another trait that was much harder to find—courage.

“Exactly,” Joe said. “But first I need you to earn your language pay.”

“The extra one hundred dollars per month? Can’t wait to hear what I have to do for that fortune.”

“Go back to the bar and tell them I had an accident in here.”

Watching David’s cocky smile wilt was almost worth standing eyeball-to-eyeball with a stack of dynamite.

Almost.

“What kind of accident?”

“The kind that requires cleanup. Ask them for a towel or something. Maybe a couple of towels. I’ll throw one of them over the bomb and then we’ll walk out of here like it’s a loaf of bread. How’s that grab you?”

Judging by his expression, Joe’s plan didn’t grab his partner well at all. David opened his mouth, but his reply was drowned out by something equally unpleasant.

An explosion.