The Bomb Maker Read online

  “About an inch of ice, please.”

  He prepared her drink and poured one for himself. He brought them to the couch and set hers on the coffee table in front of her where she could reach it. Then he sat in the armchair across from the couch and lifted his glass. “To the duds.”

  “To the duds,” she said.

  “You said you wanted to talk?”

  “I think I said I needed to talk. I’m sorry to come here like this, but it was kind of inevitable after today. If you hadn’t tagged along on that call, I’d be dead. When I got home I watched that explosion in the riverbed about forty times, and it scared me even more each time.” She took a sip of her drink.

  “It was a big charge,” he said. “You must have known it would be at the start. Nobody needs a car to deliver a pipe bomb.”

  “It’s that retroactive feeling that got to me tonight,” she said. “You can do what you have to do at the time. Some combination of training and focus and caution gets you through. But later you start to shiver and feel weird and feel panicky, and you look for ways to get back to normal. As I was thinking about that a few hours ago I noticed I had developed an interest in seeing you.”

  “So you came over for a drink. It was probably the right thing to do. A drink and a talk will probably help us both work through what happened today and yesterday.”

  “I think so,” she said. “You’re a reassuring presence.”

  “I cultivate that for my business,” he said. “I make faces in front of the mirror until I hit on one that will make people think I’m the guy who can solve their problems. It makes them pay my outrageous fees.”

  Diane laughed and they both sipped their drinks and set them down at the same time. Diane took a deep breath and then started again. “Here’s my problem. When I was working with you today, I was doing things—cutting steel, disconnecting circuits, moving explosives, searching for signs of tampering or components that didn’t belong. But I was just an extra set of hands for you. I wasn’t doing the thinking. You were. I could see right away that you knew things Elliot and I didn’t. I need to know those things. I could tell today that my life depends on it. This guy has hit two days in a row. I don’t think he’s going away.”

  Stahl shrugged. “I think I know what you’re feeling. You haven’t seen anything quite like the one today. And yesterday was pure horror—friends and teammates killed for no apparent reason. We lost people who were part of our lives. If I tell somebody a funny story, there’s a good chance one of those fourteen guys made it up. Whenever I remember the years I spent on the force, some of those faces will be part of the picture in my mind. And today you did what you were supposed to, but it cost you. It might take you a little while to get past the shock and the loss. If you need a couple of extra days to recover, I’ll do my best to get them for you.”

  “That’s a lot to ask of you, and it’s not what I want.”

  “I’m trying to be a reassuring presence,” he said. “How do I do that?”

  “I think you’ve figured out some things about this bomber. Tell me.”

  He took another sip. “Judging from the surveillance tapes, he works alone. He wasn’t sent by some foreign government that supplies him with factory-made explosives or sophisticated gear. The house in Encino was initiated by a photographer’s intervalometer he could have bought at a good camera store, and the car was full of homemade switches and explosives. The devices at the Encino house made me realize that what he intended was to kill bomb technicians. That was all his complicated trap was good for. So today I guessed that the next device I saw was going to be an attempt to get rid of a few more of us. That meant each component would be designed to mislead and deceive a technician.”

  “So what are we supposed to do with that information?” she said.

  “Don’t think in terms of devices made to kill some guy’s enemy as he checks his mailbox one morning. This is not about civilian victims. It’s about predicting what a trained bomb technician will do to render the device safe, and turn that action into a trigger. You have to think about the logical procedure you would usually follow with his device, and then dismiss that option and think of some other way around the triggers he might have built in.”

  “That explains something,” she said. “Part of what shook me today was that sometimes I thought I knew what to do, and you kept choosing the opposite, and each time that turned out to be right. I guess what I want you to say next is that it’s going to be okay, and we’re going to be able to handle whatever this guy is dreaming up right now, arrest him, and walk away.”

  “I’m going to try,” he said. “I’m confident you will too.” He shrugged. “It’s a great advantage to have somebody on the team who’s got small hands, thin arms, flexible joints, and a quick brain.”

  They talked for a long time about the events of the day, going over each component they had found in the car and the decision Stahl had made about how to circumvent or neutralize it, and what other choices there had been.

  Later their talk turned to fighting back—the various items they had found and saved, the images that had been preserved on surveillance video, and all of the other paths that could lead to the identification of the bomb maker. Stahl said, “At the Encino house everything got destroyed. But we bought ourselves some chances today. At the gas station nothing got destroyed except the explosives. We have everything else he brought to the scene.”

  At midnight he said, “It’s getting kind of late. Are you okay to drive home? If you’re not, I have a guest room.”

  “I could drive, but I don’t want to.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure. I’m not sleepy. I’ll even make you breakfast before I take off.”

  He went back to the kitchen counter, brought back the bottle, refilled their glasses, and set the bottle on the coffee table. Then he sat down in the armchair again.

  “Why over there?” she said. “You’re not going to make this easy for me, are you?”

  “What?”

  “You know. Getting you interested.”

