“Affirmative.”
Stahl hung up.
Elliot said, “What are you looking for?”
“The guy towed the car in here,” said Stahl. “Maybe he set a timer or a switch after the car was in place. If one of the cameras caught him doing it, we’ll know where to look for it, and for the arming circuit.”
“You think he put in a master-arm switch like in aircraft firing systems?”
Stahl shrugged. “He towed the car here. He could have driven it here, or booby-trapped a car that was already here. What does that say to you?”
“That the bomb is too big for him to make on the spot or carry here by himself.”
“And maybe once it’s armed, it’s too sensitive to move,” Stahl said. “I think this guy wants us. He was hoping we’d drive up, see we probably had a car bomb, think we knew exactly how it worked, and guess wrong. Maybe we’d look at the chains to the pumps, just cut them and try to tow the car away, and set it off.”
“Maybe we haven’t found the connection because it’s on a timer,” Hines said. “Maybe he wants us to stand here paralyzed until it blows. Or maybe he’s got his initiator connected to a cell phone or the remote control of a garage door motor.”
Stahl said, “If he just wanted to set off a bomb on a gas station, he could have done it last night. Why build a trap unless you want to catch someone?”
Hines said, “You’re saying the priority should be looking for whatever springs the trap?”
“That and keeping other people away from here,” Stahl said. “If he has a way to set it off remotely, he’ll wait until there are enough people to make it worth his trouble.”
“So we’re on our own,” said Hines. “No reinforcements.”
Stahl didn’t answer her question, which wasn’t really a question. “While we’re waiting for the word from Engle, let’s step back and try to understand what’s happening. He chose a gas station. If he blows up a car by a gas pump, there will be a fire. But a gas pump is like a faucet. The gasoline isn’t stored in the pump, it’s in the underground storage tanks.”
They walked through the station, inspecting the round caps the gasoline delivery truck drivers opened to refill the storage tanks. Stahl said, “There are supposed to be three tanks in one place, and three in another place. The station has to be laid out so the fuel truck can come in, stop, fill the tanks, and drive off without ever backing up. And by law the tanks can’t be right below the pumps.”
The radio came alive. “This is Twelve Mike Seventeen for Bomb Squad.”
“Officer Engle. Did you check the tapes?”
“The store across the street has its recordings on a computer,” she said. “I just watched what was happening while the other tape was blacked out. The man used two chains to chain the car to the pumps, then went to the trunk of the car, opened it, reached in, and then closed it. Then he drove off.”
“How long did he reach into the trunk?”
“Seven and a half seconds.”
“Thank you. Great work, Engle.” He made a call to the captain at North Hollywood. “Hello, Captain. Stahl again. I’m afraid we’ve verified that the car is a bomb, and so we’ll need to keep the streets shut down for at least a few hours.”
“Understood. Do you need anything else?”
“Yes,” said Stahl. “I need a set of steel plates one inch thick, like the ones the DPW uses to cover holes in the road they make during underground repairs. Maybe four plates, each at least four by six. We’d also like a load of sandbags — enough to make a wall about six feet tall around a Chevy Malibu, and two car jacks.”
“I’ll get the Department of Public Works going on that right away.”
In less than an hour a truck arrived with the items Stahl had requested and a trailer carrying a forklift. The crew used the lift to unload the items, and then to help move them into place. They pushed two plates under the trunk of the car, and one in front of each of the two gas pumps to form a hard shell for the layer of sandbags they stacked against them. Then the DPW truck left.
Stahl placed a pair of sandbags against the front and rear of each of the car’s tires so the car could not roll. Then he had Elliot set one car jack on the left side of the Malibu while he set one on the right. He had Hines count while he and Elliot raised the two jacks simultaneously so the car wouldn’t rock from side to side.
Stahl opened radio contact with the Bomb Squad members at police headquarters while he, Hines, and Elliot put on the heavy bomb suits. “This is Stahl. Be sure what I say is recorded.”
“Recorder running.”
“All right. The car is chained to both pumps. I think that is mostly a deception, to make us think if we cut the chains we can move it. We can’t. We’re going to try to get a flexible closed-circuit television camera into the trunk of the car and see what it has inside that blows up. The floor of the trunk has a hole that’s blocked by something, so we’ve got to make another hole to inspect the trunk.”
“Good luck.”
“Thanks. We’ll report from time to time. If this doesn’t end well, send copies of the recording to the FBI and ATF, so they’ll know what we learned about this guy, and what we tried.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Sergeants Hines and Elliot are sending photographs of the car, the layout of the gas station, and the nearby buildings. We’ve stabilized the car, and now we’re going to drill into the trunk.”
Hines had fitted an electric drill with a cylindrical bit with a wider diameter than the lighted camera. She said, “Where do you want me to drill?”
“On the side away from the gas cap,” Stahl said. “He could have a circuit with an initiator inside the gas tank, and we don’t want to make contact with it.”
“All right,” she said. She wrapped a bit of masking tape around the drill bit so she would know how deep she was drilling.
“How deep are you going in?”
“This is an eighth of an inch,” she said. “I’m hoping that won’t be too deep, but it should make a hole we can use to insert the camera.”
“Okay,” said Stahl. “Not a lot of pressure, and stop every few seconds to cool the bit in water.” He brought a large bottle of water and a bucket from the squad truck, and poured some water in. “Lots of drilling, not much pushing.”
She nodded and began drilling. She would take the drill off the car now and then, and immerse the bit in water so it wouldn’t get hot enough to set off an explosive. After the second break she poured some water on the car’s surface. She said, “Are we filming this?”
“Yes,” said Stahl. “The camera in the truck is on.”
“Maybe it will pick up this guy watching,” said Elliot.
“I hope it does,” Stahl said. “The smart ones don’t come in person, but maybe he’s got a weakness.”
Hines stopped and pulled back. “There it is. We’re through.” She dipped the drill bit and then poured water around the hole she had drilled without letting any into the hole. Then she pried out the small disk of metal she’d cut out.
“I’ll get the scope in and take a look,” said Elliot.
“Okay,” Stahl said. “Just don’t get impatient. If you can’t see we can try something else.”
Elliot put on his helmet and tugged it down so his face appeared behind the Plexiglas front. Elliot inserted the end of the flexible scope into the trunk and began to move it around. From his helmet radio the others could hear his breathing, and the fan that kept the helmet’s window clear of condensation. They listened to his breaths, trying to guess what he was seeing.