Does 20 to 6 constitute a blowout? I don’t really know, but I do know, from my chatty friends in section 112, that this remains a “two-score game,” and I had to nod as if I knew what that meant. I’ve done a lot of that while in my seat. I had to feign anger at a returned punt at the start of the second half, curse along with my seatmates at the incompetence of Detroit’s special teams coordinator, nod agreeably when the Lions defense “finally woke up.” And I had to invent pretense after pretense to call my mother/sister/brother/husband/boyfriend/aunt every time I saw a possibly bald man that might have a slightly slender nose and sloping shoulders.
Books and his team must have looked closely at nearly every male in the stadium by now. One of the locals actually called in Denny Sasser as a suspect when he arrived at the stadium.
“I miss being a research analyst,” I say to my “brother” over the phone as I make my way, yet again, to the Adams Street concourse. “I’m not cut out for surveillance.”
“Copy that,” says Sophie. “Why don’t you go check out the portable kiosks in the concourse? There are a few blind spots when they put up the umbrellas.”
“Okay.” The adrenaline courses through me as we near the end of the game. I just know he’s here. I can feel it.
I find myself strolling through the concourse, people-watching, the way Marta and I used to do in the summers at the mall. The stadium is starting to empty a little, but Lions fans aren’t quitters. They’ll stay until the last gasp—more wisdom I picked up from section 112. The game is still perfectly audible, because the stadium is open to the concourse on two corners. I can see our law enforcement teams setting up checkpoints at the exits. We are preparing to screen the fans as they leave the stadium, our method of last resort. My gut writhes. There’s not a chance he would let himself be caught in a crude net like that. He’s too precise. Too proud. Too smart.
I’m leaning against the wall of the escalators leading to the second floor, watching people walk past. My fingers and palms are beating a nervous rhythm on the metal surface in time with the music echoing from the stadium. If there’s one thing I can say about the game, it’s that Detroit sure plays good music. The home of Motown is proud of its heritage. They have worked in homegrown heroes Kid Rock and Eminem, and as I move back down the atrium toward my seat, Aretha Franklin starts asking for her R-E-S-P-E-C-T.
As I walk, I begin to sense an inexplicable oddness, or an absence, to my right. Maybe this is what the field agents mean by “gut feeling.” It makes me profoundly uneasy. The stadium is to my left, and the stair-step ceiling unique to the underside of a stadium makes the right side much taller. There is nothing unusual I can see immediately among the restaurants and stores. But I sense a void of movement in a place where everything and everyone else is moving.
I stop and scan the small crowd. There’s nobody that looks anything like our subject, but that feeling just isn’t going away. It’s growing. I’m starting to hear the echo of Aretha from the stadium as though it is much farther away, like I am suddenly enclosed in walls muting the surrounding noise.
My heart is beating like crazy, my palms wet and sticky. I can’t explain it…I just somehow know—
I spin around.
And twenty yards away, standing motionless, a man is staring right at me.
84
FULL HEAD of hair. Full beard. Lions cap on his head. Horn-rimmed glasses. Jacket collar pulled up high. A disguise. And even though I can’t specifically make out his eyes, I know they are fixed on mine.
I blink twice, startled and still disbelieving. The man is squared off and facing me. People pass between us, fans heading to or from bathrooms or concessions, but every time he comes back into my view, he is still motionless, still staring directly at me.
It’s him.
A woman accidentally bumps his shoulder. His body gives with the jolt, but he never stops looking at me.
It’s him.
He cocks his head slightly, like he’s angling for a better look at me.
In those few moments that pass, I am frozen, breathless, paralyzed. But I want him to see me. Here I am, I want to say to him. I found you.
In those timeless beats of my heart, I hear Aretha Franklin crooning, the crowd noise cresting and falling, while we stare at each other.
Two seconds? Ten? I don’t know how long it takes before I remember why I’ve held the cell phone in my hand all along, so I wouldn’t have to fumble in my pocket for it if the moment presented itself.
The moment has presented itself. My heart pounding in my throat, I look down at my phone as my thumb poises over the speed-dial button, instant access to Command Central.
Instead, I look back at our subject, whose facial expression has changed from a poker face to some kind of sympathetic smirk.
And now, in his hand, is a small black device of his own, probably his cell phone. But why would he need a cell phone right—
And then an explosion, a pop so deafening that I barely notice something ricocheting off my face, cutting me, a blast so jarring that I know I’ve cried out but I can’t hear my own voice, and suddenly the floor has risen up to smack me in the cheek.
In my temporary stupor, nothing makes sense, not the sticky floor or the sight of my own blood, not the strobe-light effect of the sirens flashing, and even though I cannot hear a thing I sense it, I feel it while I lie on the floor, the sudden change in the vibration of the stadium, which is now a constant thumping, a stampede—
I lift my head in the direction of the subject, the man I’ve hunted for more than a year, but instead I see a silent horror movie, no sound but the agonizing images of a mad rush of bodies, panicking, fighting through the narrow aisle and, once freed from the logjam, bursting toward the exit. I move like a terrified dog on my hands and knees toward a pillar on the interior wall of the stadium and embrace it like a loved one as the throng rushes past, stepping on my legs and ankles, tripping over me, until I pull in my legs against the swimming tide and ball into the fetal position.
