“They’re doing the posts today. I asked for a rush on the results.”
“The bus?”
“Just going through the bodies—or body parts, rather—will take a long time. We’re transporting the remains to an FBI evidence facility. We’ll comb it to see if we can find what caused the blast. We’ve called in ATF to assist. Those guys are the best. They can usually find the detonation source. But it’ll take time.”
Robie cleared his throat and asked the question that had been hammering in his gut for too long now. “Any surveillance cameras in the area? They might show what happened. Give your guys a shortcut.”
“There were some. We’re collecting those now. Don’t know what they’ll show, but they might give us something to go on.”
“Where are you collecting them?” he asked.
“The mobile command post outside. We should have them all there later today or tonight. We wanted to make sure we were thorough in gathering them all. One I know is from an ATM, and another was posted on the corner of a building, but its sight line might be obstructed. And I’ve been told there are others.”
Robie nodded, thinking how he was going to phrase it. “I know that technically I’m not deployed on the bus case, but since it seems the two cases might be connected, you mind if I go over it too?”
She thought about this for a few moments. “Never turn down a fresh pair of eyes.”
Vance signed off on some documents handed to her by a tech while Robie glanced through the window at the portable command center.
If I show up on one of those videos? Or Julie does?
“Penny for your thoughts.”
He turned to see Vance watching him.
“So what can I do to help?” he said, ignoring her question.
“You can noodle all this. And we can follow a few leads down.”
“What are they?”
“Wind’s employment at DCIS, for one. You’re of course uniquely positioned to follow up on that. And then there’s her husband. Was there something in her background that led to his death?”
“From the condition of the body, he was killed before her.”
“Which leads me to believe the reason might lie with Rick Wind,” said Vance. “Anything else you know about him?’
“He was deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan while in the military,” said Robie.
“So was everybody in uniform the last ten years.”
“He apparently left the military with a clean record. His wife, in her capacity with DCIS, also visited Iraq and Afghanistan on several ocassions.”
“At the same time as her husband?”
“No, afterwards.”
“You said Wind left the Army clean, but could there be something else? How long was he in the Middle East? Was he wounded or captured? Or did he have a change of heart?”
“You want to know if he was turned somehow? Became an enemy of his own country?”
“Yeah, I would.”
“I can’t answer that.”
“Can’t, or won’t?”
“I don’t know the answer.”
“They cut out his tongue.”
“I was there, Agent Vance.”
“I did some research on the computer last night.”
“That can be dangerous.”
“And I also emailed some of our Middle East experts. Islamic fundamentalists sometimes cut out the tongues of people who they believe have betrayed them.”
“Yeah, they do.”
“That could be the case here.”
“We need to know a lot more before we can confirm something like that.”
“Tongues cut out, a bus blown up. This is starting to look like international terrorism, Robie.”
“Why the bus?”
“Mass casualties. Throws the country into a tizzy.”
“Maybe.”
“Rick Wind was somehow involved. He got cold feet. They took care of him. And then killed his wife because they were afraid he might have told her something.”
“His ex-wife. And she works for DCIS. If he had told her something she would have told us. And I can tell you that she didn’t.”
“Maybe she never got the chance.”
“Maybe she didn’t.”
“It’s a workable theory.”
Robie scratched his cheek. “I guess.”
“You don’t sound convinced.”
“That’s because I’m not.”
CHAPTER
47
ROBIE WALKED OUTSIDE an hour later after going over the details of the mass shooting. The air was warmer today and felt warmer still as the sun rose higher. It was one of those cloudless days in D.C. that you knew would not last. Not at this time of the year. The capital city was like a bull’s-eye on a weather map. Systems from north, south, and west regularly crossed the line of the Appalachians and hit the area, and their confluence could cause severe weather.
Yet today was good, weather-wise. But that was the only good thing about it.
Robie looked over at the numbered markers for the dead on the sidewalk. Yeah, the weather is the only good thing.
He mulled over what Vance had told him.
A Secret Service SUV had been the shooter’s platform.
It had gone missing.
Things did not go missing from the Secret Service.
Robie had worked with that agency years ago to clean up a mess in a country he had never wanted to go back to. The agency was small in comparison to the behemoths of the FBI and DHS. But its people were excellent, loyal, really the only federal agents who systematically trained to take a bullet for their protectee.
He glanced to his left and saw the FBI mobile command post.
He approached, rapped on the door. He flashed his creds to the agent who answered his knock. He mentioned Vance’s name, and was allowed in. It was filled with high-tech gadgetry and investigation equipment. There were four other people present. In his mind Robie split them up between special agents and tech support. The two techs were hammering on computer keyboards, and data obediently flowed across the multiple computer screens stacked on the long table.
Robie said, “Vance told me about collecting surveillance camera footage from the scene of the bus explosion. You got any of it uploaded yet?”
The agent who had let him in the command post nodded. “Hang on a sec.”
He texted something on his phone. Robie knew exactly what.
He’s getting the okay from Vance to show me the pictures.
Robie would have expected nothing less. The FBI did not employ stupid people.
Robie heard the sound of a text shooting back to the agent. The man glanced at the screen and said, “Over here, Agent Robie.”