Unlucky 13

Chapter 23

I was already awake when Clapper called.

He said into my ear, “Glad I got you, Boxer. We’ve got breaking news on the belly bombs.”

At 7:15 or so, I texted Claire, and within an hour she and I were high on caffeine and optimism, on our way out to San Francisco’s Police Department Crime Lab at Hunters Point.

We met Clapper on the ground floor of the 13,500-square-foot lab. In answer to our questions, he said, “Keep your lids on. You’ll hear all about it in another couple minutes. And better from her than from me.”

Clapper walked us through the lab’s labyrinthine corridors and between rows of cubicles until we reached a corner office at the back of the building that was pretty much crammed with lab furniture and shiny high-tech equipment.

At the center of it all was Dr. Damaris Cortes, lab manager and point person working with the FBI on the belly bomb case. Cortes was a radiant forty, with short blue hair, large diamond studs, and a tattoo of an atom in the cleft between thumb and forefinger of her right hand.

She almost shimmered with energy.

Cortes offered us small chairs in her cramped office, while Clapper stood in the doorway, saying, “I’m pretty sure the three of you could speed up the rotation of the earth.”

Cortes said, “Fasten your seat belt, Clapper. Buckle up.”

Clapper laughed and said, “Copy that,” then disappeared down the hallway.

Cortes fixed her big gray eyes on us and said, “Claire, Lindsay, you understand this belly bomb is impossible, right? And yet—it was done. The FBI gave me a few cc’s of stomach contents—about one tablespoon. And, guess what? I found something.”

Cortes spun her chair around and began clicking open files on her computer.

“Nope, nope, nope—there you are, you little stinker,” she said. “Come look at this.”

Claire and I peered over the doctor’s shoulders and looked at the screen, but I had no idea what I was supposed to be looking at within this splotchy pinkish smear.

“Is that it?” Claire said. “That little oblong shape there?”

I squinted and said, “Why don’t you tell us ordinary folks what you’ve got?”

Cortes had a wild, untethered laugh that totally suited her mad-scientist personality.

“That, my friends, is your smoking gun.”