Bree shook her head. “Yesterday, the dogs smelled the bombs. Why make just one bomb out of it, but not four? And why leave the uncharged C-4 at all?”
“My guess is he left it as a warning,” I said. “He used plastic explosives with taggant the first time, but that game’s over. He’s saying we can’t sniff him out now. He’s saying he can bomb us at will.”
Chapter 14
Tense days passed without a phone call from the bomber. Bree was under pressure from Chief Michaels. Mahoney was dealing with the FBI director.
The only break came from the FBI crime lab confirming that the explosive used in the third bomb was pre-1980 Yugoslavian C-4, and that the triggering devices—all timers—were sophisticated. The work of an experienced hand.
I did what I could to help Mahoney between seeing patients, including Kate Williams, who showed up five minutes early for a mid-morning appointment. I took it as a good sign. But if I thought Kate was ready to grab hold of the life preserver, and I certainly hoped she was, I was mistaken.
“Let’s talk about life after you ran away,” I said, sitting down with my chair positioned at a non-confrontational angle.
“Let’s not,” Kate said. “None of that matters. We both know why we’re here.”
“Fair enough,” I said, pausing to consider how best to proceed.
In situations like this, I would ordinarily ask a lot of questions about documents in her files, watching her body language for clues to her deeper story. Indicators of stress and tension—the inability to maintain eye contact, say, or the habitual flexing of a hand—are often sure signals of deeper troubles.
But I’d had difficulty reading Kate’s body language, which shouted so loud of defeat that very little else was getting through. I decided to change things up.
“Okay, no questions about the past today. Let’s talk about the future.”
Kate sighed. “What future?”
“The future comes every second.”
“With every shallow breath.”
I read defiance and despair in her body language, but continued, “If none of this had happened to you, what would your future look like? Your ideal future, I mean?”
She didn’t dismiss the question, but pondered it. She said, “I think I’d still be in, rising through the ranks.”
“You liked the Army.”
“I loved the Army.”
“Why?”
“Until the end it was a good place for me. I do better with rules.”
“Sergeant,” I said, glancing at her file. “Two tours. Impressive.”
“I was good. And then I wasn’t.”
“When you were good, where did you see yourself going in the Army?”
I thought I’d gotten through a crack, but she shut it down. She said, “They discharged me, Dr. Cross. Dreaming about something that can never happen is not healthy.”
She watched me like a chess player looking for an indication of my next move.
Should I ask her to imagine a future for someone else? Or prompt her to take the conversation in a new direction? Before I could decide, Kate decided for me.
“Are you investigating the IEDs?” she asked. “On the Mall? I saw a news story the other night. Your wife was there, and I thought I saw you in the background.”
“I was there, but I can’t talk about it beyond what you’ve heard,” I said. “Why?”
She stiffened. “Familiar ground, I guess.”
I grasped some of the implication, but her body said there was more.
“Care to explain?”
Struggling, she finally said, “I know them. They’re like rats. Digging in the dirt. Hoping you’ll happen by.”
“The bombers?”
Kate took on a far-off look. It seemed she was seeing terrible things, her face twitching with repressed emotion.
“Stinking sand rats,” she said softly. “They only come out at night, Doc. That’s a good thing to remember, the sand rats and the camel spiders only come out at night.”
The alarm on my phone buzzed, and I almost swore because our hour was nearly up. I felt like we were just getting somewhere. By the time I silenced the alarm, Kate had come back from her dark place and saw my frustration.
“Don’t worry about it, Doc,” she said, smiling sadly as she stood. “You tried your best to crack the nut.”
“You’re not a nut.”
She laughed sadly. “Oh, yes I am, Dr. Cross.”
Chapter 15
Wiping at tears, Mickey left the VA Medical Center and ran to catch the D8 Metro bus heading south. He barely made it, and wasn’t surprised to find the bus virtually empty at this late hour.
Breathing hard, Mickey went to his favorite seat, barely glancing at the only two other passengers, an elderly woman with a cane and a heavyset man wearing blue work coveralls.
As the bus sighed into motion, Mickey felt tired, more tired than he’d been in weeks, months maybe. Rather than fight it all the way to Union Station, he pulled his baseball cap down over his eyes and drifted. Feeling the bus sway, hearing the rumble of the tires, he fell away to another time, in a place of war.
In his dreams, the sun was scorching. Mickey had buried himself in a foxhole as the Taliban mortared an advanced outpost in the mountains of Helmand Province, Afghanistan. Each blast came closer and closer. Rock and dirt fell and pinged off his helmet, smacked the back of his Kevlar battle vest, made him cringe and wince, wondering at each noise if his time was finally up.
“Where the Christ is that mother?” he heard a voice shout.
“Upper south hillside, two o’clock,” another voice called back. “Three hundred vertical meters below the ridge.”
“Can’t find him,” a gruffer voice yelled. “Gimme range!”
A third man yelled, “Sixteen hundred ninety-two meters.”
“That ledge with the two bushes on the right?”
“Affirmative!”
“I got it. Just has to show himself.”
A fourth voice shouted, “Smoke him, Hawkes! Turn the sumbitch inside out!”
The mortar attack had slowed to a stop. Mickey got up, the debris falling off his uniform as he spat out dust and poked his head out of his foxhole.
To his right about twenty yards, Hawkes was settled in behind the high-power scope of a .50-caliber Barrett sniper rifle. Muscular and bare-chested under his body armor, Hawkes had the stub of a cheap unlit cigar dangling from the corner of his lips.
“Take him out, Hawkes,” Mickey yelled. “We got better places to be.”
“We do not move until that good son of Allah shows his head,” Hawkes shouted back, his head never leaving the scope.
“I wanna go home,” Mickey said. “I want you to go home, too.”
“We all wanna go home, kid,” Hawkes said.
“I’m going surfing someday, Hawkes,” Mickey said. “Learn to ride big waves.”
“North Shore, baby,” Hawkes said as if it were a daydream of his, too. “Banzai Pipeline. Sunset Beach and…Hey, there you are, Mr. Haji. Couldn’t stand the suspense, could you? Had to see just how close you came with those last three mortars to blowing the infidels past paradise.”