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July 14, 2007

Detroit, Michigan

 

Helen had always pictured Detroit as a danger-infested urban location with murders on every street corner, but the downtown area where the General Motors Building was located looked peaceful, clean, and busy.

July 14 was a Friday morning, and the streets were packed with businesspeople and tourists alike; Comerica Park—where the Tigers played—was crowded with fans coming in for the first of a double-header, and the Fisher Theater was hosting a production of Wicked later that evening. Nearby, the MGM Grand Casino flashed lights, and gaudily dressed people hurried in to lose their hard-earned money.

And it wasn’t even eleven o’clock.

The Detroit River gleamed gently in the low light, separating Detroit and the United States from Windsor and Canada. The five silver towers of the Renaissance Center, previously an office complex and now home to the largest automobile company in the world, loomed over the river and completed the skyline.

And if Helen didn’t find a way to stop it, those towers would split and tip and collapse.

If she was right about the target.

Pray God her instincts were right.

“How big of a radius do we need to evacuate?” She had to be right. “We have two other sites to secure.”

The Ford Motor Company World Headquarters was located twenty miles away in nearby Dearborn—an area, she’d learned, that contained a large shopping mall and the heavily traveled Ford Freeway, among other things, including the Henry Ford Museum and the Detroit area’s only Ritz-Carlton.

The third site, the North American headquarters for the former Daimler-Chrysler, was situated thirty miles north of Detroit in the suburb of Auburn Hills—a mainly residential area, but also near the entertainment complex where the Detroit Pistons played and large entertainment events took place. It was also situated within half a mile of a busy freeway, appropriately named the Chrysler Freeway.

Detroit certainly loved its autos.

If any or all three—God forbid—of these planned explosions detonated, the damage would be so much more severe and widespread than the AvaChem factories. She could only assume the explosives would have been designed as larger and more powerful to be placed under such massive structures.

“Ten-mile radius, at least. We’ve already begun to give the orders,” Detroit Police Chief Harold Benning told her. “But we can’t evacuate the entire area; the traffic alone would be phenomenal. Instead, we’re securing people in safe areas, and we can’t do anything but hope our buildings are strong enough to withstand the force.”

Since Detroit hadn’t known many—perhaps any—earthquakes, Helen rather doubted the buildings had been built with that potential problem in mind.

Helen looked at her watch, willing the hands to stop turning. It was 10:55. Sixty-five minutes until the explosions would detonate, and they were powerless to stop them unless they found the person with the control box—which was like searching for a needle in a haystack.

Still. Helen wasn’t about to give up.

Her fingers tingled. She had to be on track. And that was what she was counting on today. Little more than her instinct.

With the help of Dr. Everett, on-staff geologists had determined the controller must be within ten miles of the explosion detonation—yet he wouldn’t want to be too close, or he’d be caught in the destruction. So the bomb experts and the geologists had done some rough calculating and pinpointed an outer radius of two miles where the searches were contained—at all three locations.

Three hundred law enforcement officials combed the areas: checking cars, buildings, shops, everywhere.

Someone had to find something.

The tingling in her fingers told Helen it was a matter of time.

She just hoped that time would come in the next hour.

At that moment, Colin Bergstrom ran up to her. “Helen!” he shouted. “I’ve got them! MacNeil!”

“Tell me it’s Detroit.”

“It’s Detroit.”

She almost grinned, but there was no time. Hope, now, yes, but no time. “What else?”

“He called from his satphone. I could barely hear him, but he told me he and Marina Alexander were with the Skaladeskas.”

“What else? Do they know how to stop this?”

“He said they moved up the time. Forty minutes from when we talked—which puts us at 11:40 for the detonation. We lost connection, but I know he’ll try and call back.”

“Forty minutes? Good God. Do they know how to stop this? Get him on the damned phone!”

Frustration crawled into her belly, gnawed there. It was close—so close. Gabe was still alive and on the job. And there was even someone who might be able to help them—might. But couldn’t.

“Get him back on the phone! See if he knows anything!” She stalked away, ignoring the fact that she’d just snapped unnecessary orders to a senior CIA director.

She didn’t care, because the tingling in her fingers was beginning to wane.