The Bomb Maker Read online

  “I’ll buy that,” said Hines. “We’ll take away most of his victims.”

  “We can’t move the main charge like this unless we know what’s meant to detonate it,” said Stahl. “So let’s do this without moving it.”

  Stahl said, “Slightly different method this time. Let’s get some ice from the freezer in the station’s store. We pack the outside of the tube with ice. We leave the bomb in its cradle to help keep it steady, and then saw the cone off. But first we drill the cone to be sure it really is there just to focus the blast, and there’s nothing in it.”

  Elliot went into the store and brought back three bags of ice, but they didn’t open them, because water from the melting could short-circuit any stray wires and set off the device. Hines was the one to drill into the cone. When she finished, they held the flexible camera up to the hole and looked in. Elliot said, “It’s empty. All the action is upstairs.”

  Hines used the electric hacksaw to remove the cone. She picked it up, looked at the inner surface, and said, “Copper it is.”

  They cooled the outside surface with the ice bags, and then Stahl removed them and stared at the bomb. “You know, that end cap at the top looks like it might be threaded. Let’s see if we can unscrew it.”

  “How?” asked Hines.

  “You two hold the tube tight as you can, and I’ll try to unscrew the cap.”

  The three assumed their positions, and Stahl tried to turn it.

  “It won’t budge,” said Elliot.

  Stahl leaned into the trunk to get his helmet’s faceplate close to the end cap and ran his flashlight around the cap. “There’s some residue here.” He touched it with his finger. “It looks like epoxy. That could be part of what the guy spent seven point five seconds doing in the trunk. He didn’t need seven seconds to flip a switch. He probably put epoxy on the rim of the tube to form a seal before he closed it.”

  Elliot said, “Once he had the tube packed and wired, he wouldn’t want anybody to open it again.”

  Hines said, “What do you want to do?”

  “I’ll be right back.” Stahl went to the truck and took the microphone. “This is Stahl.”

  “Yes, sir. What do you need?”

  “I need to detonate a bomb in the Los Angeles River. It has to be close, within walking distance of this gas station.”

  “A bomb? In the river?”

  “Yes. There’s very little open space around here. We’re in the middle of the city, and we have a bomb we’ll need to detonate. The bomb is high explosive, and far too big and powerful to be transported in a containment vessel. I believe it has a fuze so sensitive that towing it will just convert the containment vessel into shrapnel. The riverbed is concrete, the sides are about twenty feet deep, and it’s dry right now. That’s the only place that makes much sense to me.”

  “I don’t know. We’ll have to get permission.”

  “Call Deputy Chief Ogden. Tell him what I want, and have him handle the permission. I just need the maintenance gate in the fence opened. Got it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Two minutes later, David Ogden was on the radio. He said, “What’s wrong with a robot? That’s what a robot is for—to carry dangerous stuff.”

  Stahl said, “Dave, the main triggering device we found in the car was a mercury tilt switch. If we had moved the car, there wouldn’t be much left of this neighborhood. The stuff we took out and the other team detonated seems to be homemade Semtex, and it all worked as well as the real thing. What we’ve got is a vertical tube, ten inches in diameter and over two feet long, filled with more Semtex. The cap on top is epoxied shut. What I think might be under there are a battery and a second mercury switch, placed there just for people like my team, who might be stupid enough to try to remove it.”

  “Okay. Wait for my call.”

  Stahl looked down from the cab and saw Hines and Elliot standing a few feet away. They had both removed their helmets, and their hair was drenched with sweat. They looked shocked, their eyes wide.

  “What can we do?” said Hines.

  “Help me rig a harness for the device. It should be in front of me, so the weight hangs on my shoulders, but not strapped tight. I’ll need to use my hands to keep it level.”

  “We can use one of the backpacks for the straps and the body,” said Hines. “We’ll add a floor so the bomb can’t shift.”

  Elliot said, “Boss, I’d like to be the one who does this.”

  “No,” said Stahl.

  “I’m younger and stronger.”

