Hell's Corner

CHAPTER 16

Stone and Chapman flashed their badges and passed through the gauntlet of security at the park.

“What first?” she asked.

Stone pointed to a man encircled by suits. “Let’s go right to the top.”

They again showed their IDs. When the man saw Stone’s agency he motioned the pair over to a clear space.

“Tom Gross, FBI,” he said. “I’m the case agent. Out of WFO’s Domestic Counterterrorism Unit.” Gross was in his late forties, a bit shorter than Stone, stockier, with thinning dark hair and a serious expression that had probably been permanently stamped on his features one week after joining the Counterterrorism Unit.

Stone began, “We’re here because—”

Gross interrupted. “I got a phone call. You can expect the Bureau’s full cooperation.” He looked at Chapman. “Really glad your prime minister was unhurt.”

“Thanks,” replied Chapman.

Stone asked, “Has any group claimed responsibility?”

“Not yet.”

Gross led them to the point of origin of the explosion while Stone explained that he had been at the park last night. The small colored tents marking where evidence had been found had increased greatly in number while they had been across the street.

Gross said, “The media’s been all over this thing, of course, even though we’ve kept them well back from the crime scene. Damn mess, really. We’ve had to shut down everything within a full-block radius with the park as the center. Lot of pissed-off people.”

“I’m sure,” said Stone.

“The director has held a press conference in which he said very little, because we don’t know very much. The ADIC will handle the rest of the media through the MR Office,” he added, referring to the assistant director in charge and the FBI’s Media Relations Office. “We’re taking the lead over ATF, but they’re handling the heavy work on the bomb piece.”

Stone eyed Gross. “So you’ve concluded it’s international terrorism as opposed to domestic?”

“Can’t say that, no,” admitted Gross. “But because of the geographic proximity and the PM’s presence.”

“Right,” said Stone. “Have you seen the surveillance video of the park from last night?”

“Got it all set up at the mobile command post. Unfortunately, the damn cameras were knocked out by the blast. Surprised about that, because there’s about a dozen recorders stationed all around here and manned by probably five different agencies. The bomb might have been designed to jam them, though, for some reason.”

Stone’s face was inscrutable at this comment. The FBI had clearly not been privy to the unedited video. Stone filed that one away for now. “Source of the gunfire?” he asked.

Gross pointed to the northern end of the park. “Rooftop garden of the Hay-Adams Hotel. We found lots of shell casings. TEC-9 rounds.”

“Interesting choice of weapon,” said Stone.

“Why?” asked Gross.

“Limited range. About twenty-five useful meters. Which is shorter than the height they were firing down from. And it’s hard to hit anything with a TEC-9 that’s not standing right in front of you.”

“Well, they didn’t hit anything.”

“But you found no guns?” Stone asked.

Gross shook his head.

“How was that possible?” asked Chapman. “Do people just walk around in the States carrying machine guns? I thought the British press was making that up.”

“Not sure yet. And no, people do not walk around here carrying machine guns,” Gross added indignantly. “The hotel folks are cooperating fully. The garden is popular but not incredibly secure. Of course we shut the hotel down until the investigation is over. We kept all the guests on premises and are interviewing them right now.”

Stone asked, “Were the guns set up remotely or were human fingers pulling the triggers?”

“If they were operated remotely all traces were removed. For now I think we have to assume human involvement.”

“You said you locked the hotel down?” Stone said.

“Yes, but there was a time gap,” Gross conceded.

“How long?”

“It was pretty much chaos down here for a couple hours. When the source of the gunfire was confirmed, that was when the lockdown was set up.”

“So, easily enough time for the gunners to slip out, taking their hardware with them?”

“Multiple machine guns wouldn’t be exactly inconspicuous,” Gross pointed out.

Stone shook his head. “If you know what you’re doing you can break down a TEC-9 very quickly and fit it inside a briefcase.”

“We shut things down as fast as we could. But it is what it is.”

“Hopefully, someone at the hotel will remember seeing people leaving, perhaps with a bulky case?” noted Chapman.

Gross didn’t look too confident. “An event they had there was just letting out. Lots of people with briefcases leaving about that time, apparently.”

“That wasn’t a coincidence,” said Stone. “That was good prep work.”

A guy in a hazmat suit walked over to them. He tugged off his head covering. He was introduced as an agent from the ATF, Stephen Garchik.

Gross said, “Good to go?”

Garchik nodded and grinned. “Nothing that’ll kill you.”

Stone looked at the tent markers. They were divided between orange and white. The orange were far more numerous and were spread out relatively evenly around the park. The white markers were almost all on the western side of the park.

