“Too late,” says Alex, looking across the street. “They’re gone. And well trained. That was a performance meant to intimidate. It wasn’t a bunch of ignorant rednecks out to break windows and pick a fight.”
“They just … disappeared?” asks Bree. “In front of all these people?”
“Right,” says Alex. “As soon as their message was delivered.”
Sirens sound in the distance, and they both head back to the bar, where patrons are murmuring and servers are sweeping up broken glass.
Alex and Bree walk back to the table where they left Melissa and her friends.
But nobody’s there.
CHAPTER 25
Sampson
LANGLEY.
As soon as Anna Rizzo says it, there’s a stillness in the room.
Ned Mahoney crosses his arms. “Our CIA buds across the river?”
Rizzo nods and sits down again. “Ninety-nine point nine percent of government secrets are to cover up something that got screwed up, something that failed, or something that’s just plain embarrassing.”
She points to the tiny scrap of green plastic. “My guess is that this falls into category three: embarrassing. If I don’t find the taggant in my standard database searches, then I need to go elsewhere. The best place to search is at that certain three-letter agency in a five-sided building. I can make a request, but it’ll be kicked around through a dozen different layers. It’ll take me a month to get an answer. If I’m lucky.”
“File your request,” says Mahoney. “I’ll push it through.”
“Thanks,” says Rizzo. “And if they say they can’t find it or that whatever they have can’t be released due to reasons of national security—”
Mahoney interrupts her. “Anna, I’ve got a direct line to the Oval Office. I’ll get it done.”
Rizzo turns to me. “And in the meantime—”
I interrupt her too. “We’re doing an info dive into the victims and the injured, who they are and why they were at that intersection at that particular time.”
“You think one of them might have been a specific target?” asks Rizzo.
“It’s just one angle,” says Mahoney. “But we have to look into it.”
“Talk about overkill,” Rizzo muttered. “Like trying to swat a mosquito with a sledgehammer. A very big sledgehammer.” She strips off her gloves. “Hey, I need a caffeine break. You guys care to join me?”
Mahoney checks his watch. “Sorry. I’m already late to brief the director.” He raises a hand in goodbye and heads off across the lab and out the door.
Rizzo slides off her stool and looks at me. “How about you, Detective?”
“You buying?”
“Nope. The American taxpayers are, God bless ’em.”
CHAPTER 26
ANNA RIZZO AND I walk through the brightly lit corridors of the ATF laboratory, passing other labs and processing rooms. Through the door windows I can see technicians examining and processing evidence. I want to believe that they’re all working on our case.
“Hell of a thing,” says Rizzo, “a plain old white GMC van spread over downtown DC. Too bad our bomber wasn’t still in the damn thing at the time.”
Part of me agrees. It would mean one less evildoer to worry about. But the detective in me wants to get the bastard alive so I can find out what twisted his mind and use him to track down whoever else is involved. After that, I’ll send him away for good.
Rizzo opens an unmarked door to a break room with couches and chairs, a few round tables, and a refrigerator, a coffee station, and a row of vending machines. She picks up a paper coffee cupfrom a stack on the counter next to the coffee station. “How do you take it?”
