The Bomb Maker Read online

  Later, the video from the camera mounted on Captain Del Castillo’s truck that had been recording the search showed Sergeant Timothy Walker running toward the rubble, and picked up what he was shouting. Nobody was able to see later what, exactly, triggered the second device precisely at that moment.

  Every bomb technician standing on the lot at 12601 Valkrantz Street could have listed five or six ways to wire that kind of booby trap, but the one who touched the wrong thing didn’t see it. This was the big charge, the one Watkins had been expecting but had not found. He’d failed because the large cache of explosives had been, not inside the house, but under it.

  The main charge turned the air hard, the shock wave bursting up and out, converting the detached pieces of the house into weapons that cut down bomb technicians where they stood and hurling some of their bodies so they came down on lawns together with the boards, bricks, and hardware they’d been examining.

  Watkins, Maynard, Del Castillo, Capiello, and ten others were dead. Many of the police officers who were parked at the ends of the block to keep away the curious, and the firemen who had parked ambulances and pumper trucks farther off, were knocked off their feet by the force of the blast, and a few had minor injuries. The bomb truck Del Castillo had brought was blown onto its side, but its camera kept recording the unchanging image of the blue Los Angeles sky.

  4

  Dick Stahl had been both a soldier and a cop, two professions that never left a man unchanged. He was forty-four now, but in a suit and open-collared shirt he was still straight backed and walked with a physical authority that made him seem taller than his six feet. He had the sort of tan men like him had—darkened forearms, face, neck, and hands—wherever his shirt didn’t cover. His tan was color acquired as wear, one of the things his work had done to him.

  He got into his black BMW and looked back at the big house perched near the top of the hill overlooking the ocean. The woman who lived there was standing above him behind a floor-to-ceiling window watching him go. He gave her an unsmiling half wave and then drove.

  Stahl’s mind was already working on Sally Glover’s problem. She and her husband had lived in that house for thirteen years. Every morning Glover had driven to his company offices in Calabasas, and she’d spent her days on the things the wives of successful men did—volunteer work for the homeless, the hungry, and the victims of a couple of favorite diseases—directing the spending of the couple’s small charitable foundation. Stahl was aware that the things people distrusted a rich wife for—keeping herself beautiful and capable of intelligent conversation, keeping the big house tastefully decorated and provisioned to entertain her husband’s colleagues and customers—were also just chores. The money didn’t change that.

  The money had brought on their current problem. Her husband had begun to work on expanding his business into Mexico. He had wanted to build a facility for manufacturing and shipping medical imaging machines, and for the past few months he’d been spending weeks at a time in the small towns east of Mexicali, where he had been choosing a site and securing the land leases, permissions, licenses, and permits.

  Two days ago Mrs. Glover had received a call from Mr. Glover’s cell phone. When she answered, a man with a thick Spanish accent told her that her husband would not be coming home until she had paid for his freedom. If she wanted him back, she should mail a hundred thousand dollars in cash to a mailbox rental business in Mexicali. She was skeptical until the man put Benjamin Glover on the line. He said he had been dragged from a taxicab, beaten, and taken somewhere. He was all right, if a bit hurt and shaken, but she should do as the man asked.

  She had called the head of security at her husband’s company, who made some calls to friends of his in the narrow world of security and private investigation and found a name and a phone number. There was a man named Stahl who was known to have made some successful extractions from Mexico.

  Stahl had come to see the prospective widow and told her to prepare the hundred thousand dollars. He gave her a blue cardboard box and assured her it would hold a hundred thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills. She must give him the address of the post office box and send the money right away. He took several pictures of the box.

  She said she could get a hundred thousand dollars from a personal bank account. Was that all it would take? No, he told her. This was just the kidnappers’ way of beginning the negotiations. It would persuade them her husband was worth keeping alive while they prepared to make their next demand. In time they would ask for much more, so she should begin selling stocks, bonds, or property. She had to be ready to respond right away, or they might feel the need to send her an ear or a finger to motivate her.

