"Энди Макнаб. День независимости (engl) " - читать интересную книгу автора

reason why I hadn't connected the fuse in advance, but kept it rolled up: if
there was a break in the powder it could be too big a gap for the flame to
jump, and we'd have no detonation.
Once an OBI was ignited by the fuse it would burn for about two and a
half minutes. That meant that as soon as the first one sparked up there
would be about another minute and thirty before the next one did. Which
meant two of them burning together for a minute, and by the time the first
had burnt out, the third would be ignited, and so on to the fourth. I needed
the sort of heat generated by two of these things burning at once to make
sure the fuel ignited.
I opened the Tupperware lids of the OBIs and fed the safety fuse over
the exposed mixture in each of the boxes. They were now ready to party.
Hubba-Hubba was looking over his shoulder as he moved slowly backwards
towards me, unreeling another spool of fuse wire as he went. This was now
connected to one of the frame charges via two detonators. It wasn't the same
kind of fuse I'd been using. This was 'fuse instantaneous', which goes off
with the sound of a gunshot because the burn is so fast. There's a little
ridge that runs along the plastic coating so at night you can always
distinguish it from the straightforward ClintEastwood stuff. He cut the fuse
from his spool without a word, and went back to do the same with the second
charge.
The PIRA timer unit would initiate the fuse instantaneous, which would
burn at warp speed to a four-way connector, a three inch by three inch green
plastic box with a hole in each side. I didn't know what the small worn-out
aluminium plate stuck to its base called it in Russian, but that was the
name I knew it by. All this box did was allow three other lengths of fuse to
be ignited from the one Hubba-Hubba's two lengths of fuse instantaneous to
the two charges, and my safety fuse for the OBIs.
Hubba-Hubba was now unreeling the fuse instantaneous from the second
charge back towards me as I took the safety fuse and cut it from the reel
six inches back from the first OBI, making sure the cut was straight so the
maximum amount of powder was exposed to ignite it in the four-way connector.
I then pushed the end of it into one of the rubber recesses, giving it a
half-turn so that the teeth inside gripped the plastic coating. Hubba-Hubba
placed the two fuses instantaneous next to me and went to help Lotfi.
I cut his two lengths of fuse in the same way before feeding the lines
into the connector as the sound of Lotfi's rubber mallet hitting his chisel
filled the air and the navigation lights of an airliner miles up floated
silently over us.
I checked the three lines that were, so far, in the connector to ensure
the three lines into it were secure before cutting a metre length of the
ridged fuse instantaneous and placing it in the last free hole. This was the
length that went to the timer unit, a three-inch-thick, postcard-sized
wooden box.
Then, as I lay on my stomach and started to prepare, a vehicle drove
along the road from the direction of Oran.
The noise got louder as it came round to the base of the peninsula. I
could tell by the engine note and the sound of the tyres that it wasn't on
the road any more, it was going cross-country.
Shit, police. I heard a torrent of Arabic whispers from the other two a