by Sarah Lovett
The trio walked the hundred feet to the street boundary of the property, where weeds sprouted at the base of the fence, clumping between metal links. As they followed the perimeter, Sylvia could hear the shush-shush of traffic on the Hollywood Freeway although she couldn’t actually see vehicles. The air was heavy with pollutants, heat, humidity. The sky was an unnatural gray-blue.
They passed a photography shop that looked as if it had gone out of business a decade earlier. The storefront had faded, the painted sign was curling at the edges, the gray-tinted plate window was protected by wrought iron bars.
Someone had spray-painted nihilistic graffiti over the billboard that marked the back end of the property: FUCK US ALL. Others had left gang symbols, black and angular. An urban dissident with a juvenile sense of humor had blacked out one of the model’s eyes.
The metal fence was solid, formidable; ditto the gate. Fortunately, the padlock was fastened to a wimpy chain. Church got it with one snip.
The investigators had been given the official go-ahead to enter the property. With extreme caution. They’d lost their backup; the other agents had taken off from Angels Flight, headed for MDC. Bomb threats were keeping the Feds very busy.
“How do you want to do this?” Purcell asked calmly.
“Very slowly.”
“In the mood for booby traps?”
Church shrugged away the tension, saying, “You first.”
“Great,” Sylvia murmured. It had crossed her mind that tripping into a serial bomber’s former residence—even a childhood residence—wasn’t such a great idea. Even the most rabid tourists had stayed on the other side of the fence.
The rear of the house was shaded by two tall and spindly palms and an olive tree. With the aid of Purcell’s skill with locks, the door opened smoothly, allowing access to an ample kitchen now dimly lit by daylight seeping through the papered windows. Church entered first, executing a careful visual search. Sylvia started to follow, but Purcell held her back.
“Let’s make the call,” Purcell said.
The line had been secured for only one purpose, and Dantes answered on the first ring. “What took you so long?”
“We had to find a way through the fence,” Sylvia said. Her first objective was survival—her second, to keep Dantes happy. “Home sweet home . . . I’m at the back door. I’m going inside now.”
She peered into the gloom. The house was dark and musty smelling, occupied by ghosts. It was almost a shotgun design, one narrow room set after the other, organized around a simple living room and dining room. She could hear footsteps, Detective Church returning from the pantry and laundry room area. A faint, light film of dust coated the kitchen floor.
“What should I focus on?” she asked.
“The Feds took most of my toys away,” Dantes said softly. “But maybe they missed something? Why don’t we start at the bottom and work our way up? The basement door’s at the end of the hall.”
He heard her speculative silence. “Tell me something, Dr. Strange. If you don’t trust me enough to take the first step, why are we doing this?”
Church was picking up the conversation simultaneously, and he gestured with two fingers—I’ll go down—moving cautiously across the kitchen. Purcell remained at the kitchen door; Sylvia followed the detective.
She passed bathroom and bedroom and started down a narrow hallway. Church had the door to the basement open, and he flashed a light down the stairs. “It’s dusty as hell,” he whispered.
“Where are you now, Sylvia?” Dantes asked.
Sylvia shivered; his presence was uncanny. It spooked her, as if his childhood essence had permeated these old walls. “At the basement door,” she said.
“I’ve got another idea.”
But Church was already starting down the steps—very gingerly—a barefoot man stepping on cut glass.
“The library’s behind you,” Dantes said, enticing with his voice. “It used to be my bedroom. Are the bookshelves empty?”
She turned, saw the shelves, which were oak, solidly built into the wall. “Yes.”
“There’s a credenza to the left of the shelves,” he said. “You’ll find something carved in the wood—a message from a twelve-year-old.” He laughed. “Boys will be boys.”
Sylvia heard Church hesitating on the stairs, but she’d already entered the room, with its Victorian window seat, glass panes now shaded. Phone cupped to ear, she approached the empty shelves and the floor-to-ceiling credenza. She didn’t see any carving on the wood.
“Dantes, you still there?” she asked quietly.
