In the wooded suburbs of Charlotte, North Carolina, was an upper middle-class neighborhood called Barberry. The homes were all recent and immaculately groomed due to a strict Home Owner’s Association that micro-managed every aspect of the community. In a home owned by a car dealer, a family gathering was taking place. To the neighbors, it appeared to be a normal dinner party. Several cars were in the driveway. Men and women were entering with shopping bags and covered dishes. People were laughing and jovial.
In the two-car garage, however, the mood was serious. Twenty-four identical boxes lay open on the garage floor. A group of men was carefully assembling explosive devices. The devices would be remote control activated and the receivers would not be turned on until the packages were onsite, lest someone’s television remote accidentally detonate them. Once the boxes were sealed, the triggers could be activated by placing a magnet on the bottom of each box, tripping a magnetic switch.
A windowless white cargo van took up one half of the garage and the sliding door sat open. Shopping bags full of wrapping paper, ribbons, bows, and tape sat in the door. When the men finished packing each box, the women would come in and wrap them. The men would stack them neatly in the back of the van so they would not turn over. Everything needed to look presentable when it arrived at the flash mob location.
When the guests left at 9:30 that evening, the van departed with them. The car dealer delivered it to the busy parking lot of a nearby chain restaurant. Flipping his hood up over his head to better conceal his identity, he left the keys in the ashtray and returned home by Uber. He did not know who was picking up the van and performing the next step of the operation. He didn’t need to know.
He didn’t know what was being done with the explosives either, but assumed it would be newsworthy.