CHAPTER 23 Sampson
Sampson
NED MAHONEY AND I pull up outside the ATF National Laboratory Center in Beltsville, Maryland. It’s already dark out. I’m starting to lose track of the hours as we continue to push the case along, knowing that time is not on our side.
As we head for the forensics lab, Ned gets a text. He gives it a quick read and puts his phone down. “Well,” he says, “one theory is out the window.” He looks over at me as we walk. “That Middle East political action committee you mentioned?”
“FIP-PAC?”
“That’s the one,” says Mahoney. “They’ve been defunct for about a year.”
“Damn it!”
“Yeah. So much for peaceful cooperation in the Middle East.”
We find Anna Rizzo sitting on a metal stool in one of the evidence-processing rooms. Long white tables stretch out to the far wall, filled with computer monitors, microscopes, and illuminated magnifying glasses.
She greets us with a yawn, then quickly recovers. “Don’t worry about me,” she says. “I’m still full of piss and vinegar.”
Rizzo is wearing a white lab coat and light blue medical gloves. She goes back to examining a small length of what looks like burned string through a magnifying glass. “Anything new on your end?” she asks.
I give her the top line. “We’re still canvassing witnesses, trying to determine if anybody saw the driver exit the van before the explosion or saw what happened once he went into that alley.
Challenge is, he could have gone one block, ducked into a doorway, stripped off his painter outfit, and hopped into a getaway car. ”
“Or taken a bus,” adds Mahoney. “Or jumped on the nearest Metro.”
“Well, lucky for me,” says Rizzo, “everything I need is right here and in the warehouse next door. That’s where we’re reassembling the van, best we can.”
“We also met with Chief Lucianne out at Reagan,” says Mahoney. “She showed us a video of the van leaving the parking garage. No good views of the driver’s face, though. And he paid in cash, with gloves on.”
Rizzo nods. “Like I said, fastidious.” As she reaches for a notebook, the right sleeve of her lab coat slides up, exposing a tattoo on her wrist. It looks like a stylized bomb surrounded by jagged lines indicating an explosion.
Rizzo quickly pulls her sleeve down and gives me a sidelong glance.
Caught me looking.
“So why are we here?” asks Mahoney.
Rizzo stands up. “I want you guys to take a look at what I’ve found so far.
” She walks to the end of the table and points to a collection of curved pieces of broken and burned plastic.
“It looks like our guy was inspired by the ghost of Timothy McVeigh. He used a mixture of fuel oil and fertilizer in plastic barrels. Packs one hell of a punch.”
“Okay,” says Mahoney, “we’ll check feed and grain stores to see if anybody made major purchases of fertilizer in the past weeks.”
“Good luck with that,” says Rizzo. “If he’s as smart as I’m betting, our guy would’ve spread his purchases around several different states so as not to arouse suspicion.”
She pokes her finger at a small pile of screws and bolts.
“And take a look at this. As if the explosion weren’t bad enough, the bomber added this stuff as shrapnel, possibly loaded into plastic bags and duct-taped to the inside of the van.
That tells us he didn’t just want to destroy buildings and cars—he wanted to kill and maim as many people as he could. ”
Rizzo returns to her stool. I hang behind for a few seconds, trying to control my rage as I stare at the handiwork of someone who killed and grievously wounded so many innocents less than twenty-four hours ago.
Whoever you are, I’m coming for you.
With a pair of tweezers, Rizzo holds up the bit of burned string that she’d been examining when we walked in.
“Here’s your fuse, or what’s left of it,” she says. “The surveillance video shows the van stopping, its hazard blinkers coming on, and then the bomber stepping out and walking away. About sixty seconds later, the bomb detonates.”
I lean forward to look at the string. “So the bomber lit the fuse after he parked the van.”
“That’s right,” says Rizzo. “But come see something else I’ve found that’s giving me the willies. Over here.”
Mahoney and I follow her to another wide table. She takes a mounted magnifying glass and moves it over to a small charred object. “Look.”
“You first,” says Mahoney, nudging me forward.
Peering through the glass, I see a tiny bit of green plastic, no bigger than my pinkie nail, with what looks like a few squiggly gold lines inscribed in it. I step back. “Electronics?”
“No question,” says Rizzo. “But nothing that seems to be connected with the van’s engine or electronics system. We’re still sifting through the debris, but my guess is that we’re looking at what’s left of a timer. The bomber didn’t want to rely only on a burning fuse. He wanted a backup.”
Mahoney takes his turn at the magnifying glass. “Maybe it’s part of a cell phone apparatus using a command detonation. The bomber walks away and when he feels safe, he enters a preprogrammed number, and boom.”
Rizzo shakes her head. “Not safe enough. For the bomber, I mean.”
“Because of spurious calls?” I suggest.
Rizzo smiles my way. She has a nice smile.
“Bingo,” she says. “In an urban environment, there are lots of electronic signals flying through the air on multiple frequencies. It’d be a hell of a thing if some guy was texting his girlfriend and it just happened to match the command detonation frequency.
A big boom when you didn’t want it to explode. ”
“I think our bomber is too smart to use command denotation in an urban area,” I say.
“I found one more thing.” Rizzo points to a microscope that has a small piece of jagged green plastic on the specimen stage. Mahoney starts to lean in, but Rizzo tugs him back.
“Save your eyes,” she tells him. “What we have here is the fragment of a wrapper for a brick of C-4 explosive.”
Interesting. And terrifying. C-4 is a military-grade plastic explosive—very, very hard for a civilian to secure. Available on only the blackest of black markets.
Mahoney gives out a low whistle. “That steps things up, doesn’t it? A fertilizer-and-fuel-oil bomb is probably within reach of any competent civilian with an engineering brain. But now we’re adding C-4 into the equation. Maybe a backup detonation device?”
“Maybe,” says Rizzo, sitting down. “Or maybe a message.”
Now I’m lost. “A message? What kind of message? Like a threat?”
“Maybe. C-4 is a great plastic explosive,” says Rizzo.
“Malleable, easy to use, and safe to handle. You can drop it on the floor or take a baseball bat to it and nothing will happen.” She picks up a pair of tweezers and pulls out the wrapper scrap.
“But for your terrorist bomber, there’s a big disadvantage.
Powerful explosives like C-4 and Semtex contain taggants—microscopic markers that identify the manufacturer and the lot number, allowing law enforcement to trace it to the source. ”
“Sounds sloppy,” says Mahoney. “And risky. Why take that chance?”
“What if it’s deliberate?” asks Rizzo. “Maybe the bomber wants us to know who he is and where he’s from without making TikTok videos or sending out an email blast.”
I’m tired and impatient. I feel like Rizzo is teasing us now. I lean down and look her right in the eye. “Anna, can you source this taggant?”
She stares right back. “Usually, yes. But not this sample. It’s not in my database.”
“Which means what?”
“Which means it came from a classified stash. Probably government. We need someone with clout to break through the bureaucracy and red tape and get to the top security records.”
“Look,” says Mahoney, “I spoke to the president two hours ago. He wants twice-daily updates. Whatever data you need, I’ll get it. Just tell me where to go.”
Rizzo gets up from her stool. “Start with Langley, Virginia.”