The Bomb Maker

by Thomas Perry

  There was a pause, and then Elliot said, “Move back a little so I can photograph the device out of your shadow.” Then he added, “Can you see the place where the clock is connected to the firing circuit?”

  Crowell said, “It’s got to be this wire here. And there’s one on the other side of it too. Want me to cut it?”

  “I’d love to get the timer issue off the table at the start, but no. We’re not dismantling it unless we have to. The clock looks as though it’s set for seven o’clock, and that gives us time.”

  His voice rose. “Hines? The vest isn’t attached to anything bigger. Let’s get Andros out to pick up the device and put it into the containment vessel.”

  “Roger,” said Hines. She opened the truck door and climbed down, then opened the rear of the truck to pull down the ramp. She climbed up and detached the robot’s mountings, then picked up the control unit, steered the robot down the ramp to the street, and lifted the ramp back up. The robot was an older model that had been refurbished to replace worn parts. To Hines, the control mechanism seemed slightly stiff, and she knew that in this situation she was most likely to be the one to pilot the robot. She tested the control by making the robot wheel around in a circle and zigzag. She moved its arm and opened and closed its gripper, looked at the image that appeared on its screen, and then brought it back to the rear of the truck.

  Across the street from the bomb, the maker looked out the window and watched the two men in bomb suits. They knelt close to the vest. He could tell they were communicating as they studied his device. He kept hoping one of them would reach out and try to cut one of the obvious connections he had made, and then try to remove components. He couldn’t see their hands because the suits exaggerated their bulk, and their hands were in front of them. All he could see were their elbows.

  When the two technicians turned their bodies to look at something down the street, he moved back in the shadows, then to the side of the window so he could see what they were looking at. The Bomb Squad truck was near the end of the block. It faced in the direction of the bomb vest. That was unusual, but he decided it was because the street was too narrow to turn a truck sideways. A moment later he saw what the technicians were watching for. The Bomb Squad robot came around the back of the truck and rolled past it. Someone was operating the remote control to bring the robot forward.

  The robot meant the bomb maker was running out of time. Things were happening too soon. This had just begun. The two men standing near the bomb had just begun to examine the vest. They hadn’t so much as opened a tool bag. They weren’t trying to render it safe or carry it to the containment vessel.

  He had to do something. He climbed onto the desk behind the upended table, rested his rifle on the edge, and looked through the scope. He could see they both wore new-style EOD suits, the very best available. The helmet could withstand a bullet traveling 2,000 feet per second. The front of the torso would stop a projectile at 4,500 feet per second. The arms and legs would not be penetrated at 1,850 feet per second, and the joints all overlapped. There was no point in shooting at a man in a bomb suit. What the bomb maker had to do was set off the high explosive in the vest, which would propel shrapnel at them at 26,000 feet per second from just a few feet away.

  The maker took careful aim at the bomb. He had embedded a blasting cap in each of the twelve sticks of dynamite. He had attached a plastic container of mercury fulminate to the inside of the clock behind the face. All he had to do was hit the clock, and everything would explode. Even if he missed the clock, he would hit the Tannerite, set it off, and the shock would set off the main charges. The two technicians would be torn apart.

  He watched them through the scope. The two oafs were standing in front of the alley, blocking his view of his bomb vest. He must get them to move. He decided he’d have to bet on their reflexes and impulses. He squeezed the trigger.

  The man who had been blocking his view was hit on the ankle, and the impact made him fall onto his side. There was no hope the bullet had pierced even the outer layer of the suit, but it had hurt him. The problem now was that the damned idiot had fallen in front of the vest, so his stupid body still blocked the bomb maker’s view.

  He fired again and the bullet hit the arm of the suit. The man clutched the arm, but didn’t get up. But the shot made the man’s companion squat, bring his arms around the man’s torso, and practically lift him to his feet. They turned, as though to look for the shooter, so he fired four more shots, hitting the tall one who had helped the other in the front of his helmet, his leg, and his helmet again. They hobbled out of his way.

