Lethal Measures

by Leonard Goldberg

  Maria nodded.

  “That’s what Ramon told me. It was easy to put on and take off.”

  That didn’t sound like body armor, Jake was thinking. Most body armor was heavy and cumbersome and would never be bright orange. That would give a shooter a target to aim at.

  “Did he ever bring the vest home?”

  “No.” Joanna reached for her pen and scribbled a note on Jake’s notepad. Ask me about the orange color later.

  “Right,” Jake said, underlining the word orange. His gaze went back to Maria.

  “Did your husband know the date the bank was to be robbed?”

  “The nineteenth of April,” Maria said without hesitation.

  “Ramon circled the date on our calendar.”

  “Show me the calendar,” Jake said, closing his notepad.

  They walked into a small kitchen, the air heavy with the aroma of spicy food. On the door of a cabinet was a large calendar. April 19 was circled in red crayon.

  Several other dates had red checkmarks by them.

  Jake pointed to the checkmarks.

  “What are these for?”

  “Those are the dates he met with the people in West Hollywood.”

  Jake put his finger on the last check mark on the calendar. It was the day the West Hollywood bomb detonated.

  “Did you see your husband after this date?”

  Maria sighed sadly.

  “That was the last date.”

  Jake took out one of his cards and stuck it next to the calendar with a thumbtack.

  “If you remember anything else, you call me at this number. We want names. Names of people. Do you understand?”

  Maria nodded nervously, intimidated by the detective’s stare.

  Jake studied her eyes.

  “Is there something else you want to tell us?”

  “No, senor” They went back to the living room and headed for the front door. On a side wall was a large painting of Jesus smiling benignly down at them. The portrait was tilted. Jake studied it for a moment before straightening it.

  “I have told you everything I know,” Maria said.

  “Please do not make trouble for me.”

  “If you’ve told us the truth, you’ve got nothing to worry about.” Jake glanced around the living room once more, feeling that he had overlooked something.

  “But if you’ve lied to us, you’ll wish to God you hadn’t.”

  “There were no lies.”

  At the door Joanna stopped and turned back to Maria.

  “Just one more question. Do you have children?”

  Maria’s face suddenly closed.

  “Why is that important?”

  “Because your husband was badly mangled in the explosion,” Joanna explained.

  “We are almost certain it was him because of his tattoo and the type of cancer the body had. But to be a hundred percent sure we require DNA studies. Samples of blood from your children would help us with that.”

  “There are no children,” Maria said.

  “We were married only a short time before Ramon lost his leg. After that he could not—” Maria stopped abruptly and flicked her hand, closing the subject.

  “There were no children.”

  Outside the afternoon sun was setting, the sky red and blue and gray. The city workers were loading their jackhammers into a utility truck.

  “Hurley was right,” Jake said.

  “April nineteenth is the day the bombers are waiting for. They’re going to blow up something big in Los Angeles on that date, and it sure as hell isn’t going to be some bank.”

  “They might be planning to use the bank bombing as a diversion,” Joanna suggested.

  Jake considered the possibility.

  “Maybe,” he said.

  “But a diversion from what?”

  “That I can’t tell you.”

  “Crazy, crazy,” Jake said, shaking his head.

  “All that damn C-four couldn’t have been just for a bank. And those plastic vests they were supposed to wear were no more body armor than the sports coat I’ve got on.”

  “Those orange vests were filled with explosives,” Joanna told him.

  “We found slivers of orange plastic embedded in Jose Hernandez’s hand and in some of the body parts uncovered at the West Hollywood bomb site. We wondered what they were and how they got there. Now I know.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because the levels of C-four in those plastic bits were sky-high,” Joanna said.

  “My guess is they were wearing explosives-filled vests at the time of the explosion. That’s why there were only scraps and shreds of the victims at the bomb site.”

  Jake’s brow went up.

  “Are you saying they were going to be used as suicide bombers?”

  “That’s what I’m saying.”

  “The perfect bomb,” Jake said somberly.

  “You don’t have to worry about hiding it or someone finding it or some

  dog sniffing it out. You just dupe some guy into wearing it and point him in the right direction.”

  “And they’re impossible to stop,” Joanna added gloomily.

  “Tell me about it,” Jake said, opening the car door for her. Neither of them paid any attention to the car that slowly passed by or to the two occupants wearing baseball caps pulled down over their foreheads.

  Friday, April 9, 11=15 a.m.

  A small, unmanned earthmover lumbered across a grassy field and stopped in front of a miniature white flag. The flag marked the spot where the bloodhounds had bayed and pawed at the ground, indicating the site where the remains of Jose Hernandez were buried.

  A hundred yards away Jake, Farelli and Dan Hurley stood behind a protective metal barrier, watching a television screen. The robot claw on the earthmover was slowly digging up the earth and pushing it aside.

  “You figure the bastards might have booby-trapped it just in case?” Farelli asked.

  “I’ve seen it done before,” Hurley replied.

  “And sometimes the booby trap is nastier than the initial bomb. The last one I saw was packed with tenpenny nails so that anyone within a block would get sliced up.”

