by Rachel Lee
“Yeah.”
“So our guy doesn’t want to get inside someplace. He wants to work from the outside.”
Suddenly she put her breakfast aside. “I’m taking a walk.”
She wasn’t surprised when Alex came with her. The morning air still held the night’s chill, and she was glad to be wearing her ATF jacket. She walked back toward the entrance and spoke to the first deputy, Marcus. “Is there another way through this fence?”
He nodded. “You mean from before the fire trucks drove through it? Yeah. Want me to show you?”
“Please. I want to walk, though.”
He nodded. “Want me to bring my K9?”
For the first time she noted the dog in his back seat. “What kind of sniffing does he do?”
“Whatever I ask. He’s not a bomb dog, though. Until recently we didn’t have the need.”
“Yeah, I can imagine.”
So the trio and the dog began to walk along the shoulder. Here the road became mostly dirt, but not entirely. Patches of old pavement remained. Clumps of grass, a testament to nature’s determination, popped up here and there.
“It rained yesterday,” Marcus remarked.
“I was thinking about that,” Darcy answered. “Tire tracks?”
“Two recent sets. I don’t know if we’re looking for two guys or it’s coincidence. But I’m sure you’ll want to see what we found down here a ways.”
“I like the sound of that.”
Marcus smiled faintly. “Say, Alex, you got a profile going yet?”
“Truthfully? There’s not a whole lot to go on right now, but I’m inclined to think we’re dealing with someone who wants to send a message. And this building isn’t it.”
“I was afraid you might say that.”
Darcy spoke. “What kind of message?”
“I can’t be sure. My guess would be he’s mad about something, but don’t hold me to that, please. It’s early days yet.”
“But that’s the sense you’re getting?”
“At the moment.”
Darcy nodded. It would fit. There had to be a reason for blowing up empty buildings. For trial runs. An ultimate target. Someone who was angry about something? Entirely possible. A vet... Well, a vet could have a lot of reasons to be furious. “What about someone who just wants action?”
Alex shook his head. “I don’t think so. There are lots of other ways to get action, like volunteering for another tour.”
“I hear that’s not why guys keep going back.”
“Not usually. No, the psychology is more like, things were simpler on the battlefield. Clearer. Kill or be killed. Which is an extreme exaggeration, but you’ll hear that from a lot of vets who keep going back.”
“Well, that wouldn’t fit this.”
“No, so I’m thinking anger.”
Darcy listened to the crunch of their boots on the gravel mixed in with the grass lining the shoulder. No silence existed out here. Not that there’d be any even if the ground wasn’t so dry. Weary firefighters still stood around the building, smoking illicit cigarettes while watching the ruins for signs of smoke or more fire. As they walked farther, she could see inside the building—the damaged floors and ceiling and wires hanging down like threats. Going in there wouldn’t be wise until things were shored up.
Another delay. Damn, she wanted something she could really sink her teeth into. Thing was, when you worked with bombs, evidence tended to be in small bits and pieces. Unless, of course, you were lucky enough to find the axle of the bomber’s vehicle, and how often did that happen?
She was still staring into the open maw of the hole when she realized Marcus had pointed. She followed his gesture and saw the wire fence had been cut and inexpertly put back together.
“Hell,” she muttered. Nobody casually driving by would even notice that, which gave the bomber time to set everything up. Then, when he was ready, he could close the gap, covering his trail temporarily, while he took off.
As they got closer, she saw the tire ruts in the wet earth and grass. “Pickup,” she guessed.
“Looks like it,” Marcus said. “Dasher, look.”
At once the dog began sniffing around and decided the fence fascinated him, as did one spot on the ground.
“Reasonably fresh sign on the fence,” Marcus said, watching his dog. “He could smell it even after rain, but after a few weeks he wouldn’t be much interested. What’s getting my attention is his focus on that spot right there. Guess? The guy relieved himself. Times like this I wish Dasher could talk. He’d be able to tell me a whole lot.”
“Any way to tell if it was just one person?” Darcy asked.
“One set of blurry boot prints on the grass here. Maybe we should follow the tire tracks through the fence.”
“That won’t cause a security problem, will it?”
Alex answered, crooking one corner of his mouth, “No more than we already seem to have.”
Almost in spite of herself, she laughed. “True that,” she replied. “Well, let’s walk back and follow the fence line around from inside. Maybe Dasher will notice something else. This bomber must have scouted and maybe he didn’t always use the same hole in the fence.”
The trip proved fruitless, however. The truck tracks rutted through the wet ground approaching the building but not too closely.
Darcy stared at where they ended, evaluating. “Bigger bomb, but not so big he couldn’t carry it to the building. Maybe in pieces.” She pointed. “Then he backed out, right?”
“I’d agree,” said Marcus. “The tracks mostly run over each other. One set in, one set out—one vehicle and, from the trampled ground, my guess is one perp. From this point on, however, Dasher might have a problem tracking him because of the burn and explosion. Chances are he could, but unless it would serve a purpose, I’d rather not have him huffing whatever’s in the debris zone.”
