The Hearing

by James Mills

  “If we don’t confront the occupants, just do a surreptitious entry, put in voice sensors and a TV camera, nice and quiet, what’s the risk, total?”

  “Virtually zero. Do it all the time. We’ve got specialists never do anything else.”

  “Okay. Camera and voice sensors. The rest, I’ll think about it.”

  Carl left Iverson and went back to the command truck.

  A young man in white shirtsleeves appeared in the doorway of the command truck. “The EOD guys are here.”

  Carl wheeled back the swivel chair and stood.

  He said to Michelle, sitting next to him. “Come with me.”

  Two men and a woman waited for them in the sitting room of the ATF Winnebago camper. One of the men wore a suit, the other man and the woman were in bright orange hooded coveralls. Michelle’s eyes were drawn immediately to the woman. She was young, early twenties, hardly more than four feet tall (her coveralls baggy, rolled up at the cuffs), with short curly brown hair and eyes that sparkled. A cheerleader, baton twirler. Baton twirling was a big thing in Alabama high schools. Was she from the South?

  Carl said, “This is Mrs. Parham.” He mentioned the men’s names, but Michelle didn’t get them. Her attention was fixed on this tiny, bright-eyed girl, called Terry.

  Terry said, “Hi. Nice to meet you.”

  She was so perky she bounced on the balls of her feet. Definitely not the South. More like New York.

  The man in the suit unfolded a side-view diagram of a Mercedes station wagon and smoothed it out on the coffee table.

  He put a laptop computer next to the Mercedes diagram, opened the lid, and touched some keys. The screen showed a profile of the Mercedes, white lines on a blue background.

  “We put in a probe and it came out with RDX, encountered ten inches below the vehicle’s ceiling.”

  Carl thought, Well … and we’re all still alive.

  “We’ve made very close measurements of the height of the vehicle off the pavement. Working with our explosives people and Mercedes engineers, extrapolating the volume of the RDX from the distance between the Mercedes ceiling and the top of the RDX, computing from the weight of the RDX, and the capacity of the vehicle’s shock absorbers, we get a very reliable estimate of 1,980 pounds of RDX. That gives a profile like this.”

  He pressed a key on the laptop. The white outline of the Mercedes profile filled quickly with yellow.

  “The yellow shows the volume in the Mercedes of the RDX. You’ll notice it’s not completely full.”

  He ran a pencil point along a narrow area between the top of the yellow and the upper outline of the top of the Mercedes.

  “There’s a space.”

  Carl glanced at Terry.

  “You like the look of that?”

  Terry grinned. “Very much.”

  Carl said, “Forget it.”

  “Carl”—it was the man in coveralls—”this is our job. This is what we do. It’s not the first time.”

  “You don’t have to tell me again.”

  “People who use RDX in vehicle bombs are sophisticated. They know what they’re doing. They use highly reliable detonators. No surprises.”

  Carl was silent, looking at the laptop.

  Michelle said, “Excuse me?”

  Eyes turned to Michelle.

  “Can you tell me what this is all about?”

  They looked at Carl, who took a step back from the laptop.

  “They’re from ATF’s Explosive Ordnance Division. They deactivate explosive devices.”

  Michelle could not keep herself from flashing a look at Terry.

  Carl said, “They want to try to deactivate the device in the Mercedes.”

  “How can they”—she looked at Terry—”how can they … are you …”

  Terry looked at Carl. Carl said, “Go ahead.”

  Terry said to Michelle, “I can go in, locate the detonator, and deactivate it.”

  “What do you mean—go in? What if … I mean … I’m sorry.”

  The man in coveralls said, “We’ll cut an opening in the roof. As you can see from the computer, there’s not much room there, but there’s a little, about ten inches between the RDX and the ceiling. That’s about—”

  Terry interrupted. “There’s enough. I’m not very big.”

  Michelle didn’t want to believe it. Gus and Samantha were a few yards from that explosives-packed station wagon. Not to mention Terry herself.

