Criminals (Razor Book 3)

Book summary

In "Criminals," Razor faces a relentless battle after a brutal clash with the Vietnamese Mafia's Elder Tiger. Gangsters invade his turf, allies are assassinated, and his love's parents are kidnapped. With law enforcement in the mix, Razor's cunning and his team's unique skills are put to the test in a high-stakes showdown of strategy, technology, and raw intensity as they approach the ultimate showdown.

Excerpt from Criminals (Razor Book 3)

Speeding Is Believing

Explosives are dangerous. But their usefulness and fun factor, to me, far outweigh the risk. I'm a bit rusty, having made my last bomb nearly four years ago. Fortunately it doesn't take a demolition expert to make low grade plastique. You don't even need a fundamental understanding of chemistry. All that's required is the advanced ability to click a mouse and read a recipe.

While Shocker and Bobby hovered over Ace and prodded the geek into finding Diep with his cyber voodoo, I decided it was a perfect time to prepare my kamikaze drone for the upcoming mission. Patty accompanied me outside, sky darkening, air cooling, sea gulls cawing over the beach across the road. We walked to Blondie's truck, eager to do something to get our minds off of what we had just witnessed.

Patty stopped and admired Demonfly. The black drone lay in the bed of the Ford. Her fuselage, wings, landing gear and propeller were all disassembled and arranged so everything just barely crammed in between the bed rails. Several feet of wings and tail stuck out the tailgate. Patty smirked, the sight of a plane in a truck ridiculous to her. "Tight. You build this thing?"

"Yeah." I took keys from my pocket, pressed the key fob, opening the passenger door. Big Guns had left a ten gallon plastic garbage can on the floorboard, and two large trash bags full of specifics on the seats. I took everything out and set it on the pavement.

"How many bombs have you made?" she asked, turning to inspect the contents of the bags as I opened them, began arranging items on the ground.

I smiled a little. "Enough that I know how to not blow us up."

She nodded approval. Then put her hands in her pockets and commented, "The only things I know how to blow up are balloons, car engines, and men."

"Well then." I grabbed the trash can, placed it in front of her. "You qualify to assist me. Make sure I don't spill any."

"Alright."

She knelt down and I grabbed one of the trash bags, tore a hole in it. Leaning over, I poured the contents into the can. Packing foam, the little Styrofoam Ss shipping companies use, flowed out of the bag, into the bucket, their feather lightness allowing a few to stray over the rim. Patty neatly palmed them into the can. "This is the polymers of the recipe," I said.

"Huh?"

"The plastic part."

"You could've just said that. You don't have to make shit up." She grinned at the foam.

"Sure I do. Making shit up has made me a lot of money."

I picked up a one gallon canister of Coleman's lantern fuel. Unscrewed the cap. "This will break down the plastic. It will mix and bind to the other ingredients while adding a little volatility."

"Okay..." She watched me pour the fuel over the foam with confounded eyes, though intent, her mind busy committing everything to memory.

You sure you want to show this chick how to make a bomb? my subconscious said. You don't even know her.

I frowned in a moment of introspection. Shocker trusts her. The girl-beast doesn't place trust lightly. And, my eyes widened, my sense of reality altering slightly, permanently, though not necessarily in a bad way, I trust the Shocker's judgment implicitly.

The voices between my ears quieted at that, so I was able to refocus on the task in front of me.

The cold fuel instantly dissolved the foam, receding from the rim with a faint soda-like hissing, miniature bubbles forming then melting, polymers transitioning out of a solid state, integrating to form one liquid mass. I poured in the entire can of Coleman's, set it aside and grabbed a long-handled wooden spoon. "Stir it?"

"Sure." She took the utensil, sat cross-legged in front of the garbage can and stirred the thick, dark petroleum plastic. Her nose wrinkled from the fuel's biting stench, accented by the funky, toxic scent of plastic. After a few minutes the foam had completely dissolved, a third of the can filled with a flammable liquid base.

"Next up," I grinned, teeth feeling especially sharp, "boom powder."

She gave me an uncertain look. Should I be making a bomb with this guy? I don't even know him.

I grabbed a large can of black gunpowder, opened it. The phosphoric scent made my jaw tighten. I emptied the can into the mix, Patty stirring slowly. Grabbed another can...

Gunpowder was super easy to obtain. Gun shops and the big box stores sell it for old school muzzle loaders and hobby cannons. They keep records of who buys it, and large purchases are tracked by the feds. No telling when some anarchist or mischievous character will feel the need to fabricate a device and indulge their inner demolition demon.

The chemical signature of every batch was different, if only slightly, as unique as a fingerprint. The feds can trace this powder back to the place it was purchased from, even if all they had was residue from the detonated bomb. Being a veritable expert on the subject, my Viet pal took measures to ensure the purchase couldn't be traced to us. Probably got Hong to round up a herd of hobos, paid them to buy cans at different stores...

I chuckled, "Hobos are fun."

