A rumor was emerging among the chattering crowd that the incident was an act of terror committed by the same group that had blacked out the city’s technology. As wild and misinformed as some of the conjecture got, Heat had to admit that nothing fueled speculation like standing on a wet street for a half hour at night in your jammies with an armored ESU bomb disposal vehicle parked in front of your home.
Those who already knew their neighbor was a cop, or else had glimpsed her shield, engaged her from behind the tape, asking Heat what was going on. She thought back to a bull-necked detective she knew from the Counterterror Unit who made it his stock practice to answer all such questions by saying someone had called 911 about spotting an alligator, and they were checking it out. “You’d be surprised how many people that shuts up,” he had said. “They’ll swallow anything if you act like it’s true.” Believing she owed her community more than cynical pragmatism, Nikki answered honestly, but revealed as little as she had to. “A suspicious package,” she repeated for the umpteenth time. “Just a precaution.”
The package was more than suspicious, it was brazen, and Heat had quite a good idea where it had come from. So did Rook. Without articulating that suspicion, Rook was scanning the night for the suspect’s face, just as she was. Both knowing they’d never find it. They had a better shot at spotting an alligator.
Two words—a matter-of-fact “All clear” from the ESU commander on her walkie—sent Heat hurrying back to her stoop with Rook following in her wake. They passed the Emergency Services truck with its bomb disposal chamber hitched to the back, which always reminded Heat of a small cement mixer in tow. Officers on the lee side of the vehicle began heading over to release the evacuees. In her vestibule Heat and Rook stepped aside for a K-9 sniffer coming out with his handler. Upstairs CSU had already begun to suit up in her hallway. “Bootie call,” muttered Rook as they approached some techies slipping on paper shoe covers. Even he didn’t smile at his own joke.
The bomb sarge had his protective hood off when they came in. His short hair was pasted down by sweat. “Thank you,” was the first thing Heat said. She could only imagine the bravery it took for him to wake up every day and face the unthinkable, especially in these times. This unit called itself the “tip of the spear,” and they were.
The sergeant gave her a half smile and a salute with his thickly gloved hand. “Shame about your bottle of wine.” But Heat’s attention was focused inside the armored box in which the disposal expert had placed the suspicious package. “We ascertained pretty quickly it wasn’t an explosive device,” he explained, tugging his hands out of his Kevlar oven mitts. “We did an X-ray, and saw no wires, timers, caps, et cetera. Exterior swab, neg. K-9 was also negative—same for the rest of your apartment, by the way.”
“I can’t tell you how freaked I was,” said Rook. “I kept thinking, ‘Forrest got it wrong. Death is also like a box of chocolates.’”
“OK to have a peek?” she asked.
“You bet.” The containment vessel sat on the floor under the overhang of the kitchen counter. Boards under the rug creaked under the weight of the sergeant’s suit as he led her to it. Nikki’s limbs lost strength when she looked inside.
To Heat, it might as well have been a bomb.