That made sense, actually. “So what’s the mind-set change he’s after? What’s he trying to make us understand?”
Kate bit at her lip. “I don’t know. But I have the feeling if you answer those questions, Dr. Cross, you’ll find your bomber.”
Chapter 18
Heavy rain fell when Mickey left the VA hospital long after dark. As soon as he felt the drops lash his face, he let go of the emotion he’d been fighting to keep deep in his throat. He choked off two sobs but finally let tears flow. Who could tell he was crying in the rain anyway?
Certainly no one Mickey encountered between the hospital and the D8 bus stop. They were all bent over, hurrying for cover. He was alone on the bench when the Hospital Center bus pulled up.
Mickey got on and was dismayed to find his favorite seat by the rear entrance taken, by a big Latino guy he recognized. Like almost everyone riding the Hospital Center Line from the north end, he’d been chewed up by war and was always pissed off.
Mickey nodded to the man as he passed and took an empty spot two rows behind, intending to take his territory back as soon as the man left.
But the bus was warm, and Mickey was as tired and dismayed as he’d ever been. What am I doing this for? Doesn’t he understand? How can’t he understand?
Tears welled up again. Mickey wiped his sleeve frantically at them. He couldn’t be seen crying here. Out in the rain was one thing, but not here.
Be a soldier, man, he thought as his eyes drifted shut. Be a soldier.
Mickey dozed and dreamed of scenes he had imagined many times. He felt tires hit potholes, and he was no longer in the bus, but deep in the back of a US military transport truck taking him away from the firebase for good, heading straight to Kandahar, then Kabul, and home.
“You happy, kid?” Hawkes asked. “Going stateside?”
Hawkes, the sniper, was sitting on the opposite bench, next to the tailgate, his Barrett rifle balanced between his legs, grinning like he’d just heard the best joke of all.
“Damn straight, I’m happy, Hawkes,” Mickey said.
“You don’t look it.”
“No?” Mickey said. “I’m just nervous, that’s all. We’re so close, Hawkes, I can taste it. No more crazy mofos in turbans lobbing mortars. Leave this shit behind for good. Go home and just…what are you going to do when you get home, Hawkes?”
Hawkes threw back his head and laughed, from deep in his belly. “Kiss my wife and play with my little boy, Mickey.”
“He’ll be happy his daddy’s home,” Mickey said. “That’s so—”
Automatic weapons opened up from high in the rocks flanking the road.
“Ambush!” Hawkes shouted. “Get down, kid! Everyone get—”
Hawkes vanished in a roar and a blast of fire that knocked Mickey cold.
For what seemed an eternity, there was only darkness. Then neon light played on his eyelids, and someone shook his knee.
Mickey started, and awoke to see the Latino guy with the attitude staring down at him. “Union Station.”
“Oh?” Mickey said. “Thanks.”
He took his knapsack and left the bus, running to the terminal to get out of the rain. There were police officers all over the place, and dogs, and reporters. But not one of them paid Mickey any mind as he moved with the evening crowd toward the subway and train stations.
Avoiding the train or Metro platforms, Mickey instead cut through the main hall and out the front door. Four or five television news satellite vans were parked along Massachusetts Avenue, facing Union Station.
When the klieg lights went on, he almost spun around and went back inside. Instead he put up his hood and waited until two men much taller than him exited the station. He fell in almost beside them, within their shadows, until they were a full block east of the television lights.
Mickey left them and kept heading east past Stanton Park. He went to a brick-faced duplex row house on Lexington Place, and used a key to get inside as quietly as he could.
Television light flickered from a room down the hallway. He could hear a woman singing with a back-up band, really belting the song out, probably on one of those star search shows his mother loved, and he hoped the singing would be enough to cover his climb up the stairs.
But when he was almost at the top the song ended. His mother yelled drunkenly, “Mick, is that you?”
“Yes, Ma.”
“I’ve been worried sick.”
“Yes, Ma.”
“There’s left-over Popeye’s in the fridge, you want it. And get me some ice.”
“I’m tired, Ma,” he said. “And I gotta be up early.”
He didn’t wait for a response but dashed up the stairs, around the bannister and into his room. He locked it and waited, listening for an indication of how drunk she was. A little plastered and she’d shrug it off. A lot plastered and she was likely to pound at his door and shriek curses at him.
A minute passed, and then two.
Mickey tossed his knapsack on the floor, took off his raincoat, and dug beneath his mattress, coming up with a dog-eared paperback book he’d bought online for twenty-two dollars. He’d read A Practical Guide to Improvised Bomb Making at least eight times in the past few months, but he climbed on the bed and returned to the chapter on radio-controlled explosives.
Mickey read for an hour, studying the diagrams until he understood how to build the triggering mechanism, and how best to trip it.
Glancing at the clock on his dresser, he stifled a yawn. It was eleven o’clock.
Opening a drawer in the nightstand, he retrieved one of six burner phones he’d bought online in a package deal from a dealer in Oklahoma. Then he called up the Voice Changer Plus App on his smartphone. Mickey started the burner, activated it with a paid-minutes card, and dialed Chief Bree Stone.
They’re not listening, he thought as her phone rang. Time to raise the volume.
Chapter 19
Bree was fighting to stay awake for the eleven o’clock news when her phone started buzzing and beeping in her purse. She struggled out of the easy chair in the front room at home, and said, “Mute it.”
I thumbed the Mute button and said, “Speaker.”
Nodding, Bree got her phone and answered the call.
The odd, soft, almost feminine voice spoke. “Chief Stone?”
“Who are you? What’s your name?”
After a long pause, he said, “Nick. Nick the Avenger.”
Bree glanced at me, pointed at her watch. I started timing. The FBI was monitoring and tracing all calls to her number. If she could keep him on the phone for just over a minute, they’d be able to locate him.
She said, “Nick, what’s it going to take to stop the bombings?”
That question was part of a plan we’d talked about in anticipation of his next call. We both believed we needed to draw the bomber out, get him talking about more than just his next target.
After several moments, he said, “It’s gonna take changes on Capitol Hill, Chief. Congress needs to get off its collective butt, and start treating the people who fight their wars right. Until they quit kicking vets in the balls, it’s time for everyone to feel what vets have suffered, what they still suffer. I’d clear the Washington Monument if I were you.”