  The man said, “It’s not the first time we’ve done this, Mrs. Parham. Mercedes people say the roof metal is one-point-seven millimeters thick. We use a circular saw we got from the Emergency Service cops in New York. No flame, no heat, no sparks. Two-foot hole takes thirty seconds. Lift it right out.”

  Terry said, “I squeeze inside, squirm back to the detonator, deactivate it, and come out. Then they hook up a truck to the Mercedes, tow it away someplace safe, and blow it up. End of problem.”

  Michelle shook her head. Then she said, “If this goes wrong … my husband and daughter … I’m sorry, Terry. This is very brave of you, and I appreciate the risk you’re ready to take, but if something goes wrong …”

  “It won’t go wrong, Mrs. Parham.”

  Carl took a step to the diagram on the table. “You seem very confident.”

  Terry said, “We don’t do this stuff unless we’re confident.”

  Carl said, “And the more you get away with, the more confident you get.”

  “We’re not reckless.”

  Michelle thought, Not reckless? Of course you’re reckless. If squeezing yourself inside a vehicle filled with explosives isn’t reckless, what in the world …

  Michelle looked at Terry’s hands. She was not wearing a wedding ring. She was not wearing any rings at all, or a watch or a bracelet. Maybe when you worked with bombs you didn’t wear jewelry. She said, “Are you married?”

  “No.”

  “Boyfriend?”

  Terry grinned and looked at the man in the coveralls, who smiled. Both of them? What if they got married? Did they work together? What if one got blown up? What if they both got blown up? What if they had children and got blown up?

  Carl said, “Any more questions?”

  The man in coveralls said, “There’s not that many alternatives.”

  Carl sighed and bent over the Mercedes diagram, staring at it.

  In the silence, Michelle said, “Excuse me. Terry …”

  “Yes?”

  Michelle drew a breath and tried to keep her voice steady. “I just want to say to you that—” She stopped, waited. “I just want to say that—” She stopped again. She wasn’t going to be able to do this. “I want to say, I know you’re very concerned about the safety of my husband and daughter—that’s why you’re doing this—but I want to say …”

  Terry put a hand on her arm. “It’s okay, Mrs. Parham. Thank you. It’s okay. I understand. They’ll be all right.”

  Michelle nodded, left the Winnebago, and walked back to the command truck. She didn’t want to be with all those people. They were so cool, so professional. And if they failed to save Gus and Samantha, they’d be cool and professional about that, too. They’d write their reports, study what went wrong, make procedural corrections for next time, and go on about their cool, professional lives. But she wanted Gus and Samantha back. It wasn’t her job to want them back.

  When Carl returned, Michelle said, “Are you going to let her do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “Go into the Mercedes! What do you think, what?”

  Carl looked at her, his eyes searching. After a moment, so softly she could hardly hear, he said, “Yes, I think so.”

  “Dear God. Dear, dear God. What are you doing?”

  “I’m trying to save Gus and Samantha.”

  “I meant what is God doing.”

  “He knows what he’s doing, Michelle. Try not to think about it.”

  “Can’t we have something else to drink?”

  Samantha hu
ng her tongue out of the side of her mouth, like a dog dying of thirst. It was Friday afternoon, outside the sun was high in a cloudless sky, and they were both sweat-soaked and stinking. The air was still and heavy.

  Gus said, “Just a swallow.”

  She screwed the top off the Evian bottle, raised it to her lips, and he watched her throat tighten and relax. One swallow. She refastened the top. No argument, no pleas for more.

  “We’ll be out of this soon, Samantha.”

  She licked her lips. “I know.”

  The phone buzzed.

  “How’s it going?”

  “We’re getting pretty thirsty in here, Phil. And hot. And hungry. And I don’t think either Samantha or I have words to tell you about the smell. What’s the temperature out there?”

  “High eighties. Where you are, we estimate over a hundred. The medical people recommend you increase your fluid intake. We know you don’t have much, but dehydration’s becoming a concern out here. Anyway, we hope to have you out soon. I spoke with Harrington.”

