“I don’t think that’s a good idea. I’m your commanding officer, at least for now. If you were with Elliot, then it could be a team meeting, but—”
“Not likely. Elliot is married, has two kids, and doesn’t drink.”
“Diane,” he said. “You know there are police regulations about conduct between us.”
“Of course. Do you think any female cop doesn’t have Police Regulation 271 memorized? But this is an exception. I’m scared shitless. I could die tomorrow. And you told us all you’re just filling in for a while. I’m not worried that your two-week second career in police work is going to be ruined by having a drink with me. Are you?”
“To be honest, no. I’m not.”
“And you have a security company that must pay really well, judging from what your condo is worth.”
“How do you know what my condo costs?”
“I have a good eye, and I know the neighborhood,” Diane said. “I’m in my car sitting outside your window. I’ve been watching you pacing in there while we’ve been talking.”
“If you’re already here, then you might as well come in.”
She walked up the steps to the high iron security gate and looked into the camera while he buzzed her in. Then she climbed the steps to the steel security door that had been shaped and colored to look like wood. She reached up to knock on his door, but Stahl opened it first.
She stepped inside and he closed the door behind her. Diane Hines didn’t look much like the woman he had seen in uniform today. She was wearing a gray skirt and black silk blouse that might have seemed plain except the fitted cut emphasized her breasts and thin waist.
“You look very nice in civilian clothes,” he said.
“Everybody looks fat in a bomb suit.” She smiled at him, reached into the oversize bag she carried, and pulled out a bottle.
“Macallan,” he said. “Very thoughtful of you.” He didn’t take the bottle. “Come in and sit.” He pointed at the couch. She walked over and sat, then watched him take two glasses from a cupboard and an identical bottle of Macallan Scotch from a cabinet. “This one’s already open. Ice? Water?”
“About an inch of ice, please.”
He prepared her drink and poured one for himself. He brought them to the couch and set hers on the coffee table in front of her where she could reach it. Then he sat in the armchair across from the couch and lifted his glass. “To the duds.”
“To the duds,” she said.
“You said you wanted to talk?”
“I think I said I needed to talk. I’m sorry to come here like this, but it was kind of inevitable after today. If you hadn’t tagged along on that call, I’d be dead. When I got home I watched that explosion in the riverbed about forty times, and it scared me even more each time.” She took a sip of her drink.
“It was a big charge,” he said. “You must have known it would be at the start. Nobody needs a car to deliver a pipe bomb.”
“It’s that retroactive feeling that got to me tonight,” she said. “You can do what you have to do at the time. Some combination of training and focus and caution gets you through. But later you start to shiver and feel weird and feel panicky, and you look for ways to get back to normal. As I was thinking about that a few hours ago I noticed I had developed an interest in seeing you.”
“So you came over for a drink. It was probably the right thing to do. A drink and a talk will probably help us both work through what happened today and yesterday.”
“I think so,” she said. “You’re a reassuring presence.”
“I cultivate that for my business,” he said. “I make faces in front of the mirror until I hit on one that will make people think I’m the guy who can solve their problems. It makes them pay my outrageous fees.”
Diane laughed and they both sipped their drinks and set them down at the same time. Diane took a deep breath and then started again. “Here’s my problem. When I was working with you today, I was doing things — cutting steel, disconnecting circuits, moving explosives, searching for signs of tampering or components that didn’t belong. But I was just an extra set of hands for you. I wasn’t doing the thinking. You were. I could see right away that you knew things Elliot and I didn’t. I need to know those things. I could tell today that my life depends on it. This guy has hit two days in a row. I don’t think he’s going away.”
Stahl shrugged. “I think I know what you’re feeling. You haven’t seen anything quite like the one today. And yesterday was pure horror — friends and teammates killed for no apparent reason. We lost people who were part of our lives. If I tell somebody a funny story, there’s a good chance one of those fourteen guys made it up. Whenever I remember the years I spent on the force, some of those faces will be part of the picture in my mind. And today you did what you were supposed to, but it cost you. It might take you a little while to get past the shock and the loss. If you need a couple of extra days to recover, I’ll do my best to get them for you.”
“That’s a lot to ask of you, and it’s not what I want.”
“I’m trying to be a reassuring presence,” he said. “How do I do that?”
“I think you’ve figured out some things about this bomber. Tell me.”
He took another sip. “Judging from the surveillance tapes, he works alone. He wasn’t sent by some foreign government that supplies him with factory-made explosives or sophisticated gear. The house in Encino was initiated by a photographer’s intervalometer he could have bought at a good camera store, and the car was full of homemade switches and explosives. The devices at the Encino house made me realize that what he intended was to kill bomb technicians. That was all his complicated trap was good for. So today I guessed that the next device I saw was going to be an attempt to get rid of a few more of us. That meant each component would be designed to mislead and deceive a technician.”
“So what are we supposed to do with that information?” she said.
“Don’t think in terms of devices made to kill some guy’s enemy as he checks his mailbox one morning. This is not about civilian victims. It’s about predicting what a trained bomb technician will do to render the device safe, and turn that action into a trigger. You have to think about the logical procedure you would usually follow with his device, and then dismiss that option and think of some other way around the triggers he might have built in.”
“That explains something,” she said. “Part of what shook me today was that sometimes I thought I knew what to do, and you kept choosing the opposite, and each time that turned out to be right. I guess what I want you to say next is that it’s going to be okay, and we’re going to be able to handle whatever this guy is dreaming up right now, arrest him, and walk away.”
“I’m going to try,” he said. “I’m confident you will too.” He shrugged. “It’s a great advantage to have somebody on the team who’s got small hands, thin arms, flexible joints, and a quick brain.”
They talked for a long time about the events of the day, going over each component they had found in the car and the decision Stahl had made about how to circumvent or neutralize it, and what other choices there had been.
Later their talk turned to fighting back — the various items they had found and saved, the images that had been preserved on surveillance video, and all of the other paths that could lead to the identification of the bomb maker. Stahl said, “At the Encino house everything got destroyed. But we bought ourselves some chances today. At the gas station nothing got destroyed except the explosives. We have everything else he brought to the scene.”
At midnight he said, “It’s getting kind of late. Are you okay to drive home? If you’re not, I have a guest room.”