CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“That son of a bitch,” Jessica growled as the three FBI agents stepped out of the administrative building. “Can you believe he asked us to keep this shit a secret?”
“Thank you, Lieutenant.” Faith hung up and put her phone back in her pocket.
“Suresh is going to send some officers to keep an eye on Portnoy. To answer your question, yes, I can believe that Donald Portnoy is still more concerned with himself than with others. That’s the unfortunate reality of people like him.
They can feel shame and guilt like others, but not enough to make them risk themselves, even when others are harmed by their mistakes. ”
“It’s just so shitty,” Jessica said. “Can we do something about it? I mean, about him?”
Faith sighed. “I don’t think so. We didn’t record that conversation, and if we come forward, he’ll just deny it.
People might believe us, or they might not.
Not to mention it could lead to another defamation lawsuit.
The last time I talked to Smythe, I got the impression the FBI would lean toward just firing us rather than going through the effort to litigate something that we don’t have any real proof for. ”
Jessica frowned. “You can’t leverage your relationship with Bridgette to get her to run some sort of exposé?”
Faith tensed. “I think it would be wise for us to follow your previous advice and no longer think of the press as an asset.”
Jessica sighed. “Yeah, you’re probably right. I’m just mad. It’s funny. I can wrap my head around insane killers, but I can’t understand people in power who use the little people working for them as scapegoats. Maybe it’s just because I’m one of the little people. I don’t know.”
Faith clapped Jessica on the shoulder. “Let’s just get this killer off the streets. Then we’ll figure out what, if anything, we can do about Portnoy and the others involved in the cover-up.”
“Yeah. Sounds good.”
They stepped into their rental car. Faith pulled her phone out and started to dial the number for the TSA office at Ronald Reagan. She was interrupted by Lieutenant Suresh. She frowned slightly and answered. “Hey, what’s up?”
“Faith, there’s another bomb threat.”
Faith’s eyes widened. “Shit. Where?”
“Ronald Reagan. Your suspect, Robert Stevenson. He just took the chief of security hostage.”
Faith’s jaw slackened. “Hostage?”
“Yeah. He showed the bomb to everyone, pressed a detonator and said that if he takes his thumb off the detonator, the bomb goes boom.”
Faith took a moment to absorb her shock. How had he escalated so much? Why had he escalated this far? Clearly he considered Hartford to bear the largest share of the blame for what happened, but to threaten innocent lives?
This could be another dud bomb, but Faith doubted it. The killer had shown his face. He had taken a man hostage and threatened the public. He might not be an artist, but he was a showman, and this was the grand finale.
“Son of a bitch!” she cursed. She covered the phone and told Jessica, “He’s at Ronald Reagan. He’s got Hartford hostage.”
“Shit!” Jessica put the car in gear and spun the tires out of the lot. “Tell him to clear our plates so we don’t get pulled over for speeding!”
"Suresh, put an APB out for our car. We don't have lights, but we need traffic laws not to apply to us for a little while."
“Sure, give me the plate, color, make, and model.”
She gave him that information, then said, “Are you on your way?”
“Yes, but only as an observer. That’s Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority Police Department jurisdiction.”
“Call them and let them know we’re on our way. Actually, forget that. I’ll call them.”
“Understood.”
She hung up and glanced at the GPS. It said forty-five minutes to get to Ronald Reagan. If they drove aggressively, they might be able to shave ten minutes off of that, but she doubted they would get more. Being free from traffic laws didn’t mean being free from traffic.
A lot could happen in thirty-five minutes.
She frowned. Actually, a lot should have happened already.
In the past two cases, the victims were killed in their own homes, and the killer called in the bomb threat for dud bombs after getting to safety.
He placed those calls anonymously from payphones.
This looked to be entirely different. Why had Stevenson changed his MO?
Or was he not the person who killed the previous two?
She called MWAA PD and put the phone on speaker. After identifying herself and getting transferred to the officer-in-command at the airport, she asked for a rundown of the situation.
The officer-in-command, Captain Grandal, replied in a tense, clipped tone.
