It amounted to two officers, a robot that didn’t work very well and a dog that did.
The latter two were intended only tofindIEDs and were useless for the post-blast analysis work. It was up to the pair of lean men in their thirties, former military, to try to piece together what had happened.
So far they had learned that the device was made of some type of plastic explosive that had been surrounded by a layer of nails and Sheetrock screws.
The whole parking lot was cordoned off in a trapezoid shape of yellow tape. In it sat an ambulance and fire trucks and police cars. The flashing red, blue and green befit a carnival. Around the perimeter spectators watched, most recording the scene on their phones.
“We’re not sure about the detonator,” the taller of the two said.
Sonja Nilsson said, “Remote.”
“Not a timer?”
She didn’t bother to ask how a timed device might have worked here. The bomber would not have known when she’d return to theRange Rover. He’d had to lie in wait—which in this state made the offense attemptedcapitalmurder. Death penalty.
“And a shielded detonator with a dedicated frequency. So a kid playing with a drone wouldn’t set it off prematurely.”
They both looked at her, clearly wondering how she knew this. She might have told them it was because she had made one or two IEDs herself.
“We’ll look for the parts,” the smaller one said.
“You were lucky, Ms. Nilsson.”
No, luck had nothing to do with it. Vigilance did. One of her security habits was to do just what Colter had observed of her: looking not only for potential shooters but for potentially threatening objects. And so when she was approaching the SUV to head back to the office, she noticed something present that had not been there when she left the vehicle: an eighteen-inch length of terra-cotta drainpipe sitting against the curb by the driver’s side of the Range Rover.
The bomber would have seen the transit of her eyes and her body language and understood that she’d spotted it. When she stopped and pulled her phone out of her pocket, he’d decided there was nothing to do but to detonate it, hoping she was close enough that some of the projectiles would hit.
None did.
As she summoned police she’d done a fast search of the area, keeping her hand on her weapon. He would have to have been nearby. But she’d spotted no one fleeing.
An FPD detective joined her and the bomb squad officers. He was a large man with a notable sunburn that could only have come from a recent beach vacation. He verified that she was unhurt, then his eyes slowly scanned the site. She told him about one possible actor: someone connected to the Russian who wanted the S.I.T. trigger. There was also the possibility that the fanatics from her former life had found her. But this she would share only with her Army handler. She didn’t want to take down her cover just yet.
He jotted down her narrative. Then she showed him where she’d searched for the bomber—the likely places where he’d waited for her. The detective then sent two patrol officers, all the FPD could muster, to continue the canvass.
She glanced at the Range Rover. A dozen pieces of the wicked shrapnel had pierced the door of the vehicle. She would have died if she hadn’t noticed the device.
Crosshairs...
“Crime Scene’ll need it for a while,” the detective said.
“Understood.”
She couldn’t drive it off anyway. Only one tire remained inflated. She would arrange for a rental.
She’d call Shaw too and let him know.
First, though, she needed something else. She told the detective and the bomb squad men, “I want an expedited chemical analysis of the explosive.”
They regarded one another, the problem being she was, after all, civilian. There’d be rules.
She broke the silence with: “I was almost blown up.”
The bomb people deferred to the senior officer. The detective said, “All respect, what good’s that going to do you?”
Nilsson fixed him with a cool look. “Because once I know the percentage of cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine in the explosive, I’ll know where it was made.”
Russia or the Middle East.