The Bomb Maker

by Thomas Perry

  She stared into the mirror and shrugged. She didn’t look very different from before, she thought. The last bruises and burns had faded, and somehow the swelling had all gone away. She aimed the wheelchair toward the doorway, approaching it from the side to reach the push pad on the wall, rolled out of her room, gave the wheels of her chair a spin, and passed the door of the room beside hers just before it happened.

  24

  The shock wave blew off the break-room door and punched out the wall behind it where the counter and cabinets were. It turned the air in the hallway into a hard, expanding force that reached the waiting room in an instant, even though it had to bat down the walls of four other rooms to get there, bringing along a growing load of beds, visitors’ chairs, monitoring equipment, and other things no longer identifiable or even separable. The sixth wall, the side of the waiting room, was only partially dislodged, but it was possible to see steel items protruding through it in places.

  The air in the wing was now a suspension of powdery dust from demolished drywall, acoustic tiles, and masonry.

  Stahl found himself on the floor eight feet from where he had stood. He moved a hand tentatively, then a foot, brought himself up on one knee, and finally came to his feet. He could see in the milky haze that there were other human shapes in the room, and most were beginning to move.

  He could see three crawling on hands and knees to stay below the clouds of dust, and there were also several on their feet, moving toward the doorway.

  Stahl breathed in through his shirt and called out, “Is anybody in this room hurt? Anybody hurt?” Two other voices called the same question from other parts of the room, but no answer reached his ears.

  “This is Stahl. Start looking for casualties.”

  He made his way to the door and felt a cool breeze. The lights had gone out in the middle of the floor in the vicinity of the nurses’ station. In the hallway a grid of metal frames that held ceiling tiles had come loose and was now leaning, still partially suspended by wires. Above it, Stahl could see the complicated pattern of I beams, pipes, and conduits for electrical cables. This usually unseen layer above him was all sprayed with a surface coat of grayish fireproofing material.

  His eyes adjusted, and after a second he realized the reason was the same reason he could breathe more easily now. The explosion had blown out a part of the outer wall, so there was a big gash open to the night sky. There was a steady breeze of cool air flowing down the hallway, clearing the floating dust away. Stahl shook his head hard and ran both hands down his face to get rid of the dust in his hair and eyebrows, and as he began to trot, he brushed dust off his shoulders.

  He tried to run up the hallway to Diane’s room, but he felt off balance and clumsy. He wanted to get there but he couldn’t seem to find it. He sloshed into icy water, and realized that the water was flowing down the hall from a broken sprinkler system somewhere ahead. He could hear what sounded like electrical sparking, so he knew he had better try to find a switch quickly, but he couldn’t see a panel. He looked at the number of the room nearest to the gaping hole in the wall. The number was 568. Diane’s room had been 572, but it seemed to be gone. He stopped, his mouth gaping, took a few steps forward, then a few back, but he couldn’t make out where one ruined room ended and the next began.

  There were other people running now, lifting debris to see if there was anyone beneath it. Some of them were members of his Bomb Squad, but there were others emerging from the stairwell at the end of the hall. They ran to gurneys and wheelchairs as they arrived, grabbed them, and pushed them forward, hurrying to patients’ rooms in an otherworldly race, a scramble to get a patient and run.

  Stahl began to move again. He hit his phone button for the headquarters and began to talk. “This is Captain Stahl. There’s been a large explosion on the fifth floor of Cedars-Sinai hospital. There are numerous injuries and at least two deaths. The outer wall on the north side of the building facing Melrose has a breach about ten feet wide. Request fire and rescue teams, Code Three. Dispatch Team Four of the Bomb Squad, and tell them to bring three bomb trucks.”

  Stahl came to a place where ceiling tiles, boards, and other debris had fallen and partially blocked the hallway. He could see one wheel of a wheelchair, and a bit of the blue leather seat beneath it. This was an opportunity to get one more patient off the devastated fifth floor and down to safety. He lifted a sheet of wallboard and threw off some tiles and what seemed to have been a wooden cabinet. The chair was upside down so its armrests and seat back were down and the wheels up. As he pulled the chair from the wreckage he saw her.

  She was lying facedown, her head toward the waiting room door as though the force of the explosion had thrown her forward.

  He touched her carotid artery and felt a strong, normal pulse. Without thinking he shouted, “Medic!” It was a yell that came from ten years ago and ten thousand miles away. He heard it and shouted, “Doctor! I need help over here.”

  25

  The bomb maker sat in front of his television and studied the picture of the hospital on the screen. The cameraman was down on the sidewalk across the street with the reporter, so the camera was tilted upward. He could see a hole in the side of the hospital building that looked like a cave and a sheet of water pouring out of it like a mountain waterfall, making the bricks glisten and then splashing into a pool at the foot that flowed into the street. It looked to him as though his bomb had ripped a major water pipe apart, and the authorities had been unable to shut it off. He hoped the water wasn’t putting out any fires.

  The hospital was big—six stories on the side with the hole in it. The reporter had said there were 958 beds in the hospital and that some of the patients were being evacuated and moved to other facilities. When the station switched to the helicopter shots he could see a few people being loaded into helicopters on the roof. When the shot was at street level, he saw ambulances lined up along Melrose.

