GWOT 2 - Homicide Bomber
Mar. 3rd, 2019 03:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drewkitty"The homicide bomber is a potentially devastating threat, combining the worst features of the IED and the active shooter." -- Company training materials
I had no choice but to advance. We had to buy time for the SLE to escape. He was not yet safe, even behind several doors and by this time at least one floor below. He was in the same building. A homicide bomber can carry enough explosive to drop a building, especially if he is near a support beam or column.
I knew the building we were in intimately. "H" building was of relatively modern and inexpensive construction, a primarily steel building with a hexagonal array of offices around a central reinforced core. The problem was that we were near the core. If the core collapsed, the structure would collapse.
A typical homicide vest packed with a powerful explosive such as RDX could generate a destruction radius of at least ten feet. This was far smaller than the blast radius (over fifty feet) or fragmentation radius (over three hundred feet).
Obviously it would be preferable that the vest not go off at all. That would save my life, Brooke's life, and that of numerous other persons on this floor and the floor below.
But it was mission essential that the vest not go off anywhere near the center core of the building. If it did, the odds that the SLE would be killed were far too high. Functionally, he _was_ the site. Over 3,000 lives depended on his individual survival.
I wondered what had happened to his dedicated bodyguard, a Client rather than Company employee. I hadn't seen his body, and the SLE should not have been taken into hostile custody except over his dead body.
I thought all of this in an instant as I advanced around the corner with my handgun up and at the ready.
I would under no circumstances whatsoever be putting it down.
Brooke was empty-handed, watching the homicide bomber carefully. She was a good draw, but not a quick-draw specialist.
I had that moment to look at him, a frozen instant of time in which to process a gestalt image, before he noticed me.
He was preternaturally calm. He was wearing a business suit over which he had put on the homicide vest. The homicide vest was a repurposed body armor carrier, with visible vertical serrations and wires not only over his shoulders, but across each side and a wire running down and into his groin. A handgun in his right hand and a thumb-plunger type detonator grasped firmly in his left hand. His thumb depressed on it. Holding it down. Deadman switch. If he lifted his thumb ...
I recognized him as one of Cartwright's Cronies. He had been present when I had invited them to bring it the fuck on. He had apparently chosen to take me up on it.
"Do it, asshole," I ordered him as I advanced at a walking pace with my handgun at the ready in my right hand, pointed directly at his right eyeball. "Kill us all. Do it now."
I had seen the one essential point on clearing the corner. He was in the middle of the corridor leading from the core to the wing that led to H4 Executive Offices. He was more than ten feet from the support beams.
I did not see any potential for getting him either to surrender or to disarm. Without putting down the handgun, he could not even safe the deadman switch he was holding. He would not do that while still alive.
The only victory I could see was denying him the SLE. That would have to do.
I kept walking. He brought his handgun up and turned his body so that the detonator was behind him, thumb still depressed, and started shooting.
I kept walking.
A sledgehammer blow struck me in the abdomen. A second sledgehammer blow struck me in the chest. A third sledgehammer whacked into my upper left arm and I could see blood spurt. A fourth sledgehammer gently kissed the right side of my cheek as it passed me by.
Yet I kept walking.
Security Officer Samir stepped around the far corner and seized the homicide bomber's left arm in an iron grip with both his empty hands, trapping his thumb on the detonator.
The homicide bomber turned to try to fight him, either to shoot him or to try to strike him with the barrel of the pistol.
This gave me the shot I needed. As the homicide bomber's head turned, I could see the back of his head for just a moment.
I shot him just where the skull joins the neck. It was a clap shot because I was within ten feet.
He dropped like his strings had been cut. Because they had. There are only three shots that promise the mythical "instant kill." They all involve the instant destruction of the homicide bomber's brain.
I dropped my own handgun, not bothering to try to holster, and helped seize the detonator arm.
Brooke ran straight up to me, fumbled at her belt, tore open her IFAK, and wrapped her tourniquet around my spurting left arm. Racked the strap tight, wound the windlass and kept winding.
Then she drew her knife and pithed what was left of the homicide bomber's brain.
Samir grimaced painfully. I put my one good hand over his, feeling his grip weaken.
He met my eyes. He said nothing. He wasn't breathing.
His skin color, normally brown, was gray. He blinked once, his hands relaxed, he let go, he fell down. Then he died.
Up close I could now see that his entire chest and torso was splotched with red and black. He had already been fatally wounded. But while fatally wounded, he had somehow gotten up and closed the gap and held the deadman switch.
Now it was my turn. I gripped it hard, my hand over the dead man's thumb where it rested on the plunger.
Brooke was on radio.
"EOD to H4 west corridor! Forthwith! Forthwith!"
That was our radio slang for "Right Fucking Now."
My gut and chest ached horribly. I drew a breath and my ribs screamed.
