Morales tapped the microphone three times. The conversational buzz in the room slowly subsided. “Ladies and gentlemen…” he began. “…I’d like to take this opportunity to introduce the other members of the team.”
Corso laughed out loud. Andriatta elbowed him sharply in the ribs. He bent at the waist and whispered in her ear. “If this is a team…” She pulled her head away and elbowed him upright again. He leaned against the wall and smirked.
On the dais, Morales had introduced his way through the assembled law enforcement dignitaries and was ready to begin. He stepped up to a bank of microphones worthy of a presidential press conference. “I’m going to read a short statement, after which, I will field as many questions as time permits.” He unfolded a small sheet of white paper, flattened it on the rostrum and began to read about how the Bureau was but one arm of the investigatory task force you saw before you this afternoon. About how the task force was dedicated to solving the series of bank robberies plaguing the Los Angeles area in recent days and how they felt certain the cowardly perpetrators of these heinous crimes would be brought to justice in a timely manner. And finally how all of those involved in the case would like to express their heartfelt sympathy for the victims of this morning’s tragedy and for their families. At which point, he refolded the paper and slipped it into his suit jacket pocket.
The rush of shouted questions overwhelmed the acoustics. Morales pointed at the CNN reporter in the front row. The roar gradually subsided. “Can you give us an exact figure on the number of dead and wounded from this morning’s explosion?” he wanted to know. Morales took a deep breath. “The last figures I heard were that we had four dead, thirteen others injured seriously enough to require hospitalization and another thirty or so treated at the scene and released.”
“The victim,” shouted another reporter. “Do we have an ID on the original victim?”
Morales produced a three by five card from his pants pocket. “The victim’s name was Fazir Ben-Iman. Mr. Iman was a Lebanese immigrant who had been in the country for twenty-three years. He was a clinical psychologist, trained at UCLA, and worked at an outpatient clinic in the San Fernando Valley.”
“What about the La Crescenta victim?”
“The victim’s name is being withheld pending notification of next of kin.”
“Has the investigation turned up any connection among the victims?”
“That’s not something we can comment on at this time,” he deadpanned.
“Are we to assume that all of these robberies were committed by the same…” She groped for a word. “…person or persons?” A grandmotherly woman in the front row asked.
“As this is an ongoing investigation…” The crowd wasn’t in the mood for disclaimers. The second half of his answer was swept away by a rush of shouted questions. “Which is it?” someone yelled. “Person or persons?”
Morales could see he needed to throw them a bone or they were going to eat him alive. “We believe that today’s incidents were the work of more than one person,” he said.
“A group representing itself as ‘America First’ has taken credit for the bombings. They are demanding the release of abortion clinic bomber Eric Rudolph. They claim the bombings will continue until their demands are met.”
The press jumped all over it. How seriously did the Bureau take this claim? Quite seriously but by no means exclusively. Prior to this, was this group known to the Bureau. Yes, it was. The United States does not negotiate with terrorists. It went on and on. The assembled media gnawed the news like a bone.
For his part, Morales hedged for all he was worth. “At this stage of the investigation…’’ became his much-repeated disclaimer.
“The usual suspects.” Corso turned his head to the right. Paul Short wore a pair of blue coveralls. A prosthetic stainless-steel hook had been fitted over the stump of his right arm and a fake foot and shoe at the end of his right leg. A smudge of what looked like oil or grease adorned his right cheek.
“You just come from the scene?” Andriatta asked.
He nodded.
“Anything?”
He shook his head. “They’ve upped the ante,” he said. “This last one had enough C-4 to stop a Bradley, let alone a Toyota.” He paused to let his words sink in, “We found pieces of the victim’s vehicle seven hundred feet away from ground zero.”
Corso whistled. “Same type of bomb?” he asked.
He shrugged. “According to the people in the bank,” he said. “Same handcuff arrangement around the neck. Same keypad on the front of the device.” He stirred the air with the hook. “Could be one of the Bureau’s techies is going to pry something useful out of one of the palm trees or one of the building facades, but I wouldn’t count on it.”