  “I was interested as soon as I met you, but I figured I could wait until only one of us was still a cop. I sat here so I could see you better. I like watching your eyes. They’re beautiful.”

  She sipped her drink. “I know. I have a really cute body, too. I think it’s from the stuff they make you do in the academy. I’ve been doing the workouts ever since.” She held him with her eyes. “You know, I think I’ve talked enough for now. Have you?”

  “For now. Would you like to finish your drink in the bedroom?” he said.

  “At last. An invitation that came from you.”

  10

  Stahl opened his eyes. The curtains dimmed the room, but he knew the world was light beyond them. He heard the shower come on, and then he thought about the way the night had ended. He let his hand run along the top of the sheet beside him, even though he knew where she was.

  He reached in the opposite direction and picked up his phone from the bedside table. It was six o’clock. The shifts would change at eight. There were no missed calls on the screen, but there were plenty of other things—e-mails, tweets, text messages. He scanned the names and knew he was free to ignore them. They were reporters and acquaintances, and one text from Valerie, saying only that she was glad he had made it through the car bomb, and that the check from Mrs. Glover had cleared. None of them were police business except a reminder from his new assistant, Andy, about the police funeral at eleven.

  The door to the bathroom swung open and there stood Diane Hines, naked, twisting her hair into a professional-looking bun. Her eyes focused on Stahl’s. “What?” she said. “There’s nothing you haven’t seen several times, close up.”

  “I was wondering if my luck would hold.”

  She lifted the edge of the sheet, slipped into the bed, and slid to the middle beside him. She put her arm over his chest and kissed him. “Yes.”

  Then she said, “But right now we’ve
got to get ready for work. I remember promising I’d make breakfast. While you get your shower and dress, I’ll do it.” She swung her feet off the bed and stood again.

  He said, “The memorial service is this morning at eleven and I don’t have a new police uniform yet.” He got out of bed.

  She turned toward the hallway. “I’m sure you have a nice dark suit.”

  “Hey,” he said. “Aren’t you going to ask me if there’s anything I don’t like?”

  “If you don’t like it, why would you have it in your kitchen?”

  “Good point. See you in a few minutes.” As she started to move again he pulled her back and held her for a few seconds, kissing her one last time.

  “No hurry,” she said. “I can be late. I’m screwing the boss.”

  He released her.

  “I am, right?” she said. “If I came to your door some other night after work, you wouldn’t lock your paranoid locks and gates and pretend you’re not home?”

  “Never. If you still want to face the risk now that you’re sober.”

  “I’ll take the chance. As you said, in a couple of weeks only one of us will still be a cop.”

  “So come back tonight.” He walked toward the bathroom.

  “I will.” The door closed. She whispered, “If we’re both still alive.”

  When she heard the shower she went back into the bedroom and put on the clothes she’d left there. Then she stepped into the living room and picked up the unopened bottle of Scotch on the coffee table and went to the kitchen to see what he had in his refrigerator.

  Within a few minutes she had the table set, eggs and bacon cooking on the stove, bread in the slots of the toaster, and fresh-ground coffee burbling through the filter.

  Stahl came out of the bedroom in a black suit that was too good and too expensive for a cop to wear to work. He looked into his kitchen, saw the food, sniffed the smells, and said, “Thank you, Diane. This is wonderful.”

  When they finished eating breakfast, Stahl sat back drinking coffee. “How do you want to handle work? Do you want to be moved to another team?”

  She shrugged. “No. I’ll go in my car and you go in yours. We spend our shift doing our jobs. Neither of us drops a clue about us to anyone. We go home. When I get cleaned up and feel human again I’ll give you a call.”

  “That will do.”

  “I’d better get to work. Can you handle the dishes?”

  “I can put them in the dishwasher and start it.”

  “That’ll do. See you later. Now push the buttons on your console so I can get out of the cell block.”

  He went to the door with her. “I want you to know I designed the security for this building, and I’m proud of it.”

  “You must have some amazing enemies.”

  “I do,” he said. “And if you keep hanging out with me, so will you.”

  11

  When Dick Stahl reached the First Street headquarters, Andy had a message for him. The Encino bomb murders had been assigned to Homicide Special. They were meeting to develop strategies for solving the case, and Stahl had been summoned.

  Stahl was not surprised that the case had gone to the elite Homicide Special section. The murder of fourteen cops in a fraction of a second was a national tragedy, and the department would do everything possible to ensure that nothing like it ever happened again.

  When Stahl was a cop, headquarters had been in the old Parker Center. The new headquarters had been completed since he left, so he was not yet familiar with the building. He walked to the Robbery-Homicide Division and asked the first plainclothes cop he saw where the Homicide Special section was. He could have walked to it with his eyes closed in Parker Center. The plainclothes cop saw Stahl’s captain’s badge at his belt and stood up. “This is the right office, sir. Whom can I get you?”

  “I’m Dick Stahl, Bomb Squad. I got invited to a meeting with Homicide.”

  The cop said, “I thought I recognized you from television. I’ll take you.”

