Warning Signs

CHAPTER 62

Over the next couple of days, Sam kept me informed about the progress of the investigation in Denver. I didn't know whether he was getting his information from Rivera or from Walter or from somebody named Lou. I didn't ask, and I didn't really care. I appreciated not having to rely on the reports on the local news.

Ramp, it turned out, had been out of explosives. The explosives vault at his grandmother's ranch near Agate was totally cleaned out.

Much of what he had threatened at the Supreme Court Building was a ruse. The Denver Police Bomb Squad found no additional devices hidden in the building. In fact, the second device that was discovered at Red Rocks turned out to be a fake that was intended to draw bomb disposal resources away from the city. No secondary devices were found at any of the earlier bomb sites. All three devices that were recovered at East High School were dummies.

The gas cylinders that Ramp had launched at the Supreme Court had done a lot of damage. One justice had died, two others had been severely injured. The exploding patrol car had killed one cop and burned three others. A woman watching the drama from a Denver Public Library window had been badly injured by debris sent flying by the tank that had impacted there.

The earlier bombs had mostly hit their marks. Two were dead in the amusement ride at Elitch's; two more were dead in the offices at Coors Field. The target at Union Station had escaped injury because she was down the hall in the bathroom when the bomb went off in her second-floor studio.

It was still unclear whether Ramp would get his wish about public dialogue.

At first, the attention of the media was mostly on the carnage. The seemingly endless news footage of the final conflagration on Broadway proved to be enough of a magnet to attract temporary nonstop national and local coverage of Ramp's Rampage. That's what the event had been nicknamed by the loud blond guy who did Hardball on cable, and the moniker had stuck to the events like a bad cold.

Marin's rape, Leo Bigg's retaliation on the rapist, and Ramp's mother's tragic death were all chronicled and rechronicled. Herbert Ramp's role in the demolition of Las Vegas was broadcast and rebroadcast for no other reason, it seemed, than that the tape was available and that it was pretty spectacular to watch the hotels fall down all over again.