by Wally Duff
“Really scary.”
I pulled out my cell phone from my backpack and typed a message to myself. Cas shrugged her shoulders and raised her eyebrows.
“A note to remind me to see if the DMDNB from the C4 residue here matches that from the bombings in Arlington and Hinsdale.”
“Why?”
“All C4 isn’t the same. Each batch has a fingerprint which can be matched to residue from other C4 bombs.”
“So if there’s a match...”
“It would be strong evidence that my guy is still alive and at it again.”
11
“Let’s do this,” I said.
I slung my backpack over my shoulder. In it, I carried my cell phone and many other mommy and kid necessities. The Glock 19 handgun was on the top for easy access.
Cas had her backpack too. I counted on her having her self-defense weapons of a contact Taser and the Cas version of pepper spray: a can of Raid Wasp and Hornet aerosol.
We stepped through the remnants of the front door into a water-soaked hallway. I’d found the floor plans of the clinic online, so I knew the men’s bathroom was located about fifteen feet further along what remained of the hallway. Three steps in, I sniffed and abruptly stopped.
Uh-oh.
Cas stared at me. “Are you okay?”
The stench of soot from the walls that had been fried in the blast, mixed with the irritating odor of the multiple medications and industrial strength cleaning products that had also been destroyed, flooded my olfactory center.
“The memory of the Arlington clinic odors has never left me,” I said. “I was knocked out by the explosion, but for some reason, my brain recorded the smells, and each time I encounter them, it triggers extremely unpleasant memories of my injuries. Carter calls them my ‘dèjá-BOOM!’ moments. My therapist said it’s PTSD.”
“You said your pelvis was broken and your bladder, liver, and diaphragm were ruptured, but I’ve forgotten the other injuries.”
“Fractured ribs and a collapsed lung on my right side and a hematoma inside my head.”
“It was an epidural bleed, right?”
“The ER doctor said I blew a pupil.”
“That’s a true neurosurgical emergency. Unless it’s immediately treated, it’ll be fatal.”
“Tell me. Afterwards, I was gorked out for a few days, but I guess I don’t have any residual neurological damage — although Carter might disagree with that.”
We walked around the corner and found a gaping void in the wall.
I pointed at it. “According to what I read online, this was where the men’s bathroom used to be.”
“Ground zero.”
“That’s my bomber’s signature.”
“Meaning?”
“In the Arlington clinic, he hid the device in the men’s bathroom. According to a story in the Tribune, the same M.O. was used in the July bombing in Hinsdale.”
“Looks like someone’s sending a message to you.”
I touched the right side of my chest where a tube had been inserted after I was blown up. That scar and the longer linear one on my abdomen, plus the semicircular one on the right side of my head, were constant mementos of what had happened to me five years ago.
My stomach did a flip-flop. “It does, doesn’t it?”
Something I don’t want to worry about right now.
I began walking. She followed.
“The doctor’s office should be further down this hallway,” I said.
Sloshing through the water and debris, we turned another corner and discovered the office was completely gone, replaced by a gigantic hole in the side of the building. There was a hallway and then — nothing.
I turned to Cas. “We couldn’t see this when we drove up because his office was in the back of the clinic.”
“Do you think the bomber used two separate devices?”
“Looks like it. The bathroom bomb was placed there to start the fire, which destroyed most of the building. The second bomb in here was meant for only one thing.”
“Which was?”
“To kill the doctor.”
12
I shut my eyes and pictured the doctor’s office. “I think the doctor sat at his desk waiting for the arrival of the ‘emergency’ patient he assumed was coming in. The phone rang. He answered. The bomber blew both bombs remotely, probably by using a cell phone.”
“How did the caller get directly through to the doctor? Everywhere I worked as a nurse, all incoming calls went to an answering service first.”
“I went online and checked on that. It’s a new type of abortion clinic in the area where they not only advertise personal care but also a direct line to a doctor twenty-four hours a day.”
“Dangerous.”
“Only if a bomber calls.”
“Was enough left of the doctor’s body to be buried?”
The vision of his grieving widow and devastated children standing in front of what might have been an empty casket made me sick to my stomach.
Suddenly, I couldn’t catch my breath.
“I have to get out of here.”
Black dots flew across my line of sight. The harder I tried to breathe, the more difficult it was to move air in and out of my lungs.
I staggered into the hallway. The walls felt like they were collapsing on me.
