“Going with you,” I said. “Mahoney will be there soon enough.”
Bree hesitated, but then nodded. “You can drive.”
Eight minutes later I slammed on the brakes and parked in front of the flashing blue lights of two Capitol Hill Police cruisers blocking Massachusetts Avenue and 2nd Street in Northeast.
Bree jumped out, her badge up. “I’m Metro Chief Stone.”
“FBI bomb squad and a Metro’s K-9 unit just crossed North Capitol Street, heading toward the station, Chief,” one officer said.
“The station clear?”
“Affirmative,” another officer said. “The last of the cleaning crew just left.”
Bree glanced at me, said, “Dr. Cross is an FBI consultant on these bombings. He’ll be coming in with me.”
The officers stood aside. We hurried along deserted Mass Avenue toward the now familiar vehicles of the FBI bomb squad, and two Metro K-9 teams parked out in front of the station. Three men walked toward us wearing workmen’s coveralls.
“You with the cleaning crew?” I asked, stopping.
The men nodded. Bree said, “Catch up.”
I asked them a few questions and found Bree at the back of the FBI’s Bomb Squad vehicle, where Peggy Denton was suiting up.
“Do we have a deadline?” Denton asked.
“It wasn’t put that way,” Bree said. “Just a suggestion to look in Union Station because at six a.m. the station will be packed with commuters.”
“Awful big place to sweep in two hours and twenty minutes,” Denton said, checking her watch.
“You can narrow it down,” I said.
“How’s that?” Bree asked.
“Your bomber likes trash cans. Three of the four IEDs were in them. The cleaners I just spoke to said they were working from the front entrance north. They swept, vacuumed, and picked up trash bags in the main hall and on the first level of shops. Those garbage bags are in cleaning carts. Two are in the shopping hall and food court. One in the main hall. I’d take the dogs to those carts first, and then sweep the second floor of shops and the Amtrak ticketing and the train platforms. Metro station after that.”
The FBI bomb squad commander looked to Bree. “That work, Chief?”
“It does,” she said. “Thank you, Dr. Cross.”
“Anytime,” I said.
Ned Mahoney showed up, along with two FBI bomb-sniffing canines and the entire Metro bomb unit.
“We’ve got to stop meeting this way, Chief,” Mahoney said, bleary-eyed and drinking a cup of Starbucks.
“Our secret’s out,” she said.
“He’s escalating,” I said. “The interval between attacks is getting shorter. Twenty-four hours between the first and the next two. And now fifteen hours since then?”
“Sounds right,” Mahoney said, nodding. “How much time did he give us?”
“Two hours eighteen minutes,” Bree said. “Six a.m.”
Denton said, “If Dr. Cross is right and he hid it in a garbage can, we’ll find it a lot sooner than that.”
“Unless he’s using Yugoslavian C-4 again,” I said.
“Which is why we’ll treat every garbage bag or can as if it’s a live bomb.”
The first dogs went inside at 3:39 a.m. We went in after the bomb squads entered, and stood in the dramatic vaulted main hall of the station, listening to the echoes of the dogs and their handlers.
None of the K-9s reacted to the garbage carts the cleaners had abandoned. But Denton prudently had them turned over, dumping the trash bags, which she covered with bomb mats.
She couldn’t do that to every remaining trash bag in the station. Instead, she told her agents to don their protective cowls. They would retrieve every public garbage bag left in the rest of the building and put them in piles to be matted.
They cleared the second floor of the shops first. I noticed and pointed to a Washington Post newspaper box. The headlines read: A CITY ON EDGE. FEARS OF MORE TO COME.
“He was reading from the paper,” Bree said.
“Following his own exploits,” I said. “Enjoying himself.”
The dogs cleared the Amtrak Hall.
“It has to be out on one of the platforms then,” I told Bree and Mahoney. “The cleaners said they almost always do them last.”
