That’s when Dan Santos said, “I think all your questions will be answered during our briefing. Believe me, we’re going to need all the help we can get.”
Chapter 9
Santos stood up in front of the gathered agents and NYPD people to get everyone’s attention. There were maybe twenty-five people in the room now. The tall agent looked confident as he straightened his blue tie and faced the crowd. Of course, few people got to run a case like this unless they were confident. It was a key element to getting people to do what you needed them to do.
Santos gave a recap of what had happened, but he didn’t say anything I had not already heard or personally witnessed.
We had several videos taken from bystanders’ phones that covered almost every angle of the attack. He played all the videos a few times, ending them all just as the truck came to an abrupt halt and the driver stepped out and yelled, “Hawqala!”
Santos said, “Based on our analysis and the attacker’s accent, we believe he is a Russian speaker from Kazakhstan. To help us with language and context, we have Darya Kuznetsova, who will be working the investigation with us.”
Suddenly the attacker’s neat hair and blue eyes made more sense. Perhaps even his training. This was a wrinkle I had not been expecting.
Santos continued. “The Russians have excellent contacts with the Kazakhstan Security Forces and have a shared interest in working with us to curb terrorism.”
We watched another video and some of the aftermath, and then Santos broke us down into smaller groups and explained what everyone would be doing. One group was only following up with interviews of witnesses. Another was working with informants to see if anything was being talked about on the street. A third group, which included analysts, was scouring computer databanks to see if it could find information that might shed some light on the attack.
When Santos said, “Any questions?” I could see the annoyance in his eyes when I raised my hand. He said, “Go ahead, Bennett.”
“What, exactly, does hawqala mean?”
“Literally it means, ‘There is no power nor strength save by Allah.’”
“I’ve never heard it before. Is it common?”
“Not in attacks like this. We’re looking into it.” He looked around the room. “Anything else?”
Once again, I raised my hand.
Santos just looked at me.
“Is there some significance to hawqala? Could it mean he’s after something else or representing a certain group?”
“As I said, we’re looking into it.” Then he quickly moved on and introduced Steve Barborini from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.
The tall, lean ATF man stood and looked around the room. He didn’t use notes when he spoke. That meant he knew what he was talking about and he was confident about his subject matter. I liked that.
The ATF agent said, “Obviously we’re still processing the van, the explosive, and parts of the scene. It looks like the device was fairly simple. It contained a five-gallon paint jug with an explosive made up mostly of commercial Tannerite, which is a brand name for the most popular binary explosive on the market. We’re not absolutely sure how many pounds were crammed into the paint jug, but we’re guessing it was at least twenty.”
One of the FBI agents raised her hand. “Where could they buy something like that? How is it legal?”
“Tannerite can be bought anywhere. Even on Amazon. There hasn’t been any big move to curb it. It’s legal because it’s sold in two different packages. Unless the packages are mixed, they are not explosive. That’s why it’s called a binary explosive.”
That seemed to satisfy the FBI agent as she made a few notes and nodded her head.
Barborini went on. “There were nuts and bolts taped around the paint jug. The idea is that the explosion should have dispersed the nuts and bolts like shrapnel in a wide circle around the explosion. What we believe happened was that the metal paint jug that was used did not have a secure lid. The detonator was a simple blasting cap on an electronic igniter. When the blasting cap went off and started the chain reaction in the Tannerite, it blew the top off the paint can and the power of the explosion went straight up. That’s why the roof of the truck blew off so neatly. An explosion will travel the path of least resistance. That’s what saved so many lives.”
Chapter 10
After almost an hour of briefing, I wondered if all we were going to do on this case was have meetings. This went against my instincts—to get out on the street and start talking to people. In my experience as a cop, that’s what always broke open major cases. People talk. It doesn’t matter where they’re from or what their reasons are for committing a crime. People always talk.
I couldn’t find out what they were saying if I was sitting in a conference room in Federal Plaza.
Dan Santos went through the last few things on his list, explaining how the scarf over the attacker’s face had thwarted any efforts to use facial recognition to match the attacker with photographs in the intelligence databases.
Santos turned to me and said, “Turns out that Detective Bennett here is the only one who’s seen the attacker’s face.” He held up the police artist’s sketch of the man I’d described. “This is based on Detective Bennett’s description. There’s nothing unusual about him except possibly a cut on his left cheek.”
Then I had to speak up. “There’s no possibly about it. The man has a decent gash on his left cheek from a broken bottle across his face.” I could still feel the heft of the bottle, suddenly going weightless as it broke against his face.