The Detonator Page 14

  It’s like a train moving down the center of Central Avenue on the way to the city’s downtown. Miller’s cruiser leading the way, a blue uniform behind the wheel, flashers reflecting red, white, and blue LED lights against the empty storefronts that line both sides of Central Avenue, the main east-west artery that runs through the heart of the city. Behind Miller, my van follows, the rookie doing the driving, his young face intense and filled with anxiety. Behind us, an EMT van, the fire trucks, the media onsite camera trucks, plus more than a few bystanders who take to a crisis like fish take to water.

  What’s better than reality TV? Reality as it blows up in your face.

  In my head I see Alison smoking an e-cig while she sat directly across from me at the beachside bar, only yesterday afternoon. She was taunting me, playing with me. Daring me. She was shoving her power in my face, like an enemy combatant that test fires a missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.

  I steal a quick minute to text Ellen, make sure everything is safe on the homefront. How can I be sure the promised cop check on my property is happening now that the bomb crises have raised their ugly heads?

  I receive a near immediate response.

  All okay. Watching you on TV. Worried. ):

  I text, I’m safe. Make sure doors locked. Be home ASAP. Love you. XXX

  Come back in one piece. I mean it. Henry and I will be waiting. Love U. XOX

  I know I should be careful and turn the phone off. Static electricity and IEDs don’t mix for obvious reasons. Especially an IED with a built-in battery and wiring system. But I pocket the phone, leave it operational. Maybe I should feel reassured that my family is okay. But I can’t be sure it will last. It’s imperative I’m in communication at all times.

  We enter into the center of the city, the modern tall towers now replacing the four- and five-story century old brick storefronts. As Central Avenue turns into State Street, we pass by the long colonnade of marble pilasters that belong to the old New York State Museum and on the right, the massive stone-fronted, State Capitol building that tops off the crest of the State Street Hill. The capitol that Teddy Roosevelt built.

  We tear down the hill, the late night traffic pulling off to the sides to let us past, until we come to the bottom, where the sprawling, 1920s-era New York State Education building resides along what used to be the banks of the Hudson River, until Governor Rockefeller decided to build a riverside arterial connecting Albany with its smaller sister cities to the north. Cohoes, Watervliet, and Troy.

  My phone rings as we pull a right turn and the steeple of St Patrick’s church comes into view on Green Street inside the old Pastures, an area consisting of two- and three-story century and a half old, brick and wood townhouses that once upon a time housed the city’s red light district. That is, until the police cleaned the place up in the 1960s and ’70s.

  I peer down at my phone.

  Miller.

  “Yeah,” I bark.

  “You ready for this?”

  My heart sinks. “Probably not.”

  “We got a third 10-89, just called in. Same non-traceable, anonymous source. Up on Lark Street. Planned Parenthood. Similar deal. But a woman, apparently the boss, duct-taped to her desk chair, and a miniature pipe bomb duct-taped to her abdomen. An electronic cigarette device, just like the judge.”

  Heart sinks, stomach collapses, Alison’s presence taking up more and more space in my brain.

  “See if you can’t get the State Police to start on it. Or Homeland Security.”

  “They’re on it. But they’re slow. Too fucking slow. And way too fucking cautious.”

  Or too fucking afraid.

  We pull around the corner onto Green Street, pull up to within five hundred or so feet of the old stone church.

  “Stop, stop!” I shout, not bothering with my helmet or gloves, just making sure my utility belt is securely buckled to my waist.

  I jump out, bark at everyone to stand back.

  “Go!” I shout. “Go! Go!”

  Miller jumps out of his cruiser, runs to me.

  “Are you crazy?” I bark. “Get back.”

  But the tall, white-haired man approaches me anyway, with all the calm, cool, collectedness of a man who believes he is already dead.

  “I need to know how you want to handle the Planned Parenthood bomb.”

  I pull my helmet back on.

