world crap-can of a country with a big green monster on its shoulder. Or
pick from about a dozen active terrorist groups who specialize in plane
bombings.”
Sawyer shook his head. “No group has claimed responsibility for the
bombing yet.”
Barracks snorted. “Give ’em time. Now that we’ve confirmed it was a
bombing, whoever did it will be phoning in. Blowing Americans out of
the sky to make a political statement, that’s what those assholes live
for.”
“Goddammit!” Sawyer slammed his massive fist down on the table, stood up
and started pacing, his face a sheet of vivid red. It seemed as though
every ten seconds the image of the impact crater swept across his
thoughts. Added to that now was the smaller but even more devastating
vision of the tiny, singed shoe he had held in his hand. He had cradled
each of his children in one big hand upon their birth. It could have
been any of them. Any of them! He knew that vision would never fully
leave his thoughts for as long as he remained on this earth.
The agents eyed him anxiously. Sawyer had a well-deserved reputation as
being one of the sharpest agents among a legion of them at the bureau.
Through twenty-five years of seeing fellow humans gallop a crimson path
through the country, he had continued to attack each case with the same
zeal and rigor he had shown from day one on the job. He ordinarily
chose carefully analysis over scattergun hyperbole; however, most
of the agents who had worked with him over the years understood
crystal-clearly that his temper was contained by a very slender catch.
He stopped his pacing and looked at Barracks. “There’s a problem with
that theory, Herb.” His voice was once again calm.
“What’s that?”
Sawyer leaned against one of the glass walls, crossed his arms and
rested them on his broad chest. “If you’re a terrorist looking to make
a big splash, you sneak a bomb on the plane–which, let’s face it, isn’t
all that hard to do on a domestic flight–and you blow the plane into a
million pieces. Bodies pouring down, crashing through roofs,
interrupting Americans eating breakfast. Leave no room for doubt that
it was a bombing.” Sawyer paused and intently looked at the face of each
agent. “That did not happen here, gentlemen.”
Sawyer resumed his pacing. All eyes in the room followed his progress.
“The jet was virtually intact on its way down. If the right wing hadn’t
come off, all of it would be in that crater. Mark that point. The
fueler from Vector is presumably paid to sabotage the plane.
Surreptitious work performed by an American who is not, at least as far
as we know, linked to any terrorist group. It would be hard for me to
believe that Middle Eastern terrorist groups have started admitting
Americans into their ranks to perform their dirty work.
“We had the damage on the fuel tank, but that could as easily have been
caused by the explosion and fire. The acid was almost all burned away.
A little more heat and maybe we would have found nothing. And Kaplan
has confirmed that the wing didn’t have to come off the fuselage in
order to crash the plane in the same manner. The starboard engine was
destroyed from debris ingestion, critical flight control hydraulic lines
were severed by the fire and explosion, and the aerodynamics of the
wing, even if it had remained intact, was destroyed. So if we hadn’t
found the igniter in the crater, this thing might’ve gone down as some
horrific mechanical failure.
And make no mistake about it, it was a damned miracle that the igniter
was found.”
Sawyer looked through one of the glass walls and continued. “So you add
that all up, and what do you have? Arguably, someone who blows up a
plane but maybe doesn’t want it to look that way. Not your typical
terrorist MO. But then the picture gets even more cloudy. The logic
starts to cut the other way. First, our fueler ends up with a full clip
in him. His bags ,ere packed, half a disguise on, and his employer