A Danger to Himself and Others: Bomb Squad NYC Incident 1 (32 page)

“No matter,” Diaz promised him. “We’re all leaving here alive.”

But he couldn’t be sure he believed that himself.

WHAT LAY BEFORE HIM WAS
uncharted territory, but he didn’t intend to tell Ritchie that. He explained to her what he planned to do. “It’ll be very important,” he said, “for you not to try to help me by shifting your weight.”

“Okay,” she said.

He wondered whether he should ask first if she really wanted to live, but events would soon force that decision upon her without further reflection. If the answer was no, it remained his job in any case to go down trying to save her. Just like the other three dozen guys in the squad, all of whom always ran toward the bomb when called upon, damn the consequences.

The board that Kahn had passed through the door was smooth and shiny, painted in a sparkly russet color with a subtle waviness to the design. The dimensions were five feet long and two-and-a-half feet wide, Diaz estimated. It looked to be about a quarter-inch thick, and the edges were beveled and polished all around, as he’d requested.

Diaz opened the first two bottles of baby oil and began slathering it on, using his hands.

“I’m greasing the board now,” he said, “to minimize resistance.”

She remained silent.

When he was done, he lifted it up for her to see. He explained that a certain degree of added pressure wouldn’t set the bomb off, since it would only keep the switch depressed. But they must at all costs avoid the release of pressure. That was a nice theory, anyway. In truth, for all the x-rays he couldn’t know for sure what Manis had in store for them.

“You’ll feel the poke of the edge of the board,” he explained. “Try not to react. Just keep breathing.”

She nodded ever so slightly as he used both hands to suspend the board within an inch of the mattress. He tilted the tip and felt the resistance of her ribs. She reacted only with her breath, which caught for a second, but then she forced herself to exhale.

It took Diaz twenty-five minutes to get the board under her, progressing by fractions of an inch, telling her how good she was doing with each sliver of progress. When, at long last, she was straddling the center of it with her back, he went and got the books. He piled them evenly on each end, until he had them arrayed in neat stacks.

He was sweating profusely, feeling almost dizzy with dehydration, but raging adrenaline lent him steady hands. “I’m going to cut you free now, Sallye. Arms first, then feet. The arms I want you to bring to your sides as slowly as possible. When you’re ready, place your hands on your hips, palms up, so I can take them in a minute.”

“A minute? Does it have to be that long?”

“We’ve come this far. Let’s not screw it up. Your legs—” he thought about it—“keep them spread.”

“You pig.” She laughed. She was becoming giddy. He hoped she could control herself.

He washed his hands with soap in the kitchen sink to get the remains of the oil off. Then he extracted his Leatherman knife from the scabbard on his leg, released the blade, and cut the ropes with as little motion as possible.

She moved her arms with such caution that Diaz had to bite his lip to keep from urging her on. He used the kitchen towel to wipe the sweat from his forehead, and stood at the foot of the bed, where he reached forward and took her hands.

In one motion she came up off the mattress and into his arms.

Then Diaz ran like he’d never run before. He knew he couldn’t outrun whatever an explosion sent flying, but he thought he had a chance against a stack of teetering books.

He was through the door in a matter of seconds. Kahn, still in the staging area, saw him burst out and took off running next him, both of them heading behind the response truck and around the corner of the building at a dead sprint.

A moment later, Diaz collapsed to his knees as an EMT seized Sallye Ritchie from his arms. Crouched on the ground, he swallowed a deep gulp of cold night air and closed his eyes in ecstasy. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d taken so sweet a breath.

TOCK

14.

DAY SEVEN—Dark

THE FIRST REAL MEAL THAT
Joseph Capobianco ate in eight days consisted of chicken with the skin roasted crispy, rosemary potatoes, broccoli casserole, and half a loaf of Italian bread. He topped it off with two pieces of store-bought banana cream pie.

“Making up for lost time?” Jill asked.

“Don’t start.” He paused with the last bite an inch from his mouth. “When’s Samantha coming home?”

“Tomorrow.”

“She never called?”

“Once or twice while you were sleeping.”

“She missed all the excitement.”

“Watching you sleep or watching you puke?”

“C’mon. I meant the veteran bombings.”

