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The screen now showed still photographs, obviously taken during different seasons of the year, of a three-story brick building of vaguely Colonial design.
“At 5:25 P.M., 1 April,” the voice intoned without emotion, “an explosion occurred, causing extensive damage to the building and the deaths of eleven individuals. More than fifty other individuals were injured, some of them seriously. The death count of eleven reflects both immediate deaths and deaths which occurred later.”
The screen now showed the building immediately after the explosion.
Looks like they got this from TV news film, Matt thought.
Fire hoses were still playing their streams on the shattered and smoking building, and firemen and police were shown entering and leaving the building. Ambulance crews were treating and transporting injured people, some of them badly injured.
Jesus, they didn’t show something like that on the six-thirty news! Matt thought.
The film—now not of “broadcast quality,” and including some still photographs and thus probably shot by the police—showed some of the victims who had been killed immediately, where their bodies had been found.
“Holy Mother of God!” someone said, and after a moment Matt recognized Denny Coughlin’s voice.
The exclamation was understandable. Legless bodies and heads smashed by tons of steel and concrete are not pretty sights.
“Investigation by the FBI and local agencies,” the narrator went on dispassionately, as the screen showed the interior of the building sometime later—the bodies were gone—“indicates that the explosives used were Composition C-4 and Primacord. Composition C-4 is not available on the civilian market, and chemical analysis indicated the composition of the Primacord used to be identical to that procured for the military services.
“This makes it probable that the explosives used were stolen from U.S. military stocks, most probably from the explosives depository of the 173rd Light Engineer Company, Pennsylvania Army National Guard, located on the Indiantown Gap Military Reservation near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
“This depository was robbed, at gunpoint, on 13 February. Three hundred pounds of Composition C-4; fifty pounds of Primacord; forty-eight electrical and twenty-five fire-actuated detonating devices; six U.S. carbines, caliber .30 M2—the M2 is the fully automatic version of the carbine—six .45-caliber pistols, model 1911A1; and a substantial quantity of ammunition of these calibers was stolen.
“The perpetrators were two white males and at least one white female who drove a Ford panel truck, later determined to be stolen. The perpetrators wore ski masks over their faces, but during the robbery the civilian guard, who was bound, gagged, and blindfolded, was nevertheless able to obtain sufficient vision around his blindfold to make a positive identification of one of the robbers, who had pulled his ski mask off his face. Bryan C. Chenowith, twenty-six, white male, five feet eight, 160 pounds, light brown hair, hazel eyes, no distinguishing markings or features.”
A mug shot of Bryan C. Chenowith appeared on the screen.
“At the time of the Indiantown Gap robbery, Mr. Chenowith was a fugitive from justice on charges of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution in connection with the hijacking at gunpoint of a truck engaged in interstate commerce. The truck contained orangutans being transported from Ken nedy International Airport, New York, to the Medical School of the University of Pittsburgh. The animals were freed from their cages near Allentown, Pennsylvania.
“Mr. Chenowith at the time was a student at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. While at the University of Pittsburgh, Mr. Chenowith was active in the Fair Play for Animals and Stop the Slaughter programs.”
Another still photograph of Chenowith appeared on the screen. It showed him carrying a sign showing an orang utan tied, Christ-like, to a cross.
“Mr. Chenowith and two of his known associates, Jennifer Downs Ollwood, white female, twenty-five years of age, five feet four inches, 130 pounds, black hair, brown eyes, no distinguishing marks and/or features, and Edgar Leonard Cole, white male, twenty-five years old, five feet ten inches, 170 pounds, dark blond hair, four-inch scar left calf, have been positively identified as having been in and around the Biological Sciences
building the day before and the day of the explosion.”
Several still photographs first of Jennifer Ollwood and then of Edgar Cole appeared on the screen, as the narrator furnished details of their backgrounds.
Jennifer Ollwood was a rather pretty young woman who wore her black hair in bangs. In one photograph she was wearing a fringed leather jacket. In another, she was pictured holding a sign reading, “Stop the Torture!” and in a third, a sign reading “Save the Animals!”
“Miss Ollwood,” the narrator announced, “was an undergraduate student at the University of Pittsburgh at the time of the bombing. She had previously been a student at Bennington College, from which she had been expelled as a result of her participation in antivivisectionist activities, and her arrest for having assaulted a campus police officer. She was active in the animal-activist movement at the University of Pittsburgh.”
Edgar Cole had acne so bad that it was visible beneath his scraggly beard.
“Mr. Cole is also a former University of Pittsburgh student, where he was also active in animal-activist activities. At the time of the Indiantown Gap robbery, he was also being sought on unlawful-flight-to-avoid-prosecution warrants in connection with the truck hijacking, and by the Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, police department to answer charges of being in possession of more than one pound of marijuana with intentions of distributing same.”
“A trio of outstanding American youth,” Wohl offered. “Your lady friend, Matt, has some interesting friends.”
“On 3 April,” the narrator interrupted, “Pittsburgh police conducted a raid on premises known to have been occupied by Mr. Chenowith and Miss Ollwood and Miss Eloise Anne Fitzgerald, white female, twenty-four years of age, five feet two, 110 pounds, light red hair, pale complexion, green eyes, no distinguishing marks or features, at 1101 West Hendricks Street in Pittsburgh.”
A picture of Eloise Anne Fitzgerald appeared on the screen. It showed a demure-looking, short-haired redhead, wearing glasses, and looking about as menacing, Matt thought, as a librarian’s assistant.
“This photo of Miss Fitzgerald,” the narrator went on, “was acquired from the publisher of the Bennington College yearbook, and portrays Miss Fitzgerald as a sophomore. She was expelled from Bennington at the same time Miss Ollwood was expelled, and for approximately the same reasons, although there is no record of her arrest on any charges anywhere. She subsequently enrolled at the University of Pittsburgh, seeking a degree in social work. She was active there in the animal-activist movement.”
The screen next showed first a photograph of the exterior of the house, a large, run-down, Victorian-era building, and then of two rooms inside the house.
“The occupants had recently vacated the premises, apparently in some haste, and leaving behind five pounds of Composition C-4, one point five pounds of Primacord, three electrical detonators, and two M2 carbines and several bandoliers of carbine ammunition.
