Servantez removed his jacket, loosened his tie, and took his seat at the center of the head table, situated on a raised platform at the rear of the suite. To his right were the other city representatives-the deputy mayor, city manager, city attorney, fire chief, director of public works, city council representative, and Barona. To his left were the chairman of the county board of supervisors, Madeleine Adams; the sheriff and undersheriff; the district attorney; the county fire chief; and the county commissioner for public works. Places were also reserved at the head table for representatives from the California Office of Emergency Services, the governor’s office, the California Highway Patrol, the National Guard, the state attorney general, the FBI, and other state and federal agencies. A briefer’s podium, rear-projection screen, and PA system were set up opposite the head table. There were two tables of staff members to the right of the table, and a communication center and refreshment table on the left.
All the necessary players were now present, so Servantez said to Chairman Adams, “Let’s get started, shall we? Can we please get a situation and update briefing?”
“Yes, Mr Mayor.” She nodded to the Sacramento County undersheriff and he stepped up to the lectern. A map of Sacramento, El Dorado, Placer, and Yolo counties came up on the large rear-projection screen. “At ten-thirty-seven last night an explosion and fire was reported in the area around E Street and Market in Rio Linda,” the undersheriff began. “The first fire units on the scene reported several homes and businesses on fire or heavily damaged by an explosion, and the call was upgraded to four alarms. Four square city blocks were affected by the blast. Upon further investigation, firefighters discovered remnants of precursor chemicals used in the manufacture of methamphetamines…”
“Precursor chemicals?” the city public works director asked. “What’s that?”
“In simple terms, they’re the intermediate chemicals that are produced before making the final product,” the undersheriff explained. “It’s a felony to make or possess these precursor chemicals, just as it is to make or possess meth itself.
“The fire captain called in both county HAZMAT teams and sheriff’s narcotics investigators, who took command of the scene,” the undersheriff went on. “The death toll appears to be quite high: Investigators estimate over a hundred deaths and several dozen injuries as a result of this one blast.”
“Are you suggesting this was basically a narcotics case?” Mayor Servantez interjected. “That’s a staggering loss of life.”
Captain Tom Chandler of the police department’s Special Investigations Division stepped up to the lectern to respond. “No, Mr Mayor; we don’t believe so, because approximately twenty minutes later, a similar large-scale explosion occurred in the Oak Park section of the city. It was of comparable intensity, destroying homes within one block of the blast and damaging every structure within four square blocks. The casualty count was similarly high-in this case, over one hundred and forty deaths and almost a hundred injuries. Then there was another explosion in the Northgate and Levee Road section of the city just a few minutes later. This one occurred in a storage room under a multifamily apartment building. The death toll is expected to exceed two hundred.”
“My God,” Servantez breathed, shaken by the numbers. “What do we have here? A serial bomber?”
“Perhaps, sir,” Chandler replied, “but it doesn’t quite fit the pattern. The blasts were close together time-wise but spread out in terms of distance. Serial bombers, even a group of bombers, usually strike targets close together but spread out time-wise.”
“Then what? A gang war? Clumsy drug chemists?”
“Perhaps all of the above, Mr Mayor,” Chandler replied. “These were not the only explosions that occurred last night. In all, there were four blasts in the city, six in the county, and seven more in El Dorado, Placer, and Yolo counties. Similar explosions have been reported in San Francisco, Oakland, Stockton, Bakersfield, and Los Angeles-a total of almost thirty powerful explosions, with death tolls ranging from a few dozen to over three hundred, and extensive injuries.”
“So what the hell have you found out?”
“All of the explosions have two things in common: traces of methamphetamine precursor chemicals found at the blast scene, and a large number of gang members at each location, usually members of biker gangs,” Chandler said. “The large numbers of gang members indicate a gang chapter meeting, maybe even an instructional meeting on how to cook methamphetamines. The pattern of the deaths at each location suggests that there was very little or no warning, possibly ruling out intentional explosions or an attack by outside forces. Those killed in the blasts seemed to be very close to the blast center, as if observing or guarding the site.
“At the very least, it appears likely that everyone at the blast scenes wanted to be there-these do not seem to be executions or assassinations,” Chandler concluded. “And while this or any other particular blast could have been a booby trap or experiment gone wrong, the similarity to other explosions throughout the state does seem to rule out an accident. One or two such blasts in one night could be a coincidence. Almost thirty of them, even if spread out in terms of distance, is no coincidence.”
“We’ve had meth-lab explosions in the past,” the county fire chief pointed out. “But compared to any others, these blasts are enormous.”
“That’s right,” Chandler said. “A regular-size meth-lab explosion might substantially damage or set fire to a two-bedroom house or typical barn, or destroy a storage shed. These explosions destroyed entire city blocks, perhaps eighteen homes, and damaged many more. This means that the labs in question are many times larger than the usual labs we’ve seen. Plus, there are a lot more of them. So someone is making large meth-labs, big enough to destroy or damage almost two dozen homes at a time but disguised well enough to escape notice. It’s a very serious development. We’re wondering how many labs like these didn’t blow up.”
“Any estimate on how much meth these labs can make?” the mayor asked.
“Hard to say, sir,” Chandler said. “We’re guessing as much as twenty pounds or even more-that’s at least a quarter of a million dollars’ worth at a time. The power of the explosions suggests that the meth cookers are using hydrogen gas as part of the cooking process, which is highly explosive when mixed with oxygen. A small meth lab might use a few cubic feet of hydrogen pressurized to thirty or forty psi-pounds per square inch. These labs must have been using perhaps two or three hundred times that amount. And the quality of the drug produced by the hydrogenation method is very good-the product can be cut several times to increase its value and distribution tremendously.”
“So what’s the situation now?” the county commissioner asked.
“Critical,” the undersheriff replied. “We’ve called for this crisis team because our resources, both city and county, are stretched beyond the limit. Both the city and the county have split up our narcotics-investigation teams and made them primaries on pieced-together narcotics-investigation teams, augmented by other detectives and patrol officers. We’re using firemen and reservists to secure crime scenes, and because every blast scene involves hazardous materials, these untrained personnel are in great danger. We can’t borrow Narcotics officers from neighboring counties because most of them are involved with investigating their own meth-lab explosions. And all of the area hospitals are clogged with casualties. We’ve got a real emergency situation here, Mr Mayor, Madam Chairman.”