“The jammer’s working. You tested it yourself.”
“Right,” Stahl said. “But this is the guy. Our guy. He doesn’t do just one thing. He’s well informed enough to know that if we suspected a phone trigger we’d use a signal jammer. He didn’t hide the phone.”
“But he hid everything in the bag.”
“Think for a minute,” said Stahl. “Why did this guy put the bag here? Not because he wants to kill a dozen middle school kids. He wants to kill some bomb technicians. So I’m guessing the phone isn’t the only trigger. It’s the bait. He’s hoping that once we neutralize the phone, we’ll think we’ve solved the problem. We’ll try to put it in the containment vessel.”
“That’s the logical thing to do. We can’t detonate it in a school.”
“So far he hasn’t planted anything that didn’t have a trap,” said Stahl. “So let’s see what he’s rigged to make normal procedures suicidal. Let’s start by checking for connections to anything else in the bag—wires, layers of an insulating material that are spring-loaded to pop out when someone touches the device and complete the firing circuit, pressure pads, tilt switches. He’s used all of those.”
They took out their flashlights and leaned over the bag, not touching it as they strained to see inside from every possible angle.
After a few minutes Wyman said, “No wires, or anything.”
Stahl said, “Agreed.” He lay on the floor and rolled onto his back to look up under the plastic chair seat. “Take a look at this, but don’t touch it.”
Wyman lay down on the other side of the chair and rolled to position the window of his helmet so he could see. “What is that?”
Stahl said, “It looks like the sensor mechanism from a burglar alarm. As long as the magnet on this side is touching this sensor, nothing happens, because the magnet is holding the circuit open. If the magnet gets moved, an interior spring pushes the sensor down and the gap in the firing circuit is closed.”
“So if we disconnect the battery, we’re done.”
“Let’s not assume that’ll do it,” Stahl said. “I’m not sure the battery has enough power to operate this.”
“You mean the battery is just another decoy?”
“Maybe not, but let’s see if there’s another power source.” Stahl reached into the kit and took out a multimeter. He put the leads to various spots and watched the dial on the box. “There’s power running through these two metal legs of the chair.”
He looked at the legs carefully, and then at two other chairs. “The feet of this chair are strangely clean—much cleaner than the others. No dust at all.” He touched the grout between the tiles of the cafeteria floor with his finger. Next he took out a knife from the kit and scraped the grout. It crumbled and began to come out.
“This grout is new. It hasn’t been here long enough to lose the moisture and set properly.” He worked at it a bit longer and then lifted his blade. “See the wire?” He pried up a double strand of narrow-gauge wire. “Let’s look for the other end of it.” He got to his knees and followed the line of fresh grout with his finger. It led to the nearest wall. He pointed to a small double wire with white insulation that ran a few inches up the white wall to the white cover of an electrical outlet. He used the knife to unscrew the two screws that held the cover to the wall, and saw that the two wires split and connected to the sides of the outlet. “Here’s the power source.”
“Can we disconnect it?”
“Yes.” He unscrewed one connection to the socket to free one wire, capped the end, and then freed the other wire. Then he took up the wire that ran under the grout. When he reached the chair he tested its legs again with the multimeter and found no current. He cut the two wires to the battery. Then he pulled the blasting cap out of the block of Semtex.
When Stahl had finished, he noticed that Wyman was looking around the room.
“Do you see something else?”
Wyman said, “If you hadn’t shown up, I would have died in this room.”
“Maybe,” said Stahl. “But now you’re less likely to die if you face this again. You just met this guy. Work on getting to know him, and how he thinks. Never forget that what he wants is to kill you and your team. Not some kids or a gas station attendant. He wants the tech who’s trying to defeat his bomb.”
“I was completely fooled,” said Wyman. “I never saw any of it.”
“Now you’re somebody this guy has to worry about. Pass it on to your team.”
“Thanks,” said Wyman. He knelt to begin picking up the tools.
“Leave everything where it is, including the jammer,” said Stahl. “We need to get the dogs in to sniff the rest of the school for explosives. He could have put another one in some kid’s locker.”
“I’ll make the calls and get the locker keys.”
“Right. If the dogs alert on anything, have somebody drive out of the zone and call me. If they don’t, you can turn the place over to the crime scene people. All we need is a print or some DNA, or a sign of where he bought the battery or the bags.”
Stahl clomped along the hall to the back door. He went to the bomb truck and said, “You’d better go in and help Sergeant Wyman. But don’t touch anything until he’s briefed you.” Then he went to his car, took off the suit, put it in his trunk, and drove.
23
Stahl decided it was too late to drive back to police headquarters now. The day shift had ended and he wanted to make it to the hospital to see Diane before visiting hours ended. He knew that by now Andy had left his desk, as usual, clear and clean with everything he had been working on filed in its place in one of the locked filing cabinets, and gone home.
He drove home to his condominium, walked through to the master bedroom, and turned on the light. He snatched a sport coat and jeans from the closet and tossed them onto the bed. He showered and dressed as efficiently as possible, then went to the garage, got into the plain police car, and drove.
He glanced at the clock on the car’s dashboard. Visiting hours started at seven on Diane’s floor, and it was after eight. He increased his speed a little so he could make it all the way across the wide intersection at San Vicente before the light changed.
He had felt as though he were falling behind during the day, and this was the culmination. Defeating bombs was slow work. It took as long as it took, but he was also the boss, the one who had administrative duties and responsibilities, and even on a good day they kept him distracted. He had meant to talk to Diane on the phone during the day, but that had been impossible. Since he returned to the force, he had been trying to control everything around him, and he was wearing thin.
The need to control had been strongest on bomb calls. The deaths of the fourteen horrified him so much he’d found it difficult to let any of his remaining technicians touch a bomb. Each time he went out to observe their work and give advice, he hadn’t been able to resist going downrange himself. There had always been something about the device that made him feel everyone would be safer if he handled it.