No answer.
The fucker had a bad habit of—
She didn’t finish the thought because at that instant she heard a loud, resonant click. At the same time, she felt pressure under her right foot.
Automatically, she switched off the cell phone as she looked down and saw the hole in the floor where boards had been torn away.
That’s where she found the bomb.
It crouched like an animal in its lair, deep between loose floorboards, tentacled like a landed sea creature, displaying a tangle of appendages and a limber tail. She could swear she heard it breathing. A harsh, strangled cry escaped her throat. Even as her brain was registering the bomb, she was shrinking away, plotting escape.
But almost instantly, an icy calm took her over, a calm belied only by a soft ripple of fear. She had stepped on the tail of the beast.
She didn’t move. Instead, without turning, she called out. “Purcell?” Her voice sounded rusty. “Tell the bomb squad we found our IED.”
It was Detective Church who answered. “Make your moves, Doc, but take it slow and easy.”
“I think I’m standing on the trip wire.” Indeed, a line was attached from the bomb to the wall; the wire was taut, remaining so even after she’d tread upon it.
“Shit.” Not very reassuring. The detective asked, “Is your phone turned off?”
“Yes.” She gripped the handset, aware that an active electronic frequency could detonate a proximate explosive. “Are you just going to stand there?”
“Yeah,” Church said, faking amazingly good cheer. “Hold on to your hat.” He was breathing harder than she was. “Purcell will have them here in five minutes.”
“Five would be good.” If I get out of here alive, Church, I’ll love you for life.
“Hey, Sylvia?” Now it was Special Agent Purcell, sounding rehearsed, apologetic but firm. “Can you describe it?”
She opened her mouth and a wave of anxiety almost sent her spinning. Her chest constricted, her hands tingled as she stared down at the bomb.
Oh shit. She hadn’t anticipated the exotic beauty of it . . . or the violent ugliness.
“Come on, Doc,” Church encouraged. “I’m going to stay back here so I don’t set anything off. But I’m not leaving, okay?” The bastard was being way too nice for LAPD. “So talk to me, tell me what an asshole I am, tell me about the device,” he encouraged.
“It’s set below the floorboards.” Where was her real voice? “Wires everywhere. The container looks old. Polished hardwood. I think it’s the bomb in the Polaroid M sent. A construction. I don’t know if that’s a working timer—but it’s definitely a big clock face.”
“You’re doing fine, Doc,” Church said.
“Tell them it’s beautiful. A work of art. Like a sculpture by Picasso or Man Ray.” Her voice rose. “And it’s big.”
Lust and fear, attraction and aversion, love and hate—these are the basic elements of physical energy. Everything may be explained within these simple opposites, which are actually one and the same.
Anonymous
11:50 A.M. Church and Purcell lied—five minutes passed and the bomb squad was nowhere to be seen.
Sylvia experienced the passage of time as a blur of mutable emotions—fear laced with panic slowly dulled until she was left numb, both physically and mentally. Her foot tingled on the trip wire; she didn’t move.
The bomb
was situated roughly four feet from where she stood, the trip wire intentionally extended to catch a trespasser unaware. If she flexed her right toe, the wire would rise through tension, to a height of half an inch or less from the wooden floor. If she released her toe—and the wire—she would be blown to bits.
She believed that. Her heart jumped, literally throbbing in her chest, until she calmed herself with ragged breaths.
From the size of the wooden box, she was guessing pipe bomb. It is the contained tension within such a bomb, the increasing pressure during initiation, and the ability to effectively destroy human and material targets that make this type of infernal device a favorite of historic and contemporary bombers, including militia members, the IRA, the West German RAF, and Metesky, the Mad Bomber.
Dantes had used pipe bombs before.
But according to his own confession, not to target people.
In the bare room, a fat and clumsy buzzing insect tossed its body around sharp corners and against tall shuttered windows, occasionally bouncing off her head. Her hair stuck to her skin and her muscles began to ache; she had to pee. A vague and persistent itch roamed her body like a small animal.