He smiled as much as the scar tissue would permit. “Only in L.A.,” he said. “We got a multiple murder crime scene and all LAPD is worried about is traffic. Tell me they need to reopen the intersection as soon as they get the mess cleaned up.” He shook his head in disgust. “They say…‘Hey, man, this is Santa Monica Boulevard’ and that’s supposed to cover the destruction of a crime scene.”
Corso turned his attention to the dais, where Morales, without actually saying the words, was blaming the deaths on the interference of the media, on poor intelligence information regarding the size of the explosive device, which meant Warren and the ATF, sliding the blame toward everyone not connected to the FBI.
Short fiddled with the joystick, sending the chair in an angry circle. “Bullshit,” he said. “There was no way to know they were going to increase the size of the charge. How were we supposed to know that? It was random. Or maybe even unintentional. Hell, if they’d put that much in the Vietnamese device, they’d have brought down the whole damn shopping center.
“If anybody’s to blame, it’s those idiots in the Bureau who don’t seem to realize they’re in over their heads here.”
“So what do they do?” Corso asked. “Just stand around and let these people rob all the banks their little hearts desire?”
A flush of red appeared in Paul Short’s cheek. “Until somebody comes up with a better idea…yeah…that’s exactly what you do. You don’t risk innocent lives. You play it safe and wait for these guys to make a mistake.”
“You and I both know the Bureau isn’t going to stand around while somebody blows up things and robs banks right under their noses. Not gonna happen.”
Short wasn’t listening. His attention was riveted to the ongoing press conference.
“Repeat the question,” someone shouted.
The question, whatever it was, had drained the color from Morales’ face, leaving him the color of leftover oatmeal. “The gentleman from MSNBC inquires as to the specifics of the instructions…” He was choosing his words carefully. “…the specifics of the instructions given the victims by the perpetrators.”
Not satisfied with Morales’ translation, the MSNBC reporter raised his voice. “Is it true that law enforcement agencies were warned not to interfere? Not to attempt to follow the victims after they left the banks? Not to attempt any type of tracking devices?” He went on to enumerate the exact thou-shalt-nots listed in the holdup notes. Obviously he’d seen a copy. Morales tried to say something, but the guy kept talking. “And isn’t it the case that when the instructions have been followed to the letter, the victims have been returned unharmed?”
“As this is an ongoing investigation…” Morales began. The buzz in the room swallowed the usual disclaimer. He tried to excuse himself. The buzz got louder.
“I smell lawsuits hatching all over the L.A. basin,” said Andriatta.
“By the score,” Corso added.
“You can’t sue the government anymore,” Short said. “Award limits make it impossible to come out of it with any money. Only the attorneys end up with their pockets lined.”
“Well then there’s going to be a bunch of happy lawyers in town tonight.”
“Bunch of bloodsucking scum,” Short said.
Morales and the others were filing off the dais in the opposite direction. The crowd of media types was nipping at their heels like terriers, preventing them from escaping into the elevators.
“Let’s get out of here.” Corso took Chris Andriatta by the elbow and steered her toward the door. “Warren’s looking for us, we’ll be at the hotel,” he said to Paul Short.
“Kill all the lawyers,” Short responded with a smile.
Corso skirted along the black curtains, holding Andriatta by the hand and keeping as far from the shuffling crowd at the end of the room as possible. They reached the alcove beneath the green-and-white EXIT sign. Corso turned and surveyed the media event taking place over by the elevators. After a moment, he straight-armed the long safety handle and shouldered the door open. Before either he or Chris Andriatta could move, however, a Japanese guy with a wireless microphone stepped into the doorway…then a second later, another guy, African-American, this time, with a digital video camera up on his shoulder. “You’re Frank Corso, right?”
The red light on the front of the camera began to blink. Corso felt Andriatta’s hand slip from his grasp. As he turned her way, the reporter stepped between them, holding the microphone up to Corso’s lips. “I’m Gordon Nakamura…” the guy began.
Corso slapped the microphone aside and stepped around the guy. Andriatta had vanished into the throng.