  “Better looking too,” said Stahl. “But I’m older, and I outrank you by so much I can barely see you down there. So forget it and help me get ready.”

  Stahl got out of the driver’s seat, went to the toolboxes along the side of the truck, and opened each until he found a carpenter’s level. He held it up. “The secret weapon.”

  7

  It was late afternoon now, and there was a procession moving north in the center of the empty pavement of Laurel Canyon Boulevard.

  As in many parades, the first cars were four black-and-white patrol cars with their colored lights flashing. They went at the speed of a slow walk five hundred feet ahead of the procession. Two of them stopped across the blocked entrance ramps to the 101 Freeway and the others parked across the lanes beyond. The next vehicle was the Team One bomb unit truck towing a containment vessel behind it.

  Then, about two hundred feet behind the Bomb Squad’s truck, walked a single man wearing a harness made from a backpack that had once held a professional first aid kit. The spirit level was taped to the top of the rig, so the bubbles in the three glass tubes of the level were directly under his eyes as he walked.

  He was five hundred feet ahead of the next pair of police cars. Behind them came a fire truck: a pumper that carried water and fire extinguishing chemicals. Next there were three ambulances, and after them, four more police cars. The whole procession was more than a block long, most of it shiny official vehicles with colored warning lights flashing.

  The convoy to conduct Dick Stahl to the gate leading down to the concrete riverbed made a strange, dreamlike parade. All the police officers, firefighters, and paramedics in their powerful specialized vehicles were silent, rolling along before and behind the solitary walking figure of the man harnessed to the bomb. When Dick Stahl arrived at the station this morning he had been wearing a plain black sport coat, gray slacks, and casual walking shoes. Much of the day he had worn the heavy bomb suit. But now he wore his civilian shirt and slacks again. His clothes made him look like an outsider, maybe a penitent or a prisoner—certainly not a bomb expert. A man carrying fifty pounds of plastic explosives packed in a metal pipe was not going to be any safer wearing a protective suit.

  Stahl moved with great care, his gait like a slow-motion version of the heel-and-toe steps of a tightrope walker, his eyes on the small glass tubes of the carpenter’s level. Now and then he made minuscule adjustments in response to the positions of the bubbles in the tubes of the level.

  Stahl had been the source of the neighborhood evacuation order before. He hoped nobody had been foolish enough to stay in any of the nearby wood-and-stucco apartment buildings to hide behind blinds or curtains and watch him make his walk. If this bomb were triggered, many of the buildings within five hundred feet—just where he would be close enough for an occupant to see him clearly—would be heavily damaged.

  The explosives he’d seen seemed to be a form of Semtex. Factory-made Semtex had a detonation velocity of twenty-six thousand feet per second and at the explosion’s center produced heat of three thousand degrees. These numbers renewed his alertness and his patience, two conflicting feelings. He used both to focus his concentration on keeping the bomb level.

  Stahl could visualize the mercury tilt switch he believed had been placed under the cap of the device. It would be just like the first one they’d found earlier. There would be the glass tube, the shining slivery blob of mercury at the bottom, the two copper wires
glued to the inside surface, connecting to a battery and to a blasting cap embedded in the explosive. He kept his eyes on the bubbles in the level as he walked.

  Stahl reached the gate, which had been opened. It was a few yards past the wide bridge carrying the six lanes of Laurel Canyon Boulevard over the Los Angeles River. He had reached his first goal, but now he faced the most difficult steps, carrying the bomb down into the riverbed.

  He paused at the gateway and looked down. He saw the bomb truck waiting in the concrete trough of the riverbed. Hines and Elliot had unhitched the containment vessel from the back of the truck and opened the lid of the vessel for him.

  The other vehicles, the ones behind Stahl, were assuming their places, where they would not be in a direct line of fire if the bomb went off in the concrete channel. He looked at the ramp that led into the dry river. The ramp was wide enough for a dump truck to come down safely, but there were places where gravel or stray pebbles lay on the surface. He memorized them and the uneven spots, then took a deep breath and began to walk again.