After dumping in two kilos of powdered awesomeness, the liquid had changed from an ugly dark brown to jet black, garbage can now filled a few inches over the halfway mark.

"What's next?" Patty said, her interest for the project increasing by the minute. Her forearms flexed as she had to apply more strength to stir the thick substance.

I stood with hands on waist, watching the mix blend, waiting on it to become homogeneous before adding the final ingredient. "Stucco."

"Stucco," she said slowly. "Is that even flammable?"

"Not by itself. It does have elements that supplement the compound, but mainly it just binds everything together in a moldable consistency."

"Uh-huh." She had an idea of what I was talking about. She indicated the mix. "This looks as blended as it's gonna get."

I nodded agreement, turned and picked up a large bag of stucco. Clawed a hole in it. "We'll add a little at a time," I told her. "Stir it in. When everything turns a smooth dark gray it'll be done."

"Okay."

She stirred slow but hard, the heavy mix tough to move, while I poured in the white powder in small amounts. It took about a half pound of stucco and a good twenty minutes of stirring before I was satisfied. I set the bag down, gestured that she could quit.

She wiped her shirt sleeve over her eyes, standing up, dusted off her butt. "Damn. I'm sweating." She looked down at our creation and grinned suddenly. "I can't cook worth spit, and I hate the idea of me standing in a kitchen mixing a batter. But I gotta say I've enjoyed this one so far." She looked at me and made her eyes do a silly dance. "How do we blow it up?"

My grin mirrored hers, sideways and stupid, with irresponsible playfulness. "Either, A, cannon fuse." I squatted down and plucked up a roll of dark green fuse sealed in plastic. "Or, B, electrical charge." I dropped the fuse and grabbed a small electronic device and a roll of 18 gauge wire. "In this case I think we'll go with the mini lightning bolt."

"I like lightning," she said with that same grin.

"Me, too." I showed her the electronic device. "This is a step-up coil. Basically the guts out of a taser. A small voltage applied here," I pointed to a square of iron with copper windings at it center, a sugar cube-size coil on the four inch circuit board, "will produce a magnetic field that induces a voltage in the larger coil." I pointed to a square of iron positioned next to the first one, a coil the size of two D batteries.

"So the two coils aren't actually connected?"

"Not by wires or solid state. Just magnetically."

She gave an impatient flick of fingers. "Explain that."

My mouth twisted while I organized my response. The people I normally discuss this stuff with know as much or more than I do – Blondie and Pete Eagleclaw. And I'm no teacher. Shrugging, I decided she was helping so I had to tell her something. "A low voltage runs through the small coil, which produces a magnetic field. The field envelops the larger coil. Because the larger coil has larger copper windings, it amplifies the magnetic influence, producing a voltage far higher than what is applied to the smaller coil. Zzzz..."  I snapped my fingers. "ZAP! Tased, bitch."

"You mean BOOM." Her face was rubbery with expression, deep thinking one moment, goof troop the next.

"Right."

"How are you going to wire it?"

"I'll show you."

"You might as well. It's already too late to stop my terrorist plot."

"Heh."

I stood and went back inside Blondie's truck, grabbing the tool bag from behind the seat. The canvas Craftsman bag held all sorts of tools and odds and ends. I set it on the seat, opened it.

Grabbing a pair of wire cutters and a one inch cotter pin, I stepped over to the truck's bed, where Patty stood looking at Demonfly. "Hold this for a minute," I said, handing her the pin. She studied it curiously. I went to work.

I unraveled a three foot length of wire and cut it, dropped the roll on the ground. Used the cutters to strip the insulation off so that copper shone brightly on both positive and negative ends. I took the cotter pin from her, found one end of the wire, and twisted the naked strands of wire around the pin, negative on one side of it, positive on the other.

"What's that supposed to do?" Patty asked.

I indicated the pin. "This will be pressed into the explosive. The coil will send fifty thousand volts into it. The pin will become superheated in about point-zero-one seconds and burst into plasma, igniting the explosive."

Her mouth was slightly parted in wonder. "Uh-huh." She frowned and flicked a hand at me, Go. Continue.

I pointed and Patty grabbed the step-up coil, handed it to me. I connected the other end of the wire to the large coil's output. With that done I handed it to Patty and leaned over the bed rail, opening Demonfly's engine cover and the panel above the wing connect point. Set the sheet aluminum sections carefully on the ground, gritting my teeth; I had rolled and hammered these panels by hand. Laying them on concrete went against years of ingrained protocol.

Like it really matters now, my subconscious heckled. Ha! Those panels will get more than a few scratches real soon.

"Yeah yeah yeah," I muttered.

"Pretty neat work for a douche," Patty declared, inspecting the aluminum tubing and spars that comprised Demonfly's fuselage.

The engine wasn't much bigger than a lawn mower engine, though had twenty times the power. The 125 hp rotary mirrored no light, coated with the same non-reflective black as the engine control unit, a small computer the size of a pop tart. The "brain". Mind racing with the schematics of the electrical system, my response to her was late and absentminded. "That's i douche."