“Be careful where you step,” Rodgers said. “This is a crime scene.”
The four men who followed turned their lights on the floor. They walked carefully to the body of Mac McCallie and tried to revive him.
“Are you two all right?” Rodgers asked Hood and Stoll.
Hood nodded. “Did everyone get out?”
“Yes,” Rodgers said. “Bob complained, but the blast killed all the electronics on his wheelchair, so he did not have much choice. The wheels locked when the servo-mechanisms got fried.”
“Jesus, what about Ron Plummer?” Hood said, suddenly alarmed. “He has a pacemaker—”
“He’s okay,” Rodgers said. “We took him up with Bob. The med techs got to him right away.”
“Thank God,” Hood said. It seemed strange to thank God in the midst of this carnage. But Hood was grateful for that one bit of good news.
Hood, Rodgers, and Stoll moved aside as two of the rescue technicians carried Mac away on a stretcher. They moved quickly, even though there was no need. The other two ERT personnel went deeper into the facility to make sure there were no other injuries or individuals who might have been overcome by smoke.
“The base commander put a team to work getting a generator running,” Rodgers said.
“Matt, how long until the computer monitors and fluorescent lights go dark?” Hood asked.
“It’ll take another ten or fifteen minutes for the internal-system gases to lose the electromagnetic charge,” Stoll said.
“We should probably get out of here, let the cleanup crew draw out the smoke,” Rodgers said.
Hood nodded. The cleanup contingent of the ERT would be moving in with large potassium permanganate air purifiers. These big, fifty-pound units would clear eight hundred cubic feet of air per minute.
The three men headed toward the stairwell. Op-Center looked ghostly, with only the milky glow of the dying overhead lights and monitors.
“Matt, I don’t suppose any of the hardware outside the Tank would have survived,” Hood said.
Stoll shook his head. “Most of the files are backed up there, so at least the data is secure. But it’s going to cost a bundle to replace the nuts and bolts. The computers, the phones, the PalmPilots, the CD and DVD data disks people were using. Even the coffeemakers and minifridges. Hell, we must have at least a thousand lightbulbs that are useless now.”
“You’ve still got your team,” Rodgers said. “And that includes me, Paul. I did not get around to changing the date on my resignation.”
Hood was not a sentimental man, but that one choked him up. He thanked the general, though the sound came out more gulp than word.
“Getting back to who had the ability to pull this off,” Stoll said, “I have to ask if either of you has any idea who might have done this.”
Neither man spoke.
“I mean, it may not be the most tactful question to ask, but could it have been the guys we are investigating?”
“It could be any number of individuals or groups,” Hood said. “Maybe the New Jacobins in Toulouse looking for a little revenge.”
“Forgive me again, but that doesn’t fit,” Stoll went on. As ever, his pursuit of knowledge was chronically unencumbered by tact. “Like I said back there, this could have been designed to produce far more fatalities than it did. The New Jacobins and some of the other people we’ve crossed swords with would have been happy to reduce us all to binary digits.”
“Matt’s right,” Rodgers said. “I know what it’s like to lose a man, Paul, but this was designed as a flash-bang not as a kill shot. Someone wanted to blind us.”
“Who?” Hood asked diplomatically.
The general did not answer. The question became rhetorical rather than leading. The men reached the narrow stairwell. They started up single file. Stoll was in the lead with Rodgers behind him.
“What we should do is plan to meet in the Tank as soon as possible,” Hood went on. “Put all the possibilities on the table and cross-reference them with known modi operandi.”
“I don’t think we’ll be able to go back down there today,” Rodgers said. “Which is just as well, because I want to do some nosing around.”
“Need any help?” Hood asked.
“No,” Rodgers said firmly.
Hood left it at that. What was implied was far more important than what was said. Rodgers wanted to make sure that Op-Center’s investigation of Admiral Link had not hit a nerve.
The men reached the parking lot on the south side of the building. There was a small picnic area with tables. Op-Center employees stood and sat around them, alone and in very small groups. A few were smoking, even fewer were talking. It was strange to see no one using a cell phone or laptop. The blast had destroyed them all. There were misty clouds inside the cars parked nearest to the building. Their electronic components had also been burned out.
Most eyes turned to Hood when he emerged. The team knew, intuitively, that he would be the last man out.
Hood moved among the group to where Bob Herbert was sitting. He wanted to make sure his colleague was okay. Herbert said he was. He said it without emotion, which bordered on disinterest to Hood. But at least there was no anger. That was progress. Hood then told his team about Mac McCallie. There were a few moans of disbelief and several quiet oaths. Mac could be a severe pain in the butt who damn near counted every staple. But he was a professional who put in long hours. If employees needed something to do their job, he made sure they got it, ASAP. Hood also promised that they would find whoever had infiltrated their organization and planted the bomb.
The 89th Medical Group was stationed at Andrews, and ambulances began arriving to give each of the dozens of employees an on-site examination. Installation commander Brigadier General Bill Chrysler also arrived by staff car. Hood stepped from the group to meet him.
It was just now hitting the director that his facility had been e-bombed. Op-Center had been virtually destroyed. Hood felt violated, overwhelmed, and demoralized. Paradoxically, he was also starting to feel what Liz Gordon had once called “impotent rage,” the desire to lash out in the absence of a target. Worse, he knew he had to stifle every one of those feelings. Unless the team was very lucky, this would not be a quick fix nor an easy one. And finding the perpetrator was not the only immediate problem. Hood also had to make sure that the CIOC or the press did not start positioning this as a publicity stunt or a grab for additional funding. He also had to make certain that the CIOC did not decide that it was easier to shut down Op-Center than to fix it. After what Hood hoped would be a brief meeting with Chrysler, his top priority would be to get in touch with Debenport and let him know that Op-Center was vigorously pursuing the investigation of the USF Party.
After all, they had something that they did not have before: a very personal reason.
THIRTY-TWO
Darrell McCaskey had spent several unproductive hours at the British embassy and then at FBI headquarters. He had been looking for suppressed criminal records pertaining to any of his key players. He was searching, in particular, for someone who might have sold drugs or had a drug habit at one time. Someone who would have known how to inject William Wilson under the tongue.
There was nothing.
Dispirited, McCaskey was en route to Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Langley, Virginia, when Maria called to tell him the news about an explosion at Andrews Air Force Base.
“Are there any details?” he asked.