Blown Away

by G. M. Ford

  “Perfectly,” Corso said.

  “I mean…if you don’t mind me saying, Mr. Corso…your profile is all over the place. You’re the recluse who’s on the cover of People this week. With you it’s either spectacular success or spectacular failure. No middle ground. And to make matters worse, you tend to do both in the full glare of the public eye.”

  “Not by choice.”

  “Well then…you’ll understand what I’m saying.”

  “Which is?”

  “Which is that…whatever the hell is going on here…I want to stay in the background. It’s best for me if people don’t recognize my face. Anonymity works for me. I’m not looking to change that.”

  “I’ll do the best I can.”

  She looked him over again. “And you don’t have any idea why we’ve been picked up and spirited off by the FBI?”

  “None. The only thing I’m working on is Nathan Marino.”

  “You’re leveling with me?”

  “I’m sorry I got you into this.”

  It was her turn to laugh. “Hey…listen…I’ve been questioned by the Taliban. By the Cuban secret police. By the Russians…” She gestured toward the front of the plane. “These guys are Boy Scouts. I just want to make sure I’m not getting myself into anything I can’t get out of.”

  Corso met her gaze. “Swear to God…” He held his fingers in the Boy Scout salute. “I’ve got no idea what’s going on here or where we’re headed.”

  “West,” she said.

  16

  T he overhead speaker hissed. Corso pushed himself upright in the chair and rubbed his eyes. After spending most of the night in flight, he barely remembered the airport or the half hour ride to the federal building in downtown Los Angeles. He threw his arms straight up, as if signaling a touchdown, stretched his legs and groaned. On his left, Chris Andriatta shifted in the seat without either raising her head or opening her eyes.

  An amplified voice crackled from the ceiling. “For reasons that will become apparent, we’re going to brief you on these incidents in the reverse order in which they occurred.” A click and a pause. Andriatta sat up and looked around. The electronic voice came again. “The second call was an automated distress signal from a Washington Mutual branch in northeast San Bernardino. Came at 9:03, just as the bank opened.” The lights dimmed.

  Somewhere in the back of the room somebody flipped a switch, sending the big flat-panel TV sputtering to life. Grainy black-and-white. Time and date in the upper left-hand corner: 05:06:05; 8:59 A.M. Bank exterior. Hispanic guy about thirty using the cash machine. Looks like he’s making a deposit. A woman walks behind him and looks up at the camera. The picture freezes, then zooms in. “This is the first picture we have of her,” the amplified voice said. “We’ve enhanced the face, but the age of the tape and the quality of the equipment severely limit the degree of resolution.”

  The face could be anyone female with teeth and a full head of black hair. “Her name is Constance Valparaiso. She’s an RN for a hospital in Pomona. Been there nine years. Competent and reliable. Nothing at all to suggest she’s anything but a victim.” Pause. “According to both Ms. Valparaiso and her husband, she left for the hospital at 7:15 A.M. That time of the morning, it’s about half an hour to work. She’s not expected until eight but likes to get in a little early. People she works with confirm.”

  “This was Wednesday, the sixth?” somebody asked from the darkness.

  “Yes,” the voice confirmed.

  The view on the screen changed. Color film this time. Suburban setting. Little yellow house with flowers out front. “She drives an ’89 Toyota Corolla. Parks it out front of the house in the street.”

  “Why not the garage?” somebody asked.

  “Hubby’s got a brand-new Ford Ranger pickup.”

  “Figures,” a female voice said. A couple of people laugh.

  “Perp is waiting in the car. Puts a gun to her head, tapes up her hands and face and stuffs her down on the floor of the car.”

  “She get a look?”

  “Male in a Spider-Man mask. White, she thinks.”

  “Why white?”

  “The voice.”

  Somebody makes a rude noise.

  “Around 10:00 A.M. hospital calls her house. They figure she’s sick and hasn’t remembered to call in. When they don’t get an answer, they check her contact info and call the hubby. Who calls the San Bernardino PD. Everybody agrees it’s not like her at all. SBPD takes it seriously. Puts Ms. Valparaiso and her car on the want list.”