Mahoney ordered the search personnel onto the platforms. We went through a short tunnel to Platform 6 and watched as the German shepherds loped past dark trains, flanking Platforms 1 and 2 to our far left, going from garbage receptacle to garbage receptacle, sniffing at the open doors to the coach cars.
Bree checked her watch.
“We’ll find it,” she said. “There’s only so many places he could have—”
The tracks to both sides of Platforms 4 and 5 were empty. There was nothing to block the brilliant flash of the bomb exploding in a trash can at Platform 4’s far north end, or the blast that boxed our ears and forced us to our knees.
It was 4 a.m. on the dot.
Chapter 17
Later that afternoon, I opened the door to Kate Williams, who actually greeted me before going into my basement office. She took a seat before I offered it.
“How are you?” I asked, moving my chair to a non-threatening angle.
“Could be worse,” she said.
“The headaches?”
“Come and go.”
“Tell me about that day.”
Kate stiffened. “That’s the thing, Dr. Cross, I don’t remember much of it. Getting your bell rung hard has a way of erasing things. You know?”
“Yes. What do you remember?”
She fidgeted. “Can we talk about something else today?”
I set my pen down. “Okay. What shall we talk about?”
“Your wife’s a police chief?”
“Chief of detectives,” I said.
“She’s part of the IED investigation. I saw her on the news. You, too.”
“The FBI’s brought me in as a consultant.”
Kate sat forward in her chair. “What happened in Union Station this morning?”
“Beyond what’s on the news, Kate, I really can’t talk about it.”
“But I can help you,” she said eagerly. “If there’s one thing I know, it’s IED bombers, Dr. Cross. How they think, how they act, what to look for, how to sniff them out. With or without dogs.”
I tried not to look skeptical.
“It’s what I did in Iraq,” she said. “My team. We were assigned to guard supply convoys, but we were IED hunters, pure and simple.”
Kate said her team, including a German shepherd named Brickhouse, rode in an RG-33 MMPV, a “Medium Mine Protected Vehicle” that often led convoys into hostile territory. Her job demanded she sit topside in a .50-caliber machine gun turret, scanning the road ahead for signs of ambush or possible IED emplacements.
“What did you look for?” I said. I noted how much her demeanor had changed.
“Any significant disturbance in the road surface, to start,” she said. “Any large boxes or cans on the shoulder of the road or in the brush. Any culverts ahead? Any bridges? Loose wires hanging to soil level from power poles. Any spotters on rooftops watching us? Men or women hurrying away from the road with red dirt all over their robes? Were they using cell phones? Were they using binoculars? If it was night, were we picking up anything in infrared images? It’s a long list that gradually added up to gut instinct.”
I studied her a long moment, wondering if it was possible she was involved. The bomber’s voice had been soft, androgynous. But I saw no deceit in Kate’s body language, nothing but openness and honesty.
“C’mon, Dr. Cross,” she said. “I can help you.”
“All right,” I sighed. “I can’t tell you everything. But, yes, an IED went off in Union Station early this morning. No one was hurt. The bomb caused minimal damage.”
“Radio controlled?”
“Timer.”
That seemed to surprise her, but she shrugged. “He’s not trying to hi
t a moving target, though, is he? What’s the medium he’s using? Fertilizer?”
I hesitated, but was intrigued by the line of questioning. “Plastic explosive.”
“C-4. We saw that when they targeted bridges. Describe the placements?”
I told her that four of the five bombs had been found in trash cans, one buried beside a path between the Korean War and Martin Luther King Memorials.
“He’s nervous,” she said. “That’s why he’s using the trash cans. They’re easy. Disguise it as something else, dump it, and walk on. How much power in the bombs?”
“You’d have to ask the guys at Quantico. They’re analyzing what’s left.”
“But we’re not talking significant damage here,” she said. “There’s no ball bearings or screws wrapped around the C-4 to cause maximum mayhem.”
“Not that I’ve heard.”
She stared off. “That’s when they’re out for big blood. How’s he warning you?”
We hadn’t revealed that the bomber had been calling Bree directly, so I said, “Warning us?”
