What's Worth the Risk - John Fetto

He didn’t have to do anything. All Hawley had to do was stand in a security uniform all night and make sure that nobody but Tate’s crew walked off with the wooden crates. Hawley didn’t even have to open the boxes, to know what was inside. He’d counted those kind of crates before, seen them stacked in base camps in the Central Highlands, then seen the same sort stacked in camps in Cambodia, all with the initials of the US Government, so he knew that they didn’t look any different if they were stolen, or they were being used to protect or to kill. They were just boxes with deadly stuff, faithful to whomever was holding them, and didn’t mind being swapped back and forth. First time Hawley saw them he thought he was crazy. Like he’d see someone and think it was Willie or Jaybird and Sandman. He looked at them the way he did, out of the corner of his eye, hoping they’d go away if he blinked. And they did. The next night they weren’t there, but then they were back, a whole room full, and he really thought he was losing it until Tate came barging in with Crow chatting him up and unloading more, not saying what it was about because he was just a night watchman. He counted on Hawley not wanting to lose his job, not caring about what it was. He acted as if Hawley wasn’t even there. When he left, Hawley went and got a screwdriver from his truck. He lifted down one crate, hesitated, then unscrewed the lid and lifted it off. He blinked. Green slabs of plastic, curved, with little prongs for attaching the wires. Hawley knew what they were and he knew what they could do. Inside was c 4 explosive behind a thousand little bits of metal. You had to be careful which way you aimed it. Some guys would hold it against their stomach, to feel the curve if you didn’t have enough light to see the simple instructions in raised placed on the outside curve. It read: Front: Toward Enemy.