  “But…” somebody prompts.

  “But we don’t see her again until…”

  “Twenty-five hours later.”

  “Give or take.”

  “She have any idea where they took her?”

  “At least an hour away.”

  “Who says they don’t drive around in circles?” somebody asks.

  “She says she thinks the traffic got lighter as they drove.”

  “Could be anywhere. An hour from San Bernardino could put you in Yucca Valley or up at Big Bear Lake.”

  “Who’s debriefing her?”

  “SBPD.”

  A buzz of conversation swept across the room. “Needless to say, she’s quite upset. They’re taking it easy with her. The Bureau’s got a shrink from Quantico on hand. They’re hoping she might come up with something once she calms down.” A hum from the crowd had its doubts.

  The viewpoint changed. Black-and-white again. Bank interior now. Same female, third in line. She’s nervous, looking around and moving her weight from one foot to another like she needs to pee. She’s got a canvas shopping bag in each hand.

  The conference room was full. At least a dozen cops. Several kinds of G-men. A couple ATF ops and a handful of strong silent types whose affiliation was anybody’s guess. Corso and Andriatta are up at the head of the table, sitting close to the screen.

  “If you check the folders on the table in front of you, you’ll find a copy of the note she handed the teller.”

  A rush of ruffled papers filled the air. The voice begins, “Please…I’ve been kidnapped. I’m wearing a bomb.” Corso looked up just in time to see Constance Valparaiso push the canvas bags through the slot. With her hands now free, she pulls open the white sweater to reveal some sort of apparatus…a one-foot-square metal box hanging down over her chest. The film stops. The voice continues. “Please do exactly what the note says or they will blow me up.”

  Even with the poor film quality, it’s obvious she’s crying. Her eye shadow is running down her cheeks like an oil slick. The voice reads the rest of the note. “Large bills. No cops. No tracking devices. No helicopters. They will know if she’s being followed. They will kill her if all instructions are not followed. Do as you’re told and she’ll be returned safely.”

  The tape moves for another minute as the teller begins stuffing the bag. Guy in a good suit and a bad tie arrives. Reads the note. Says something to the Valparaiso woman, who again pulls open her sweater to reveal the bomb resting on her chest. This time, more of the device is visible. It hangs from her neck by what appears to be an oversized handcuff.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” Corso said, leaning forward. Andriatta put a questioning hand on his arm. “Just like the one Marino was wearing,” Corso whispered.

  The guy in the suit moves the other customers way down the other end of the bank. Once everyone’s settled, he ducks into the vault. Three minutes later, he reappears, both bags stuffed to bursting with bills.

  The narration continued. “Bank manager’s a guy named Mauro Bonillo. An Argentinean. He’d seen Monday’s bulletin, so he knew what to do. Does a nice job of keeping things under control.”

  The videotape started up again. Constance Valparaiso heading for the door; she can barely walk straight from the weight of the bags.

  “How much did they get?” someone asks from the darkness.

  “Two hundred sixty-three thousand and change.”

  Somebody whistled.
“What’s money weigh?” somebody else asked.

  “Four hundred ninety bills to a pound,” the guy behind Andriatta answered. “A million dollars would weigh more than a ton if you used all one-dollar bills. Use hundreds and it’s just over twenty pounds.” Another buzz from the audience.

  Valparaiso’s outside now. Half a dozen San Bernardino police cruisers are spread out in a semicircle around the parking lot, but nobody makes a move to stop her as she exits the bank, wobbles over to her car and drives off. The videotape backs up to where she turns to leave the bank. The focus zooms in to the back of her head. A laser pointer highlights the area behind her right ear, where a pigtail of wire is clearly visible.

  “Ms. Valparaiso was wired for sound,” the narrator says. “We think it’s at least possible she was wired for pictures also.”

  “That means the perp was somewhere close by.”

  “Maybe,” says the narrator.