  Stahl said, “I’ll leave today for Mexico. I’ll do this as quickly as I can.” Then he listed some items he would need immediately. One was her husband’s most recently expired passport. Another was a collection of photographs of her husband. The third was her current passport.

  When she asked about his fee, he said, “I have a flat rate for kidnappings in foreign countries. It’s five hundred thousand dollars.”

  “What if you find you can free him for the cost of a trip to Mexico?”

  “I don’t give refunds. But if it costs ten times as much to get him back, I won’t ask you for more. And no matter what it takes, I won’t quit or give up. Here’s my card. You can send the check to my office when you have the money in your account. Of course, you can do this another way or contact somebody else.”

  “No,” she said. “I’ve been told you’re the one, and if that’s your fee, I’ll pay it. This is my husband’s life.”

  As soon as he was on the road he made a telephone call to a man in Ensenada named Antonio Garza, and then another to a woman in Mexico City named Esmeralda Cruz. Next he dropped his car off in the underground parking structure at his condominium building and called to reserve a rental car. He bought all the insurance the rental company would sell him, and packed. A cab took him to the rental lot, and he put his two suitcases into the trunk.

  Stahl was on the road to Mexico by noon. He didn’t seem to be in a hurry or uncomfortable when he crossed the border at San Ysidro. He told the border cop he was headed for a resort at the tip of Baja. The police made him open his trunk, but they didn’t go any further. They just watched him to see if he was nervous, and then waved him on. A man who had spent years rendering bombs safe was not easily flustered. And as a rule, people didn’t smuggle anything to the south. It was on the way home that the authorities would be more thorough. He met Antonio Garza in Ensenada, where Garza had set aside a room for him in his house.

  Garza was a longtime colleague whom Stahl paid a retainer to remain available to help him in any operations in Mexico. Like Stahl, he had been a soldier and a cop and then had formed his own security company. He had a number of regular clients who paid his company to protect things of value—often a family business, but increasingly, as kidnappings had become more common, their sons and daughters. Garza was about six feet three and 240 pounds, and he conveyed the peculiar impression that he was in life as a kind of referee.

  When Stahl and Garza walked into a restaurant near the beach for dinner, Garza took the manager aside and pointed out the spot that would be the best place for him to seat them. The manager seemed to believe this was good advice. During dinner the two men spoke in only the most general terms about the operation. It was only later at Garza’s house that they discussed the specific plan. Garza had people watching the mailbox rental store in Mexicali for the blue box, and each of them had Stahl’s photograph of the box on his cell phone. There would be a constantly changing group—some men, some women. As soon as they saw the box, they would follow the person who picked it up and try to find the place where Benjamin Glover was being held. When it was time to act, Stahl would do the work and Garza would be the driver. Stahl had been with a great many people in frightening situations. He had learned Antonio Garza was a man who would not let fear overpower his pride. Garza wo
uldn’t get nervous and drive off without him if things turned bad. Stahl knew that if he failed, he wouldn’t be alone when he died.

  The call came after three days. A man in his thirties had picked up the blue box in Mexicali. He had walked around a corner and gotten into a pickup truck. He drove south and east to the town of Corazón de Maria, then delivered the box to a house in the center of town in the oldest section, near the old church and the town square.

  Stahl and Garza left for Corazón de Maria the next morning. Corazón de Maria was a market town with a considerable population, but because there were no luxury hotels, it wasn’t a place where American tourists were common. If the kidnappers were expecting an American operative, Stahl would be spotted immediately. Garza dropped Stahl off at a ranch owned by a friend of his and went on alone. He arrived in late morning and rented an office on the top floor of a commercial building across the city square from the house where the money had been taken and then went back for Stahl.

