He applied just enough downward pressure to break through the frozen cardboard liner’s stiff outer skin. Holding the sharply honed tip of the scalpel steady with his right index finger, Thomas began a quick, four-inch downward cut. This incision compromised the parcel’s seal, allowing them to quickly learn if the led’s suspected photocell triggering mechanism remained active or not.
To determine this, Thomas made two more incisions. These were two-inch cuts, extending from the right-hand upper and bottom edges of the label, continuing on to the side of the box itself. This created a neat, three-sided flap in the cardboard’s outer skin that Danny Lane cautiously probed with a slender forceps.
“Excellent job, Thomas,” whispered Lane. “Now, if you’ll just hold down the cardboard at the upper edge of your incision, we’ll see if our suspicions hold true.”
Thomas did as instructed, watching breathlessly as the Sarge proceeded to peel back the brittle edges of the cardboard flap. There could be no worse time for his soaked bandanna to fail him. Thomas found his vision momentarily clouded by a torrent of stinging sweat. He wiped his brow impatiently with the back of his forehand, and as he reopened his eyes, he immediately spotted an uncut, inner layer of familiar black, wax-based paper.
“You’ve got to admit that the bastard’s persistent,” offered Lane, his suspicions of a photocell trigger apparently confirmed. “Are you ready to go?”
With one more layer of light-absorbing paper left to penetrate before reaching the actual device, Thomas knew that the moment of truth was upon them. They’d learn all too soon whether their precautions were sufficient. His pulse quickened and his mouth was unnaturally dry. He had to clear his throat to speak.
“Let’s do it, Sarge.”
Danny Lane didn’t appear to be the least bit flustered as he picked up the needle-nosed pliers and calmly addressed Thomas. “On the count of three, you’ll make the cut and I’ll go in.”
“Hold on a minute, Sarge,” Thomas, his vision once more clouded by dripping sweat.
Lane watched his coworker impatiently wipe his soaked brow with the back of his hand. Fearful that this moisture would interfere with his grip, Lane alertly handed Thomas a handkerchief.
“Take your time, Kellogg. This baby’s not going anywhere.”
Thomas used the handkerchief to pat dry his forehead and wipe the moisture off his glistening palm. He took a deep breath before meeting Lane’s steady gaze and nodding that he was ready to proceed.
“We’ll soon enough be out of these damn space suits and sipping a tall frosty one, Thomas.”
“Sounds good to me, Sarge.”
Thomas re gripped the scalpel and once more placed its tip up against the right edge of the address label. It wouldn’t take much pressure to slice into the remaining layer of wrapping, and he listened as Lane began the countdown.
“One … two … three!”
Thomas made a quick downward cut. Danny Lane plunged the pliers into the parcel’s now exposed interior. Without hesitation, he securely grasped the wires that were attached to the battery terminals and yanked them free with a swift, fluid motion. It was all over in a matter of seconds, with the two explosives technicians wasting no time on celebrations.
“Thomas, why don’t you cut away that entire upper layer of cardboard, and let’s see what makes this baby tick.”
Even though the heart of the IED had been removed, Thomas was still apprehensive as he sliced into the upper lid, and following its edges, cut free the remaining cardboard. He used his hand to tear away the inner layer of black wrapping paper, at long last exposing the parcel’s contents.
“Will you just look at that,” said Lane, in reference to the two twelve-by-four-inch blocks of white, puttylike material clearly visible before them. “If that turns out to be C-4, there’s enough explosive power in this IED to have incinerated the entire mail-sorting facility.
Our boy’s getting more ambitious.”
Lane used the tapered nose of the pliers to outline the main body of the device, an seven-by-1-inch piece of fiberboard. Firmly attached to this base was a maze of wires and an odd assortment of hardware that he was quick to identify.
“The fusing system looks basic enough — one photocell, two transistors, two rheostats, and a relay.”
“Why the dual rheostats?” asked Thomas.
“I’d say it’s to adjust the sensitivity of the circuit,” Lane answered.
“All the wiring connections appear to be soldered, and the workmanship looks pretty decent.”
Thomas used a compact Maglite to point out the led’s explosive charge.
“How do you think it’s primed, #8s or J-2s?”
“My money’s on dual #8 commercial blasting caps, Thomas. If we find a J-2 military cap in there, I’d be genuinely surprised.”
Thomas closely examined all the individual pieces of hardware with his Maglite. The device would be conveyed to the lab now. There each part would be carefully scrutinized, and the results fed into the BATF’s Explosives Incidents System, or EXIS for short. This computerized program contained a record of every single explosives incident reported to or investigated by the Bureau. It currently held over 40,000 individual investigations, and a detailed accounting of more than 150,000 pieces of individual evidence. They hadn’t been able to connect the previous bomb with any known bomb or bomb maker With luck, there was something different about this one besides the size of the charge that would let EXIS catch him in its sights.
5
It took a full hour to prepare the IED for transfer back to the Bureau’s laboratory. A specially designed armored van was driven up to the entrance of the isolated blockhouse, with the device itself loaded into a heavy, fireproof vault, before being carefully carried into the vehicle’s rear holding bed.
Although Thomas had planned to drive his own car directly to the lab to continue the intricate task of dissecting the IED, a phone call redirected him. Samuel Morrison was the Special Agent in Charge (SAIC) of the President’s White House Secret Service detail. He was well aware that the device they had just defused had been originally addressed to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Morrison politely asked Thomas to proceed to the White House at once to personally brief him on their findings.
It was still much too early in the investigation to come up with any concrete conclusions as to the identity of their suspects. The real police work was only beginning, yet Thomas dared not disappoint the powerful Morrison.
George Washington Memorial Parkway was heavy with late afternoon traffic by the time he was finally free to leave the mail-sorting facility and return to the city. As Thomas bided his time in the bumper-to-bumper traffic jam, he mentally walked through the bomb’s disarming. One mere slip of the hand or miscalculation could have meant instant death, so he wanted to analyze every step they had taken to prepare him for future work.
In a macabre way, the realization that he’d been so close to dying was stimulating. He had experienced this sensation before, especially in the military on the eve of battle. By voluntarily putting one’s mortality on the line, an individual could get a rare opportunity to savor the real essence of life.
Thomas wondered how many of the frustrated, honking drivers around him realized what a petty and insignificant event a mere traffic tie-up was in the total scheme of things. Obsessed with small, meaningless activities and details, engrossed in purposeless employment and unsatisfying relationships, they wasted their years, totally unaware of how precious each second of their existence was.