“Magnets!”
He followed the truck as it entered a large storage tank facility not far down the road. He whipped the binoculars back to the stairs, just in time to see Tommy throw the backpack out over a passing steel tanker. The truck was slowing down in the lane closest to the stairs to take the exit. Dennis watched curiously as the backpack flew perfectly flat — not tumbling or tilting as he would’ve expected. It landed solidly on the top of the tank trailer. The bag clamped down magnetically onto the steel tank, as if it were covered with Velcro.
“It’s a bomb! On that truck.” Dennis pointed to the truck turning into the plant. “You get the beard. I’ll take the car and warn the plant.”
Brooke reached into the backseat, grabbing her shotgun. She ran toward the walkway. Dennis slid over and hit the gas, swerving out of the rest area and right onto the turnoff to the storage tank facility.
He screeched to a halt in front of the barrier by the security gate, yelling to the guard in his shack, “That truck has a bomb! Let me in. Call the cops!”
The guard, making an instant decision that Dennis was one of the good guys, raised the barrier and picked up the phone. Dennis drove over to the portico just as the truck pulled out and headed for the large storage tanks. Dennis raced ahead and cut the truck off.
The driver came down from the cab cursing. “What the hell’s the matter with you? Are you crazy?”
“There’s a bomb on top.”
After a second, the word bomb registered in the driver’s mind. He ran. Dennis looked up at the truck and the huge tanks it was now nestled between. What he said next was between him and God. He jumped onto the ladder and climbed to the top of the truck. He slipped, but caught himself as he cautiously stepped across, past the filler hatches in the recessed gully at the top of the truck’s tank. When he reached the backpack, he got on his knees and inspected it. It was humming. He hummed along with it in an attempt to steady his nerves. Reaching for the zipper, he stopped his hand, thinking, “booby trap.”
His humming turned into “Don’t Sit under the Apple Tree,” Cynthia’s favorite song.
“I love you, girl,” escaped his lips as he meticulously inched the zipper back, revealing the contents of the blue nylon-parachute-material bag.
Agent Burrell walked with the shotgun behind her back as she came upon Tom Regan stepping lively from the overpass, not paying any attention to her, hurrying toward his car. As he passed her, she raised the gun and pumped it … loud. The sound made Tom stop dead in his tracks.
“Freeze, FBI! Put your hands up above your head and drop to your knees,” Brooke said in her calmest command voice. “Drop to your knees, NOW!”
She saw that Regan was hesitating. She understood the confusion in his mind. Could he beat a woman? Surely she couldn’t be as tough as a man. He might have a chance. If that’s what he was thinking, it didn’t last long, as Brooke slammed the butt of the shotgun into his back with so much force that it drove him into the ground. She flipped the shotgun over like a baton and pushed it into his cheekbone as he lay sprawled, her foot on his neck. “Move and I will blow your face off! Was that a bomb you put on the truck?”
“Go fuck yourself,” Regan managed with the shotgun in his bearded cheek.
She pulled out her service weapon and placed it on his leg. “Last chance. Is that a bomb on the truck?”
“Fuck you!”
She fired her piece, the bullet entering his leg right above the knee. He screamed out in pain.
“The next one shoots your balls off, tough guy.”
She placed the gun at the seat of his pants. “Tell me what I want to know or kiss your balls good-bye, Tommy boy.” She pushed the barrel deep into his buttocks to accentuate her point.
Through his moaning, he managed to say, “Yes, yes it’s a bomb.”
“How is it triggered?”
He hesitated. She nudged his ass again. “It’s going to be terrible up there in heaven with seventy-two virgins and you with no balls, buddy, unless you tell me how the bomb is triggered.”
“I am not a terrorist!”
“Last chance. How is it triggered?”
“Okay, okay! It’s a contact timer, once it makes contact it’s set for five minutes.”
“Shit.” She slapped cuffs on him, then looked up and realized a small crowd had surrounded her. She picked the meanest-looking truck driver in the crowd and flashed her FBI ID. “You! I’m an FBI agent. Make sure he doesn’t move ’til the troopers get here. I need a car! Somebody give me a car.” No one stepped forward. She saw a man watching from a Lexus. She grabbed the shotgun and her piece and ran. She held up her ID. “FBI. I am commandeering your car.” The driver saw the ID in the same hand as the shotgun and got out. She jumped in, throwing the shotgun and her piece in the front seat. She took off for the plant, not the least bit phased by the gun oil from the Remington pump action soaking into the leather seat.
Looking into the bag with its gizmos and colorful leads, Dennis realized he didn’t know which wires to pull or short out. He’d hesitated long enough. Disarming the bomb was not an option. It was time to remove the bag. He pulled on the bag, but it didn’t budge. He put more muscle into it. It slid along a little but he couldn’t move it up off the metal of the tanker truck. The magnets were that strong. He scrambled back down the ladder and got into the cab of the truck, a new goal in mind. The guard ran up.
“Do you know how to drive one of these?” Dennis yelled down from the cab.
“No.”
“Ahhhh, shit!” Dennis looked down at the eighteen gears and tried to find first. When he ground the gears into something like first then let up on the clutch, the truck lurched forward. Turning the wheel as the engine over-revved, he headed for open space.
Back at the front gate, Brooke pulled up to the guard, “Take cover. That truck’s going to blow!” She then peeled out to warn Dennis. The truck was already a half-mile away in an area where old oil drums were warehoused.
As she headed toward it, a silent flash burned her eyes as it split the night. An instant later, the earsplitting noise and shock wave slammed into the car. Reflexively, she hit the brakes and fell sideways as the windshield imploded, showering her with tempered safety glass like a cascade of diamonds. The heat of the blast poured through the open window and singed her hair and eyebrows. Suddenly big thuds started pounding all around her as the roof of the car dented in above her. A smoking fifty-five-gallon drum landed on the hood. Two more pelted the car. She covered her head and prayed.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
A full sixty hours before the Sabot Society meeting, agents started arriving at McConnell Air Force Base. The bureau had left no aspect to chance. Most of the agents assembled at the base twenty-five miles from Bufford’s farm had rotated through at least two tours at Quantico, the FBI’s training academy.
Operation Homegrown had drawn a full FBI turnout. The HRT (Hostage Rescue Team) was here, as were the bureau’s head negotiators, SWAT teams, hi-tech weapons and surveillance technicians, the EI teams, air support and logistics, headquarters personnel, armored personnel carriers, medical and psych attachment, including drivers for the trucks and assault vehicles. To fill those support positions, the FBI would usually tap local law enforcement, but the director had been clear — bureau only. He wanted this operation contained until the moment SWAT “knocked” on the door with the battering ram.