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RDX, which stands for research department explosive, is an extremely nifty, highly effective British plastic explosive used in underwater demolition.

In the SEAL units, we used it all the time in training and after I had retired years ago, I had found a bunch of it—twenty kilo blocks of it to be exact—that I had accidentally left in the trunk of my car.

This find came months after my honorable discharge so I had decided it was probably easier to just keep hold of the restricted stuff instead of trying to explain my potentially illegal possession of it.

It turned out to be a good thing that I had decided to bring a couple of bricks of it with me on my trip, didn’t it? I thought as I cracked open the door of the banquet room.

Stuff came in pretty handy indeed , I thought, as I saw that the banquet room had now become the parking lot.

The entire side wall of the banquet room and half of its back wall were gone now and the roof was missing. Half of the tables were in splinters and the parking lot was covered in debris.

Among the shattered boards of what was formerly known as the banquet room lay four figures in tactical gear. The blast had sent them back between a dozen to about twenty feet. All seemed to be missing limbs. Few still had shoes on. None of them were moving.

What was that term? I thought, staring at them.

Something around and find out?

They seemed to have found out. That was for sure. They wouldn’t make that mistake again.

I’d been waiting for them all right. I’d set my beautiful little eye in the sky onto the BearCat so the second it had moved in the post office parking lot, it had sent me a notification.

Watching on my phone as the men split up by the church, I knew where they were most likely headed, so I hurried to get ready.

Hearing them scurrying around on the other side of the building wall in the banquet room like bad little mice trying to play a trick, I’d decided to place a block of RDX from my bag of tricks on my side of the wall.

I placed it down low and then covered it with three of the heavy flipped-over tables to direct the charge only outward. And just before they could blow the wall in at us, I decided to conduct a little demonstration on the two-way nature of nasty surprises.

By blowing the wall out onto them.

I’d beat them to the punch all right, I thought, looking out at the dead. Fair was fair, right? And all was fair in love and war.

“What in the hell?” Mathias said, suddenly next to me with the others. “What happened?”

I pointed outside the blasted down wall at the dead mercenaries.

“Looks like they tried to blow a hole in the wall to get in and had an accident or something. Must have crossed a wire or something too soon,” I said.

“My restaurant!” Scotty said, suddenly next to Mathias. “There’s no roof! The whole building is wrecked. They blew up my joint!”

“Is the BearCat truck still out there?” I said to Daisy.

“No, it took off a second after the explosion. What now?”

“We need to retreat,” I said.

I pointed out past the dead men and the debris toward the old brick antique place behind the restaurant.

“We need a new hideout now,” I said, patting Scotty on the back as I passed him. “This one here is done.”