  He took each step so slowly that he imagined the people watching him must find it difficult even to detect his progress. He stopped occasionally to recheck the surface ahead, and then went on.

  Finally, he was at the bottom of the ramp. He advanced two small steps and stopped to watch the bubbles before he took the third step down.

  On solid, level pavement now, he walked steadily to the bomb containment vessel, where Hines and Elliot waited.

  “Well done, boss,” said Elliot. “Let me steady the bomb while Hines helps you out of the harness.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Just keep your eye on the level.”

  Hines gently undid the clasps and lifted the rig, and Stahl slid the straps off his shoulders. Keeping the bomb vertical with Elliot’s help, he said, “Have you got the rack inside to keep it from tilting?”

  “Yes,” Hines said. “I’ll help steady it. You and Elliot can lift it and then lower it into the rack in the containment vessel. I’m going to count to three, and you’ll both lift it slowly and together. Ready?”

  “Yes.”

  “One. Two. Three.”

  Stahl and Elliot lifted the cylinder, moved it to the opening of the containment vessel, and lowered it into the bomb maker’s wooden frame. They both held it there for a few seconds, not quite ready to call it safe. Then they released it and slowly withdrew their hands. Hines closed and latched the lid of the steel vessel.

  Stahl closed his eyes, shrugged his shoulders a few times, and then laughed. “Nice job. Thank you both.”

  “Thank you, boss,” said Hines. “We still have to detonate. Do you want me to put a charge in there to initiate it?”

  “I think we need to know if we were right about the way it works,” Stahl said. “Let’s lay out a few hundred feet of rope. Then we’ll attach it to the containment vessel and give it a tug.”

  The bomb truck had a rope on a reel near the rear doors. Elliot paid out rope as Hines drove along the riverbed. They came to the spot where the concrete LA River met the concrete bed of the Tujunga Wash and turned a corner. When they had gone another two hundred feet, they set the reel on the concrete surface of the wash and drove back to the containment vessel. They tied the rope to the tow hitch of the containment vessel, drove back, returned the reel to the truck, and then set the reel so it wouldn’t turn. Stahl got on the radio.

  “This is Bomb Squad Team One. We’re ready to detonate the explosive device in the riverbed. We’d like to make our first attempt as soon as possible. Please alert all units in the vicinity of the river, and make sure they’re clear of this area. The vessel is seven hundred feet east of Laurel Canyon Boulevard, near the spot where the Tujunga Wash meets the riverbed. Please advise when all units have responded.”

  In a moment they saw fire engines, ambulances, and police cars moving. From where they were they could see that the bridge was clear, Moorpark was empty, and Laurel Canyon to the south looked clear. Most of the official vehicles had gone north under the freeway overpass, where they couldn’t be seen from below the street. Five minutes later, the ranking police officer on the scene, the North Hollywood captain, said, “The scene is clear and vehicles are blocking any access to your location. You may detonate at will.”

  “Roger.” Stahl looked ahead at Hines in the driver’s seat and Elliot in the seat beside her. “Are you both ready up there?”

  “Ready,” she said. “How do you want this to happen?”

  “I think as soon as the vessel moves an inch, the detonation will be instantaneous. When I say ‘fire in the hole,’ drive and take up the slack at fifteen miles an hour. Start the engine and stand by. And put your ear protectors on.”

  Hines started the engine and the two fastened their seat belts, put their earphones on, and squared their backs against their seats.

  Stahl said, “This is Bomb Squad Team One. We will attempt to detonate in five seconds.” He waited five seconds and then announced into the radio: “Fire in the hole. Fire in the hole.” He put on his ear protectors and sat back in his seat.

  Hines drove, accelerating as she went. When they ran out of rope, they never felt the drag, or had time to see the rope snap taut. Instead, there was a deafening roar, and a shock wave that rose from the earth beneath the concrete and bounced their truck on its springs. They felt the shock in their bellies, like a punch.

