by Brian Haig
Jennie nodded and pointed at an exit ramp about a hundred yards from where we stood. She said, “That’s probably where they escaped. They fired, exited, and drove off like nothing happened.”
“Right. Maybe somebody who drove on, or somebody already in the hospital, got a better look at that car. We should find out.”
She put her hand on my arm and said, “I’ll ask George to tell the cops to ask around. We’ll also ask the local TV and radio stations to request public assistance.”
Jennie’s cell phone rang and she backed off and answered it, leaving me to thank Mrs. Blandon for her assistance. I overheard Jennie say, “Yeah...uh-huh. What?...oh, shit...you’re kidding.”
She rolled her eyes at me and said into the phone, “No...I don’t mean, literally, you’re kidding.” She paused. “All right, just tell me everything you know...Okay, fine—everything you think you know.”
She listened for another two minutes, intermittently prodding the agent on the other end, then said, “I see.” After another moment she said, “At least an hour. Our helicopter’s gone. No. I can’t...Well, just call Mark Butterman. See if he can get over there. I want that place swept clean.”
She hung up, drew a few breaths, and then informed me, “You won’t believe this.”
Surveying the surrounding carnage, I replied, “Try me.”
“Justice Fineberg walked up to the front door of his large and lovely Bethesda home at 7:00 P.M. and it exploded.”
“Phillip Fineberg?”
“Yeah. Know anything about him?”
“A bit. But how...I mean, doesn’t a Supreme Court justice have a security detail?”
“The Supremes have their own security people, a mix of retired cops...some retired Bureau types...double-dippers. My office handles their clearances, reviews their procedures, and coordinates joint matters.” After a pause, she added, “They’re a good outfit. But they’re not bodyguards. They just weren’t expecting...”
“What?”
“The on-scene investigator’s not sure.” She added, somewhat annoyed, “I’m so tired of dealing with agents with law degrees. Ask a simple question and you get ten conditionals. You know what I mean?”
Right. “Well, what did he tell you?”
“The security agent who drove the justice home said the explosion happened at the front entrance. Little damage to the home. Even the doorway’s intact. Fineberg was the only casualty.”
“Shrapnel marks?”
“Yeah...like that. Some sort of fragmentary device, he thinks. The device nearly blew Fineberg in half.”
I considered that a moment. “The explosive device was placed outside the door.”
“In fact, it was.” She looked at me and said, “You’re on a roll...Want to take a stab at the rest of it?”
“Sure.” I asked, “Was there a security system at the house?”
“An electronic system. Sensors inside, cameras outside—all very sophisticated...supposedly tamperproof. Since 9/11, all the Supremes have them.”
“Do the cameras record or just view?”
“Record. Tapes are kept for twenty-four hours, then taped over.”
“Surely the killers reconnoitered in advance.”
“That would make sense.” She thought about that and came to the appropriate conclusion. “We’ll review the tapes and see if we can pick them out.”
“After what we saw this morning, we should consider the possibility that they knew the security routine...possibly even the security setup in advance.”
“Bad assumption,” Jennie replied. “The Secret Service and the Supremes’ security detail are different organizations.”
“With a hundred million dollars, think about what you can buy. Or who.”
“All right...I won’t rule it out as a possibility.”
I tried to re-create how it might have happened, thinking about how I would do it. “When you review the tapes, you might see a delivery drop earlier in the day. FedEx, UPS—something.”
She shook her head. “Not possible.”
“Of course it’s possible.”
“All mail and packages are collected and screened for explosives and poisons. Even the stuff delivered to their homes. Standard precaution since the anthrax and ricin attacks.”
“Did I say the bomb was in the parcel?”
“Oh...you mean—”
“Yeah. As the delivery person dropped off the package, he—possibly she—planted the explosive device somewhere near the front door.”
“How?”
“Like, they bent over, one hand placed the package by the door, and the other inconspicuously put the bomb in place.”