I stumbled along the wet floor and wobbled outside into the windy, humid Chicago air. I bent over, dropped my backpack on the street, and gulped in fresh air.
Nausea overwhelmed me, and I barfed up the potty candy. I continued to retch until all that I had left were dry heaves and a yucky taste in my mouth.
Cas had followed me outside. “Another PTSD attack?”
I nodded. “Once I relax, it’ll pass.”
Shutting my eyes and breathing slowly usually worked, but in spite of the high heat index typical of Chicago in August, I shivered. Cas saw me do it.
“Is that part of your attacks?” she asked.
I continued to shake. “No, it’s something new.”
Opening my eyes, I took in another deep breath. “I have the feeling that someone is watching me,” I continued.
This was the first time I’d told anyone this.
“When did it start?”
“Right after the story I wrote about what happened at O’Hare.”
“You didn’t have it after Arlington?”
“No, this is new.”
I reached down to pick up my backpack and heard a rumbling noise behind me. Turning around, I saw a battered green pickup truck about two blocks away. It was moving down the street directly at us. Black smoke blew out of the exhaust.
The truck gained speed.
“Cas, run!” I screamed.
“What?”
“Get off the street!”
It’s the bomber!
“Your spray and Taser aren’t going to work!”
I yanked the Glock out of my backpack and chambered a round. The truck’s windshield was filthy, but I could see that the driver wore a black hoody and sunglasses.
The truck was now a block away from us and picking up speed.
He’s going to run us down!
I assumed a shooter’s stance.
I’m going to end this right here!
Suddenly, the truck turned right onto the cross street in front of us and drove away.
I felt Cas’s hands on my shoulders. “Are you okay?”
My fingers were white from squeezing the handle of the Glock. “It was the bomber! He was going to kill us!”
“Relax. It was just a guy in a crappy old truck — no more, no less.”
I dropped the gun on the street and put my head in my hands. I began sobbing. “What’s wrong with me?”
“Girl, I think we need to have a talk,” she said, continuing to rub my shoulders. “Why don’t we go sit in the Hummer?”
Cas picked up the handgun and my backpack and led me to her truck. I continued to sob.
She hel
ped me up into the passenger seat and closed the door. Then, she climbed into the driver’s side and fired up the engine. After turning the air-conditioner on full blast, she rotated the vents so they blew on my face.
“Is that the same gun you had last week?” she asked.
I stopped crying and wiped my nose with a Kleenex from my backpack. “It is.”
“You never told me where you got it.”
And I never will.
13
On Tuesday morning, I altered my usual route two blocks north of our home and turned left onto West Henderson Street. I needed to find out if Jamie was still in the Chicago area.
My goal was an antique-red brick home on the south side of the street where my friends Dr. Micah Mittelman and his wife, Dr. Hannah Eisenberg, live with their four children.
Their house is at least twenty percent larger than ours and has another feature we don’t have: outside security cameras, a rarity in Lakeview.
I stopped in front of their home and jogged in place.
The cameras no longer rotated to cover the neighborhood.
Aren’t Hannah and Micah concerned about Jamie?
Maybe they weren’t worried because someone was protecting them. I surveyed the neighborhood looking for FBI agents guarding their home.
I didn’t see any.
Not good.
I climbed up the front steps of Hannah and Micah’s home and rang the doorbell.
Hannah opened the door. “Tina, I am glad to see you. We need to talk.”
“Great, because that’s why I’m here,” I said.
She is about three inches shorter than my five eight and has closely-cut, gray-streaked hair. I first met her on July third, the fifth anniversary of my being blown up in Arlington.
Then, she was weak and needed assistance for many basic functions. She wore a shapeless summer dress, which draped over her deteriorating body. Today, she was decked out in a bright pink Lululemon yoga outfit complete with matching pink and white Nike cross-trainer shoes.
She effortlessly held open the door. “Please come in.”
Doing a physical act like this shouldn’t be difficult, but until recently, she could barely lift her arms. Thanks to her husband Micah’s research and his subsequent embryonic stem cell treatment of her disease, multiple sclerosis, she was almost back to a normal life.
She ushered me into their great room. The sounds of a Bach piano concerto floated in from another room. Hannah noticed me listening.
“My son Jason should be studying for his Bar Mitzvah, but he prefers playing the piano.”
“He’s good.”
“He inherited his father’s motor skills.”
Suddenly, there was a crash of drums, which drowned out the beautiful piano music. “Gerald, our eight-year-old, is fixated on playing his drums. I would have preferred that he take up the violin, but his father indulges the children and allowed him to choose percussion instead.”