  The bomb maker placed the crosshairs on the clock face and fired, but there was no explosion. The blast should have been instantaneous. He tried to adjust his aim, but all he could see through the scope was a featureless black surface.

  He lowered the rifle to look over the scope and saw what had happened. In front of him, blocking his view, was the bomb truck. Another bomb technician had heard his shots, seen the two men in suits under fire, and driven the bomb truck forward to put it between him and his bomb.

  He had to get the bomb technician in the truck to panic and drive away. He fired on the truck’s cab. The first bullet slammed into the truck’s door. The second shattered the side window, and then he saw the driver. It was a young, dark-haired woman dressed in a navy-blue police uniform. She ducked down, slithered out the passenger side door, and disappeared.

  He collapsed the rifle’s stock, put the rifle in its case, closed it, and ran to the stairwell. In seconds he was out the back door of the office building. He moved down the alley behind the building and reached the parking lot on Cherokee where he had left his rental car. He got in and drove up Hollywood Boulevard toward Laurel Canyon and the San Fernando Valley, spitting out a string of twenty expletives about the woman who had taken away his kill.

  15

  Stahl watched the footage from the bomb vest incident for the third time. This was a completely different kind of attack from the others. The fact that Stahl had predicted a change in methods didn’t reassure him. He had guessed the bomb maker would keep presenting the squad with new kinds of devices in new locations. Right in the middle of Hollywood was not like the other crime scenes.

  The idea that there would be a person with a suicide vest just off Hollywood Boulevard was chilling to a bomb technician. The crowds that gathered in front of the Chinese Theater to see the hand- and footprints of movie stars, or at the Hollywood and Highland complex, would make a mass murderer drool. The plan had worked exactly the way the bomb maker wanted. He’d had four bomb technicians there within fifteen minutes after the bomb turned up.

  The device itself was worse than a suicide vest. There were about five ways to get it to detonate, and while the vest had twelve sticks of dynamite displayed, the explosives hidden inside the vest were much more powerful.

  Only two aspects of the event pleased Stahl. The technicians of Team One had sent for the robot and had not been tempted to dismantle the vest. And when they came under fire, a quick-thinking technician had reacted instantly to put the truck between them and the shooter. What didn’t please him was that in order to do it she’d had to put herself in the line of fire, where she could have been shot. And it didn’t please him that the one who had put herself in danger was Diane Hines. He wondered if he would have the same contradictory feelings if it had been another bomb tech—say, Crowell. Probably not.

  Andy knocked on the door frame to announce his presence, and Stahl stopped the image on his computer. “What’s up?”

  “Deputy Chief Ogden wants you for a conference.”

  Stahl stood and started for the door. “Where?”

  “Room Two Thirty-Nine.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The pressroom.”

  “Get Ogden on the phone for me, will you?”

  After a moment Andy came back into Stahl’s office. “He’s already on his way to Room Two Thirty-Nine.”

  Stahl got up
. He hurried along the broad corridor toward the pressroom. When he spotted Ogden and his aide, Perkins, up ahead, he trotted to catch up. Ogden said, “Great to see you, Dick. I haven’t dropped by because you’re doing a great job. I don’t have time for people like you.”

  “That’s okay. But we need to talk for a second.”

  “And congratulations on that that incredible girl you’ve got.”

  Stahl froze. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “You know,” said Ogden. “What’s her name.” He looked at his aide, Perkins.

  “Hines,” said Perkins. “Sergeant Diane Hines.”

  “Right,” said Ogden. “She’s going to be a real help in this fight. Right now people are still thinking about the fourteen men we lost. But sympathy doesn’t lift people’s spirits. We need the people to know we still have officers like her. She’s a hero, and she looks like LA: young—half athlete, half actress. And the other one too—who dragged his partner out of danger. He gives us diversity.”

