The steps had been liberally salted and were wet but free from ice. She and Ferguson descended, salt crystals crunching under their feet, and arrived at the blackened train platform. There were still some bodies covered with bright blue blankets and circles drawn in neon yellow chalk on the floor around body parts. Ferguson stopped and she heard him catch his breath.
“Is this your first bombing?” she asked, her voice muffled by the surgical mask.
“So you’ve concluded already that it’s a bombing?”
The presence of the CTTF suggested that terrorism was the likely cause of the explosion. She sniffed the air. “Yeah. No doubt about it. Is this your first?”
“Yes. How about you?” His voice was strangled.
“I spent a good while in Iraq with the military and saw my share over there. Those were all in open areas, though. This is worse. You never forget the smell.”
The vaulted ceiling and walls of the station had served to focus the blast back onto the train and platform thus multiplying the destruction and carnage. The train must have just pulled in when the bomb was detonated. The side of one car had been ripped completely away, creating even more shrapnel than had been in the bomb itself to tear at flesh. The blackened tile walls were pockmarked where the shrapnel had impacted. The effect on human bodies would have been horrific.
A man in a white hazmat suit, or a suit covered in suet that must have at one time been white, caught site of Ferguson and waved them over. He was standing near the center of the blast area holding a bag with something inside.
“Larry,” he shouted at Ferguson, “over here. We found something.”
They walked over to him, carefully avoiding the chalk circles. He pointed at the bag. “We think this is our bomber, or what’s left of her.”
When suicide vests are detonated the force of the blast disintegrates the body, but can detach the bomber’s head and leave it relatively intact. Murphy guessed that was the case here.
Ferguson was no slouch and had come to the same conclusion. “Man or woman?” he asked.
Murphy guessed that the guy in the suit was a member of the FBI’s forensics team. Ferguson introduced him as Sam Helger.
“Woman,” answered Helger. “Wanna see?”
Ferguson sighed with resignation and disgust, “Shit, yes. Why not? How much worse could it get?”
He turned to Murphy. “You OK with this?”
It was not, unfortunately, the first time Murphy had seen a head in a bag. “I’m OK.”
Helger placed the bag on the floor and carefully unzipped it. When he pulled it back the bomber’s face was upturned. It was almost completely undamaged. The brown eyes were open wide and the lips were parted in terminal surprise. Long, dark hair spilled from behind.
“Jeez,” said Ferguson. “She was young, probably no more than twenty or twenty-five. What the hell drives these people?”
“Death,” intoned Helger. “The bastards are in love with death.”
“You think this was an Islamist terrorist attack?” she asked. This was not the first time Murphy had heard fanatical Islam described as a death cult.
“Most likely. The M.O. fits, but we’ll know more once we get all the pieces to Quantico.”
The Bureau techs would examine every scrap of evidence, including bodies in a process similar to what the Flight Transportation Safety Board did in the wake of an airline disaster. Nothing would be too trivial for examination.
“How long will it be before we have something concrete to go on?” asked Murphy.
Helger reclosed the bag. “This will take several weeks. You can’t hurry these things up.”
“The public will be clamoring for a statement,” said Ferguson, “Already is. There are mobile crews from every news network out there.”
“That’s not my problem,” said Helger.
“It will be as soon as the White House comes down on you,” said Ferguson.
“Oh, well,” said Helger, “in that case we’ll just label it workplace violence.”
Ferguson snorted behind his mask. “If anyone labels this as Middle East terrorism before the results are in, there’ll be political hell to pay.”
Murphy remained uncharacteristically silent. Everything in this town was linked somehow to politics, and she had had her fill of politics. Way more than her fill. She was often accused of having too black and white a view, but wrong was wrong and the truth was the truth. But truth could be a gauzy thing in Washington.
She finally spoke up. “Maybe someone will claim responsibility. That’ll be hard to cover up.”
Chapter 37
Olga welcomed the end of the operation against Shtayn. The mental effort of dealing with the difficult man wearied her more than the physical effort. His words left her disoriented and confused, which only made her angry.
It was nearing six P.M. and snowing when she emerged from the Metro station a block away from where she lived. It was nothing like a Moscow snowfall, of course, but she would be glad to get back to her cozy little apartment nonetheless. She decided not to cook tonight and ducked into the small pizzeria on the corner of Wilson and Herndon. The New York style pie there was good, and on a chilly evening, pizza sounded like a good idea.
As she stood at the counter, she sensed as much as heard a deep rumble that rattled the plate glass window and the china on the counter. She turned her head in time to see the ugly black effluvia of an explosion disgorged from the Metro station entrance across the street and stared in incomprehension along with others who had sought temporary refuge from the snow and a slice in the small establishment.
What the hell was going on?
The Metro station entrance was a gaping mouth emitting flame-tinged smoke that Olga thought surely must resemble the Gates of Hell. There were people in there, trapped underground where only moments before she had stepped off her train. This was the very station used by Shtayn every morning and evening, and with a start she realized that the traitor might well have been in the station.
She’d done her job well, she knew, as she went over events in her mind. She’d picked up Shtayn as he left the office building a few blocks west. Careful observation over the course of the past several weeks had confirmed the man’s pattern. Olga had ridden the Metrorail several times to the suburban station and watched as the target walked to his car and drove away.
Through the restaurant’s fogged window she could see as people slowly, fearfully began to move toward the blackened Metro entrance. A few, very few tried to go inside but were driven back by roiling, greasy smoke and fumes. Faintly at first, then louder, the wail of sirens came through the glass.
She realized that long minutes had passed. Police, fire, and emergency vehicles arrived at the scene, and the streets were being blocked off. Witnesses would be sought out, and questions would be asked. It would not do for her to remain.
She slipped out the door and headed away from the scene toward her apartment. She must talk to Karpov as soon as possible tomorrow.
Chapter 38
The snow was tapering off by the time Olga made it to her apartment. It was a short walk from the pizza restaurant, but she was shivering not only from the cold. The subway explosion was the worst thing she had ever seen.
She took a long, hot shower and curled up on the couch to watch the television news reports as one tense-faced reporter and talking head after another made the logical assumption and intoned solemnly on the latest visitation of jihadist terrorism to America.