“Unless he’s using Yugoslavian C-4 again,” I said.
“Which is why we’ll treat every garbage bag or can as if it’s a live bomb.”
The first dogs went inside at 3:39 a.m. We went in after the bomb squads entered, and stood in the dramatic vaulted main hall of the station, listening to the echoes of the dogs and their handlers.
None of the K-9s reacted to the garbage carts the cleaners had abandoned. But Denton prudently had them turned over, dumping the trash bags, which she covered with bomb mats.
She couldn’t do that to every remaining trash bag in the station. Instead, she told her agents to don their protective cowls. They would retrieve every public garbage bag left in the rest of the building and put them in piles to be matted.
They cleared the second floor of the shops first. I noticed and pointed to a Washington Post newspaper box. The headlines read: A CITY ON EDGE. FEARS OF MORE TO COME.
“He was reading from the paper,” Bree said.
“Following his own exploits,” I said. “Enjoying himself.”
The dogs cleared the Amtrak Hall.
“It has to be out on one of the platforms then,” I told Bree and Mahoney. “The cleaners said they almost always do them last.”
Mahoney ordered the search personnel onto the platforms. We went through a short tunnel to Platform 6 and watched as the German shepherds loped past dark trains, flanking Platforms 1 and 2 to our far left, going from garbage receptacle to garbage receptacle, sniffing at the open doors to the coach cars.
Bree checked her watch.
“We’ll find it,” she said. “There’s only so many places he could have—”
The tracks to both sides of Platforms 4 and 5 were empty. There was nothing to block the brilliant flash of the bomb exploding in a trash can at Platform 4’s far north end, or the blast that boxed our ears and forced us to our knees.
It was 4 a.m. on the dot.
Chapter 17
Later that afternoon, I opened the door to Kate Williams, who actually greeted me before going into my basement office. She took a seat before I offered it.
“How are you?” I asked, moving my chair to a non-threatening angle.
“Could be worse,” she said.
“The headaches?”
“Come and go.”
“Tell me about that day.”
Kate stiffened. “That’s the thing, Dr. Cross, I don’t remember much of it. Getting your bell rung hard has a way of erasing things. You know?”
“Yes. What do you remember?”
She fidgeted. “Can we talk about something else today?”
I set my pen down. “Okay. What shall we talk about?”
“Your wife’s a police chief?”
“Chief of detectives,” I said.
“She’s part of the IED investigation. I saw her on the news. You, too.”
“The FBI’s brought me in as a consultant.”
Kate sat forward in her chair. “What happened in Union Station this morning?”
“Beyond what’s on the news, Kate, I really can’t talk about it.”
“But I can help you,” she said eagerly. “If there’s one thing I know, it’s IED bombers, Dr. Cross. How they think, how they act, what to look for, how to sniff them out. With or without dogs.”
I tried not to look skeptical.
“It’s what I did in Iraq,” she said. “My team. We were assigned to guard supply convoys, but we were IED hunters, pure and simple.”
Kate said her team, including a German shepherd named Brickhouse, rode in an RG-33 MMPV, a “Medium Mine Protected Vehicle” that often led convoys into hostile territory. Her job demanded she sit topside in a .50-caliber machine gun turret, scanning the road ahead for signs of ambush or possible IED emplacements.
“What did you look for?” I said. I noted how much her demeanor had changed.
“Any significant disturbance in the road surface, to start,” she said. “Any large boxes or cans on the shoulder of the road or in the brush. Any culverts ahead? Any bridges? Loose wires hanging to soil level from power poles. Any spotters on rooftops watching us? Men or women hurrying away from the road with red dirt all over their robes? Were they using cell phones? Were they using binoculars? If it was night, were we picking up anything in infrared images? It’s a long list that gradually added up to gut instinct.”
I studied her a long moment, wondering if it was possible she was involved. The bomber’s voice had been soft, androgynous. But I saw no deceit in Kate’s body language, nothing but openness and honesty.
“C’mon, Dr. Cross,” she said. “I can help you.”
“All right,” I sighed. “I can’t tell you everything. But, yes, an IED went off in Union Station early this morning. No one was hurt. The bomb caused minimal damage.”
“Radio controlled?”
“Timer.”
That seemed to surprise her, but she shrugged. “He’s not trying to hit a moving target, though, is he? What’s the medium he’s using? Fertilizer?”
I hesitated, but was intrigued by the line of questioning. “Plastic explosive.”
“C-4. We saw that when they targeted bridges. Describe the placements?”
I told her that four of the five bombs had been found in trash cans, one buried beside a path between the Korean War and Martin Luther King Memorials.
“He’s nervous,” she said. “That’s why he’s using the trash cans. They’re easy. Disguise it as something else, dump it, and walk on. How much power in the bombs?”
“You’d have to ask the guys at Quantico. They’re analyzing what’s left.”
“But we’re not talking significant damage here,” she said. “There’s no ball bearings or screws wrapped around the C-4 to cause maximum mayhem.”
“Not that I’ve heard.”
She stared off. “That’s when they’re out for big blood. How’s he warning you?”
We hadn’t revealed that the bomber had been calling Bree directly, so I said, “Warning us?”
Kate cocked her head. “Every time a bomb’s gone off, police and FBI have been on the scene, actively looking for a bomb. You had to have been warned.”
“I can’t talk specifics.”
“Any Allahu Akbar, jihad stuff?”
“Not that I know of.”
“That was another thing I was always tuned in to. I learned enough Arabic to look for jihadi phrases spray painted near IEDs.”
“Really?”
“Oh, all the time,” she said.
“There’s been nothing along those lines.”
Kate chewed on that. “He giving you any motivation?”
“Changing people’s mind-set. Making them understand.”
“You quoting him?”
“Yes.”
She fell quiet for almost a minute and finally said, “He’s no Middle Eastern terrorist, that’s for sure.”
I agreed with her, but asked, “How do you know?”
“Jihadists are in your face about why they’re trying to blow you up,” she said. “They’ll take credit for it in the name of Allah or their chosen fanatic group. And the damage inflicted doesn’t make sense to me. Rather than put five bombs out, why not use all that C-4 and make a real statement? Wrap it in bolts, washers, and nuts, and get it somewhere crowded, like the Boston Marathon bombers?”