Warning Signs

CHAPTER 33

Ramp felt the flash from the bomb the same way he experienced the sun as it broke through a thick cloud cover. The light and heat washed over him and warmed him, licking at his exposed skin all at once. He raised his chin an inch or so to greet the energy as it pulsed and engulfed him. Since it was the first time he would be around to see one of his devices go off in public, he desperately wanted to keep his eyes open to record the visual landscape as it settled in the aftermath of his work, but his reflexes overwhelmed him.

The plastic box with the toggle switch in his jacket pocket was moist from the sweat on his hand. He fingered the slick plastic as impulses flooded him. The energy it consumed to control the urges thwarted his enjoyment of the consequences of the blast. He wanted to thrust his hands into the air and yell, "Yes!" He wanted to pull the transmitter from his pocket and thrust it to his lips and display it to the stunned citizens around him.

He didn't.

He monitored his excited breathing by forcing each deep breath to pass through his nose and go deep into his gut. Despite the chaos that was stirring in the aftermath of the explosion, he could hear himself snort and was afraid he sounded like a horse eager to canter.

Ramp had detonated the bomb from where he'd been standing on Walnut in front of the aging house that old-time Boulderites would probably forever consider to be the second home of Nancy's restaurant. As the echoes of the detonation stilled, Ramp heard people in front of Café Louie, the restaurant that had replaced Nancy's, screaming, "Did you hear that?" "What was that?" "Was that a car that blew up?" and "Oh no, oh my God! I think it was a bomb."

The sounds were all on separate tracks in his consciousness, laid down methodically, distinctly. They were the kinds of details that he knew he'd want to remember later.

As people ran past him toward the location of the blast, he wanted to follow them. He wanted to see for himself what havoc the explosive had wreaked. What carnage the metal splinters had wrought. Did he kill one? Or two? Or even three? But he didn't follow the throngs to the source of the damage.

He was sure he didn't want to see the bodies.

There were bodies. He knew that. The bodies meant casualties. The casualties were necessary, but he feared that each would remind him of the day he discovered his mother's body.

He turned and walked the opposite direction down Walnut, crossing Ninth and moving at a measured pace to cover the short blocks to the Downtown Mall. The plan called for him to linger for a while with the crowds on the Mall before he returned to his car.

He remembered something his grandfather had said about explosives: Maniacs destroy maniacally. Engineers destroy scientifically. You are the engineer.

"I am the engineer," he said, barely moving his lips, hardly making a sound.

"And how was it?" he asked himself, adopting a gravelly, deeper voice. The voice of someone who'd inhaled the poisons of way too many Camels. The voice of his grandfather.

"Better than I would have guessed, Granddad. The best, the absolute best. It's so much better when you're there."

The deeper voice responded, "Wait. They only get better. The better you get, the better they get. I liked the last one I did better than I did the first."

"I wasn't really sure I could do it. The first one went off accidentally, you know. So I wasn't sure I could actually detonate one myself. One that counted, I mean."

"I was sure. I was sure."

At the corner of Eleventh, outside the Walrus, a woman approached him on the sidewalk and Ramp ended the conversation he was having. The last thing he wanted to do was draw attention to himself a block and a half from the crime scene.

Another saying from Granddad: You don't hurry to meet deadlines. You change deadlines so you don't have to hurry.

Not this time, Ramp thought as he climbed into the driver's seat of his blue RAV 4. Most of what the old man had said was true. But not that, not this time. Ramp knew he'd have to accelerate the whole timetable. He knew that they'd be looking for him now.

Maybe they even knew who he was already.

He had to act now before it was too late. One quick stop at his apartment and he'd be ready to go.

The sign above the workbench in the explosives shed: Safety is the product of planning, discipline, and control. If you plan well, deploy with discipline, and control your charges, you will be safe.

But what if you don't care if you're safe? What if you're willing to go out with the blast?

The old man couldn't have imagined it, so he had never had an aphorism for that.