  “And he said …”

  “He’s trying to swing a deal. We withdraw and he suppresses your father’s agreement. I told him to forget it—even if we took his offer, we’d still have the car bomb to deal with. He can’t do anything about that.”

  “You sure?”

  “That’s a joke, right?”

  “I hope so. Where’s it stand now?”

  “I’ve got something else we all think you ought to know, but we don’t want to alarm you.”

  “What is it, Phil? Let me have it.”

  “Gus? This is Carl.”

  “What’s up, my friend?”

  “We’ve got some expert, competent people out here who say they’ve got a good chance of deactivating the device.”

  “How?”

  “They’ve calculated there’s a space about a foot high between the top of the explosives and the roof of the Mercedes.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “They want to cut a hole in the top of the Mercedes and have someone go in and locate the detonator and disarm it.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “Definitely not. I know it sounds crazy, but they say they do this stuff a lot. There’s a very high confidence level.”

  “What does Michelle think?”

  “She’s—frankly, Gus, she’s a little emotional about it. I’m not sure she’s in a position to make a reliable decision.”

  “She’s against it.”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Let me talk to her.”

  “Here she is.”

  “Gus, how are you?”

  “Hot, thirsty, hungry, and tired. Other than that, Samantha and I have been having a wonderful time. How are you? You’re probably a lot more disturbed by this than we are.”

  “I don’t know about that, Gus.”

  She sounded shaken. Exhausted, really.

  “What do you think about this scheme Carl just told me about?”

  “It scares me to death.”

  “You’re already scared. Does this make it worse?”

  “It’s a girl, Gus. A very young woman.”

  “Who’s a woman?”

  “The agent who’s going to do it. I know that shouldn’t make any difference. It’s just that—I can’t explain it.”

  “Do you think she knows what she’s talking about? Do you think she can do it?”

  “Yes. It’s just—”

  “Honey, if you think she can do it, and she thinks she can do it, and everyone else thinks she can do it, and it can get us out of here—maybe she should do it. I mean, we’re already in a pretty hazardous spot. Is it going to make things any worse?”

  “If it blows up it’ll be worse.”

  “That could happen anytime anyway.”

  “Carl wants to talk to you. I love you.”

  Carl said, “What do you think?”

  “Carl, is Michelle okay?”

  “Under the circumstances, she’s doing fine.”

  “She sounds pretty stressed.”

  “She’s doing fine.”

  “What about this thing, Carl? Are you in favor of it?”

  “I think it’s the lowest risk. Every minute you and Samantha are in there, there’s a risk. You’re sitting forty-five yards from 1,980 pounds of RDX, with nothing between you and it except a quarter-inch of armor plate on the limo and three inches of Kevlar on the front of the house. You’ve gotta get out of there, Gus. And the EOD people—”

  “EOD?”

  “Explosive Ordnance Division. They say they wouldn’t do it, she wouldn’t do it, if the risk weren’t minimal. She’s been in EOD four years, done eleven real, live deactiva-tions.”

  “And she’s still got all her body parts?”

  “Very much so.”

  “Okay. I’m agreeable if everyone else is. Hang on a minute.”

  Gus lowered the phone. “Samantha, they’ve got someone out there, a young woman, who’s an expert at deactivating explosive devices like the one in the Mercedes.”

  “Yeah?”

  “They’re going to cut a hole in the top of the Mercedes, let her go inside and deactivate the bomb. What do you think of that?”

  “Will it work?”

  “They think so. They say it’s better than just sitting here and waiting.”

  “So go for it.”

  Why is everything so easy for children?

  “With us, we agree. If you guys think it’s a good idea, let’s do it. When will it happen?”

  Carl said, “Couple of hours. I’ll keep you advised.”

  Gus hung up the phone and looked at Samantha. She was thinking it over. Watching her, the deep look in her eyes, the wheels turning, Gus thought, Oh, Samantha, what’s going to become of you? Where will you be in ten years?