  He led Stahl into an open mezzanine and up to a conference room door. He opened it and stepped inside, then returned with another detective with a captain’s badge and a white shirt.

  The captain held out his hand. He was a few inches shorter than Stahl, with expertly barbered black hair and the broad shoulders and thin waist of a wrestler, as though as a young man he had built muscles to make up for his short stature. “I’m Bart Almanzo. Welcome back to the force. You had a hell of a first day yesterday.”

  “I’m glad you got the case.” Stahl was sincere. Homicide Special included the best homicide detectives in the department, whoever they happened to be at the moment, and the best was what this case deserved. “Some of those guys were friends of mine, and others were technicians I hired. How can I help?”

  Almanzo said, “We’re having a meeting to share the first technical reports on the bombing, and if you’re able to spare the time, we want to hear anything you’d like to say.”

  “I’ll tell you the little I know so far.”

  They stepped inside and Stahl saw a dozen plainclothes officers in white shirts and ties, some wearing shoulder holsters and others wearing their weapons on their belts. The conference table was crowded with laptop computers, file folders, densely printed papers, and enlarged photographs. There were four women, two more than there would have been years ago when he’d last met with Homicide Special. Otherwise they looked about the same—cops in the middle of their careers, people who had learned a great deal and were ready for the next thing.

  Almanzo said, “Captain Stahl, would you like to start?”

  “All right. Here’s my interpretation of what I’ve seen. The surveillance tapes from yesterday’s attempted bombing make me think this is one man who works alone, not a political or religious group. This bomb maker is good. He has a sure hand and a very sophisticated sense of what a bomb technician is likely to look for and how he’ll go about making the bomb safe. That argues for some experience. He’s not at a point in his life where he can get military explosives—C-4 or Semtex. He’s had to make his own. That adds to my impression that he’s working alone.”

  Stahl looked at the detectives, who were paying close attention. “That’s very bad news, because it makes him more independent and more dangerous. We think the explosive he’s been using is a homemade version of Semtex. Making it is a tricky task, because the main part of the formula is to mix two already powerful explosives, RDX and PETN. Since he can’t buy either of them, he must be making them. But because the ingredients are not perfectly controlled, he can make an unlimited supply. If an ingredient becomes scarce, he can simply move back a step in the process and make the components of the ingredient.”

  “What do you suggest we look at first?”

  “He used number eight commercial blasting caps for his car bomb. We took some out unexploded, so they can probably be traced to a source using model numbers and lot numbers. I don’t imagine tracing will lead directly to him, but it may give us something else—a licensed contact, a supplier. The car he left at the station has to have a history. He either bought it or stole it from somebody. He was all over it, touching many parts of it to turn it into a bomb. If we’re really lucky he might even have left a fingerprint. His switches are often the simplest kinds of devices to complete a circuit—wires attached to metallic surfaces that will connect for an instant if a door is closed or a spring is released or a button is pressed. But one thing he really loves is a mercury tilt switch. He knows we don’t want to defuse any bombs. What we want to do with a bomb is move it away from a populated area and detonate it. A mercury switch means that trying to move it will kill you.”

  “Is he military trained?”

  “I don’t know. There are signs he’s self-taught. His designs are eccentric, made for a single use on a single day. He’s good at improvising. He likes to build in redundancies like backup switches and separate charges, so a bomb will have several ways to detonate. That tendency is often part of
the amateur mentality. Think of the guys who send mail bombs. The amateurs overwrap them. You know. It would look just like a normal package but it has layers and layers of tape around it. But it’s too early to assume this guy is untrained. He might be doing some of this to point investigators away from himself.”

  “Could this man be a former Bomb Squad member who has a grudge?”

  Stahl shrugged. “I can’t rule it out yet. I would definitely take a look at a rejected applicant who was angry, or a person who has served time for planting a bomb or possessing explosives in Los Angeles. It won’t hurt to look at the lists of men and women who have been in the FBI bomb tech school at Redstone, Alabama, or Fort Lee, Virginia, particularly if they washed out. But first I’d look at people who have been through demolition school in a foreign military service. An American graduate might make C-4, because he’s used to handling it. A graduate from some other country might make Semtex for the same reason. Semtex was bought and used by all of the former Communist countries, the Irish Republican Army, and terrorist states like Libya. You might say any country where soldiers were issued Kalashnikov rifles probably used Semtex for demolition.”

  “Any indication of what he’s trying to accomplish?” Almanzo asked.

  “He made a phone call to report the rigged house in Encino. There was no reason to report his own bomb unless he wanted bomb technicians to come to the scene. I think chaining the car to the gas pumps yesterday was also intended to lure bomb technicians to a trap. If what he wants is to kill every bomb technician, he’s halfway to total success already.” He paused for a second. “We’re losing. I can honestly say that my own team of three is about as good as any bomb team I’ve ever seen. But it’s unlikely we would be able to pull off what we did yesterday a second time. This bomb maker knows that, and he’ll keep giving us opportunities to fail.”