She considered that and then said, “That could work, couldn’t it?”
I nodded. “It’s an ideal ambush site. Fineberg had to be stationary at least a few seconds to unlock the door.”
“I...I hadn’t thought of that.”
“If there are bushes by the door, maybe the explosive device was hidden there. But you said it nearly blew him in half.”
“The agent reported the explosion went off around waist level.”
“That doesn’t make sense. A normal explosive device or mine would blow off his feet, possibly his legs.” I considered this for a moment, then I thought about the antitank weapon used here, and a really weird thought popped into my mind. “Unless it was a Bouncing Betty.”
“A Bouncing Betty?”
“A type of military mine.”
“Tell me about that.”
“They’re fairly common...small...hard to detect with the naked eye, especially when camouflaged. You stuff it into the ground and it sticks up about two inches. When it’s triggered, a small explosive goes off, the detonating device pops about three feet into the air, and then goes off.”
“Wouldn’t Fineberg have to step on the mine?”
“They come out of the factory pressure detonated. But they can be modified into tripwire- or even command-detonated devices.”
“So it would—”
“Yes—it would. A guy’s up the street watching. The second Fineberg’s hand touches the knob, up pops Mr. Nasty.”
“Jesus—how do you protect against something like that?”
“I think that’s exactly the point.”
“What am I missing here?”
“Their note—we can’t.”
She nodded. Then she suggested, “But there’s something important—something we’re overlooking. I’m not thinking...” She glanced in the direction of the ruined BMW, then said, “Antitank weapons...Bouncing Bettys...this is military hardware we’re talking about.”
“And...?”
“And where did these people get their hands on these things? Right?”
Right.
Jennie then rushed off to inform Meany of the newest disaster, our guesses about the weapons used, and what this might mean in terms of fresh leads and whatever.
Left with nothing better to do, I withdrew my cell phone from a pocket and turned it on for the first time that day. The little window informed me that somebody in the 703 area code had called about ten times. Incidentally, the CIA, like the Army, is big on reporting chains and timely communications. Of course, as a lawyer, I’m accustomed to working and operating alone, making my own decisions, accountable to nobody but my clients and the court docket. I was having a little trouble getting back into this chain of command thing.
I decided to get this over with and called Phyllis. On an open airwave, I was no doubt engaging in an egregious heresy of some sort. But with three helicopters broadcasting overhead, and a Supreme Court justice splattered across the front of his house, confidentiality was the least of our worries, in my view.
Phyllis sounded a lot annoyed and wasted a few comments reminding me I wasn’t the only one working this case, and so on. Then she listened patiently as I unloaded the latest. She asked a few questions, some of which I could answer, and some of which I couldn’t. Finally she commented, “Well, I can’
t recall a worse evening.”
I nearly replied, “How about 9/11?” The CIA hadn’t exactly ended that day parading down Constitution Avenue draped in victory laurels, as I recalled. But maybe she had a point. By the evening of 9/11 the worst was over, except for the shock, funerals, cleanup, and revenge. These guys weren’t through. In fact, the worst could be yet to come. I commented, “Well, the morning wasn’t so hot either.”
“The morning was just the entree.”
“Right.” I suggested, “We should probably anticipate another hit to start off our day tomorrow.”
“It would be a mistake to expect these people to be predictable. They haven’t been yet.”
“Would you care to wager?”
“No, I would not.” She changed the subject and noted, “This is all very mystifying. It’s obvious why they assassinated Merrill Benedict, don’t you think?”
“I think it looks obvious. Like Belknap, he’s a confidant of the President, and given his job...Well, there’s going to be a big hole at the White House morning press briefing tomorrow.”
“Indeed. Now, what about Fineberg?”
Good question. Connections are important in any criminal case; they’re irreplaceable when they’re all you have. So I considered her question and it was a bit tricky.