  They returned late at night. Garza helped move Stahl into the office and unload the items he expected to need and then drove off to Mexicali to wait. Stahl began his own surveillance. He placed a sixty-power marksman’s spotting scope a few feet back from the window so it was enveloped in shadows, and he watched from his vantage point high across the square.

  The house was one of the colonial-era buildings that lined some of the streets radiating from the square. There was a wall with a rounded door set into it. The place was like others of that period he’d seen in market towns. Through the portal on the inner side was a garden enclosed by the wings of the house. The rooms were situated in a row, all of the doors opening onto the long covered porch that surrounded the garden.

  Whenever the thick wooden door opened, he used the few seconds to stare through it and learn more. Then he focused on whoever went in or out. By the end of the first day he had seen six men and memorized their faces. He had also noticed they brought in a large quantity of groceries, including cases of beer and tequila, and brought out a large number of garbage bags, which they hauled away in a truck. He saw no women or children.

  Stahl watched the house most of the time for six days, noting everything that went on. Late on the sixth night, when his office building was empty and there was no chance of being overheard, he called Antonio Garza. “I’m going in tomorrow night. Has Esmeralda arrived yet?”

  “Two days ago. I picked her up at the airport.”

  “Can you be here at two a.m.?”

  “Yes. Why tomorrow night?”

  “For the past couple of days, men have been leaving and not coming back. It looks like they’re getting started on another operation or something. There seem to be only two men guarding the house tonight. It’s not going to get better than that.”

  “What aren’t you telling me?”

  “They’re not taking precautions. They don’t hide, and they don’t seem to have any defense. I haven’t seen lookouts with cell phones watching the place from outside, and nobody seems to guard the door. You know what that could mean.”

  “Yes. They could have somebody else protecting them. And what about Glover? You haven’t seen him yet. How do you know he’s not already dead?”

  “If he were dead, there wouldn’t be much point in leaving any men here, not even two.”

  “Maybe.” Garza didn’t sound convinced.

  Stahl added, “It’s supposed to rain tomorrow night. Rain covers sounds and keeps people at home staying dry. The clouds cover the moon.”

  “Where do you want the car?”

  “Drive up the street by the back of the church, and wait for me to call.”

  “All right. I’ll be there at two.”

  At 2:00 a.m. the next night, Stahl walked in a light rain on the cobbled street leading off the square past a row of old colonial houses. When he reached the right house, he picked the front door lock, eased it open to keep its hinges from squeaking, and slipped inside. He was wearing a baseball cap to keep the rain out of his face and a gray raincoat to cover the items he was carrying—a short Steyr AUG-3 automatic rifle on a sling that let it hang muzzle downward, a pistol in his belt, and a razor-edge marine KA-BAR fighting knife with a black blade.

  He stepped into the garden, which looked as he had expected from his distant surveillance. A low porch with a roof surrounded the grassy space, with tall leafy trees. The porch roof was covered with climbing bougainvillea that had scaled the beams and hidden the clay tiles. He moved along the covered porch, looking in each window.

  Stahl was willing to take his time moving through the dark house. If he’d made a noise as he came through the door in the wall, he knew a sleeping man would probably ignore it unless there was another noise that indicated some sort of a pattern. Stahl felt ceramic tile beneath his feet. It made him happy, because he could walk across it silently.

  He had gone about two-thirds of the way around when he found the first occupied room. There were two men asleep on beds. The beds were smaller than a twin bed and each consisted of a steel frame with a single layer of interlocking wire links covered by a thin stuffed mattress and a single loose army blanket.

  Their quarters were so spare that if he had not seen both men during the week going in and out, he might have mistaken them for prisoners. He thought about the fact that they had bunked together. Every room had its window and door opening onto the courtyard, and he’d looked into every one he’d passed. The house was large, and none of the other rooms had any occupants. Why would both guards sleep here? It made sense only if the man they were guarding was very near. Stahl closed his eyes, waiting a few minutes so they would adjust to the dark, and then he studied the room. He saw a door with a padlock on it. That had to be it.