  Jake shivered.

  “They really don’t give a shit, do they?”

  “They couldn’t care less,” Hurley said.

  “The more people they kill and maim the better they like it.”

  “But why blow up Jose Hernandez?” Jake asked.

  “What purpose would that serve?”

  “I would guess it was a practice run,” Hurley said.

  “You never know how well a bomb will work until you give it a try.”

  “In the great outdoors of Southern California.”

  Hurley nodded.

  “That’s one of the reasons we’re the bomb capital of the world.

  There are a hundred places in Los Angeles County where you can set off a bomb and nobody would notice or give a damn. But I have to admit,

  you won’t find a better spot than this.” The bomb site was in a remote northern area of the county. It was northeast of Valencia, well off the Interstate Highway 5. There were ravines and valleys and knolls nestled in the hilly terrain. Tall trees and dense shrubs blocked out aerial views of the ground.

  “So they told the poor bastard he would be modeling hunting apparel,” Jake said, thinking aloud.

  “Which of course was pure BS. Then they fitted him up with a vest filled with C-four and blew him to bits. All so they could see how well a bomb would work.”

  “Nice guys,” Farelli commented sarcastically.

  “But if these guys were really suicide bombers,” Jake went on, “what did they need four of them for?”

  Hurley shrugged.

  “Two possibilities come to mind. Either they had four different targets, or they were all going to the same place and blow it to hell and back.”

  Jake asked, “Which do you think it was?”

  “They were all going t
o the same place for one big bang,” Hurley said.

  “My guess is it’s some kind of government facility they’re after. And they don’t want to leave one brick standing.”

  “Or one person living,” Jake added.

  “That too.”

  Jake’s gaze went to the television screen. The little earthmover was now surrounded by mounds of freshly turned earth. Jake kept his eyes on the screen as he talked.

  “Have you ever heard of some group called the Ten Righteous?”

  Hurley shook his head.

  “Not offhand. Why?”

  “Because Maria Gonzalez told us that was the name her husband heard the bombers call themselves.”

  “Jesus,” Hurley hissed under his breath.

  “These bastards go around blowing up people and killing cops and they call themselves the Ten Righteous. Go figure.”

  Jake asked, “What’s the best way to check it out?”

  “Through the FBI Domestic Terrorism Unit,” Hurley said.

  “They’ve got a computer full of loony-toon groups. I’ll run it through first thing this afternoon.”

  “Which reminds me,” Jake said sourly.

  “I got another call from the FBI this morning. They want to know why we haven’t made more progress.”

  Hurley nodded.

  “That’s their way of telling us they’re going to bring in more agents. They’re catching hell from Washington on down. People want this case solved pronto.”

  “I got the feeling that they may try to push us aside.”

  Hurley shook his head. “They need local guys on this one. They’ll keep us around for a while.” He took out a notepad and jotted down the Ten Righteous.

  “Got anything else?”

  “One more thing,” Jake said.

  “Gonzalez’s widow told us her husband once overheard the terrorists talking about their friend at Memorial.”

  Hurley squinted an eye.

  “You think they had somebody on the inside?”

  “Had to,” Jake said, nodding.

  “Somebody had to guide them through Memorial and show them where the body parts were stored.”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” Hurley said, unconvinced.

  “They could have found out the location of the forensics laboratory by asking at the information desk. And we clued them in to where the work was actually being done. We had a cop sitting right outside the door.”

  “We had two cops sitting outside two doors,” Jake argued.

  “The bombers didn’t bother with the door that read “Department of Forensic Pathology, Joanna Blalock, M.D.” Director.” They went directly to the cold storage room that was unmarked. Somebody pointed it out to them. And somebody probably told them when was the best time to plant the bomb.”

  Hurley slowly nodded.

  “And they must have had some idea of the dimensions of the room, because they knew just how much C-four to use to destroy it without blowing down half the hospital.”

  Farelli couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

  “So you think some doc was involved in all this?”

  “It could be anyone,” Jake told him.

  “Doctor, nurse, technician, you name it.

  But whatever it is, he’s hooked in with these terrorists big-time.”

  Hurley took out a notepad.

  “How many people work at Memorial?”

  “Over a thousand,” Jake said.

  Hurley grumbled.

  “And we’ll have to put every damn one of their names through the computer.”

  “How long will that take?”

  “Too long.”

  “We’re home!” a bomb squad sergeant called out from the far end of the metal barrier. He deftly turned a knob on a remote-control box.

  All eyes went to the television screen. The earthmover was lifting a big duffel bag from the hole in the ground. The metal claw of the

  machine ripped into the cloth bag, and its contents spilled out onto the grass. A television camera slowly magnified and scanned each piece of debris.

  “So far so good,” Hurley said quietly.

  From a distance two bomb squad members in full body armor cautiously approached the earthmover. They moved with measured steps, keeping their eyes glued to the ground as they neared the heaped-up earth. Carefully they examined the torn duffel bag and its spilled contents and the hole in the ground from which it came. Using long-handled shovels, they sifted through the mounds of earth.