  The image of the back of Ms. Valparaiso’s head remains on the screen. The voice-over resumes. “The victim followed directions. North on the 215 freeway all the way up to Victorville, then back south on State Route 247 for forty-six miles to the town of Landers, at which point she was instructed to turn onto County Road 316. Six miles up, the voice in her ear tells her to stop the car and get out. She does as she’s told.” The picture on the screen changes back to the second time Valparaiso pulled her sweater back to reveal the bomb. Zoom in. The laser pointer indicates a small keypad on the front of the black box. Zero through nine. “She says the voice in her ear gave her a number sequence. Told her if she wanted to live to push the buttons in a specific order. She doesn’t remember how many numbers or what the sequence was.”

  The level of side talk in the room was beginning to rise. “We’re almost there,” the amplified voice admonished. “The voice in her ear tells her to take the device off, earpiece and all, and put it on the roof of the car and to start walking back the way she came. Takes her an hour and a half to walk back to State Route 247. She flags down a truck. The rest is history.” The buzz rises to a dull roar.

  “Questions,” the voice asks.

  “The car?”

  “Right where she left it. No money. No bomb.”

  “Prints?”

  “Hers, her husband’s and a set we’re still processing. Whoever they belong to is not in IAFIS. The Bureau’s working on it.”

  “Gonna end up belonging to somebody they know.”

  “In all probability,” the voice agreed.

  “Anybody with a grudge against this woman?”

  “Not that we know of.”

  “Any political affiliations?”

  “They’re Democrats.”

  “That explains the bomb,” somebody quipped.

  A ripple of laughter crossed the darkened room.

  “Do we even know for sure that the device was real?”

  A pause ensued. “That brings us to the prior incident,” said the voice.

  17

  C risp black-and-white images. Split screen. Another bank. Much smaller than the first. One view from high above the teller stations. One from a wide-angle camera mounted above the front door. Both cameras agree it’s 8:58 A.M. on March 5 and that the bank is empty. The voice returns to the overhead speakers. “This incident is considerably shorter than the other, so I’m going to let it run. We can go back over it later.” A hum of acquiescence rolled around the table. “What you’re seeing, ladies and gentlemen, is the Republic of Vietnam Bank. It’s located in a strip mall catering to recent immigrants on the corner of First Avenue and Foothill Boulevard in La Crescenta.” A young Asian man appears at the teller station closest to the door. White shirt, striped tie, no jacket. He’s carrying a cash drawer.

  “The teller’s name is Don Keodalah. He’s thirty-one years old, has a wife and three kids. He lives four blocks away and walks to work regardless of the weather.” Another man appears on the screen. Dark suit and tie. Trim nearly to the point of emaciation. Thinning hair combed straight back.

  “The bank manager’s name is Andrew Nguyen. Sixty-eight. Single. Lives with his younger sister in Glendale.” Nguyen says something to the teller, gets an answer, then hustles over to the front door, which he proceeds to unlock.

  “We know what he said?” somebody asked.

  “He asked the teller if he was ready.”

  Nguyen walks to the far end of the counter, opens a little gate and lets himself in. He’s still got his back to the door when the customer comes in. Southeast Asian. Maybe forty, running to fat. Thick horn-rimmed glasses. Wearing dark slacks and a windbreaker. He looks around furtively, then walks over to the window, pushes a piece of paper through the slot. From the higher camera, you can see Keodalah’s scalp twitch as he reads the note. He reaches out with the toe of his left foot. A blinking icon appears in the upper left-hand corner of the screen.

  “Silent alarm.”

  “We got a make on the vic?”

  “Not as of this morning.”

  Nguyen appears at the teller’s shoulder. The younger man hands over the note. Looks like Nguyen reads it more than once and starts yelling, rapid fire, mouth moving like a machine gun. He crumples the note and throws it back through the slot.

  The customer looks like he’s in agony. He unzips his windbreaker. Pulls the nylon wide apart, revealing the same type explosive device as Valparaiso wore the day before now locked around his neck.

  Nguyen’s yelling at the customer, waving his arm like crazy. Looks like the customer’s yelling back, but the camera angles don’t show his mouth.