“Thank God she missed that. You said when we finished dinner you were going to tell me how the bomb went off.”

“We don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“We may never know. Not much left of that bomb or anything else in the room. It was either the battery decay or the switch popped up. For my money, it’s the batteries. I don’t think Diaz could’ve outrun the switch.”

“It happened right after?”

Capobianco nodded. “Three minutes later. Fortunately, while Diaz was working, the guys had covered the windows with ballistic blankets. They’d just gotten the woman into the ambulance when the damn thing detonated.”

“Did the building go down?”

“No. That structure was built to industrial standards. But I’ll tell you, Jill, a few of us nearly jumped out of our shoes.”

“You didn’t expect it?”

“We did, in a manner of speaking, and we didn’t. Anyway, on Gowen’s advice, I told Diaz to take off the next few days.”

“You needed Gowen to tell you that?”

“No, but it gave me cover. Besides, I thought it was wise for the mayor to know I was back on the job.”

“The mayor called you?”

“Negative. Gowen spoke to him. I guess I don’t rate.”

“You do with me.”

“Thank you, sweetheart.”

“Now do the dishes.”

He smiled. “My pleasure.” It felt good to have this case over. And it felt good to be holding down his dinner.

MANIS DIDN’T BOTHER TO CHECK
the newspapers. He took the train to Kennedy Airport, where he had an old Toyota Camry in long-term parking under an assumed name. He left Queens and began driving northwest, listening to WINS-AM radio as he went. The signal faded out by the time he hit northern Westchester, but he was able to pick up more news on CBS-AM, which dropped about halfway through Putnam County. All that way, the drama continued. But he left New York City radio range before he heard the conclusion.

Past Millerton, in the northeast corner of Dutchess County, Manis found a dirt road and pulled off near dense woods. Using the side-view mirror, he shaved his head bald. Then he fetched a shovel from the trunk and walked until he could see his car no more. He scraped aside three inches of frozen matted leaves and dug a hole in the ground, burying the pack with his explosives and his pistol, identifying the site for future reference by triangulating marks on the bark of a nearby oak and two beech trees.

About halfway back to his car, he burned his real passport and driver’s license on a large boulder and ground the ashes down with the sole of his shoe.

He drove all night to the vicinity of Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. In a nearby Target store he purchased a suitcase full of clothes. Using a false passport, he flew to Dulles International in Washington with plans for a connecting flight to Munich, Germany. So as not to call attention to himself, he used a round-trip ticket, purchased with a phony credit card.

On the layover in Dulles he used an Internet connection in the terminal to learn that Sallye Ritchie had survived his surefire trap and that detectives of the NYPD Bomb Squad had saved her. It made him angry to be denied that closure. He went into the airport bathroom and puked a pint of bile.

In mid-air on the way to Munich he more calmly contemplated what he’d accomplished in New York and what he’d failed to do. He ran his damaged hand over his face, thinking of the man he’d once been and the man he was today. A bomb was the disordering of matter, but it soon found new equilibrium, albeit in heaps of fragments and dust. If the NYPD Bomb Squad had defeated the device he’d so carefully built for Sallye, that didn’t mean he couldn’t build another one. And better.

He closed his eyes for the long flight and let his mind drift to devices yet unmade. Before he awoke, a new day would dawn over the Atlantic.

DIAZ HAD SPENT FOUR HOURS
and thirty-seven minutes in a room with a naked woman and a powerful bomb. Once he’d lifted the nurse off of the poly board and carried her out, he was finished for the day. Kahn offered to drive him home, and Diaz was too tired even to enjoy giving his partner turn-by-turn directions.

The door to his apartment opened before he got the key in, as if Jennifer had been waiting at the peephole.

She embraced him and said, “Oh, Manny. I’ve been watching the news.”

He smiled to see her, gave her back a weak squeeze, and poured himself into his bed.

When he awoke it was past midnight and she was sleeping next to him in her clothes. She sat up when he left the bed. He was starving and they agreed to go to an all-night Mexican joint on Amsterdam. They shared a plate of nachos and a chicken quesadilla, drank Modelo beer and took turns daring one another to eat jalapeño peppers.

