Tick Tock

Chapter 33

I SOMEHOW MANAGED to complete the rest of my commute safely and arrived at the closest bombing scene, at 59th Street and Fifth Avenue, around nine thirty a.m.

The area across from the Plaza Hotel and Central Park was usually packed with rich ladies who lunch and tourists looking for overpriced horse-and-buggy rides. Now an occupying force of assault rifle-strapping Emergency Service Unit storm troopers had cordoned off the corner, and instead of Chipoos peeking from Fendi clutches, bomb-sniffing Labradors were sweeping both sides of the street.

I noticed an aggravating CBS News camera aimed directly between my eyes as I came under the crime scene tape in front of the GM Building. I guess I couldn't complain that the media had already gotten here, since, including ABC and NBC, they seemed to be the targets.

As if Tiffany's and the network studios weren't high-profile enough, the world-famous FAO Schwarz toy store sat on the other side of the outdoor space, as well as the funky transparent glass cube of the wild Fifth Avenue sunken Apple store.

I found the Bomb Squad's second in command, Brian Dunning, chewing gum as he knelt on the intersection's southeast corner in front of a blast-blackened streetlight. At the Grand Central scene, Cell had told me that the blond pock-faced tech was fresh from Iraq, where he'd been part of a very busy army EOD team. Since it seemed New York was currently at war as well, I was glad he was on our side.

The toppled garbage can beside him had a hole in its steel mesh the size of a grapefruit. What looked like tiny pieces of confetti were scattered on the sidewalk and street beside it. It reminded me of firecracker paper on the day after the Fourth of July. I scooped some of it up to get a better look.

"It's cardboard," Dunning said, standing. "From a coffee cup, is my guess. Which would blend in perfectly in a garbage can. You want an IED to appear totally innocuous."

"Was it plastic explosive, like the last one?" I said.

Dunning smelled the piece of cardboard.

"Dynamite, I'd say off the top of my head. About a stick or so, I'd guess. Mobile phone trigger with a fuse-head electric blasting cap packed in a coffee cup all as neat as you please. This cop-killing freak's got skills. I'll give him that."

Great, I thought. Our guy was using new materials. Or maybe not, I thought, letting out a breath. It could have been someone else catching the heat of the moment and getting in on the act.

More questions without any answers, I thought. What else was new?

I caught up to my boss, who was talking with a group of shaken-up Early Show staffers.

"No one seems to have seen a thing, Mike," Miriam said as we walked toward the corner. "They have security out here on the Plaza, of course, but they don't detour pedestrian traffic. Sanitation said they collected this morning at five. Our guy must have dropped the coffee cup sometime after that, probably as he was waiting for the light. This guy's a ghost."

I quickly went over the double copycat theory that Emily and I were working on.

"He's not just copying Sam the Man," I said. "In the forties, a disgruntled Con Ed employee named George Metesky planted bombs in movie theaters and public places. For sixteen years, he set off gunpowder-filled pipe bombs in the same places this guy has hit. The library, Rockefeller Center, Grand Central. It fits, boss."

She stepped off the sidewalk into the street. We looked down Fifth Avenue at the Empire State Building for a few beats.

"So you're saying this guy isn't just some regular run-of-the-mill violent psycho?" she said.

I nodded.

"I think we have some kind of supercompetent and super-loony NYC crime buff out there giving nods to those he admires," I said.