  “One at a time,” I say into the slightly fogged up safety glass. Turning, I begin climbing the steps in my bulky blast suit until I come to the big wood doors. Opening the door to my right-hand side, I take my first look inside at the church. There are two long rows of empty pews and beyond them, what appears to be a black man bound to the far left leg of the altar with gray duct tape, the same tape also extending overhead to the gold-plated tabernacle where, I’m guessing, the IED is stored.

  As I begin moving toward him, I can see that his mouth is covered with tape, just like the judge before him. Unlike the judge, however, this man seems to be at peace with himself and his salvation, however it should turn out. When I’m within a few feet of him, he looks up at me with deep, bloodshot, but somehow caring eyes. If he could speak to me, I imagine he might say something like, Just do your best, son. That’s all you can do.

  If only he knew my real talent lies in blowing things up, not defusing them, he might sing a different holy tune.

  Footsteps coming from behind me. I turn.

  Miller.

  “Fuck you doing in here?” I shout, my voice reverberating off the stone walls. Then, cocking my head in the direction of the priest. “Forgive me, Father.”

  “Can the kid do it?” Miller says.

  “What are you talking about?” I say, turning back to him, the weight of the helmet pressing down on my trapezius muscles.

  He says, “Can the rookie, Ted, neutralize that Planned Parenthood bomb?”

  Shaking my head inside my helmet.

  “He can take it out,” I say. “But he’ll end up taking out that woman and himself along with it. Just make sure the perimeter on Lark Street is secured. Light a damn fire under SWAT.”

  Miller bites down on his bottom lip. “How much time do you think we have?”

  “How the hell should I know?” Then, “Excuse me again, Padre.”

  “How…much…time?” Miller, pressing me hard.

  “I don’t even know how much time I have on this one.”

  The sweat is pouring off my forehead into my eyes. Miller is standing stone stiff behind me, refusing to leave. For all I know, the IED is about to detonate while we stand there doing nothing. If it blows, then for certain, Planned Parenthood on Lark Street will follow.

  “Screw it,” I say, knowing I’m not about to apologize to the priest or God for a third time. Pulling off my helmet, I drop it to the floor. I’d remove the blast suit’s top and bottom too if it wouldn’t take so long. I step up onto the altar, the pliers already gripped in one hand, the Maglite in the other.

  “Won’t be long now, Father,” I say. But I don’t tell him precisely what won’t be long. Detonation or disposal.

  He looks up at me with exhausted eyes, while I gently open the tabernacle door, shining the bright white LED Maglite inside. It’s an identical bomb to the one I tackled at the judge’s house. A blue-light activated e-cig device about the size of an index finger, the two wires extending from it attached to a Timex digital wristwatch head.

  I feel Miller behind me, more than I hear him.

  “How…much…time?” he again presses.

  I read the time on the watch head. Ten seconds. My heart sinks to somewhere around my ankles.

  I scream, “Miller, get the hell out!!!”

  Raising up the pliers, I squeeze my eyes closed, sever the wires.

  Chapter 31

  The good news: we’re still alive.

&n
bsp; The bad news: if we only had ten seconds to disarm this bomb, then we have maybe three or four minutes tops to get up to Lark Street and attempt to defuse that one.

  I speak into my chest-mounted radio, give the all-clear, instruct Ted to get in here immediately to clean up the bomb and dispose of it.

  “You’re safe now, Padre,” I say. “My people will cut you out of this and get you away from here.” Turning, I start jogging for the door. But jogging in a blast suit is like running in a suit of armor. “Miller, come with me.”

  Together we shuffle past a blast-suited Ted. Coming up on him fast from behind, two SWAT cops who sprint past us, automatic rifles gripped at the ready.

  “As soon as you’re done here, Ted, get your ass up to Lark Street.”

  “Roger that,” Ted shouts over his shoulder.

  We head toward Miller’s unmarked cruiser.

  “You’re driving, Nick.” I open the passenger’s side door, shove my bulky body inside by sheer force of will.