A pale diminished anger surfaced at odd moments—she couldn’t afford to feel it fully. But John Dantes had sent her to find a bomb. He’d sent her to die.
She could see the watch on her wrist. She’d been standing, basically frozen in place—trapped—for nine minutes. Where were Purcell and Church?
Where the hell were the bomb boys? What was taking so long? Sure, most of the city’s police force—and all of its bomb squad—had been drawn to City Hall to defuse a nonexistent bomb, but that was hours ago.
And she’d found their infernal device for them in the parlor of John Dantes’ childhood home—just as she’d been sent to do.
In limbo between fear and inertia, lulled by the hush of her less than steady breathing, the buzzing of the insect, distant city noises, she studied the bomb and its surroundings. Both put her in mind of an earlier era, of drawing rooms and gaslights and centuries turning over like slow, ponderous wheels—the room because of its Victorian origins, the bomb by design.
It was the bomb she’d seen hours earlier, as icon, projected on screen.
M had delivered after all.
The wooden box was the color of dark cherries and rectangular in shape. The polished wood was covered with dust, adding to the general impression of abandonment. Candles would have been an appropriate incendiary feature; instead, the attached wires and the large white alarm clock were a messy and modern intrusion of electricity, positive and negative ions, physics.
The black hands of the clock face were set at 1:18:30—just like the photograph.
Thank God they weren’t moving.
A bookmark—or scrap of paper—was wedged between two of the wooden knobs. A message from Dantes or M? In dim light she could barely make out individual words in a formal script—Italian:
. . . quel cattivo coro
de li angeli che non furon ribelli
né fur fedeli a Dio, ma per sé fuoro.
Forget the first line, then take a guess: Angels who were not . . . ribelli . . . not faithful to God . . .
No way to know how long the bomb had remained hidden in its nest, just waiting for someone to step on its tail.
The itch—more intense than ever—settled in the soft dip of her throat, then rode a bead of sweat down her sternum between the flesh of her breasts. Her white cotton shirt was plastered to her body, her Levi’s had wedged themselves uncomfortably between the cheeks of her butt. Time to bargain with the gods.
Sylvia flinched at the sound of a voice. Church. Asking if she was doing okay.
“Fabulous,” she said, taking a deep breath. “Are they coming soon?” Her watch showed 11:59.
“I think I hear the truck. Hang in there, Doc,” he lied. “If I could get a better look at the setup, I might be able to get you out of here sooner, but I don’t want to take chances.”
“Don’t take chances,” Sylvia said quickly. She could tell he was scared.
Which is what any sane person should be when they encounter a bomb. But he kept talking—even whistled a few bars of “Irish Eyes.”
At 12:03, she thought she heard the truck, too. Maybe. Pulling up in front of the house. But she wasn’t aware of the uniformed cops or the bomb squad techs setting about their respective jobs or the soft voice of Special Agent Purcell. It was all a blur of background static. Her head was throbbing, perspiration slicked her skin, and oxygen came in shallow panting breaths.
“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” Church said very quietly. “The boys from the squad have got some things to do here before you can head home.” He took another audible breath. “So, tell me, Doc, why’d you decide to play with bombs?”
Oh, God, she knew what he was trying to do—take her mind off this moment of hell. She grasped desperately at the line he threw out. “I took lessons from a pro named One-Shot Mahoney.”
“Yeah? Where was that? Socorro Tech?”
“Not EMERTC.” She knew he meant the Energetic Materials Researching Testing Center—at New Mexico’s Institute of Technology, where the big boys from Sandia, LANL, the FBI, and ATF came to play. She’d been there to watch a lump of PETN demolish a small house. “Not the first time.”
“So tell me about the first time.” He must’ve been smiling. “That’s always the sweetest.”
“It was three miles outside Golden, New Mexico,” she mumbled, her mind resisting focus.
“Golden, huh? Sounds nice.”
The view of the basin near San Felipe Pueblo had made Sylvia’s heart catch.