“Mr. Stevenson entered the south TSA checkpoint structure at approximately eight-thirteen. He approached the security office stating he had a complaint about lost baggage. One of the officers attempted to direct him to the baggage claim center. He refused and got belligerent, so the officers attempted to detain him. When they did, he pulled out the bomb and the detonator and said he was there to punish the Great Incompetent or something like that.”
“I assume that he meant Security Chief James Hartford.”
“Yeah, he grabbed Hartford and tried to run. He saw our forces outside of the building, got spooked, and fled into the terminal with Hartford. We’re evacuating the terminal now.”
“Any idea where he is?”
“No, but he’s talking to us with Hartford’s cell phone.”
“And you can’t triangulate it?”
“We can tell he’s in the terminal, but he turned off the find my phone feature and did something to the software that prevents emergency services access.”
Faith frowned. “Okay, how long before you finish evacuating?”
“We’re estimating fifteen minutes to get everyone a safe distance from the terminal. The bomb’s small, but if it’s a powerful enough explosive and goes off in the right place, then it’ll take the whole structure out.”
“Yeah, I agree, get everyone out of there.”
“That’s why we’re talking to him. If he’s talking, he can’t blow the bomb. We hope. He pressed the detonator button already. He says if he takes it off, kaboom.”
She shared a glance with Jessica. Her partner was pale, her knuckles white around the steering wheel.
“Okay,” Faith said. “Keep him talking. If you can talk him into releasing Hartford, great, but if not, then we’ll need to figure out a way to get to that bomb or that detonator.”
“Yeah, that’s the plan,” Grandal said.
“What’s he saying?” Jessica asked.
“He’s saying that the Incompetents ruined his life.
He said he killed the Lesser Incompetent and the Female Incompetent already, and now he’s going to kill the Great Incompetent.
He’s asking for safe transportation out of here and says he’ll let everyone else escape if we let him kill Hartford and get out. ”
Faith tapped her fingers on the center console as she thought. “Okay. So he doesn’t want to kill anyone else?”
“That’s what he says.”
“Okay. Don’t let him know that you’re evacuating the civilians. Evacuate them but let him think they’re still in danger. Tell him you’re arranging transportation, and it’s on its way now.”
“How do we convince him of that?”
“Just tell him,” Faith said. “If he asks for a reason, tell him they need a special vehicle so he’s not stopped by law enforcement outside of your jurisdiction.
If he keeps asking, just tell him you’re working as fast as you can.
But don’t let him know when the terminal is evacuated, or he might figure out we’re not cooperating and decide he’d rather kill himself to kill Hartford. ”
“All right. I assume you’re on your way to the scene since this is a Bureau case?”
“Yes, we’ll be there in about thirty minutes.”
“Okay. Any reason you guys couldn’t find this guy before he put our airport under attack?”
Faith felt a flash of irritation but didn’t let it impact her reply. “We identified him as the primary suspect and were in the process of locating him when we got this call.”
Grandal sighed. “Right. Okay, well, we’ll do our best to keep him calm. We have an EOD team on standby too, but it looks like he’s got Hartford holding the bomb.”
Faith nodded. “Yeah, that’s his thing. He wants the world to know that it’s the Incompetents’ fault this is happening. Maybe we can use that to build camaraderie.”
“Sure. Hey, look, I’ve got to get back. I have officers asking me for instructions.”
“Of course. Go ahead. Call us if there are any major developments.”
She hung up and looked at Jessica. Her partner was still white-faced. “What do you want to do when we get there?” she asked.
“We need to stop Stevenson. We can’t let that bomb go off.”
Jessica sighed. “I was afraid you’d say that.”
“You don’t have to come with—”
“Faith, I swear to God, if you finish that sentence, you won’t survive to come with me.” Turk barked in alarm, and Jessica said, “Kidding. Mostly.”
Faith smiled at her partner, but her pride in the determined young agent did nothing to calm the tension in her chest. They had to stop Stevenson, but needing to stop him and being capable of stopping him were two very different things.
The fate of this case, the life of a flawed but innocent man, and quite possibly their own lives now hung on the knife-edge of a very disturbed and very angry man’s self-control.