Daredevil Riders

Reconstruct

“Either the bomber or someone else. And the ‘someone else’ is usually to safeguard against the bomber getting cold feet. Probably half the suicide bombings in Iraq are detonated by third parties for that very reason.”

“I take it you’ve been there,” said Gross.

Garchik nodded. “Four times. And to be frank, I hope I don’t have to go back.”

“So where was the bomb?” asked Stone. “On the blown-up jogger?”

“Nope, don’t think that’s possible,” said Garchik.

“Why?” asked Stone.

“He went to the dogs.”

“What?” said Gross.

“I’ll show you. Come on.”

GARCHIK LED THEM to the ATF’s command unit. Inside he fired up an array of electronic equipment. Moments later they were watching some of the video feed from the night before. When a particular scene came up he froze it and pointed his finger at the screen.

“There. Like I said, he went to the dogs. Or dog, in this case.”

The image was of the man in the jogging suit. He was entering the park from the north. He was frozen right next to two uniformed officers, one of whom had a dog. The jogger was perhaps a foot from the canine.

Anthony said, “Is that a bomb detection canine?”

“Yes, it is. Secret Service’s. Now, I don’t think their dogs are better than ours, but I can tell you any person carrying an explosive walking that close to a bomb detection canine trained in this country is gonna get busted. I don’t care how he tried to hide it. That dog would be going nuts or else doing a passive alert, meaning he’ll sit right down on his butt. This dog was doing neither.”

“And you’d think if he was carrying a bomb on his person he wouldn’t have walked right next to the dog in the first place,” said Stone. “He couldn’t assume it wasn’t a bomb sniffer.”

Gross added, “Which means this wasn’t a suicide bomber. The guy jumped into the hole to avoid the gunfire. Looks like the bomb was in that hole.”

“Well, that’s progress anyway,” said Stone. “Ruling out the jogger.”

“Was it a pressure switch?” suggested Anthony. “Jogger hit it and boom.”

“That’s possible,” conceded Garchik, though he didn’t look convinced. “Accidental detonation, you mean.”

“Maybe. Did you find any evidence of another type detonation switch?”

“There’s a million pieces of stuff lying around here and we’re still looking. But to complicate matters a bit, Lafayette Park is home to a lot of static electricity.”

“And static electricity can set off a bomb,” said Anthony.

“That’s right.”

“But if you go to all the trouble to get a bomb into Lafayette Park, why would you build the bomb in such a way that it might trigger off accidentally?” asked Gross.

Garchik said, “Might be as simple as the folks who managed to get the bomb in here were better than the guy building the bomb. That’s not as implausible as you might think. Or it could have been on a frequency switch and something interfered with it.”

“The jogger was wearing an iPod,” Gross pointed out. “That could have interfered.”

“That’s possible, yes.”

“But are we really sure the tree hole was the source of the bomb?” asked Anthony. “We’re sort of jumping to conclusions here that it was.”

“We haven’t finished our analysis, but it’s a safe bet that was the bomb seat,” said Garchik.

Herbertsaid, “Then are we sure that the bomb going off was an accident?”

They all looked at him curiously.

Gross said, “It had to be. Otherwise why would they set off a bomb that had no chance of killing the prime minister?”

“Unless it was set on a timer,” said Anthony. “The PM was supposed to be in the park last night. If it was set on a timer there’s no way to take that back.”

“And it was a coincidence that the man jumped in the hole and it went

off when it did,” added Garchik. “That works.”

“No, it doesn’t work,” countered Stone. “You’re forgetting the gunfire. Why have both the gunfire and the bomb? And if the gunfire wasn’t done remotely, then the shooters would’ve known the prime minister wasn’t in the park.”

“That’s not necessarily true,” said Anthony. “I’ll show you.”

She led them back outside, where she pointed to the trees in front of the Hay-Adams Hotel. “If they were on the rooftop garden back there then the trees would’ve hidden the park from their view. They hear the sirens and the motorcade coming. They wait for it to pull in, the prime minister to get out and walk to the park. Then they start shooting.”

Herbertdid not look convinced. “So you’re saying this elaborate plan was put together and the gunners were firing blind?” He shook his head. “If I were going to do this, at the very least I’d have one spotter with a clear view of the PM’s movements stationed somewhere near the park with a secure line of communication. I’m not shooting blindly through tree canopies. And if the PM doesn’t come to the park, I call off the mission. But if he does set foot in the park I can’t afford to miss.”

“And they did miss everyone,” Gross pointed out.

The ATF agent nodded. “It’s a puzzler all right.”

Herbertturned to him. “So if you were going to pull off this bombing, how would you detonate, Steve?”

“Pressure switches can be problematic, particularly under these conditions. I mean, you’ve got a tree in a hole and a bomb somewhere near it. Maybe in the root ball, maybe under the tree. That’s a lot of weight. And people moving stuff around, digging. Chances are that pressure switch gets tripped accidentally. And once you cover the bomb up with dirt, what’s going to trigger it? Something has to cause the switch to engage. It’s called a pressure switch for a good reason. No, if I were going to do it I’d use a command control device, meaning remote detonation. Now, if they did that they might have used a cell phone, which would make our job a lot easier. Cell phones have a SIM card and all the components are serialized, so we can reconstruct the phone and maybe track down where and who purchased it. Of course if a cell phone was used, you actually have two phones. One planted on the bomb as the switch and the other to call that phone. We did find some bits of wire, corner of a transistor, plastic shell casing, leather—”

“Leather?” Herbertexclaimed.