  Miller opens the door, gets behind the wheel, fires the engine up. Stomping down on the gas, he makes an abrupt three-point turn, tires spinning on the macadam, spitting gravel. Shifting into drive, he floors it, heading directly into the crowd of gawkers and news media. They’ve got no choice but to jump out of the way or get run down.

  “Goddamn young cops can’t keep the crowd off the road,” Miller grouses, turning off of Green, onto Broadway.

  “We’ve got to calm the hell down.”

  “I don’t wanna calm down,” he says. “I work better when I’m not calm.”

  “Albany’s never been so explosive. They find another note with this bomb?”

  “Affirmative. Says ‘My child’s life ends here…’ or something to that effect. Signed Master Blasters, just like the others.”

  I make a fist. Slam it against the dash.

  “Easy,” Miller warns. “We don’t need that airbag exploding in your puss.”

  “Don’t you see what she’s doing, Nick?”

  “What’s she doing, Ike?”

  “She’s going after me, trying to pin these bombs on me.”

  He’s quiet for a weighted beat. Just the noise from the overstrained engine loud in my ears.

  “Your company was Master Blasters, Incorporated. You were the Master Blaster.”

  “Easy for her to say.”

  “How do you think she managed it? That is, she is the one responsible for this. How did she manage to plant three bombs in three separate areas of Albany? And at the same time, manage to apprehend and tie up two grown men and one woman?”

  I cock my head over my left shoulder. “Who knows? Maybe she had help.” I see Patty. Her memory, her face, her ghost, in my head. “Help from the great big beyond.”

  “Master Blaster help?”

  “Thanks for that. I appreciate your confidence.”

  “Just messing with you,” he says, painting a grin on his face. But there’s an air of seriousness in his joking and it makes me more uncomfortable than I already feel in this sweltering blast suit. Then, “Hold on,” he insists.

  He hooks an abrupt left onto State Street, the back end fishtailing, tires spinning. We speed up the hill under an army of fluorescent city lights, the mirage-like glare illuminating the empty road. On our left is the Wellington Hotel. It’s surrounded with bright orange storm fencing, while the demolition crews who have no doubt worked well into the night setting their det cord and C-4, Nitro, and Symtex charges are doing their best to get some sleep before the morning’s scheduled nine AM implosion. But it will be a night with no sleep, take it from me.

  “Maybe you should shut that implosion down,” I say, my voice loud and terse over the straining six-cylinder. “Postpone it.”

  Miller gives me a quick look. “You think that tonight’s IED festivities and the Wellington explosion have something in common other than explosives?”

  “The contractor hired Alison to work on it,” I confirm. “I’m not sure in what capacity. Maybe she’s just a consultant. But if my gut serves me right, she’s responsible for all this tonight. Doesn’t matter how complicated or impossible it seems, she’s the one who planted these three bombs. Those experimental IEDs.”

  We shoot past the state capitol, back toward the center of the city.

  “You think that young woman would go to these lengths to exact her revenge on someone who slept with her mother? Doesn’t make sense to me, Singer.”

  “People thought those Oklahoma City bombers, Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols, were happy-go-lucky too.”

  “You may be right,” he says. “When we’re done here, we’re gonna find a way to take her in, and grab up a bench warrant while we’re at it.”

  “You got a judge who will play ball on something that’s essentially my word against hers, at least for now?”

  Another quick look, a smile on his face. “I got a few judges in my back pocket, you know what I mean.”

  I picture my family watching all this unfold on the couch in our home sweet home. I know how much they like the adult Alison, how much they trust her, even after knowing her for what amounts to a period of only hours. It dawns on me how sad, if not angry with me, they will be when they hear I’m directly responsible for her arrest. But then, how relieved they will be when they also discover what a psycho she is. A psycho explosive killer.

  “Can’t this thing go any faster, Miller?”

  “I’m giving it all she’s got now,” he stresses above the noise of the straining engine. Glancing at his watch. “How much time you think we got?”