Justice Phillip Fineberg wasn’t close to anybody I knew of. And though it pains me to speak ill of the dead, here goes; the man was a prick. He was about seventy, a legal egghead plucked two Presidents back from the faculty of Yale Law, and every President since has cursed the choice. The press generally characterized him, somewhat delicately, as cantankerous and iconoclastic, journalistic code words for a robed asshole. He browbeat and terrified every lawyer unfortunate enough to appear at the highest court, even those arguing a case he favored.
The American Bar Association could raffle tickets to pee on his gravestone. Also his legal opinions were irrational, and he was famous—or infamous—for writing contrarian dissents insulting to both the minority and majority opinions. His eight brethren would dearly love to get this lug in a back alley and lump him up good. Except somebody beat them to the punch.
In truth, Fineberg’s murder would be a source of quiet jubilation in many quarters, and made no sense I could see.
Phyllis repeated, “Well? Is there a connection? Or was he just a target of convenience?”
“I don’t think there’s a specific connection.”
Apparently I was being tested, because she snapped, “Think harder, Drummond. This city is filled with targets. There has to be a reason they chose him. Right?”
“Right.”
“I didn’t give you this assignment to spectate. These killers aren’t stupid. You can’t afford to be.”
So I thought harder. I suggested, “Maybe Fineberg was a decoy.”
“For what?”
“To sow doubt and confusion. To mislead us and force us to waste time and precious resources chasing down an empty path. You know—”
“Yes...possibly.” After a pause she observed, “Also, there are many prominent people in Washington, our ability to protect them is limited, and by forcing us to spread out, it gets easier for them.”
“Right.” The lady was on, and I went into the listening mode.
She added, “They’re forcing our hand. This makes three important officials in one day. We can’t very well dissemble any longer, can we? We’re going to have to disclose what’s happening to the public.”
“Maybe we should have done that earlier.”
“Don’t be naive. There was a very good reason we chose to handle things this way.”
“To avoid embarrassment?” I offered.
“Oh please. What nobody could in good taste confess this morning. What we all wanted to avoid—hysteria. Every person in this town with a hint of an impressive title is going to beg for protection. Somebody has to perform the triage.”
“Go on.”
“A lot of feelings are going to get hurt, and a lot of enemies made. Understand—with an election, the President wanted desperately to avoid that.”
Made sense, I guess. I was reminded of the cold war days, when a select handful of people in the Pentagon were issued special passes to be flown out of the city on the first whiff of an incoming nuclear attack. They would ride out the great cataclysm inside a hollowed-out mountain somewhere not even God knew about, to emerge, I guess, after the Geiger counters stopped having heart attacks. It was the ultimate get-out-of-jail card, the modern equivalent of a ticket to Noah’s Ark. For the rest of us, it was an official stamp of expendability. Fortunately, the big one never came, so there were no hard feelings—as if anybody would’ve been left to feel bad anyway.
Not so this time. The President was involved in a touch-and-go election campaign, plenty of people would remember, and he already had enemies by the bushel. I said, “Got it.”
“I shouldn’t have to explain these things to you.”
Right.
It’s never pleasant getting your butt chewed by the boss. But I didn’t really want to get into it with this lady, who might lace cyanide into my cigars or something. And for the record, if you’ll pardon the pun, the lady was dead-on. Bodies were piling up, and Sean Drummond’s singular contribution was to explain how. What mattered was why, and from there you might get to who.
I asked her for an update on the bounty, and she informed me that no progress had been made, though reports were still filtering in from around the world, and she would let me know. In other words, piss off.
She closed by informing me that Jennie, Meany, and I needed to be back at the Incident Command Center in time for a nine o’clock session of the oversight cell.
I began to wonder if this day was going to end.
CHAPTER NINE
THE 9:00 P.M. SESSION OPENED WITH AN OVERVIEW FROM A PLUMP AND pasty-faced Bureau pathologist, who brought along a number of visual aids to jog our imagination and encourage discussion. The information wasn’t all that helpful, really. But I guess it’s good for morale to allow everybody a moment in the sun.