Ramp started the car.

He tuned the radio to AM and hit the scan button, listening for the sound of breaking news.

Before he made it to the edge of town, he was gripped with a hunger that was as tight as a choke chain. He stopped at the McDonald's on Baseline and ordered a Big Mac Extra Value Meal. As he pulled forward to the pick-up window, a young kid in the required bad clothes and polyester hat asked him if he'd heard about the explosion downtown.

"No," Ramp said. "What happened?"

"Don't know, but somebody got smoked. Did you say you wanted a Coke with that?"

Somebody got smoked. Ramp had trouble finding the skills necessary to continue to breathe. "Yes, I want a Coke with that."

He'd wanted to demand the facts. He'd wanted to ask the kid if only one somebody had been smoked. But he didn't.

Ramp stayed east on Baseline, pulling french fries from their red cardboard sleeve one by one, feeding them into his mouth like severed branches into a shredder, finally turning onto the Foothills Parkway toward the turnpike that would return him to Denver.

He continued to scan the radio stations for news. He was halfway to Denver, driving through a speed trap on Highway 36 in Westminster, before he heard the first bulletin about the explosion. Initial reports listed one victim dead from the explosion in downtown Boulder, three injured.

Three meant at least one innocent bystander.

Ramp shrugged and took a long draw from his Coke.

"Shit!" he said suddenly and yanked the wheel hard to make the exit at Federal Boulevard. He steered with one hand and began patting furiously at the pocket of his jacket with the other.

There it was. He still had it with him. What if he'd been stopped? What if a cop had found an excuse to search him?

He heard the words in his head as clearly as he'd heard them the first time his grandfather had spoken them to him: Careless is just another word for failure.

"Shit!" he repeated before silently repeating the old man's mantra over and over again, using it as a way to flog himself back into control.

He drove around the back of the bowling alley that was adjacent to the freeway on the southwest side of the Federal off-ramp and pulled up next to a row of three Dumpsters. He stepped out of the car, pulled the radio controller from his pocket, dropped it to the asphalt, and crushed the plastic box with one sharp thrust of his heel. He divided the shattered electronic remains between the three Dumpsters, saving the tiny joystick as a souvenir.

Ramp spent the next couple of miles on the road trying to devise a way to attach the joystick to his key ring.

Fifteen minutes later he was turning into the alley that ran behind his apartment building. The building has six alley parking spaces for twelve apartments. Ramp was shocked to find one available. He let himself in the back door and climbed the three flights of stairs to his fourth-floor unit.

The first thing he did once inside was to boot up his computer and check the Internet for fresh news of the Boulder bombing. Not much had been added to the radio bulletin. The three living victims had been taken to Community Hospital; one was in critical condition. Police weren't commenting on a possible link to the explosive device that had been found hidden in District Attorney Royal Peterson's house.

"Let them comment all they want," Ramp said aloud. "They won't find a single similarity in materials or design. Signatures are for fools."

Done with the Internet connection, he began the series of keystrokes that would format the hard drive of his computer, erasing all his digital tracks. Getting the process started took him less than a minute. He'd practiced the procedure before. None of it was new to him.

Another sign above the workbench in the explosives shed: Novelty creates confusion. Practice eliminates novelty.

"Right on, Granddad," Ramp said.

He collected three radio transmitters from the kitchen cupboard above the dishwasher. The three devices were dissimilar. One was a garage door opener. One had operated a remote-control children's car. The third had been designed to operate a model airplane. He placed them in a leather dopp kit that was already provisioned with fresh batteries for the transmitters.

He pried the floorboard away from the wall and pocketed the Zip disc that he'd stashed there. His work clothes and the other supplies were already packed in a duffel bag that he'd used to carry his soccer clothes when he was in high school.

Last, he retrieved a fresh battery for his cell phone, dumped everything into the duffel with his clothes, locked up his apartment, and descended the stairs toward his car.