  Michelle left the FBI command truck and walked out alone into the abandoned street, looking up the block in the direction of Blossom. Behind her she could hear the confusion of voices, cars coming and going, reporters, police, and crowds. Ahead was nothing but emptiness and silence. It was hard to believe that just a few hundred yards away Gus and Samantha were in a limousine across Blossom’s front lawn from a bomb. Struggling against a sense of helplessness, and against tears that made her feel ashamed and intimidated in the presence of people like Carl and Terry, she walked back to the Winnebago, expecting to find it empty.

  Terry was there, sitting quietly and alone at the coffee table, reading a copy of Good Housekeeping magazine.

  Looking up, Terry said, “Oh, hi.”

  “I’m sorry to bother you.”

  “You’re not bothering me.” She put the magazine down. “Most of this job is waiting, like firemen.”

  “I’m doing a lot of that myself.”

  “Yeah, it must be hard.”

  She looked as if she meant it, wasn’t just making conversation.

  Michelle smiled and tried to look pleasant.

  Terry rose to leave. “I know you want to be alone.”

  “I think maybe alone is the last thing I want to be, Terry. Please stay, unless you—”

  “No, I’m just kind of hanging around.”

  Terry sat back down, and Michelle took the chair across from her. When Michelle had first walked in, Terry had seemed shy, deferential, but now, as she began to speak, it was as if a wind had blown through the room, and Michelle realized that the timidity had been something learned, a way to act.

  Michelle said, “What you do, it’s really—”

  She stopped herself. She wasn’t this girl’s mother.

  “Everyone says that. But it’s not as dangerous as it looks.”

  “Not dangerous?”

  “Flying airplanes is dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing.”

  “Well, yes, but—”

  “Mrs. Parham, you must have something that’s just the most exciting thing you do, that makes you feel really alive?”

  She looked barely twenty. Her face was a portrait of
eagerness, excitement.

  Michelle’s first thought was, Yes I do, and it’s being with Gus and Samantha. She was afraid if she said that, she’d cry. All these brave people. Looking for something safer to say, she asked, “Why does it make you feel alive?”

  Terry said, “I never feel more alive than I do when I’m working.”

  She was so enthusiastic, so sincere. She talked in exclamation marks. I never! Feel more alive! Than I do! When I’m working!

  “You’re one of these people we see in the movies, taking bombs apart while everyone waits at a safe distance.”

  Terry laughed. “You sound like my mother. It must be hard to understand.”

  She stared at Michelle for a moment, and then, her smile gone, she said, “When I’m with a device, all alone, everything’s silent, it’s like the world has stopped, it’s just me and the device, and I know it’s been put there for some thing evil. And I’m going to stop it. That’s a wonderful feeling. It’s exciting. People complain their lives don’t have meaning. They should do what I do. It gets real quiet—even when there’s a lot of noise around, you don’t hear anything. It’s just me looking at that ugly thing. And they are always ugly. Some machines are beautiful to look at, but explosive devices are always ugly. You know you’re with an enemy. And alone, just by yourself, you say, ‘Oh, no you don’t. You’ve had it, fella.’ You study the ugly thing, and you disable it. But it’s really the people who designed it and built it and put it there that you’re beating. You have to match wits with them. It’s like I’m a doctor, fighting a virus, trying to figure out how this virus works, how can I destroy it. It’s wonderful. I feel like that’s what I’ve been put on earth to do, and when I’m doing it, I’m alive. That sounds crazy, right?”

  Michelle looked into those smiling, excited eyes and felt as if she’d entered another world. She didn’t like it. She wanted her own world back, the one with Gus and Samantha.

  Rothman called.

  Gus said, “Phil, what’s the latest with Harrington?”

  “I haven’t talked to him. I called his office, and he wasn’t there. His secretary said she didn’t know where he was. She thought he might be out of town.”

  “Out of town. What the hell does that mean? Where would he be, out of town?”

  “I haven’t a clue.”