I hold on for dear life to the pillar as people push and trip and climb over one another in a desperate attempt to escape. I lift my head upward to compete for oxygen with the stampede, gasping for air and struggling, with my failing limbs, to keep hold of my anchor. If I let go of this, I know I’ll be crushed.
My head ringing viciously, my oxygen short, I struggle to fight the rising nausea and my rising dread. How many will die here today? I don’t know. I can’t think about that now. Because I’ll be among the dead if I lose my grip on this pillar.
He did it again, I think. Our subject, once again, has escaped. He has buried himself within the crush of sixty thousand people racing for the exits, soon flooding the streets outside Ford Field, after this unidentified explosion that has blown out my eardrum. He outsmarted us once more. He was ready for us. Of course he was. He’s been ready for us all along. Every time we think we’re close, we realize that he’s anticipated our move and countered it.
He’s never going to stop. And we’re never going to catch him.
85
“SIT STILL,” says the paramedic.
“I’m fine. It was just a scratch.”
“You have a concussion, and you need stitches on your cheek.”
The sun has fallen and darkness begins to color the sky. It’s been four hours since the explosions. The paramedics long ago took the most seriously injured to trauma units. There are very few civilians still around in the parking lot outside Ford Field, which is now filled with vehicles from Homeland Security, the FBI, and state troopers, as well as media trucks and news copters flying overhead. An explosion in the middle of an NFL football game isn’t going to go unnoticed for long.
Apparently there were eight explosions in all, each occurring within seconds of the other, at various points on the south end of the stadium. They weren’t bombs per se, I’m told, but rather very powerful fireworks, placed strategically in overflowing garbage cans at locations where the acoustics would max
imize the sound of their blasts within both the concourse and the stadium, including Gate A, where I was stationed.
The fans at Ford Field didn’t wait for an explanation when they heard the blasts; they didn’t explore the distinction between a massive pyrotechnic and a terrorist’s bomb. When the explosions went off, one after another, it was a frenzied race to the exits that nobody—not even the FBI—could stop. And even if our agents had been able to hold up the throng, protocol wouldn’t allow it. Evacuation procedures required that all doors be flung wide open to allow people to, well, evacuate. We literally had to let everyone leave. For all anyone knew in those critical first minutes, it was a terrorist attack.
Books and the team did everything they could to contain the pandemonium, but it was too much. People were jumping into their cars and speeding away before we even knew which way was up.
Books walks over to me and puts a hand on my shoulder. “You’re lucky your eardrum wasn’t blown out,” he says, which was what I thought had happened, initially. “You were right next to one of the garbage cans where the M-Eighties detonated.”
I gingerly touch the gauze on my cheek. “The M-what?”
“They were M-Eighties,” he says. “They were originally military explosives. They were outlawed for consumer purchase in the sixties, but people still buy them illegally. Hell, I think I used to set them off when I was a kid. Loud as hell. Like forty or fifty times as strong as the fireworks you can purchase legally.”
I jump off the back of the ambulance and take a moment to steady myself. “How did he get explosives into the stadium?” I ask.
“Oh, it’s easy, Em.” Books makes a one-inch space between his thumb and index finger. “They’re each about this big, and they don’t contain metal.”
“And the detonator?”
“He must have used a remote detonator. Could buy it at any fireworks store.”
Great. Just great.
“He was expecting us,” I say.
Books purses his lips. “The media reports didn’t say anything about us linking him to football games. But he’s smart. We know that. So this was just a precaution on his part, I’d guess. When he saw you, he knew he needed a route to escape. And he used it.”
I sigh. As always, we were playing checkers, but our subject was playing chess.
“Nobody dead?” I ask, I pray.
“Not so far, no. Some people were seriously wounded in the rush for the exits. I’ve never seen so many people so scared.” His eyes drift away; then he shakes himself free of the memory. “The blasts themselves didn’t hurt anybody other than people standing near the garbage cans, like you. It was the panic afterward. They tell me there are hundreds of people with broken bones, crushed ribs, all kinds of bruises and abrasions, but so far nobody has died.”
Thank God for that. The first good news of the day.
Books holds up a police artist’s sketch of the subject, taken from my description. Thick dark hair, full beard, thick glasses, Lions cap, army jacket pulled up high.
“An obvious disguise,” I say. “But that basically looks like him.”
“Okay. Then let’s see if we can find him on the video monitors entering the stadium today,” he says. “And then we can see where he sat, and we can work backward.”
“Okay, let’s do it,” I say. “I should be there. I’m the one who saw him.”
Books takes my arm. “You need to go to the hospital, Em.”
I wiggle free of him. “I’m fine.”
“No, Emily Jean. You’re going to the hospital. You need stitches at a minimum. That’s an order.”
I stare at him, and he blinks first. Neither of us is going to pretend that he can order me to do anything.
“Harrison Bookman, you get me in front of a video monitor right now,” I say. “Or you’re going to be the one who needs stitches.”