  The woman reporter who was so skinny and tall entered the frame. “I’ve just been told that one of the events at the hospital tonight was a small party consisting of members of the LAPD Bomb Squad. They had come to pay their respects and celebrate the progress toward recovery made by an injured colleague, Sergeant Diane Hines. My source indicates that at least fifteen members of the twenty-eight-person squad were present on the floor where the explosion occurred.” The center of her forehead right above her nose pinched her brows together. “We have no word yet of the names of any casualties, or if any of them were police officers.”

  “Were,” the bomb maker said. He clapped his hands, and then held them together as though he were keeping something from getting away. There had to be fatalities. There had to be. This was only the first report, and the newspeople were already talking about the Bomb Squad, not the 958 patients. There had to be fatalities. The force that blew out a wall of that reinforced brick building must have taken people with it.

  The bomb maker got up and paced across the room in front of the big screen. The picture switched to the anchor desk at the studio, where the two anchors glared at their camera. They were a man and a woman so ill matched they appeared to be on a blind date, but they both had the same wrinkle in the center of their foreheads that the street reporter had. They were both listening to something coming to them through their earpieces, and they didn’t like the sound of what they were hearing.

  The bomb maker stood still and listened for an announcement, but the woman began talking, and it was only a repetition of the information they had released so far, translated into the clichés that populated reporters’ brains. There was a large explosion on an upper floor of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center tonight, wreaking havoc in the building. Fire, police, and ambulance personnel had responded immediately. No information about the condition of the building or any of its occupants had been released yet—or, as the woman ignorantly put it, “as of yet.” But a joint press conference of hospital and police spokespeople was expected shortly.

  The bomb maker’s heart
beat harder. They didn’t seem to know yet how he had done it—how he had gotten them all into one room at the same time. They didn’t seem to know he had set up the bomb in the school in Brentwood just to get the squad agitated and occupied all day while he made his preparations.

  The hospital was always going to be today’s event. He would have been delighted if he could have taken out one bomb team at the school as a warm-up, but he had never felt as emotionally invested in the school as he was in the hospital. He had wanted them all.

  He executed the hospital party meticulously. The designated guest of honor was the ideal choice. Obviously she had been popular with the rest of the squad even before he decided to destroy them all. He had injured her terribly when he rigged her apartment. The squad had been worried about her, and they had missed her. His idea of her throwing her own Coming Out (of a Coma) party was perfect.

  Of course they had come. Who would turn down an invitation like that? They adored her. And now, the party had been a triumph for him. There must have been one or two bomb teams on duty, but that meant at least two teams must have been present for his surprise, and possibly three. This was as good as the booby-trapped house in Encino, and much more of a scare for the good people of Los Angeles. He didn’t take his eyes from the television until the newspeople quit after 2:00 a.m.

  Stahl slept three hours on his office couch, showered, and put on another suit he kept in the office closet for emergencies. He was at the headquarters pressroom for the afternoon press briefing, standing behind the chief of police on the platform. The chief opened the gathering by stepping onto the podium to the clicking and flashing of many cameras recording his grave, determined expression.

  “Last night’s tragedy was a disgusting waste of innocent lives.” He looked at his notes. “Erin Kajanian, a fifty-three-year-old supervising nurse at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center; and Dale Monet, a twenty-three-year-old orderly, died in the cowardly bombing of the hospital. They were in a fifth-floor break room to cut a cake to help celebrate the promising recovery of wounded police officer Diane Hines with some of her off-duty friends and colleagues.”

  The chief’s voice sounded strained. “We will always embrace them both as members of our police family. We mourn them as our own. The term ‘LA’s finest’ would have little meaning if it didn’t include citizens like them. Let’s observe a moment of silence in their honor.” He bowed his head and the room fell silent.

  Stahl could see that nearly every head was down. One of the exceptions was an older reporter from Channel Nine who was familiar with the chief’s choreography. He knew the signal that would end the silence would be the sound of the chief taking his first step off the platform and heading quickly out the door. Stahl saw the chief’s military pivot in place for his first step.

  “Chief!” called the reporter. “Will you take a question?”

  But the chief was almost out the door, and pretended not to hear him. His two aides were behind him.

  Deputy Chief Ogden was already at the microphone. “If you have questions, Captain Stahl, commander of the Bomb Squad, is here, and he’s best equipped to answer them.”

  Stahl’s tired mind had been occupied when he heard the words “Captain Stahl.” He looked up at the expectant faces of the reporters and the glinting one-eyed stares of the cameras.

  A young, red-haired woman near the front waved her hand in a way that reminded Stahl of the girl in all his high school classes who was always breathless with the wish to be first with the right answer.

  He said, “Yes?”

  “Have you identified the bomber yet?”

  Stahl was stunned. How could she not know? “Not yet.”

  Her face seemed to transform itself. Her eyes were like marbles, and her mouth acquired a displeased half smile that seemed venomous. He noted that she had fooled him. “Captain,” she said. “You were hired to fill in for the murdered commander of the Bomb Squad nearly eight weeks ago. Are you any closer to stopping the mass murderer than you were on your first day?”