  He couldn’t do anything before he made sure the rest of the rooms were empty. He resumed his prowl around the building. He found the second occupied room only two doors away. The man in this room was asleep too, but he looked as though he’d gotten the first choice of beds. His bed was wider and thicker, with box springs, two white pillows, and white sheets. The man had taken off a suit and hung the pants and coat on a single hanger on the door to the bathroom. Stahl could see that the breast pocket of the coat had a leather wallet with a police badge flapped open, the way plainclothes cops sometimes wore theirs to be identified during raids. Now Stahl was sure he knew why the men of this building didn’t seem to fear anyone. They had connections.

  Stahl paused. He knew he was going to have to get the policeman out of the way before he could return to the room with the two guards. He slowly and carefully opened the door and stepped into the policeman’s room. He went to the man’s suit on its hanger to see if the cop’s gun was in his coat or in a holster. As he touched the coat there was a sudden motion in his peripheral vision.

  The cop whirled in bed, his hand coming up from under his pillow with a pistol.

  He was reacting like a cop, but Stahl had been a cop too. He had anticipated that this move was one possibility, so he was ready. Under his raincoat, his hand was poised to use the rifle, and he swung it up into the man’s face and hammered it butt downward on the cop’s head.

  Stahl wrenched the pistol out of the man’s hand and held it on him for a moment. The man didn’t move. He examined the man’s skull, then shook him. Stahl was shocked. The blow with the butt of the rifle seemed to have killed him. Stahl had never intended to kill. He had planned to handcuff him with his own cuffs and gag him.

  Stahl knew he had to hurry. It was critical now that he get Benjamin Glover out of this house—and out of this town. In a few seconds he was in the other bedroom.

  The two men were still asleep. When he came here, he had expected to do what he had done several times before. He had entered a house at night, pointed an ugly-looking automatic weapon into a kidnapper’s face, and asked him to consider accepting a smaller ransom than he’d demanded. Stahl had confirmed each time that a few thousand dollars sounded much better to a man who was about to die than it had earlier.<
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  Stahl raised his Steyr rifle with his left hand and prepared to turn on the light. As he reached up, he heard a shuffle, a movement behind him. He turned and a big dark shape hurtled through the doorway behind him and clutched him in a bear hug, trying to pin his arms to his sides. The cop now had the crazy strength of an enraged, hurt man. He swung Stahl around into the wall, but it didn’t loosen the cop’s grip on him.

  Stahl had not forgotten that the man had just awakened. He was still barefoot. Stahl stomped on the cop’s instep, and used the second of intense pain to break free. He grasped his razor-sharp commando knife and spun around, slashing the man’s throat. The cop fell to the floor bleeding.

  Stahl whirled. The two guards behind him were freeing themselves from their blankets. Stahl lunged toward the nearest man, stuck the knife up under the center of his rib cage and found his heart. He snatched the man’s blanket, threw it over the second guard and shot him through the head with the rifle.

  Stahl stepped to the padlock, used the big knife to pry the hasp out of the wooden door, and opened it.

  Inside was a closet with two steamer trunks stored on the floor so that the emaciated, dirty man crouching on the trunks could not stand up and straighten his back.

  Five minutes later Dick Stahl walked along the narrow, dimly lit street that led to the square of Corazón de Maria, his open raincoat sloughing off the gentle drizzle. His right hand was stuck in his raincoat pocket and through the slash he had made in the inner fabric so he could hold the 5.56-mm Steyr AUG 3 M1 under the coat. The forty-two-round magazine made the weapon bulky and heavy, but he had removed part of the bullpup stock and shortened the sixteen-inch barrel to make it lighter and easier to hide.

  His left hand held Benjamin Glover’s arm. Glover was unsteady, almost staggering, because the muscles in his legs had cramped and tightened during the ten days he was imprisoned in a closet that was too low to allow him to straighten them.