Darcy nodded. “You’ve been a lot of help, but I agree. I registered some heavy metals last night while the fire was being put out. Nobody should go into the area without a mask.”
“We need to know,” Alex remarked, “what chemicals were being used in this plant. For safety reasons. Charity or Wade should have some idea in the firefighting plans.”
Marcus took his dog back to the entry gate, leaving Darcy and Alex to walk around the perimeter, eyes glued to the ground for stray pieces of evidence.
Overall, however, the situation was looking overwhelming to Darcy. Working a scene like this with a team was one thing. Doing it solo? Even with all the help the fire department and police were providing, the technical aspects of an explosion this size were probably too great for one person to handle.
And maybe the bomber was counting on that.
Chapter 10
Damn kid, the bomber thought. He couldn’t even go back now and see how much damage he’d managed to accomplish. If that kid had tracked him, someone else might have. Plus, he’d seen the kid talking to that female ATF agent. First he needed to pry every bit of knowledge out of that kid’s head. He wasn’t convinced the boy didn’t know a whole lot about what ATF was doing. He’d learned long ago in a land far away that kids weren’t exempt. No reason to think that just because someone looked young that they weren’t an active agent. Or that they didn’t know something important.
Then he had to get out of here. Quickly. Had to accelerate his plans as much as possible. He had one bomb almost ready to go, as soon as he was sure it was big enough and for that he needed to see the damage he’d done last night. But he also needed another one, and while he might be able to hurry the process, he wasn’t sure that would be wise unless he wanted to risk a failure.
How soon would that kid be missed? Maybe by the end of the day. Then they’d start looking for him and find his car a little past here.
So he should probably deal with
the car. Cover it in tumbleweeds, so it wouldn’t be easily visible from the air. He doubted a cop would drive this road anytime in the next few days. There wasn’t much out here that demanded their attention. Minimal camouflage was all he needed.
But he was tired. So tired. He’d burned up a lot of energy in setting up that bomb last night, then even more taking the kid out of the equation, at least for now.
Now the kid sat in an outbuilding by himself. He’d have to be fed and given some water soon, but not just yet.
Warren Trimble needed some rest. He was an angry man, but he was also a very sick man. He had a war he needed to finish, and he was rapidly passing the point of giving a damn whether any innocent people got in his way.
And that included the kid, whether he liked it or not. He had to tie the youngster up in a way that would make it clear to him he couldn’t get away. Then he had to get him to talk. But first, better binding. That kid wasn’t going anywhere ever again. Which meant drugging his water so he could chain him. Ropes and flex-cuffs wouldn’t last much longer.
Sipping some muddy coffee, he closed his eyes, waiting for his energy to return a bit. Politicians started wars, but bureaucrats finished their dirty work for them. How many guys wound up killing themselves or living under bridges because there was no help for them when they got home? No help with the nightmares and the horror.
And then there were those like him who got physically ill and stayed that way, getting worse year after year and being told they were malingering.
Malingering! Every time he thought of that word he felt white-hot rage. Two Purple Hearts and they accused him of malingering. He’d proved he wasn’t that kind of man by going back when he could have legitimately used his wounds to stay out of it.
And all his dead buddies—had they malingered themselves into early graves or severe disabilities?
Finally, many, many years later, they admitted maybe that Agent Orange wasn’t so safe for humans after all. Then came the fight to have your particular illness diagnosed as being a result of exposure. They had every excuse in the book for getting around that. At last, a disability allowance which didn’t begin to ease the pain, the suffering and finally the cancer that was killing him.
Yeah, he hated bureaucrats. And he was damn well going to make sure they remembered him and understood what they had done to him and so many other vets who had served their country. They deserved better than that. All of them. Your country called; you went; you bled, and if you were lucky enough to come home, you deserved proper treatment for your enduring problems, whatever they were, that had been caused by that service.
There was a time when he’d wanted to get even for himself. Then he’d watched the new waves of vets returning. Listened to the news and realized they were getting the shaft, as well. Medical care in the field was saving lives, but as soon as those lives got back here, they were tossed on the heap of “used up.” Not needed anymore. And all the talk about improving the VA wasn’t getting much done at all from what he heard. Suicide rates were through the roof. Maybe those guys would have been happier if field medicine hadn’t improved.
He didn’t know. What he did know was he wanted to send a message for all of them, from past wars to future wars. Soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines weren’t collateral damage. They weren’t detritus. And if you asked young people to go, then you damn well ought to take care of them when they got home.
Nearly growling under his breath, he set to work soldering his final detonator. The last thing he’d do would be to mix the ANFO and put it in the ammo cases. He’d have to be feeling more rested before he could do that. Measurements were critical.
He rose, every inch of his body shrieking, and went to the cupboard shelf to pull out the det cord. For some reason he’d lately got edgy about whether he had enough of it. He knew he did. How many times had he measured it, the supply from years ago when he’d still been able to work and had lifted some from his job on a road construction crew.
