In the distance the higher glass on buildings reflected orange-red, and looking at that last light and the Fourth of July evening coming on, I started to unwind. I had promised Melissa I’d be on time this year, but she of all people would understand about Beatty. My sister had great patience for those with wounds to the psyche.
Truth was, I also thought Beatty needed to get on with life. He wasn’t the first soldier diagnosed with PTSD. People figure it out and deal with it, right? You don’t hole up in a run-down trailer park, complain about the air force, and drink yourself to sleep at night while you circle the same spot over and over.
At the next red light, a tricolor Hullabaloo party van heading in the opposite direction was stopped, waiting for the light to change. I looked across the intersection at the van and the driver, probably the guy who’d delivered the cake to the party. He was on his cell talking, but glanced over when he felt me watching.
When the light changed and I pulled forward, a hard, deep sound paralyzed me. It was distant, not close, and yet I felt the blast pressure wave pass through as a voice in me screamed, Take cover! My foot slipped off the accelerator. I drifted into the intersection, and the guy behind me was patient until he saw me looking up at the sky. He honked, swerved past, and in that moment I was everything an FBI agent shouldn’t be. But I found the smoke. I saw a black column rising and hit the gas pedal hard.
I drove toward it, but why were my hands trembling? Wasn’t I over all that? Shouldn’t I be? Was I weak? As I oriented on the smoke, I called Jim. The explosion must have been close to the Alagara. Jim would be outside figuring it out. He’d have a better view.
“Come on, Jim, pick up. I’m not calling about Beatty.”
Acrid smoke was drawn into my car as I closed in. A quarter mile ahead, a brown Toyota Camry was stopped in the road near the Alagara, its male driver standing outside with his door open and a cell phone pressed against his ear as he looked toward the Alagara. I drove around him, looked over, and my gut wrenched. Smoke streamed from the Alagara roof. The big lot between the bar and street was carpeted with blast debris. Doors and windows were blown out. The front door had cartwheeled into the lot. I knew what I was looking at and called 911 as my car crunched through glass. I popped the trunk lid as a 911 operator came on.
“This is FBI Special Agent Paul Grale. There’s been an explosion.” I gave her the intersection just to my left. I didn’t have the Alagara address, but they couldn’t miss the smoke. “We need a full response.”
“Special Agent Grale, we have another report of this as a fireworks cache explosion. Can you confirm that? Can you tell me how many are injured, and if there are burn injuries? Is there a fire?”
“I don’t see fire. I don’t have a count yet. There’s a great deal of blast debris surrounding the building, and there may be twenty-five or more people inside. I was on my way to a Fourth of July party here and think those numbers are close. Anyone inside is injured. We need a full response. I’m going in. Stay with me. Stay on the phone.”
I pulled gear from the trunk and yelled at two young guys getting out of a car. “FBI. Over here, I need your help.”
They started toward me as I said to the 911 operator, “About a dozen inside are military drone pilots stationed at Creech Air Force Base. Notify the air force but stay with me, okay? I’m on my way in.”
I had two gas masks and gave those to the two guys. “Put them on. One of you bring the second flashlight, one of you carry the first aid kit. Follow me! Let’s go. Right now, come on!”
We stepped over a twisted metal window frame and entered the smoke. The hole in the roof was venting it, but visibility was still poor. I coughed, wiped my eyes, and then saw how bad it really was. Bomb debris was pushed up against all exterior walls. I stepped over a torn bleeding torso coated in dust.
One of the young guys said something I couldn’t hear through his mask, and I answered, “We’re looking for anyone alive.”
The 911 operator heard that. Her voice deepened and softened as she said, “Give me your best estimate of the number of injured and types of wounds, Agent Grale. Make a rough count. With fireworks, there are almost always burn victims.”
I heard her but from a distance. My training saved me. It brought me back. It kept what I feared just far enough away.
“I work bomb makers,” I said. “I’m a special agent bomb tech. I work with the Critical Incident Response Group at headquarters in DC. I’m on the FBI Domestic Terrorism Squad. I’m telling you a bomb exploded in here. There are at least fifteen dead. We’re moving in deeper.”
“Sir, did you say bomb?”
I was several moments before answering yes, and sent one of the two with me back outside after he vomited in his mask. Then I lay my phone down and knelt in a pool of blood and moved debris off a body I recognized. I couldn’t talk, couldn’t find words, or even accept what I was seeing. I touched Melissa’s still-warm face. I cradled my sister’s lifeless head and wept.
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