Feels like sixty.
I look at Rizzo and push her head down. “Hold still. Don’t go anywhere.”
I get on my knees, then lunge forward and grab my Motorola. I see the red dot on the back of my hand as I pull the radio in and start talking. “Dispatch! Dispatch, this is Sampson, D-five, Sampson, D-five. I’m at the corner of Montgomery Northeast and Trenton.”
“Sampson, D-five, go.”
“We’ve got a sniper, elevated position, somewhere along Montgomery Northeast fourteen hundred block.”
“Sampson, D-five, acknowledged. Shots fired?”
“Negative. But we need to search and secure the area. Subject is armed and dangerous. Sampson, D-five, out!”
Rizzo is curled up against the side of the BMW. The red dot is gone.
“What the hell was he doing?” she says. “Taunting us?”
“I don’t know,” I say, thinking it over. “If it was the bomber, why wouldn’t he put a couple of rounds through us? He definitely had the range.”
A DC Metro Police chopper roars overhead, then seems to brake in midair, hovering over a row of buildings down the street.
“Think they’ll catch him?” asks Rizzo.
“I wouldn’t bet on it. He’s too damn good.”
CHAPTER 68
TWENTY MINUTES LATER, Anna Rizzo and I get the okay to move from behind the BMW. The bomb squad has cleared the building. The cops searched every rooftop on Montgomery.
No suspects. No evidence.
No surprise.
Rizzo scrambles to her feet. “Let’s get back to work.”
We retrieve our go bags, put on paper booties and medical gloves, and make our way to the entrance of the building. I keep looking back over my shoulder. Being tagged by a sniper will do that to you.
We get to the second floor, and CSI is already there, marking the scene. The tile floor in the foyer is smeared with water, soot, and blood. I can see blast damage on both sides of the wall. All the doors and windows are broken. Most of the window glass is blown out onto the street, but our feet crunch over shards from the inside door panels.
The floor and walls are soaked from the fire hoses. Desks and chairs are blackened and upended. Computers are smashed. There are wet papers and file folders everywhere. The suspended ceiling is mostly gone, exposing pipes, wires, and insulation.
A firefighter emerges from a wrecked office with his pike pole. “Watch your step,” he says. “Not sure about the floor joists.”
There’s a breeze coming in from the opening blasted in the exterior wall; it’s surrounded by cracked wallboard, splintered wood, and crushed brick.
Rizzo points to one yellow plastic triangle near the door entrance and a second one about a yard away. Each triangle sits next to a splotchy pattern of blood. “That’s where the maintenance guy and intern must’ve been standing when it went off,” she says.
I take a few seconds to say a silent prayer. Two innocent lives, snuffed out in a split second. Why?
“What are you thinking?” asks Rizzo.
Focus, Sampson, focus!
“I’m thinking that the first two bombings had a certain terrible logic. Car and truck bombs designed to cause mass casualties, spread terror, make people afraid to live their lives.”
“Right,” says Rizzo, looking around the wreckage. “This was a serious bomb, but it doesn’t look like the plan was to kill a lot of people. Especially at this time of the morning.”
“I agree. If you were targeting the Interfaith Coalition, wouldn’t you wait until there were a lot more people here in their offices or together in a conference room? Tactically speaking, this seems like a wasted opportunity.”
