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"The driver's got earrings and the guy next to him's in dreads."
"Undercover."
"And they're passing a joint back and forth."
"Okay. Probably not."
CHAPTER 33
FEW THINGS ARE MORE REPULSIVE than the chemical smoke aftermath of an IED plastic explosive detonation.
Amelia Sachs could smell it, taste it. She shivered from the cloying assault.
And then there was the ringing in her ears.
Sachs was standing in front of what remained of Java Hut, waiting--impatiently--for the Bomb Squad officers to make their rounds. She would run the crime scene search herself but the explosives experts from the Sixth Precinct in Greenwich Village always did the first post-blast sweep to check for secondary, delayed devices, intended to take out rescue workers. This was a common technique, at least in countries where bombs were just another means of making a political statement. Maybe Don Bruns had learned his skills abroad.
Sachs snapped her fingers next to each ear and was pleased to find that over the tinnitus ring she could hear pretty well.
What had saved her life and those of the coffee drinkers had at first made her laugh.
She and Jerry, the inked manager of Java Hut, had gone into the small, dimly lit office, where the store's computer was located. They'd pulled up chairs and he'd bent forward, entering a passcode on the old Windows system.
"Here's the program for the security video." Jerry had loaded it and then showed her the commands for reviewing the .mpg files, how to rewind and fast-forward, how to capture stills and write clips to separate files for uploading or copying to a flash drive.
"Got it, thanks."
She'd scooted forward and looked closely at the screen, which was divided into quadrants, one scene for each camera: two were of the floor of the shop, one of the cash register, one of the office.
She had just started scrolling back in time from today to May 11--the date the whistleblower had leaked the STO from here--when she noticed a scene of a man in the office where they now sat, walking forward.
Wait. Something was odd. She'd paused the video.
What was off about this?
Oh, sure, that was it. She'd laughed. In all the other scenes, because she was scrolling in reverse, people were moving backward. But on the office video, the man was moving forward, which meant that in real time he had been backing out of the office.
Why would anyone do that?
She'd pointed it out to the manager, who hadn't, however, shared her smile. "Look at the time stamp. That was just ten minutes ago. And I don't know who he is. He doesn't work here."
The man was trim, with short hair, it seemed, under a baseball cap. He wore a windbreaker-style jacket and carried a small backpack.
Jerry had risen and walked to the back door. He'd tried it. "It's open. Hell, we've been broken into!"
Sachs scrolled back farther, then played the video forward. They saw the man come into the office, try to log on to the computer several times and then struggle to pick it up, only to be stymied by the steel bars securing it to the floor. Then he'd glanced at the monitor and must have noticed that he was being filmed. Rather than turn and face the security camera, he'd backed out of the office.
She knew it had to be the sniper.
Somehow he too had learned about the whistleblower and had come here to see if he could find the man's identity. He must've heard her and Jerry approach. Sachs had run the tape again, noting this time that before he left he seemed to place a small object behind the computer. What--?
Oh, hell, no!
He'd left an IED--that's what he'd planted behind the computer. He couldn't steal it; so he'd destroy the Dell. Try to disarm or not? No, he'd have set it to detonate at any minute. "Out, everybody out!" she'd cried. "Bomb. There's a bomb! Clear the place. Everybody out!"
"But that's--"
Sachs had grabbed Jerry by his ideogramed arm and dragged him into the restaurant, calling for the baristas, dishwasher and customers to flee. She'd held up her badge. "NYPD, evacuate now! There's a gas leak!"