The banging continued, making conversation difficult. Hannah stood up. “I need to speak to the drummer. While I am up, would you like a cup of tea or a bottle of water?”
“No, thank you.”
While she was gone, I scanned the room and admired the original oil paintings, especially the Renoir hanging on the wall facing me. The drumming stopped, and I could hear the piano again.
When she returned, we sat down on one of the couches. I couldn’t resist running my fingers over the luxurious multicolored fabric.
Having truckloads of inherited money isn’t all bad.
“Even though it is the weekend, Micah is not here,” she began. “He is working at the lab.”
“I totally understand. Kind of a weird past few days, right?”
“Oh my, you could say that for sure.”
Hannah went to Harvard for undergraduate and medical school. While at Columbia for her pediatric residency, she traveled to Israel for a clinical rotation, where she met Micah. Her Ivy League-educated speech pattern had gradually changed to reflect his British schooling and her years with him.
There was no reason for me to make inane conversation.
“What is your version of what happened to you and your kids last Wednesday?” I asked.
“I thought you might want to discuss that.”
“And you would be correct.”
She paused before she spoke. “It began when Cas unexpectedly arrived at my home. She told me that Micah was in danger and we might be too. I did not know what else to do, so I followed her instructions and took my children with her to Molly’s house.”
“I’m responsible for that. I was worried about you and your kids, and I didn’t have many choices.”
Truthfully, the way things unfolded, I was scared out of my mind that one of the bad guys would go to Hannah’s home and slaughter all of them. With no time to spare, having my friend Cas rush them to my other friend Molly’s house was my only option.
“Later that afternoon, two FBI agents arrived there and then escorted us home,” she said. “While my children resumed their normal activities, the agents told me about the events at O’Hare Airport.”
“Which was what?”
“They said Micah had been confronted at O’Hare by an industrial spy who had attempted to steal the technology behind my husband’s embryonic stem cell research,” she continued. “One of the FBI’s female agents and a Chicago detective thwarted the attack by shooting the spy.”
That was the same FBI-edited story I’d written in my Chicago Tribune article. And I hated the FBI for forcing me to alter the content.
Her jaw muscles twitched. “The agents underestimated me. They thought I was a stupid female without a brain in my head.” Her eyes flashed. “But they were wrong!”
14
I’d never seen this side of Hannah’s personality. Previously, she seemed to be an emotional flat-liner, only displaying her consummate social skills when she had to.
But not now.
She’s really pissed off.
“One month ago I might have believed the FBI agents, because I was so ill that I had difficulty taking care of my basic body functions, let alone using my cognitive abilities to evaluate what was going on in my daily life,” Hannah said. “But after Micah started me on his treatment protocol, I began to feel ever so much better and realized something was drastically wrong in our lives.”
“What did you do?”
“I began to investigate, and from what I discovered after sneaking into Micah’s home computer, I was certain none of the events at O’Hare occurred the way the agents claimed they did.”
“And?”
“I confronted Micah when he returned home from the airport. We sat down on this very couch, and I demanded that he tell me the truth.”
“Including his part in it?” I asked.
“Especially that.”
She spoke in a monotone voice as she related the facts that Micah had confessed to her. By the time she finished, I knew she was dialed in to the entire scenario and my part in it, the full truth of which I was not able to include in the story I wrote for the Tribune without landing in prison compliments of the FBI.
Before I could ask her about that, her eyelids narrowed. “My husband committed an unprofessional act. I am not sure I will ever forgive him for it.”
What?!
She wasn’t remotely concerned about what I’d done at O’Hare. Instead, she was mad at Micah, despite his having risked everything to push forward his research to keep her alive.
I didn’t know what to say.
Her lips compressed into a thin line. “I can see by the shocked look on your face that you are surprised at what I said, yes?”
“I… Ah… Yeah, I guess you could say that,” I stammered. “Your husband saved your life.”
“He did, but at what cost?”
I ran my fingers through my hair. “I’m totally freaked out here. At our dinner party, Micah told me he would do anything for you and your children. He did what he felt he
had to do. What am I missing?”
“Micah and I are physicians. We swore the Hippocratic Oath and also vowed primum non nocere: ‘First, do no harm.’ But he ignored it and chose to protect me and our family by risking the lives of thousands of people to accomplish that. In my view, that is unacceptable.”