  “We have a translation?” the same voice asked.

  “The Bureau says he’s telling the vic to get the hell out.”

  “Not much gets by the Bureau,” somebody comments. Laughter ripples around the room, then catches like a hook in their collective throat as the bomb goes off. Big puff of smoke, then Bam! Both cameras oscillate violently. Something gooey smears itself over the overhead lens in the second before the right-hand side of the screen goes black. The camera over the door keeps running. When the cloud of airborne debris clears, most of the counter is gone. So is most of the guy wearing the bomb. Amid the rubble a leg moves. Everyone around the table holds his breath and leans forward, hoping for a miracle, but as the point of view zooms in, it become apparent that the leg is just that…a leg…and that the movement is nothing more than the last spasm of a vaporized nervous system.

  “Jesus,” somebody whispered.

  “Three fatalities,” the voice-over intoned.

  The tape rewinds to where Nguyen pushes the note back through the teller slot, then starts again…superslow motion this time. They watch in horror as the victim’s mouth trembles as he tries to speak. Whoever’s running the machine stops the action in the frame before the bomb detonates. The victim has his hands up at shoulder level…like he’s pushing against something…when the first puff of smoke appears from the black box on his chest. After that, even the miracle of videotape can’t slow things down much. In a heartbeat, the frame is filled with smoke, mercifully obscuring the horrific moment when the victims are torn asunder by the force of the blast. The tape runs back to the close-up of the twitching leg and the screen goes blank.

  The disembodied voice from the ceiling started again. “A pair of county units were the first responders. Thinking it was maybe a gas leak, they cordoned off the whole shopping center, which has allowed us the past couple of days to carry out our investigation with little or no interference. Yesterday’s incident, however, makes it impossible to keep the situation under wraps any longer. The media isn’t buying the gas leak story. The locals are fielding a couple dozen Freedom of Information requests. They’ve got a press conference scheduled for eight this morning. Questions?”

  “The lab make the explosive?”

  “Military grade C-4. Could be part of the material stolen from Twenty-Nine Palms.”

  “We know how the vic got to the bank?” the guy behind Corso asked.

&
nbsp; “The locals came up with an unclaimed Nissan Pathfinder in the parking lot. It’s registered to a Mrs….” He struggled with the Vietnamese name. “As of this a.m. they’ve been unable to contact Mrs….”

  He butchered the name again. “If Mr. Morales of the FBI is still with us, perhaps he could share the Bureau’s actions to this point.”

  A light-skinned Hispanic rose from the back row. He wore a well-cut tropical suit and a two-hundred-dollar haircut. He was handsome to a fault. He surveyed the crowd as if he owned it.

  “At this point, the Bureau is concentrating on known terrorist groups. This morning, we questioned seventy or so suspects.” He anticipated the obvious question. “We’re not limiting ourselves to foreign terrorists. We’re including everyone from Nazi skinheads to right-wing antigovernment types. We believe this line of inquiry is the one most likely to bear fruit.”

  “Anybody taking credit for it?” somebody asked from the audience.

  Morales cleared his throat. “The San Bernardino office received a call last night. The caller claimed the bombings were retribution for the capture of Eric Rudolph. They say the bombings will continue until he is released.”

  Another buzz ran through the crowd. The questions and answers continued for the better part of twenty minutes before the lights were flipped back on. The buzz reached a crescendo, then, in ones and twos and fours, the conference room emptied, until only Corso, Andriatta and a knot of people at the back of the room remained.

  Wasn’t until the room cleared that Corso caught his first glimpse of the guy in the wheelchair. One eye, one hand and one foot missing. Right side of his face looked like a pepperoni pizza. Corso watched as the guy used his remaining hand to operate the joystick on the chair. The soft whir of electronics floated above the muffled conversations coming from the back of the room.

  The horror in the wheelchair had made a quick right turn and huddled up with Special Agent Morales and the rest of the FBI contingent. The other suit took his time getting to the front of the room. He leaned his backside against the table and folded his arms.