Detective Cross

Chapter 19

Bree was fighting to stay awake for the eleven o’clock news when her phone started buzzing and beeping in her purse. She struggled out of the easy chair in the front room at home, and said, “Mute it.”

I thumbed the Mute button and said, “Speaker.”

Nodding, Bree got her phone and answered the call.

The odd, soft, almost feminine voice spoke. “Chief Stone?”

“Who are you? What’s your name?”

After a long pause, he said, “Nick. Nick the Avenger.”

Bree glanced at me, pointed at her watch. I started timing. The FBI was monitoring and tracing all calls to her number. If she could keep him on the phone for just over a minute, they’d be able to locate him.

She said, “Nick, what’s it going to take to stop the bombings?”

That question was part of a plan we’d talked about in anticipation of his next call. We both believed we needed to draw the bomber out, get him talking about more than just his next target.

After several moments, he said, “It’s gonna take changes on Capitol Hill, Chief. Congress needs to get off its collective butt, and start treating the people who fight their wars right. Until they quit kicking vets in the balls, it’s time for everyone to feel what vets have suffered, what they still suffer. I’d clear the Washington Monument if I were you.”

The line went dead.

“Son of a bitch,” I said. “Forty-four seconds.”

We grabbed raincoats and headed out into the pouring rain. I drove. Bree started making calls to once again close off the National Mall, and summon sniffer dogs and bomb squads. Ned Mahoney called me as I turned onto Independence Avenue.

“You hear it?” he asked.

“Yes. The trace?”

“Bomber’s within five miles of Capitol Hill. Closest we got.”

“Any luck with the surveillance tapes from Union Station?”

“I have four agents watching footage from the twenty-four hours preceding the explosion, working backward from the actual blast. So far, nothing.”

“Quantico?”

“Initial reports on the first two bombs came back,” Mahoney said. “The detonators are simple, the kind you might see on an IED in the Middle East. But the explosive wasn’t taggant-free C-4. That’s why the dogs were able to locate them.”

“So what was the explosive?”

“Black powder, like for muzzle loaders, but tricked out, made more powerful. A company out in Montana makes the stuff.”

“So we can trace it?” Bree said.

“Not as easy as you think,” Mahoney said. “There are no real restrictions on the stuff. You can order it from dozens of websites online, or buy it off the shelf at hunting and fishing stores. Surprising, but the company says they make and sell thousands of pounds of the stuff per year.”

I thought out loud. “So he has knowledge of and access to a wide array of explosives. What kind of person would get that kind of knowledge and access? I mean to seek out and get the C-4?”

Mahoney said, “Money talks. You can buy nearly anything these days on the dark side of the internet.”

“Or he’s someone with real training, a military sapper. Or ex.”

“You mean like a Marine master gunnery sergeant?”

“Tim Chorey’s in detox,” I said. I started to see blue lights ahead of us, and cruisers blocking access to the Washington Monument.

“No, he’s not,” Mahoney said. “I had someone check. Chorey walked out four days ago, within hours of you dropping him.”