Russell’s handshake was firm and cool. “Sorry about the mix-up here,” he said to O’Brien. “It’s not every day we get a visit from the head of CID. And things have been a little nuts this afternoon, as you might imagine. I got here only ten minutes ago myself-I was at my niece’s birthday party when I heard.”
“What can you tell me about what happened?”
Russell looked pained. “Not much more than what the news is carrying, I’m afraid. I haven’t been briefed yet, so I can’t even say for sure whether the explosion was intentional, although obviously the Bureau and Homeland Security are proceeding as though it was. I had a conference room set up for you with a secure link to DC, as you requested. I’m sure they can fill in some of the blanks.”
He led them to an elevator and up two floors. The doors slid open to reveal a bullpen crackling with nervous energy. A dozen people on phones, all talking at once. Countless e-mails, texts, and faxes coming in. Every face drawn tight with stress.
“As you can see,” he said, “we’re doing what we can. Sifting through chatter. Liaising with our West Coast offices. But there’s only so much we can do from three thousand miles away. Ah, here we are.”
Russell ushered them into a conference room and closed the door behind him. A large cherry-laminate table dominated the room. Faux leather office chairs surrounded it. An equipment tech ran wires from one of two laptops to the flat-screen television on the wall. “Dan Nakamura, meet Assistant Director Kathryn O’Brien and, uh, Charlie Thompson. Dan will be assisting you with anything you need.”
“Were you able to get in touch with anybody from NSB?” O’Brien asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” Nakamura replied. “Special Agent Sarah Klingenberg is waiting on me to dial in as we speak.”
“Then, please, don’t let me stop you.”
Nakamura got to work while O’Brien remote-desktopped into her Bureau computer.
“You know this Klingenberg?” she asked Thompson under her breath.
“A bit,” Thompson replied. “We were at Quantico together. She’s a bit of a striver, always looking toward the next rung on the ladder. It’s served her well, I hear-word is, she’s become Osterman’s go-to gal.” James Osterman was the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division. “But she’s a solid agent, and her heart’s in the right place. Honestly, we could do worse.”
O’Brien nodded. “Good,” she said. “The last thing we need right now is for this to devolve into a pissing contest.”
O’Brien-like Osterman-was an assistant director, though she was in charge of the Bureau’s Criminal Investigative Division, or CID. The CID fell under the Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch, or CCRSB, and was responsible for policing everything from violent crime to major thefts. The Counterterrorism Division fell under the National Security Branch, or NSB. The NSB was founded in 2005 in response to a presidential directive to consolidate the counterterrorism, counterintelligence, weapons of mass destruction, and intelligence resources of the Bureau under a single senior Bureau official, and most of its resources were siphoned directly from the CID. They lost a lot of good agents and over a quarter of their budget in the restructuring and had been playing second fiddle ever since. The result was an intra-agency rivalry as heated as it was counterproductive.
Thompson fished a pair of earbuds from her purse and plugged them into her loaner laptop. She placed one earbud in and let the other dangle. Then she opened an array of tabs in the laptop’s browser: CNN, NPR, the San Francisco Chronicle, the LA Times, Twitter. Counterterrorism wasn’t Thompson’s bailiwick any more than it was O’Brien’s-Thompson worked for the FBI’s Organized Crime Section, which fell under the umbrella of the CID-but she knew the Bureau well enough to realize O’Brien’s official briefing would be sanitized and out-of-date. She wanted to get a sense of what was going on in real time.
The television at the head of the room came to life, displaying a Windows desktop and a buffering chat window. Nakamura gave O’Brien a wireless keyboard and mouse. “You should be good to go,” he said.
“You’re not staying?” O’Brien asked.
Thompson smiled. O’Brien was something of a technophobe. She couldn’t even work the volume on their television once they’d routed it through Thompson’s receiver.
“Pretty sure this conversation’s above my clearance level,” he replied.
As the door closed behind him, the chat window glitched, displaying horizontal rainbow stripes, and then a woman appeared on the screen, her blond hair pulled through the back of her FBI ball cap.
“Special Agent Klingenberg? This is AD O’Brien, can you hear me?”
A brief delay, during which O’Brien’s voice echoed back at her, and then Klingenberg nodded. “Yes, ma’am. I’ve been told to bring you up to speed. How much do you know so far?”
“Assume I know nothing.”
“Copy that. At a little after noon Pacific time, a tugboat collided with the Golden Gate’s south support tower and exploded. Given the size of the blast, it’s unlikely it was accidental. The bridge is still standing, thank God, but several of the support cables have snapped. Portions of the bridge are canting dangerously, and the roadway is impassable. First responders are coordinating with FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers to figure out a plan of action to evacuate the bridge. It’s unclear how badly the structural integrity has been compromised or how many casualties were incurred.”
“Do we know how many people were on the bridge at the time of the blast?”
“No. We’re still waiting on the data from the tollbooths. Early DOT estimates put the number of cars on the bridge at the time of the explosion at anywhere between four and eight hundred, but again, that’s cars, not people. And those estimates count the bridge’s full span-one point seven miles of roadway, six lanes wide. Most people on the bridge were well outside the blast radius, but the ensuing panic caused a pile-up north of the crash when they tried to flee.”
“And the investigation?”
“We’re still in the early stages, ma’am. And the nature of the incident has made collection of physical evidence impossible thus far. But the fact that the bridge is a major landmark works to our advantage. Analysis of cell-phone pictures uploaded to social media just prior to the blast indicates the tugboat’s markings were painted over, which suggests whoever did this might’ve stolen it or at least wanted to obscure its point of origin. The bay below the bridge is still on fire, as I’m sure you’ve seen from the news coverage. U.S. Park Police are locking down the primary scene, triaging the wounded, and detaining witnesses for questioning.”
“U.S. Park Police?”
“Yeah. The bridge’s southern span cuts through the Presidio, which falls under their jurisdiction.”
“Ah. Of course. What about water traffic?”
“All commercial and recreational boating in the area has been suspended, and vessels already on the water have been instructed to drop anchor until the Coast Guard can inspect them and clear them to dock. The San Francisco field office is coordinating with local PD and Homeland Security to search every inch of the waterfront to determine where the tugboat came from and who was piloting it. We’re talking hundreds of vessels and nearly eight miles of waterfront, though, so it’s going to take some time. I’ll be wheels-up soon to oversee the effort-although I’m going to have to hitch a ride on a military flight, because commercial air, rail, and bus transportation to and from the Bay Area is on lockdown.”
“Has anybody taken credit yet?”
“Yeah. The usual suspects, mostly-with one notable exception.”
“Yeah? Who?”
“A group calling themselves the True Islamic Caliphate. They released a detailed statement within seconds of the blast, which sets them apart from the rest of the nut brigade.”