But he measured it again anyway. He was past the point where he could afford a mistake.
At first he’d only wanted the bureaucrats, but he wouldn’t mind taking some agents out, too. Somebody needed to start paying attention. And Warren Trimble was going to make them sit up and listen.
* * *
It was growing dark. The floodlights had an odd effect on vision. Big pieces of debris were very visible, but shadows were washed away by the surrounding lights. They provided security, but were beginning to become useless to help with finer work.
Darcy had taken measurements with the help of Alex and a few firefighters, and had a good idea of the blast radius inside and outside. She had the fire department’s detailed description of the structure and saw that it was basically more of the same: concrete block with floors made out of reinforced concrete slabs.
“They really weren’t expecting a fire,” Charity remarked as the evening died. “Certainly not a bomb. Some of that collapse is just weak construction. To a point it was fireproof, but when temperatures get high enough...” She shrugged.
Darcy agreed.
“But I want you two to see something because it has a bearing on how you measure this.”
They followed her, avoiding the blackened bomb radius as much as possible, and then, slipping inside, the gaping maw the bomb had made in the building.
Charity pointed. “This was part of the reason we had so much trouble putting this out. Something in here burned hot enough to make aluminum liquefy. That’s about twelve hundred degrees, so add that to your calculations. It wasn’t the bomb, though.”
Darcy stared at the silver river running across the blackened concrete flooring. “Can you tell what else burned?”
“We’re looking, but I don’t think your bomber was planning on this. A side effect, maybe, but that’s what was giving us fits last night. Most of the fires we deal with reach temperatures only half that high. Unless it’s a forest fire anyway. So some of the damage you’re going to be measuring here needs to take that into account.”
“It certainly does.” Again Darcy found herself wishing for a team. So many loose ends and she was trying to grab them all into her own two hands. “Thanks, Charity.”
“I’ll let you know if we find anything else. Meantime, I’m leaving it to the sheriff to guard this place. I need some sleep.”
“That’s a good idea,” Alex said as he and Darcy circled away. She never stopped scanning the ground, as if some clue would leap out at her. But it had been a long day of sorting through detritus and she seriously wondered if she’d recognize a detonator if it leaped out at her.
Just as they were back on the grass and striding slowly to the gate, she paused and pointed.
“What?” he asked.
“Det cord.” Squatting, she used her tablet to take a photo of it. Then she pulled a laser range finder out of one of her pockets and measured the distance to what she believed to be the point of the explosion. After taking a few steps to the right, she took another reading, triangulating.
“Okay,” she said finally. “Tomorrow’s another day. And this guy is going to need at least a little time to get another one of these ready.”
She hoped. Because she sure as hell wasn’t going to find him standing here with bleary eyes. Meanwhile, the information she’d already uploaded was grinding along and would soon come back to her with a suggested plot of where everything had been placed.
Twelve hundred degrees? God.
* * *
Once again they picked up dinner at the diner and took it back to Alex’s house with them.
Darcy joined him at his kitchen table and had a sudden thought. “Alex?”
“Yeah?” He was busy moving food from foam containers to real plates.
“How enlightened is this place?”
“Meaning?”
“Is my staying here going to get you i
n trouble with the school board or anything?”
He laughed. “I think we’ve moved out of the twentieth century.”
“Are you sure?” But she liked the way his eyes twinkled as he smiled at her. He must be every bit as tired as she was feeling after this day, but he wasn’t showing it.
“Absolutely.” He pushed a plate her way with utensils and passed her one of the coffees. “I’m trying to remember the last time anyone around here gave a damn about a teacher’s living arrangement. Oh, yeah, one time.”
“Really? Why was that different?”
His tone turned dry. “Because the teacher was dating an underage student.”
Darcy felt her jaw drop, then closed it. She wasn’t that sheltered. “Is that growing more common or something?”
“I think we’re just hearing about it more often. So no, I’m not worried that folks are going to get bent because the shop teacher has an ATF agent staying for a few days. Everyone knows the condition of the local motel.”
“Might be a good project for someone, although I have to say the place is awfully clean. No complaints in that department.”
Their meal was mostly quiet. Alex spoke briefly about some of the projects his students had been working on that the bomb had destroyed, but even that trailed away.
Darcy was sure they were both thinking about the second bomb.
But not just the bomb. The sexual miasma that had gripped them this morning before their phones rang seemed to be seeping into the room with them once again. She felt it begin to sparkle through her body until an ache built once again deep within her.
She tried to argue herself out of giving in to it. This wasn’t professional. She had a job to do. She should be spending every single minute trying to find some link to the bomber that the local authorities would use. She wasn’t even sure they’d have as much time before the next bomb, time for the FBI to send some agents to help.
Although she wasn’t sure exactly how they’d help. From what she’d seen of the local police, they had a huge leg up on outsiders: they knew nearly everyone. If someone was out of kilter in this county, he was probably already under the microscope even if he didn’t know it.