  “Fuck, man, wish I knew.” I grab hold of the handlebar mounted to the cruiser’s frame above the door. What do they call it? The “Jeez bar.” As in Jesus, let me out of this thing!

  The blast that rocks the city catches even a Master Blaster like me by surprise.

  Chapter 32

  Miller hits the brakes, comes to a skidding stop in the middle of the road. Out the windshield, we can make out the small fireball that boils up into the night sky. Car alarms blare. A scattering of people come rushing out of the surrounding buildings, terrified.

  We both get out, our eyes attracted to the now dissolving orange ball in the sky.

  “We’re too late,” Miller says, forcing the words from the back of his throat.

  Heart sinks, aches, bleeds.

  Behind us, fire truck sirens growing louder and louder.

  We both get back into the car. He jams the column-mounted transmission into drive.

  “Now,” he says from deep inside his throat. “Now we’ve got our homicide.”

  Chapter 33

  The train of emergency services, SWAT, Homeland Security, and local media junkies converge on the blast site all at once. So it seems. But it’s too little too late. The entire front portion of the brick, block, and glass Planned Parenthood building is gone, leaving only a bombed out, smoldering shell. The blast was big enough…expansive enough…that it not only evaporated the woman who was attached to it, but it was enough to suck the oxygen from any fire that had started from its white heat.

  The bomber is no amateur. The bomber is an artist. The bomber is a doctor. The bomber is an expert. Alison.

  “She’s going to pay,” I whisper under my breath. “Alison is going to pay dearly.”

  I hear Patty’s voice. I know what she would say if she were standing in front of me right now.

  But this is all your fault, don’t you see, Ike? All your fault.

  I would respond, “Even if it is my fault for loving and leaving you, Patty, the punishment doesn’t fit the damn crime. The punishment has been a little excessive, to say the least.”

  But then, maybe Alison is just getting started. Maybe she’s not just angry at me, but angry at the city that turned its back on her, angry at the world, angry at God.

  There’
s a crater so wide and so deep, extending to the middle of Lark Street, you can drive a tractor trailer into it. Many of the windows on the brick townhouses that line each side of the historic old Albany street have been shattered by the blast. Onlookers who surround the site are horrified and saddened. Many of them, dressed in their pajamas and robes, weep at the sight of the blasted out building facade.

  Uniformed cops make a check up and down the block. To make sure no further bombs have been planted, to interview witnesses, to maintain order. Since nothing else is coming over the scanners or Miller’s cell phone, it’s not impossible to assume the worst is over for the night.

  “I’ve got an address for Dr. Alison Darling,” he says. Then, looking at his wristwatch. “It’s midnight. You want to come with me? Or you want to get back to your family?”

  Ellen and Henry. In all the commotion, I forgot about them. I pull out my smartphone. There’s at least five calls from Ellen, and just as many texts. I click on the latter.

  R U OK????

  The other messages are just another version of this one.

  I type, Yes Yes Yes All OK. Home soon.

  We’re still up

  “Did you get the warrant?” I say, turning to Miller.

  He purses his lips. “Not exactly.”

  “What’s that mean? Back pocket judges not cooperating?”

  “They saw what happened to Judge Bescher. They want real evidence before we take somebody in before a grand jury.”

  “Let me guess, Miller. If she’s the one…if Alison is the bitch responsible for all this…they don’t want her getting away on a technicality.”

  “Doesn’t mean we still can’t make a fly-by. Gather up that evidence.”

  “And if she’s not home, sound asleep in her feather bed like Little Red Riding Hood?”

  “Well then, that’s just the kind of thing that makes an old cop like me even more suspicious.”

  Chapter 34

  I remove what’s left of my blast suit, toss it into the back of the van. I feed the dog a bacon treat from out the palm of my hand, then give him a quick belly rub. After that, I ask Ted to run back to headquarters, fill out the necessary paperwork, and from there head back home for some sleep. I also remind him to meet me at the Wellington tomorrow morning an hour before the scheduled implosion.