Transfer of Power

THE SUN WAS falling in the western sky, and from the east a solid wall of gray was approaching. Salim Rusan stood near the tailgate of his ambulance and looked in both directions. A deeply superstitious man, he did not like the foreboding change in the weather. One of the other ambulance drivers had stopped by and introduced himself, and as luck would have it, the man was gay. Instead of the disguise working as a repellent, it had done the opposite.

After several moments of idle chitchat, Rusan made up the excuse that he needed to run and make a phone call When the other ambulance driver offered his cell phone, Rusan declined and stated that in addition to having to call his boyfriend, he also had to use the bathroom.

He turned and started walking to the east down Pennsylvania Avenue. Just a dozen paces later he approached two D.C.cops manning the barricade at Fourteenth Street.

“Excuse me, Officers,” he asked.

“Can you tell me where I can get a bite to eat?”

One of the officers eyed him with a frown while the other paused for a moment and then pointed down the street. “If you head down E Street here, you’ll run into a deli and a couple fast-food joints.” Rusan smiled and said thank you as he passed the two men. Then turning, he asked, “Will I have any problem getting back to my ambulance?”

“No, we’ll be here for a while.”

Rusan turned on his toes. He ducked under the blue sawhorse at the far end of the intersection; he was immediately pleased with the volume of people. After pressing his way through the crowd, he found that it ran about ten people deep and then loosened up. A large concrete trash can, overflowing with trash, sat behind the crowd. There must have been a Mcdonald’s nearby because eight or so of their bags littered the immediate area around the receptacle. All the better, since the bomb would do more damage lying on the sidewalk than in the garbage can.

He pulled one of the cans of diet Coke from his fanny pack and bent over. Taking one of the spent Mcdonald’s bags, he wedged the can in with the rest of the refuse and set the whole package back on the ground. He positioned the bag so the majority of the blast would be directed toward the crowd.

Rusan stood and started down the sidewalk again. He would come back the same way and make sure the bag was still there. Up ahead on his right, he could make out the ugly brown surface of the Hoover Building. He wouldn’t go that far, although it was very tempting. There were too many cameras and too many professionals with a trained eye. Rusan would play it safe for now. There was no need to risk exposure.