“Fire in the hole!” Mahoney’s voice rang out over the piñonstudded hillside where five hundred pounds of ANFO was primed and ready to blow. The blasting contractor followed his warning with three pumps on a fist-sized blow horn.
“Doc?” Church prodded.
“He let me prime sixty-one shots with sticks of Magnum 75.”
“That’s good stuff. Emulsion. What’d you load for shot?”
“ANFO.”
“Right. Then you stemmed the shots . . .”
“With crushed rock.” She’d watched Mahoney connect each of the yellow shock tubes in a complex pattern factored to create a constantly moving intermittent free face—to redesign nine hundred tons of solid rock—in the span of one second.
“It’s a thrill, isn’t it?” Church asked.
“Yeah. A thrill.”
Especially as she twisted the last four wires into pairs, goose bumps raised her flesh—she was standing ten feet away from the blast site, where they were about to screw with Mother Nature and create a twenty-five-foot mountain.
There are times when denial is a good thing.
In what felt like slow motion, Sylvia followed Mahoney away from ground zero, hiking the two-tenths of a mile to the powder truck where the shot line originated. There was still another fifty feet of orange lead wire on the wheel.
“Fire in the hole!” The voice rose up from the road, where Mahoney’s driller was stationed to prohibit vehicles from entering the fly rock zone. Catapulted through the air at 120 miles per hour, even a two-pound chunk of rock could pose health hazards.
Mahoney echoed the warning cry as he finished testing the wire with the galvanometer; he was looking for a short or a break but found none.
“We got a circuit,” he said, voice gruff.
Following final orders, Sylvia connected the shot wire to the black, palm-sized blasting machine. Her pulse quickened.
“It’s just like that old cliché,” Church said quietly, in real time. “Makes you feel alive.”
“Oh, yeah . . . alive,” Sylvia whispered. Her mouth was so dry her tongue felt swollen.
“So you got to blow the shot?” Church prodded gently.
The nipple on the side of the blasting machine was soft under her thumb. It was her job to press the button, make the shot. She heard Mahoney’s count
down, took a breath, and upshifted her thumb.
Nothing happened.
Then she saw a brown cloud of earth and rock rise above the tree line. Almost instantly, the cloud was accompanied by a round of deep staccato booms, the music of five-hundred-millisecond and twenty-five-millisecond explosive delays.
She felt herself shoved from behind—Mahoney yelled—and she was under the nose of the Ford as chunks of fly rock pelted the battered hood. A faint acrid smell followed the blast. From the edge of the powder truck’s bumper, Sylvia gazed up at One-Shot Mahoney. Her hair was matted with limestone dust, hard hat tipped at an angle; her back ached, and she knew she wore a stupid grin.
Mahoney’s smile was wicked as he growled, “Hot damn, I love the smell of ANFO in the morning.”
The high-pitched electronic whine scared Sylvia all over again. Disorientation kept her from recognizing the mechanical noise. Before she could react, a new and reassuring male voice called out, requesting that she keep calm and, “Just listen, don’t move now. And hang in there, Sylvia. It’s Sylvia, right? Shorty’s got to check things out—we’re right behind him.”
The vibration was faint, but she felt it travel up her legs from her feet. Her first thought was that the bomb had been triggered. Then she realized she wasn’t alone.
Sylvia caught sight of the robot—must be Shorty—as it rolled to a stop very near her left foot. In other circumstances, she might have likened the robot to a dog. Actually, it resembled a power lawn mower or a tiny tank. Propelled by ribbon tread, reaching knee height, the squat body was topped by a long neck, lightbulb eyes, antennas, and swiveling cameras. Fearless, purposeful, curious, Shorty had been designed to investigate a possible bomb situation via remote commands; with a computerized chip for a brain, the machine could enter a minefield to collect visual, aural, even olfactory information—it could retrieve a device and transport it from location A to location B.
About the only thing Shorty could not do was disarm an explosive device. That remained the bare-handed job of men and women.
She heard Church’s quiet reassurance: “You’re in good hands now, Doc.”