Kate cocked her head. “Every time a bomb’s gone off, police and FBI have been on the scene, actively looking for a bomb. You had to have been warned.”
“I can’t talk specifics.”
“Any Allahu Akbar, jihad stuff?”
“Not that I know of.”
“That was another thing I was always tuned in to. I learned enough Arabic to look for jihadi phrases spray painted near IEDs.”
“Really?”
“Oh, all the time,” she said.
“There’s been nothing along those lines.”
Kate chewed on that. “He giving you any motivation?”
“Changing people’s mind-set. Making them understand.”
“You quoting him?”
“Yes.”
She fell quiet for almost a minute and finally said, “He’s no Middle Eastern terrorist, that’s for sure.”
I agreed with her, but asked, “How do you know?”
“Jihadists are in your face about why they’re trying to blow you up,” she said. “They’ll take credit for it in the name of Allah or their chosen fanatic group. And the damage inflicted doesn’t make sense to me. Rather than put five bombs out, why not use all that C-4 and make a real statement? Wrap it in bolts, washers, and nuts, and get it somewhere crowded, like the Boston Marathon bombers?”
That made sense, actually. “So what’s the mind-set change he’s after? What’s he trying to make us understand?”
Kate bit at her lip. “I don’t know. But I have the feeling if you answer those questions, Dr. Cross, you’ll find your bomber.”
Chapter 18
Heavy rain fell when Mickey left the VA hospital long after dark. As soon as he felt the drops lash his face, he let go of the emotion he’d been fighting to keep deep in his throat. He choked off two sobs but finally let tears flow. Who could tell he was crying in the rain anyway?
Certainly no one Mickey encountered between the hospital and the D8 bus stop. They were all bent over, hurrying for cover. He was alone on the bench when the Hospital Center bus pulled up.
Mickey got on and was dismayed to find his favorite seat by the rear entrance taken, by a big Latino guy he recognized. Like almost everyone riding the Hospital Center Line from the north end, he’d been chewed up by war and was always pissed off.
Mickey nodded to the man as he passed and took an empty spot two rows behind, intending to take his territory back as soon as the man left.
But the bus was warm, and Mickey was as tired and dismayed as he’d ever been. What am I doing this for? Doesn’t he understand? How can’t he understand?
Tears welled up again. Mickey wiped his sleeve frantically at them. He couldn’t be seen crying here. Out in the rain was one thing, but not here.
Be a soldier, man, he thought as his eyes drifted shut. Be a soldier.
Mickey dozed and dreamed of scenes he had imagined many times. He felt tires hit potholes, and he was no longer in the bus, but deep in the back of a US military transport truck taking him away from the firebase for good, heading straight to Kandahar, then Kabul, and home.
“You happy, kid?” Hawkes asked. “Going stateside?”
Hawkes, the sniper, was sitting on the opposite bench, next to the tailgate, his Barrett rifle balanced between his legs, grinning like he’d just heard the best joke of all.
“Damn straight, I’m happy, Hawkes,” Mickey said.
“You don’t look it.”
“No?” Mickey said. “I’m just nervous, that’s all. We’re so close, Hawkes, I can taste it. No more crazy mofos in turbans lobbing mortars. Leave this shit behind for good. Go home and just…what are you going to do when you get home, Hawkes?”
Hawkes threw back his head and laughed, from deep in his belly. “Kiss my wife and play with my little boy, Mickey.”
“He’ll be happy his daddy’s home,” Mickey said. “That’s so—”
Automatic weapons opened up from high in the rocks flanking the road.
“Ambush!” Hawkes shouted. “Get down, kid! Everyone get—”
Hawkes vanished in a roar and a blast of fire that knocked Mickey cold.
For what seemed an eternity, there was only darkness. Then neon light played on his eyelids, and someone shook his knee.
Mickey started, and awoke to see the Latino guy with the attitude staring down at him. “Union Station.”
“Oh?” Mickey said. “Thanks.”