  “Any closer? It’s hard to tell. I haven’t had a chance to speak with the homicide detectives on the case for over twenty-four hours. I was in Brentwood yesterday defusing an explosive device in a middle school, and by the time I returned I didn’t get to ask for an update. I plan to catch up today.”

  “We were informed that the reason so many Bomb Squad personnel were in one place last night was for a party. Don’t you think the people of this city deserve better than that?”

  “They certainly deserve to be safe from a person who likes to place bombs in public places. Since the first incident, the Bomb Squad and the investigative branches of the LAPD and local, state, and federal officers have been working nonstop to keep citizens safe and apprehend the bomber. We’ve prevented several of the killer’s attempts during that time, and rendered safe a number of his devices.”

  “Don’t the people deserve to be informed of what’s going on?”

  “When it’s safe to release information, we will fill you in. My job is to neutralize bombs before they injure or kill people.”

  “Is it true the bomber invited you all to a party last night, and put a bomb in the cake?”

  “We’re still investigating exactly what happened and how it was done.”

  Another male reporter, named Todd Tedesco, whom Stahl had been surprised to see outside the studio because he was an anchorman, asked, “Is there a time when you’ll simply say, ‘This is it? If I haven’t caught the bomber by this date, I’ll resign and give somebody else a chance?’”

  Stahl said, “As you know, I was asked to take on this job temporarily to keep the squad functioning while it’s being rebuilt. I’ve always planned to leave as soon as my services were no longer needed. I don’t believe that’s a goal we’ve reached yet. I also serve at the pleasure of the chief of police, who can remove me at any time.”

  Todd Tedesco turned and glanced at one of his colleagues, Gloria Hedlund, who often shared the desk with him on the local news. Stahl realized that he was trying to yield the floor to her. She jumped up and inhaled to speak. They were ambushing him, but he decided the best way through this was to let them ask their questions. He nodded to her.

  Gloria Hedlund had the big eyes and pursed mouth of a longhaired house cat. When he looked at her, he acknowledged that at one time she must have been very beautiful. She pounced. “The chief said this hospital party was for Sergeant Diane Hines. Is that accurate?”

  “Yes, the squad was there to visit an officer who was wounded by a device set in her apartment, and to let her know we were glad she was recovering.”

  “And I understand the bomber set up the party. You allowed this to happen, and in fact attended. Was something clouding your judgment?”

  “As I said, I was busy yesterday defusing a bomb in a school. I wasn’t aware when I arrived at the hospital that other officers would be there.”

  “Sergeant Hines seems to be pretty important. Do you have a special relationship with Sergeant Hines? There’s a rumor you’re being charged with an inappropriate relationship with an officer under your command. Is she the one?”

  “Nobody has charged me with anything.”

  “Just to clarify, you’re not aware of any charges, filed or contemplated, by the police department against you for sexual harassment or fraternization with a member of your command?”

  Stahl could feel rage building in his chest and moving upward. “I can’t know what anybody in or out of the department is contemplating. You’re the first one to mention it to me.”

  She was frustrated, not wanting him to slither away. “Maybe I should be more direct. Have you had sexual relations with any member of the police force?”

  “Maybe you should be less direct,” Stahl said. “I was asked to answer any questions I could about the hospital bombing. Apparently you and the last reporter have no questions relevant to the case, so right now I’m going back to work. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.”

 
He took long steps out the door and away from the pressroom, and headed toward the Homicide Special offices. He was still feeling heat around his neck, but a sensation like cold in his chest and stomach—anger and dread. As he walked along the open floor to the office section of the building, he controlled and isolated the feelings. He had learned to separate himself from distracting emotions many years ago and gotten very good at it over the years, but times like this still caught him by surprise.

  He could see that the detectives in Homicide Special were busy. He knew they were probably shunting excess cases back to the divisions where they’d happened, so they could devote more time to the bomber.

  Some of them were working on flipping through loose-leaf murder books, slipping new pages into the binders and clicking the jaws closed. Others were making phone calls or conducting people into conference rooms. But he knew most of the detectives would be performing tasks today that focused on the bomb deaths. The device in the hospital would have added two more binders, and they would reside on the desk of whoever became the lead detective on the case.

  By now someone had probably entered the essentials of the hospital bomb into the ATF’s Bomb Arson Tracking System, hoping to find other incidents that were similar to this one. Entering it also put the incident out there for experts in other agencies to notice and think about.

  There might already be a few pieces of the bomb in the crime lab being examined for fingerprints and chemical traces. Stahl had his own expectation for the device. It would be a series of small batteries connected to a number eight blasting cap, a spring-loaded switch that would complete the circuit when the box was opened, and a charge of homemade Semtex. There would be something else. A bomb that would blow out a ten-foot stretch of hardened concrete and brick wall with rebar supports would make the sheet cake heavy. There could have been more Semtex connected to the initial charge. He remembered seeing a cart—not for moving a patient, but the kind institutions used to deliver food. Maybe the lower shelf had been full of explosives.