“Yeah, come on, man,” Dean said. “Let’s just do this. I got a cooler of Millers waiting for me back at base.”
Frost ignored Dean, addressing Anderson. “Well, some T-Man rigged up the bomb I’m staring at, right?”
“Can you do this, Frost?” Anderson said, terse and acidic. “Or do I have to get one of them green EOD fuck-ups to come in here and botch this?”
“Poor kid’ll probably blow his damn legs off,” Dean said.
“Mm-hmm. EOD fuck-ups are a dime a dozen around here, you ask me,” Peña said.
“Of course I can do this,” Frost said.
“Then do it,” Anderson said. “Because right now, you’re one excuse away from disobeying a direct order.”
Frost glanced back at his fireteam. The three looked like apparitions drifting through the heat haze, ghostly shadows waiting to ferry him to the other side.
Something moved in the mud homes behind the team, where two village elders had emerged. The men were in their sixties, perhaps, but spry and animated. They hurled curses at the team as they approached, but Frost thought they might specifically be addressing him.
“Watch your six,” Frost said.
The team members looked back and saw the approaching elders. Peña turned and started towards them to try to calm them down.
“Watch their hands for a cell,” Frost said.
“There ain’t no cell, Frost,” Anderson said.
Peña spoke to the elders in Pashto, holding his free hand out in a placating gesture. But the two men weren’t interested in him. They continued to angrily shout and point at Frost, brushing past Peña and continuing down the road.
“I didn’t get your answer, Specialist Frost. Can you do it?” Anderson asked again.
“What’re they saying, Peña?” Frost said.
“They want you to get away from their fuckin’ poppy fields,” Peña said. “The hell you think they’re saying?”
“Frost?” Anderson growled.
Frost looked at Anderson and turned back to the IED. Something was twisting his gut, but he couldn’t be sure what. The whole scene was wrong. Just what did he think would happen here? Would a Taliban triggerman leap out of the poppy fields? Or maybe Anderson would be the one to flip the switch, tying up Frost as a loose end. Pushing him to make a decision with the knowledge that he was ignoring a direct order and risking his military career if nothing really was wrong. All of it hinged on one thing: how much did his team think he knew?
Frost took a deep breath and knelt beside the car.
“I’m preparing to examine the device,” he said.
A small cyclone of dust kicked up in front of Frost. His eyes stung with sweat, his clothes soaked through beneath his suit. He reached out and grabbed the copper box with both hands, gently pulling it towards him. The magnetic hold broke free from the wheel well, and Frost carefully set the box down on the dust and gravel in front of him. He felt the underlip of the lid with his fingertips. There didn’t seem to be any adhesive holding it shut. There weren’t any booby traps that he could make out, just a single bolt latch without a lock.
Frost exhaled, taking a moment to gauge his luck. He sucked in one quick breath, then slid the bolt open and lifted the latch in two swift moves. Nothing happened. He breathed out again.
Inside the box nestled a DTMF receiver attached to blasting caps, the caps set inside a dozen modified M112 demolition blocks. Loose nails and screws lay all around the charges in a metal nest of shrapnel.
Frost glanced back down the road and was surprised to see that the village elders were heading straight for him, a hundred feet out now, still screaming and gesticulating.
“Hey, what the fuck?” Frost said. He rose to his feet. “Peña, Dean, restrain these guys!”
The two elders marched faster. Spittle flew from their mouths as they cursed him in Pashto. They pointed at the field and at Frost.
“Where the fuck are you guys?!” Frost said.
Pop. Pop. Blood sprayed across the front of Frost’s helmet, and it took him a second to realize it wasn’t his. The two elders lay crumpled on the concrete.
An eerie quiet fell over the scene. Nothing but the high whistling of the wind now. Frost looked at the dead men. Blood spilled over the desert moondust that powdered the road.
He looked back at his team. Peña and Dean lowered their carbines, still standing behind the Jersey barriers. Anderson held a cell phone.
Frost tore away from the car as fast as he could, running clumsily in his bulky bomb suit. The bomb went off. A shock wave threw Frost through the air as if he’d been hit by a semitrailer. Nails and screws ripped through the protective Nomex-Kevlar of his bomb suit. Chunks of the old Corolla shot into the air—whole fragments of the chassis, the roof, and the hood. A mushroom cloud of black smoke rose into the day, trailing flame beneath it.
Frost slammed into the ground. He gasped for air and rolled onto his back to stare up into the sky. A bell rang in his ears. He glanced down at himself. His entire left side was blackened. Most of his ABS suit had been torn away. Several large chunks of shrapnel had cut into his legs, his arms, and his torso. Smaller pieces sat embedded in his exposed skin, like cancerous diamonds burning into his flesh. His blood baked in the heat of the sun and the wreckage. He groaned loudly, the tinnitus now overtaken by the white noise of radio static coming through his earpiece.
Frost looked back to the pale sky a final time. A piece of heavy metal sheeting was plummeting back to earth. Heading straight for him. He shut his eyes and resigned himself. Soon, all was lifeless again upon that desolate terrain.
Grab your copy of Lethal Justice (Ion Frost Book One)
Available August 25th, 2021
www.relaypub.com/books/lethal-justice