He took his knapsack and left the bus, running to the terminal to get out of the rain. There were police officers all over the place, and dogs, and reporters. But not one of them paid Mickey any mind as he moved with the evening crowd toward the subway and train stations.
Avoiding the train or Metro platforms, Mickey instead cut through the main hall and out the front door. Four or five television news satellite vans were parked along Massachusetts Avenue, facing Union Station.
When the klieg lights went on, he almost spun around and went back inside. Instead he put up his hood and waited until two men much taller than him exited the station. He fell in almost beside them, within their shadows, until they were a full block east of the television lights.
Mickey left them and kept heading east past Stanton Park. He went to a brick-faced duplex row house on Lexington Place, and used a key to get inside as quietly as he could.
Television light flickered from a room down the hallway. He could hear a woman singing with a back-up band, really belting the song out, probably on one of those star search shows his mother loved, and he hoped the singing would be enough to cover his climb up the stairs.
But when he was almost at the top the song ended. His mother yelled drunkenly, “Mick, is that you?”
“Yes, Ma.”
“I’ve been worried sick.”
“Yes, Ma.”
“There’s left-over Popeye’s in the fridge, you want it. And get me some ice.”
“I’m tired, Ma,” he said. “And I gotta be up early.”
He didn’t wait for a response but dashed up the stairs, around the bannister and into his room. He locked it and waited, listening for an indication of how drunk she was. A little plastered and she’d shrug it off. A lot plastered and she was likely to pound at his door and shriek curses at him.
A minute passed, and then two.
Mickey tossed his knapsack on the floor, took off his raincoat, and dug beneath his mattress, coming up with a dog-eared paperback book he’d bought online for twenty-two dollars. He’d read A Practical Guide to Improvised Bomb Making at least eight times in the past few months, but he climbed on the bed and returned to the chapter on radio-controlled explosives.
Mickey read for an hour, studying the diagrams until he understood how to build the triggering mechanism, and how best to trip it.
Glancing at the clock on his dresser, he stifled a yawn. It was eleven o’clock.
Opening a drawer in the nightstand, he retrieved one of six burner p
hones he’d bought online in a package deal from a dealer in Oklahoma. Then he called up the Voice Changer Plus App on his smartphone. Mickey started the burner, activated it with a paid-minutes card, and dialed Chief Bree Stone.
They’re not listening, he thought as her phone rang. Time to raise the volume.
Chapter 19
Bree was fighting to stay awake for the eleven o’clock news when her phone started buzzing and beeping in her purse. She struggled out of the easy chair in the front room at home, and said, “Mute it.”
I thumbed the Mute button and said, “Speaker.”
Nodding, Bree got her phone and answered the call.
The odd, soft, almost feminine voice spoke. “Chief Stone?”
“Who are you? What’s your name?”
After a long pause, he said, “Nick. Nick the Avenger.”
Bree glanced at me, pointed at her watch. I started timing. The FBI was monitoring and tracing all calls to her number. If she could keep him on the phone for just over a minute, they’d be able to locate him.
She said, “Nick, what’s it going to take to stop the bombings?”
That question was part of a plan we’d talked about in anticipation of his next call. We both believed we needed to draw the bomber out, get him talking about more than just his next target.
After several moments, he said, “It’s gonna take changes on Capitol Hill, Chief. Congress needs to get off its collective butt, and start treating the people who fight their wars right. Until they quit kicking vets in the balls, it’s time for everyone to feel what vets have suffered, what they still suffer. I’d clear the Washington Monument if I were you.”
The line went dead.
“Son of a bitch,” I said. “Forty-four seconds.”
We grabbed raincoats and headed out into the pouring rain. I drove. Bree started making calls to once again close off the National Mall, and summon sniffer dogs and bomb squads. Ned Mahoney called me as I turned onto Independence Avenue.
“You hear it?” he asked.
“Yes. The trace?”
“Bomber’s within five miles of Capitol Hill. Closest we got.”
“Any luck with the surveillance tapes from Union Station?”