“Orange is bomb debris and white are locations of found slugs?” Stone ventured.

Garchik nodded approvingly. “Yep, obviously there were far more bomb bits than bullets, emanating from the blast seat.”

“What kind of explosive device was it, Agent Garchik?” Stone asked.

“Just make it Steve. Too early to tell. But by the size of the debris field and damage to that statue, it was some powerful stuff.”

“C-4, or Semtex maybe?” asked Chapman. “They can both do serious damage in relatively small footprints.”

Garchik said, “Well, this is a lot of damage for a stick of TNT or even a pound of Semtex. Maybe it was a cocktail of components. Maybe HMX or CL-20. That stuff is scary powerful. They’re all in the family of most potent non-nuclear high explosives. But it most likely wasn’t military ordnance.”

“How do you know that?” asked Stone.

Chapman answered. “White smoke on the video. Military grade is oil-based, leaving a black smoke trail. White is usually commercial.”

The ATF agent smiled appreciatively. “You know your stuff. We’re bagging and tagging now. Taking residue from the blast seat.” He pointed at two burly black Labradors being walked around the grounds by their handlers. “Roy and Wilbur,” he said. “Those are the dogs’ names,” he added. “Dogs are the cheapest, most reliable bomb detectors in the world. One of my dogs can screen an entire airport in a couple hours. So they’ll burn through this whole park in no time. Find bomb residue my guys won’t even be able to see with all our fancy technology.”

“Impressive,” said Chapman.

Garchik continued with enthusiasm. “There aren’t even any machines in existence that can measure accurately the power of a dog’s nose. But I can tell you that people have about 125 million smelling cells in their nasal passages. Our Labs have twice that. We’ll run all the evidence up to our Fire Research Center in Maryland. We can torch a three-story building up there and have a hood large enough to capture every molecule of the burn-off. Be able to tell you exactly what was used.”

Stone said, “Anything left of the guy in the hole?”

Garchik nodded. “Bombs throw debris three hundred and sixty degrees. We’ve pulled body parts out of tree canopies, off surrounding rooftops. Two, three blocks away. Found a piece of a foot on the White House lawn. A partial index finger on the roof of St. John’s Church. Then there was tissue, brain matter, the usual stuff. DNA field day. Guy’s on a database somewhere we’ll know soon enough.” He nodded at the NRT truck. “Of course, the first thing we did was shut down the area and send in our dogs.”

“Secondary strikes,” noted Chapman.

“Right. They’ve made that a fine art in Iraq and Afghanistan. Trigger off a bomb, everybody rushes in to help, and they pop the secondary strike to take out the first responders. But we found nothing.” Garchik added in a proud tone, “And our Labs are exceptional. They’re mostly service-dog-school dropouts that can sniff out nineteen thousand different explosives based on the five major explosive groups, including chemical compounds. We train them with food. Labs are land sharks, do anything for food.”

“They can never be fooled?” asked Chapman.

“Let me put it this way. Roy over there found a four-inch-square C-4 block that was covered in dirty diapers and coffee, packed in Mylar bags in cement-lined crates, sealed in foam and locked in a storage room. And he did it in about thirty seconds.”

“How is that possible?” asked Chapman.

“Smells occur at the molecular level. You can’t seal them up, no matter how hard you try. Plastics, metals, pretty much any container or cover-up method can’t trap molecules because those materials are still permeable. They can hold solids and liquids, and even gases, but smell molecules are something altogether different. They can pass right through those substances. If the detection method is sensitive enough it really doesn’t matter what the bad guys do. Trained bomb detection canines have an olfactory capacity that is humanly impossible to fool, and believe me, lots of people have tried.”

“How do you think this bomb was detonated?” asked Gross.

The ATF agent shrugged. “Basic rule of three. To make a bomb you have to have a switch, power source and the explosive. Bombs are just basically something that can violently expand at extremely fast speeds while trapped in a confined space. You can detonate a bomb any number of ways, but the basic two are via a timer and by what we call command detonation.”

Chapman said, “Meaning the person doing the detonation is present?”

“Either the bomber or someone else. And the ‘someone else’ is usually to safeguard against the bomber getting cold feet. Probably half the suicide bombings in Iraq are detonated by third parties for that very reason.”

“I take it you’ve been there,” said Gross.

Garchik nodded. “Four times. And to be frank, I hope I don’t have to go back.”

“So where was the bomb?” asked Stone. “On the blown-up jogger?”

“Nope, don’t think that’s possible,” said Garchik.

“Why?” asked Stone.

“He went to the dogs.”

“What?” said Gross.

“I’ll show you. Come on.”