  “Elliot,” said Perkins. “Sergeant Robert Elliot.”

  Stahl said, “Look, Dave. That’s a problem. We can’t have members of the Bomb Squad at press conferences.”

  “Not normally,” said Ogden. “Not unless one of them earns a medal. But this time we can’t wait for that. The city has been in fear for four days. There’s been growing talk in the city council that we aren’t prepared for terrorism, and we have a mayor with ears like a rabbit. He’ll turn on the chief in a heartbeat. Having Hines and Elliot on the stage with the chief will raise department morale and reassure the city that we’re not defeated. We need to make people admire and identify with the police, and keep their eyes and ears open to help.”

  Stahl turned to Perkins. “Would you give us just a second?”

  Perkins glanced at Ogden, who shrugged at Perkins, who then walked alone toward the pressroom. Stahl stepped close to Ogden. “Dave, you know better than this. Putting their faces on television would tell this bomber who they are. None of us should be on television now. The department never used to do this.”

  “The chief was the one who called this conference. Look, Dick. I haven’t forgotten that you can walk away from the department whenever you feel like it, and nobody could blame you. But Hines and Elliot can’t. They’re career officers. And they’ve behaved heroically about three times in four days. They’re perfect. And they’re subject to the lawful orders of the chief.”

  “It’s too dangerous. I think this bomber is a guy who sees everything as a battle between him and us. If we start showing off the people who deflected his attacks, he’ll want to punish them. When this guy is in custody or dead, I’ll put all these officers up for commendations and decorations before I resign. I promise.”

  “They’re already targets.”

  “But until they get on-screen, they’re still nameless, faceless cops to the bomber.”

  “You think he hasn’t seen them?”

  “Not close enough to recognize them. They’ve been in bomb suits or in the squad truck or too far away for the news cameras to distinguish their features.”

  “He won’t know where to find them,” Ogden said. “Addresses are never released. We’ve never had a cop attacked at his home during my time on the force.”

  “Maybe it’s because they were mostly kept anonymous until there was a trial,” said Stahl. “Look, let’s postpone this. If we had a day or two, we could think of a way to use a press conference to mislead or trap the bomber. We could dream up an imaginary event he’d want to hit. Or we could tease him with the press conference itself. If he knew about it in advance, and it were somewhere other than police headquarters, he might try.”

  “The conference is in three minutes, Dick. This is the plan we’ve got.” He stared at his watch. “Make that two minutes.”

  Ogden walked off toward the press conference while Stahl hung back for a moment and then ducked into a restroom. He took out his phone and dialed Andy.

  “Captain Stahl’s office.”

  “Andy, I need to have a bomb call come in right away. I don’t care how. And it must be assigned to Team One.”

  Stahl walked into the pressroom just in time to beat the chief. There were about twenty television reporters, a dozen camera operators, and a few print reporters seated or standing around the room.

  The various aides and deputy chiefs and other police dignitaries stood in a row along the wall at the rear of the stage. The chief moved into place on the podium and looked out above the crowd. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said.

  The audience sat up straight and there were quick movements to aim microphones and cameras in his direction.

  “We’re all painfully aware that the people of this city and this department suffered a terrible loss a few days ago. Fourteen noble and courageous officers of our Bomb Squad lost their lives in a cowardly and vicious ambush. Since then the surviving officers of the squad and the temporary reinforcements from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives have thwarted the attacks of this murderer. The latest was only a few hours ago. I’d like to show you some video recordings of the incident, taken from the bomb truck’s cameras and the camera in the robot they use.”

  The large projection screen above the chief’s head lit up, and Stahl recognized the video of this morning’s bombing. He saw Elliot and Crowell approaching the bomb on the sidewalk wearing their EOD suits. They knelt before the bomb vest and then came under fire. At that point the truck’s camera began to bounce up and down as Hines drove into the line of fire. From there, the video switched to the robot’s camera, taken from where Hines had left the robot on the street. It showed Elliot dragging Crowell away from the bomb, the truck arriving to shield them and the bomb from the rifle fire, Diane’s window being blown in, and Diane diving out the passenger door and scrambling to take cover behind the front wheel of the truck. The intensity of the rifle barrage was evident as the bullets pounded the pavement and the truck. The video stopped and the screen went black.