Along the way he told her everything she wanted to know about the past forty-eight hours, making her laugh and making her cry, as if he were still in danger. When he was done, she asked, “Did the experience change you?”

He looked into her blue eyes and grinned. “I’m not gonna walk on the parkway no more.”

“What about the other thing?” she wondered.

“That I haven’t tested,” he said. “But don’t get your hopes going.”

“That’s all right.” In disappointment, she looked more beautiful than ever.

Diaz wanted to reassure her. He smiled, wiggling his fingers in the air. “Still got all ten digits.”

They went home and made love in their special way on Jennifer’s bed until they collapsed in exhaustion, Diaz as satisfied as a man in his condition could be. Lying together awake for a long time afterward, they stared at the stains on the ceiling until their eyes grew heavy in the warm apartment air. The clanging heat pipes of morning sang a familiar lullaby.

THE END

Glossary

A and E—Colloquialism for AES

ADIC—Assistant Director in Charge, FBI

AES—Arson and Explosion Squad, an NYPD investigative unit also known as A&E

Ahura—A brand of field spectrometer used for field tests of possible explosives and toxic agents

ANDROS Wolverine—Manufactured by Northrop Grumman’s Remotec division, the Wolverine is one of three bomb disposal robots currently deployed by the NYPD Bomb Squad. From Wikipedia: “Wolverine is a wheeled and optionally tracked design and is the largest in the ANDROS family at 810 lbs.”

ANDROS F6A—Manufactured by Northrop Grumman’s Remotec division, the F6A is one of three bomb disposal robots currently deployed by the NYPD Bomb Squad. From the manufacturer: “The Remotec ANDROS F6A is the most versatile, heavy-duty robot on the market. Speed and agility unite to make it the first choice for a wide range of missions, and its proven stair climbing ability, rugged and dependable chassis, and an arm capable of lifting 65 lbs mean that the F6A is more than strong enough to handle any task.”

ANDROS HD-1—Manufactured by Northrop Grumman’s Remotec division, the Wolverine is one of three bomb disposal robots currently deployed by the NYPD Bomb Squad. From Wikipedia: “HD-1 is wheeled and optionally tracked like the Wolverine, but is the smallest (and newest) ANDROS variant, weighing 200 lbs.”

ATF—The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms

CIA—Central Intelligence Agency

CSU—Crime Scene Unit, the NYPD’s name for the CSI department

DARPA—Defense Advance Research Projects Agency, the main research arm of the US Department of Defense

EDC—Explosive Detection Canine, a dog especially trained to sniff out bombs and the ingredients of explosives

EOD—Explosive Ordnance Disposal, the US military’s equivalent of a Bomb Squad

ESU—Emergency Services Unit

ETK—Explosive Test Kit, used for detecting explosive residue in the field

FBI—The Federal Bureau of Investigation

F6A—See ANDROS F6A

Glock 19—This versatile pistol is favored for its compactness and efficiency. It is one of three production pistols that NYPD detectives may choose to carry as their service weapon.

HD-1—See ANDROS HD-1

HDS—Hazardous Devices School, conducted by the FBI out of Huntsville, Alabama, where all bomb techs in the nation train

IABTI—International Association of Bomb Technicians and Investigators

IED—Improvised Explosive Device

IMEI—A type of cell phone “fingerprint”

JTTF—Joint Terrorism Task Force, consists of designated federal and local agencies and police forces

ME—Medical Examiner

MOS—Military Occupational Specialty

MP—Military Police

NJTTF—National Joint Terrorism Task Force

NSA—National Security Agency

NSN Number—A type of cell phone “fingerprint”

NYPD—New York Police Department

PAN—Percussion-Actuated Non-Electric Disrupter

PO—Police Officer

PSA—Police Service Area

RDX—Research Department Explosive, also known as cyclonite, more powerful than TNT

RPG—Rocket-Propelled Grenade

RSP—Render-Safe Procedure

RUC—Royal Ulster Constabulary

SABT—Special Agent Bomb Technician, a designation in the FBI’s Bomb Squad

SAC—Special Agent in Charge, an FBI responsibility

ScanX—The brand of portable x-ray devices used by the NYPD Bomb Squad