The bomb maker’s heart began to speed up. “I didn’t get you enough for a battle.”
The bald man made a gesture as if to brush away a cobweb. “We didn’t want to make you do everything. We sent out men to buy much, much more ammunition. Now we’ll each have as many loaded magazines as we can carry, and still more in cars nearby. We’re ready.”
The bomb maker was nervous. “We’ve never talked about when you’d be ready, or what you want to do. I assume you have a detailed plan.”
The bald man nodded. “We would never tell anyone in advance what we’re going to do. You’ve done very well so far. Now we need you to plant a great many bombs in many places, and very large ones in a few particular places. This is the remaining thing we have to ask. It will have to be done within a short period, so you’ll be busy.”
The bomb maker said, “Well, those are things I will be able to do. What you want is smaller than what I’ve already done. But—”
“But? But what?”
“Before the big day comes, you’ll need to deliver to me the ten million dollars your group promised me.”
“We’ll get it for you as soon as you’ve planted the bombs and set the detonators.”
“That wasn’t the agreement I made with you in Niagara Falls. I must have the ten million dollars before the final day begins. Once I have it, I’ll make this city into a little corner of hell for you. Until I have it, I’ll keep making my preparations, as before.”
“What’s going to stop us from killing you tonight and taking your bombs?”
“My bombs are all designed to fool the best set of civilian bomb technicians in the world. You already know that. If you think you can do anything with them, go ahead. If you make a mistake, the detonator initiates the explosive, but you have lots of men.”
The bald man’s eyes were on his, and they never blinked or turned away. The bomb maker kept his gaze steady, robbing the bald man’s stare of power by counting seconds to distract himself.
The bald man said, “All right. We’ll give you your money first.”
The bomb maker said, “Then I’ll do the rest of the job. I’ll need time to assemble the devices I’ve been working on, and mix the rest of the explosives. We should agree on a day when everything will happen.”
“When will your preparations be ready?”
“Three weeks. You can use the time to go over all of your plans, fix anything you’re worried about, and obtain the money.”
“We can get the money by then,” the bald man said. “You realize that once we give you the money, I’ll have to assign men to watch you twenty-four hours a day until bombs begin to explode?”
“I suppose I can accept that.”
“You will.”
41
Diane Hines and Dick Stahl stood at the memorial service for Sergeant Edward Carmody at Forest Lawn cemetery. Hines wore her police uniform, Stahl a black suit that looked a bit like one. A solitary police bagpiper was up the hill from the grave playing “Going Home—the Fallen Soldier.” There had been one at the service for the fourteen men who died together in the first explosion too, and a week ago, for Neil and Wyman.
He seemed to Diane to be the same piper. He wore a Black Watch tartan, and he was good at the instrument, a big blond man with strong wind and quick fingers. She watched the seven men and one woman shoulder the casket to the grave. They handled their burden with little strain, and it reminded her there was probably a lot less of Carmody inside than there should be.
Shrapnel from the bounding mines had torn Carmody apart, Elliot had told her. There had been a decoy fuze attached to a dummy cylindrical charge and nine bounding charges loaded into launchers made of tin cans. There would probably be the forty pounds of bone—fifty, maybe, for a man Carmody’s size—and whatever muscle was still on the bones or they could collect from the surrounding area, which wouldn’t be much after the storm of steel balls cut through him. There would be nothing of the five quarts of blood, of course. That would have sprayed the grass and soaked into the floor of the wooded glen.
Rogers and Marshall said Carmody had known what was happening to him. The design had given him a second or two to see and hear the charges pop into the air a few feet before they detonated. She knew what that foreknowledge felt like. Not good. The second she’d used to roll under the big wooden sideboard, Carmody had used to warn his friends.
She studied the crowd. There were a couple of attractive women about forty years old in full formal mourning black. They were probably ex-wives. That was another side of Carmody. When she was promoted to the Bomb Squad and had returned from training, Carmody had paid a lot of attention to her for a few days. He had asked her to an Italian restaurant that was an old landmark. When she made inquiries about him she learned he was married.
She looked at the two women and wondered if the wife at that time was one of them, or someone else who wasn’t here. At least Diane didn’t have to feel guilty today. She had turned him down. She tried to figure out which one was the earlier wife, the one Carmody had cheated on with the other. They both seemed to be about the same age, so she gave up. They looked as though they had made their peace some time ago, because otherwise there was no reason to sit together. There had been at least one more wife who didn’t seem to be present.
The leader of the firing party shouted his order and the eight men stiffened, snapped their rifles to their shoulders, raised them at once, and fired. The air was still, and she watched a cloud of smoke drift away over their heads. Then there was the second volley, then the third.
She caught Dick Stahl looking at her from the corner of his eye. She knew he was thinking about how close she had come to being the one in a box. She pretended she hadn’t seen, and focused instead on the dead man. She mentally said good-bye to Carmody. It was like waving to a friendly acquaintance as he walked away for the last time. She had given enough thought to his failings. They were erased now.
The chief, the priest of Carmody’s church, and one of his teammates said the words that people filling their roles always had to say—competing value systems expressed by people who didn’t seem to notice the contradictions between them.
The firing party, the color guard, and the pallbearers marched through the cordon of uniformed police officers, and then the members of the LAPD, sheriff’s department, and highway patrol, and all the nearby police forces moved off too. The woman left sitting near the grave with a couple of others had the folded flag from the coffin on her lap. She seemed to be Carmody’s mother. A woman who was probably a sister had her arm around her.
Hines took a step and felt Dick’s big hand close on her arm so he could keep her from falling. “I’m fine,” she whispered. “Don’t touch in public.” She wasn’t tottering on high heels. She was wearing a police uniform and sturdy, spit-shined shoes with wide soles.
He realized she was right, so he moved his hand quickly enough to disguise the touch as an accidental brush in a crowd. They didn’t seem to have drawn attention. They began to walk toward the remaining group of Bomb Squad members at the edge of the row where they had been seated.
When the two reached the group, the squad members surrounded Stahl to shake his hand and enveloped Hines in gentle hugs.
They all said they were sorry about Carmody and would miss him. Then Stahl, Hines, and the others began to walk toward their cars.
As they passed near the low dais where the high-ranking police officials and civilian dignitaries had sat, Deputy Chief Ogden separated himself from the others and caught Stahl and Hines.
“Hello,” he said to them. He patted Hines’s shoulder, a gesture that seemed to her to be prompted by the inherent maleness of the police uniform they both wore. “Sergeant Hines, you’re looking well. Are you feeling better?”