Also, the day had been long and grueling, the hour was late, and a pathology lecture is a lot like a sixth-grade sex ed class—it’s all in the pictures.
At least the bureaucrats seemed to be catching up to the killers’ frantic pace, and there was no unseemly melee as everybody tried to figure out who sat where. Name placards had been prepared; legal pads, sharpened No. 2 pencils, and even bottled waters were arranged. The same players from the morning session were present and accounted for, excluding my big cheese, James Peterson, who I guess was lurking in the shadowy corridors of Langley plotting something. More likely, he was exercising his option to keep his distance from this thing. Smart guy.
In fact, I was a little astonished to see Director Townsend drumming his fingers on the end of the table and watching the mass assemble. But it made sense, I guess. With the White House Chief of Staff, the presidential spokesperson, a Supreme Court justice, and assorted others filling drawers at the morgue, taking in a Kennedy Center musical was probably not the best of ideas. Still, I think it said something about the man that he did not keep his bureaucratic distance, that he was staying in the thick of things, and if—or, as it now looked—when the shitstorm hit, he was going to be front and center, with no prophylactic layers of bureaucracy for cover.
Also, I was relieved to see that Mr. Townsend did not appear pissed, distraught, or even moody; he actually looked collected and impassive, as though this was just another day, another investigation, another job to be done. Of course, it wasn’t. But good leadership is four-tenths being there and six-tenths looking the part.
Anyway, the day had been a scorcher—literally and otherwise—and nobody had changed clothes, or showered, and the room was windowless, so it smelled a little ripe, though that was the least of our worries.
In fact, two minutes into it, everybody was stone-cold sober, stealing glances at their watches and waiting for Dr. Death and his nas
ty pictures to go away, when he got to something I found interesting and useful.
We had finished reviewing the anatomical donnybrook at Belknap’s house and a new corpse flashed onto the screen: an aged and scrawny body sprawled on his left side across his front porch.
One glance and you knew this guy had scribbled his last illegible dissent. The doc pointed at the slide and said, “See here how Fineberg was blown nearly in half. Really the only thing holding him together is his spine. Even a layman can detect from the severity of trauma that his death was virtually instantaneous. Until the autopsy’s complete I won’t venture the exact cause of death...but see here.” He pointed at a fresh slide. “The right side of Fineberg’s body, the hollowed-out side, took the brunt of the blast.”
There followed a number of lavish close-ups of Phillip Fineberg’s oozing entrails, exposed rib cage, and so on.
“The depth of the tissue damage,” the doc continued, “and the heavy accretion of gunpowder on Fineberg’s skin suggests the device exploded, we estimate, within three feet from his body. Of particular interest, judging by the angle of the entry wounds, the device was some three feet off the ground when it exploded. This is curious, yes? The explosion occurred at approximately the same height as the doorknob.”
He paused to allow everybody to consider this novel possibility. Mr. Gene Halderman of Homeland Security was thoughtfully stroking his chin, no doubt thinking, “Ah-hah—the old bomb in the doorknob thing.”
The doctor then said, “But when we found no trace of brass, or even brass enamel, we ruled that out. The device dispensed hundreds of particles composed of iron bauxite, a mixture of tiny pellets and some coarser pieces with sharp, uneven edges, perhaps from the shell of the device. What this means, we don’t know. We do bodies, not bombs. So we’ve forwarded shrapnel fragments and powder residue over to—”
George Meany suddenly pushed back his chair. “Wait!—hold on a minute...” He regarded the picture a moment before he informed the good doctor, “From what you’re describing...I think...” He paused until he had everybody’s undivided attention. “That...that sounds like a Bouncy Nancy.” His eyes roved around the table, and in response to the confused expressions he added, “If you’re unfamiliar with this device, it’s...” and proceeded to give the unwashed and unknowing a brief description of Bouncy Nancys and how the weapon matched the damage inflicted on Fineberg, and so forth.