  The chief said, “Because of the bravery and quick thinking of the Bomb Squad members, there were no casualties, and the device was removed and destroyed safely. And now I’d like—”

  Deputy Chief Ogden appeared at his side and whispered something with his hand over the lectern’s microphone. The chief nodded and replied and then said to the crowd: “This is inconvenient. I was going to introduce the two officers and one agent you just saw on camera. But it seems they had to leave to answer another emergency call. The squad has received reinforcements, but we’re still short staffed, and must continue to rely on our regular officers to keep the city safe. I hope to make them available soon.” He looked around. “I see we’ve got acting captain Richard Stahl of the Bomb Squad with us. I’d like to give him the job of answering any questions you might have.”

  The chief waited while Stahl made his way to the podium. He shook hands with Stahl and then joined the others at the back of the small stage.

  Stahl looked out over the audience of reporters and camera operators. “I’ll try to answer any questions now.”

  A blond woman reporter Stahl recognized as Gloria Hedlund from Channel Ten said, “Can you give us the full names of the officers involved in today’s operation?”

  “As a rule, departmental policy is not to release personal information about individual police officers, particularly when they’re engaged in very dangerous cases. It can put them in jeopardy from unknown suspects, and open them to retaliation later. I’ve been back on the force for exactly four days, so I’m not aware of how much I’m allowed to say.” He glanced behind him to look at the chief, but the chief had already left. “I’d like to defer that question for now, and let the press office provide what they can when we’re done here.”

  She said, “Follow-up?”

  “Sure.”

  “Doesn’t that policy apply to you too?”

  “I’m temporary commander of the squad, not one of the regular officers. I’ll have t
o take my chances.”

  He pointed at a young African American male reporter, who said, “Is it true you’re only here because a deputy chief is a friend of yours?”

  Stahl said, “I’m here because every cop is a friend of mine. Deputy Chief David Ogden—that’s O-G-D-E-N, age forty-five—is an old friend and also a cop.”

  There was laughter from several of the reporters.

  Stahl continued. “He remembered I was once the commander of the Bomb Squad. Deputy Chief Ogden asked me to fill in until this special trouble is over and the situation returns to normal trouble.”

  An older male reporter said, “That doesn’t really tell us whether your hiring was an instance of cronyism. Aren’t high-ranking jobs in the LAPD subject to strict appointment procedures? Tests, interviews by committees, background investigations?”

  Stahl looked at the young man who had asked the first question. “Was that what you were asking about? Cronyism?”

  “No,” he said.

  “Good. I thought I missed something.” He turned to the second man. “I’ve been given a temporary appointment as a captain so I can accomplish a task. Then I’ll go away. Whatever salary I earn during the period I plan to donate to the fund for the families of the fourteen murdered officers. I assure you I hope I’ll be gone quickly.”

  He looked up at the other reporters. “Anybody else?”

  A woman stood. “What can you tell us about the perpetrator of these crimes?”

  “I’m sorry, but there’s nothing yet. When we catch him, I’m sure you’ll be told. Right now the Bomb Squad’s job is to respond to reports of suspicious devices. Other parts of the department will be doing the investigating.”

  “Then tell us about the bomb part,” she said. “Was the incident we just saw the work of the same perpetrator?”

  “I can’t answer that,” Stahl said. “Anyone else?”

  There were a number of people on their feet with their hands up, but he felt his phone buzz. He looked at the screen and said, “I’m very sorry, but I’ve got to get back to work now. I appreciate your patience.” He stepped away from the microphone. He saw David Ogden step toward it as he walked off through the side door.