  Hines let the truck coast for a moment, holding the steering wheel straight, then braked to a full stop. She looked over her shoulder at Stahl. “Yep. Another mercury rocker switch.”

  Stahl said, “The battery and the rest of the circuit were all under the cap where we couldn’t get at them. We’ll have to make sure everyone knows he does that.”

  8

  The maker watched the idiotic report on the eleven o’clock news. The commentary from the reporters was so ill informed and full of false authority that hearing it was like listening to a child trying to repeat an adult conversation he’d overheard from a distance.

  The bomb maker muted the television set. He had no need of the report even if it had been accurate. He knew the mechanisms found in the car because he had built them.

  But seeing the odd procession of vehicles with the one man carrying the shaped charge like a baby in a sling amused him a little. He wondered if that man had known exactly how sensitive the mercury switch had been, and how close he had been to becoming a whiff of smoke. Watching that one man walk alone down the street followed at a safe, cowardly distance by the enormous trucks and heavily armed cops made him laugh. What a fool that man was.

  He was mesmerized and ecstatic watching the footage of the explosion when they detonated his device. There was a terrific blast that sent fragments of the containment vessel and pieces of shrapnel up and outward. The bomb technicians had turned his shaped charge into a standard bomb before they set it off, so the twenty-foot-deep concrete trench of the dry riverbed had caught the punishment. That was too bad, but the explosives had been great. He pressed the reverse button to watch the explosion again and again, slowing it down and watching objects in the background, the movement of the flying metal, the cracking of the concrete walls of the river.

  The pictures of the windows blown inward in the buildings on Laurel Canyon and Moorpark Street, the bottles and cans shaken off shelves in the stores along Ventura Boulevard, and the incidental, comical things that had been swept over by the force of the blast—a few trees along the river, a stop sign, a couple of fences, some tables with umbrellas, a row of parked cars—delighted him.

  When the reporter interviewed the locals about their reactions to his device, he couldn’t resist turning the volume up. Several people said they thought it had been an earthquake. They were from Los Angeles, so everything big and scary felt like an earthquake to them. Two of them thought a missile had hit nearby, and another thought a house with a gas leak had blown up.

  Listening to these people lightened his mood. And even the fact that there had bee
n no casualties didn’t depress him much. His car bomb had tied up a bomb team for a whole day, held thousands of cars in traffic for about nine hours, dominated the national news, and made the entire country aware that Los Angeles had a problem. And whether the general public knew it or not, the Bomb Squad knew they had survived only by making lucky guesses about twenty times in a row. Only one day ago he had killed half the LA Bomb Squad. He’d accomplished the largest police kill-off in history.

  And today, just like yesterday, everything had worked. His plastic explosives hadn’t been manufactured by a company in the Czech Republic. He had made the whole supply himself—over two hundred pounds—and it had been as good as the factory-made version. It was stable, easy to detonate, powerful, uniform, and reliable.

  He had made the PETN with nitric acid, pentaerythritol, lye, and acetone—measuring, mixing, cooling, heating, and filtering. He had fabricated the RDX crystals and crushed the two mixtures into powder with a wooden rolling pin and mixed them in a jar. Breaking them down and combining them any other way would have detonated them. He had made a paste of the powder with petroleum jelly, shaped the explosive paste into bricks, and wrapped them, leaving them to solidify further like bread in baking pans until he needed them.

  Making the plastic explosive successfully had liberated him. He didn’t need anybody to make him powerful. He could make his perfect weapon himself. There were many men who had attempted these same procedures—mixing and agitating these highly explosive compounds to combine their power—who had died in the process.

  He had built his own mercury switches to set off the shaped charge. During the day he had wondered if he had somehow botched the switches. But then, when the bomb technicians detonated the bomb by moving the containment vessel, he knew his workmanship wasn’t the problem. Still, he resolved to start using more ready-made components to avoid uncertainty. Mercury switches could be purchased, or he could take one from any of a number of junked machines—the trunk-lid lights and braking systems of cars built before 2003, the anti-tilt mechanisms in vending machines and pinball machines.