  Finally they gave the all-clear signal.

  Hurley led the way around the metal barrier and across the field. The grass was soft and green and gave off a fresh springtime aroma. Above, the sky was blue, with puffs of white clouds and not a trace of smog. Jake looked up at the beautiful day, wondering if it had been this pretty when the terrorists brought Jose Hernandez to this spot to blow him to bits. The poor bastard probably thought he was going to make some easy money and go home to his wife. The only things going to Jose’s home in Mexico now were his body parts in a sealed casket.

  A putrid smell arose from the duffel bag and the debris around it. Jake could see what looked like a part of a chest with a rib sticking out. Next to it was a silver belt buckle and a piece of pants still attached to it.

  Jake used a stick to turn the buckle right side up. On it were the initials jh.

  The pants beneath it appeared to be blue jeans. There were small brass studs on the lining of a pocket.

  “Ain’t much left of him,” Farelli said, holding his hand over his nose.

  “Yeah,” Jake said sourly, now probing the pocket with his stick. Out came a handkerchief, then a small piece of paper stuck to it.

  Hurley snapped on a pair of latex gloves and picked the paper up. It was torn and partially shredded, and he could make out only a few letters and numbers.

  EV 2FL

  “What the hell does this mean?” Hurley asked, more to himself than the

  others. Jake looked over Hurley’s shoulder.

  “It’s not a telephone number, that’s for sure.”

  “Maybe the FL stands for Florida,” Hurley guessed.

  “But if that were the case it should have the name of a city in front of it, not a number.”

  Farelli peeked in at the note.

  “Is there a city in Florida that’s called by a number rather than a name? In South Carolina, for example, there’s a city called Ninety Six. My wife has a cousin there.”

  “We’ll check it out,” Hurley said and placed the piece of paper in a plastic envelope.

  “Meanwhile we’ve got to sift through every mound of dirt here looking for the other part of this paper.” He stared into the deep hole, watching ants and other insects making their way down.

  “We need a name, a person we can go after.”

  With the toe of his shoe, Jake moved around the remaining debris. There were large, irregularly shaped fragments of pottery scattered about. Jake studied them at length before deciding they were made of some type of tan-colored ceramic material.

  “What the hell would they have flowerpots out here for?”

  “Beats me,” Hurley answered.

  “Maybe they had him holding something they made out of clay. You know, like a prop to make him feel he was really modeling.”

  Farelli knelt down to get a closer look at an elongated piece of ceramic. It was tubular, with a thumb and part of a finger at its end.

  “Son of a bitch!”

  “What?

  “Jake asked.

  “It’s not pottery,” Farelli said, holding up the ceramic arm.

  “It’s the arm from a mannequin.”

  The detectives quickly rummaged through the ceramic rubble. They found a piece of a head, a leg with its knee flexed, another arm, another piece of head with half a nose still recognizable.

  “What the hell are they using mannequins for?” Jake asked.

  “My guess is they wanted to determine the killing range of the blast,” Hurley answ
ered, now scanning the trees nearby for damage that could have been caused by the bomb.

  “You can do that by placing mannequins at various distances from the blast center. An explosion that blows a mannequin to pieces will easily kill a man.”

  Jake nodded at Hurley’s reasoning.

  “Can you imagine the carnage if four suicide bombers were strategically placed in a crowded place, like a shopping mall or an athletic event?”

  “Yeah, I can imagine,” Hurley said darkly.

  “But the domestic terrorists in this country don’t work that way. It’s not their style. They’re different from the Middle East terrorists.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I mean killing a lot of people is usually not their main objective,” Hurley explained.

  “They go after government institutions, like courthouses and federal buildings.”

  “Like the one in Oklahoma City.”

  “Exactly,” Hurley said.

  “So why the mannequins? They don’t have a damn thing to do with destroying a building.”

  “Maybe the terrorists want to destroy the building and kill all the people inside,” Jake suggested.

  Hurley shook his head.

  “They usually don’t go after ordinary citizens.”

  “They might if the ordinary citizens happen to be FBI or aTF. agents.”

  “Good point,” Hurley agreed, taking out his notepad and scribbling a note. He would recommend that all federal buildings in the Greater Los Angeles area be placed on high alert on April nineteenth, particularly those that housed large numbers of federal agents.

  Farelli recovered more parts from mannequins. A hand, a foot, a half buttock with a smear of blood on it. He put on latex gloves and placed the bloodstained buttock into a plastic bag.

  “Should we send this over to the doc’s laboratory?”

  Jake nodded, then turned his attention to the torn duffel bag. Using a stick as a probe, he extracted more mannequin fragments and a piece of clothing that appeared to be parr of a T-shirt. He probed in deeper and felt his stick come up against something very firm. Carefully he removed the square-shaped, dark object. It was a leather wallet.

  “Well, well. Look at what we have here.”

  Farelli stood on his tiptoes and peeked over Jake’s shoulder.

  “Hell! The insides are all blown away.”

  “Ripped away,” Jake corrected him.