86
TWO HOURS later, the smell of the catered food still lingering in the luxury suite doubling as Command Central, Books, Sophie, Denny, and I are bleary-eyed and exhausted.
“So now we know, at least, that he didn’t arrive in the disguise he was wearing when you saw him,” Books says, stating the obvious. We’ve combed through video of every gate entrance to the stadium and never spotted him. Our subject was wearing a different getup when he waltzed past security to start the game.
Books rubs his forehead furiously, like he’s trying to remove an ink stain. “That was our best chance of knowing where he sat,” he says. “But not the only way. He’ll show up on various cameras, and maybe we’ll get lucky with crowd footage.”
I nod my head as if I find hope in that statement, but I don’t. Our subject has thought of everything. He’s a mile ahead of our thinking every time.
“Who even knows if he’ll go to another NFL game,” I say. “We can hope he does so out of pure stubbornness, but I wouldn’t bet a nickel on it. This was it.” My head drops back on the chair. “This was our chance.”
“Okay, well, let’s not go dark,” says Sophie. “Let’s look at next week’s games and make a plan. Week five of the season, right? And, Emmy, you still think he’s likely to hit one of the Pennsylvania stadiums soon—Pittsburgh or Philadelphia. So let’s see…” She pulls out an NFL schedule. “Oh, look! They’re playing each other next Sunday. The Eagles at the Steelers, Sunday, October seventh, at one p.m. That’s good, right?”
I close my eyes. Despite Sophie’s laudable attempt to inject some sunlight into the room, I see only darkness.
“He knows we know about the NFL connection now,” I say. “You think he’s going to walk into another spiderweb?”
“I’m sorry, I must not be up to speed on this thing about Pennsylvania,” says Denny. We’ve all been sequestered in our narrow tunnels in this investigation. Denny’s been spending more time doing fieldwork.
“Emmy was looking at the pattern of his stadium visits,” Books explains. “Whenever the subject goes to an area where NFL stadiums are clustered together, he separates the visits by many weeks so he’s not hitting the same general area too regularly. So, like in Florida, he spreads out his Jacksonville, Miami, and Tampa Bay visits.”
“And he hasn’t gone to Pennsylvania yet,” Denny gathers. “Okay. And there’s just a few weeks left in his stadium tour, so if he’s going to hit Pennsylvania twice, he better start now. I see.”
I’m glad he sees. My life is so much better now.
(I have a concussion, so I can be rude as long as I keep it to myself.)
“Might an old, retired agent like me raise a suggestion?” Denny says.
“Shoot,” says Books.
“Might we consider the possibility that he isn’t going to visit Pennsylvania?”
“Why wouldn’t he?” I ask.
“Well…isn’t the answer obvious?”
“Not to me, it isn’t,” I say, growing impatient. The concussion again.
“Maybe he lives in Pennsylvania,” says Denny. “And he doesn’t want us looking there.”
I sit forward in my chair.
“We think he lives in the Midwest,” says Books. “Remember?”
“I remember that you said that, yes. That doesn’t mean I agree.”
I point to Denny and wag my finger. “The pattern of his kills during the off-season in the NFL are all centered around the midwestern states,” I say. “So the pattern shows that, during the part of the year that he’s not touring NFL stadiums, he kills close to home.”
“I understand that’s the theory,” says Denny.
“But your point, Denny,” I say, standing up now, “is why couldn’t our subject be screwing with us on that part of the case, just like he’s screwing with us on every other part?”
“In a nutshell, yes,” says Denny.
Books looks at me, color returning to his cheeks. “He created a pattern to make it look like he was a midwestern guy, in case we started figuring out what he’s doing. Is he really that forward thinking?”
I actually laugh out
loud at that question. “He’s a galaxy forward compared to us, Books.”
Books gets out of his chair, nodding. “He lives in Pennsylvania?”
“If someone has a better lead right now, let’s hear it,” says Denny.
I look at Books. “I sure don’t. It’s worth a shot, at least. Check the plates in the parking lot?”
Books raises his radio to his mouth. “This is Bookman to rapid-response team leader Dade.”
A moment later, the radio squawks back. “This is Dade.”
“Dade, you’re going over the video footage of the parking lots outside Ford Field during the game, right?”
“Affirmative, Agent. Running plates as we speak.”
“Any license plates from the great state of Pennsylvania?”
“Let me check on that.”
The radio goes silent.
“The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” I say, allowing some giddiness with my hope.
“What’s that?”
“It’s the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.”
The radio squawks back on. “Agent, there are three license plates from Pennsylvania.”
“Run those right now, Dade.”
“Copy that.”
Books nods to me again. “So Pennsylvania’s not a state?”
“I think it still counts as a state.”
“I hope so. That would really fuck with our flag.”
Sophie and I have our laptops open, ready to run searches the minute we get the names.
“What is a commonwealth, anyway?” Books asks me.
“Bookman, how the hell am I supposed to know?”
“You’re the one who brought it up.”
It’s another five minutes of this supremely engaging banter, each of us trying to cope with our jagged nerves, before the radio comes back on.
“Okay, Agent, are you ready?”
“Ready.”
“First vehicle is registered to David Epps in Beaver Falls.” Dade reads out the address.