The front panel of my body armor was now useless and would need to be discarded. But it had done its job and saved my life.
For the moment.
I had no choice but to advance. We had to buy time for the SLE to escape. He was not yet safe, even behind several doors and by this time at least one floor below. He was in the same building. A homicide bomber can carry enough explosive to drop a building, especially if he is near a support beam or column.
I knew the building we were in intimately. "H" building was of relatively modern and inexpensive construction, a primarily steel building with a hexagonal array of offices around a central reinforced core. The problem was that we were near the core. If the core collapsed, the structure would collapse.
A typical homicide vest packed with a powerful explosive such as RDX could generate a destruction radius of at least ten feet. This was far smaller than the blast radius (over fifty feet) or fragmentation radius (over three hundred feet).
Obviously it would be preferable that the vest not go off at all. That would save my life, Brooke's life, and that of numerous other persons on this floor and the floor below.
But it was mission essential that the vest not go off anywhere near the center core of the building. If it did, the odds that the SLE would be killed were far too high. Functionally, he _was_ the site. Over 3,000 lives depended on his individual survival.
I wondered what had happened to his dedicated bodyguard, a Client rather than Company employee. I hadn't seen his body, and the SLE should not have been taken into hostile custody except over his dead body.
I thought all of this in an instant as I advanced around the corner with my handgun up and at the ready.
I would under no circumstances whatsoever be putting it down.
Brooke was empty-handed, watching the homicide bomber carefully. She was a good draw, but not a quick-draw specialist.
I had that moment to look at him, a frozen instant of time in which to process a gestalt image, before he noticed me.
He was preternaturally calm. He was wearing a business suit over which he had put on the homicide vest. The homicide vest was a repurposed body armor carrier, with visible vertical serrations and wires not only over his shoulders, but across each side and a wire running down and into his groin. A handgun in his right hand and a thumb-plunger type detonator grasped firmly in his left hand. His thumb depressed on it. Holding it down. Deadman switch. If he lifted his thumb ...
I recognized him as one of Cartwright's Cronies. He had been present when I had invited them to bring it the fuck on. He had apparently chosen to take me up on it.
"Do it, asshole," I ordered him as I advanced at a walking pace with my handgun at the ready in my right hand, pointed directly at his right eyeball. "Kill us all. Do it now."
I had seen the one essential point on clearing the corner. He was in the middle of the corridor leading from the core to the wing that led to H4 Executive Offices. He was more than ten feet from the support beams.
I did not see any potential for getting him either to surrender or to disarm. Without putting down the handgun, he could not even safe the deadman switch he was holding. He would not do that while still alive.
The only victory I could see was denying him the SLE. That would have to do.
I kept walking. He brought his handgun up and turned his body so that the detonator was behind him, thumb still depressed, and started shooting.
I kept walking.
A sledgehammer blow struck me in the abdomen. A second sledgehammer blow struck me in the chest. A third sledgehammer whacked into my upper left arm and I could see blood spurt. A fourth sledgehammer gently kissed the right side of my cheek as it passed me by.
Yet I kept walking.
Security Officer Samir stepped around the far corner and seized the homicide bomber's left arm in an iron grip with both his empty hands, trapping his thumb on the detonator.
The homicide bomber turned to try to fight him, either to shoot him or to try to strike him with the barrel of the pistol.
This gave me the shot I needed. As the homicide bomber's head turned, I could see the back of his head for just a moment.
I shot him just where the skull joins the neck. It was a clap shot because I was within ten feet.
He dropped like his strings had been cut. Because they had. There are only three shots that promise the mythical "instant kill." They all involve the instant destruction of the homicide bomber's brain.
I dropped my own handgun, not bothering to try to holster, and helped seize the detonator arm.
Brooke ran straight up to me, fumbled at her belt, tore open her IFAK, and wrapped her tourniquet around my spurting left arm. Racked the strap tight, wound the windlass and kept winding.
Then she drew her knife and pithed what was left of the homicide bomber's brain.
Samir grimaced painfully. I put my one good hand over his, feeling his grip weaken.
He met my eyes. He said nothing. He wasn't breathing.
His skin color, normally brown, was gray. He blinked once, his hands relaxed, he let go, he fell down. Then he died.
Up close I could now see that his entire chest and torso was splotched with red and black. He had already been fatally wounded. But while fatally wounded, he had somehow gotten up and closed the gap and held the deadman switch.
Now it was my turn. I gripped it hard, my hand over the dead man's thumb where it rested on the plunger.
Brooke was on radio.
"EOD to H4 west corridor! Forthwith! Forthwith!"
That was our radio slang for "Right Fucking Now."
My gut and chest ached horribly. I drew a breath and my ribs screamed.
The front panel of my body armor was now useless and would need to be discarded. But it had done its job and saved my life.
For the moment.
