Death of a Blue Movie Star (Rune 2)

"We should probably get a head start on it.... We were thinking in terms of salads. Oh, and how's that copying coming?"

Rune saluted with a smile. "It's on its way."

The next day at eleven-thirty Sam Healy picked her up outside of L&R and they drove north.

"It's just a station wagon." Rune, looking around inside, was mildly disappointed.

Sam Healy said, "But it's blue and white, at least." It also had BOMB SQUAD stenciled in large white letters on the side. And a cage, empty at the moment, that he explained was for the dogs that sniffed out explosives. "You were expecting ...?"

"I don't know. High-tech stuff, like in the movies."

"Life is generally a lot lower-tech than Hollywood."

"True."

They drove out of Manhattan to the NYPD explosives disposal facility on Rodman's Neck in the Bronx.

"Oh, wow, check this place out. This is totally audacious."

It was essentially a junkyard without the junk. Her feet bounced up and down on the floorboards as they pulled through the gate in the chain-link fence, crowned with spirals of razor wire.

To their left was the police shooting range. Rune heard the short cracks from pistols. To their right were several small red sheds. "That's where we keep our own explosives," Healy explained.

"Your own?"

"Most of the time we don't dismantle devices. We bring them here and blow them up."

Rune picked up her camera and battery pack from the backseat. There was a green jumpsuit there. She hadn't noticed it before. She tried to pick it up. It was very heavy. The helmet had a green tube, probably for ventilation, coming out of the top and hanging down the back. It looked just like an alien's head.

"Wow, what's that?"

"Bomb suit. Kevlar panels in fireproof cloth."

"Is that what you wear when you disarm bombs?"

"You don't call them bombs."

"No?"

"They're IEDs. Improvised explosive devices. The Department's a lot like the military. We use initials a lot."

They walked into a low cinder-block building that reeked of city government budget. A single, overworked air conditioner groaned in the corner. Healy nodded at a couple uniformed officers. He carried a blue zipper bag.

She glanced at a poster RULES FOR BOILING DYNAMITE.

There were dozens of others, all with bullet points of procedures on them. The clinical language was chilling.

In the event of consciousness after a detonation, attempt to retrieve any severed body parts....

Jesus ...

He noticed what she was reading and, maybe to distract her from the gruesome details, asked, "Hey, want to hear the basic lecture on explosive ordnance disposal?"

She looked away from the section on improvising tourniquets and said, "I guess."

"There are only two goals in dealing with explosives. First, to avoid human injury. Destroy or disarm by remote if at all possible. Goal number two is to avoid injury to property. Most of our work involves investigating suspicious packages and sweeps of consulates and airports and abortion clinics. Things like that."

"You make it sound, I don't know, routine."