“How are you?” I asked, moving my chair to a non-threatening angle.
“Could be worse,” she said.
“The headaches?”
“Come and go.”
“Tell me about that day.”
Kate stiffened. “That’s the thing, Dr. Cross, I don’t remember much of it. Getting your bell rung hard has a way of erasing things. You know?”
“Yes. What do you remember?”
She fidgeted. “Can we talk about something else today?”
I set my pen down. “Okay. What shall we talk about?”
“Your wife’s a police chief?”
“Chief of detectives,” I said.
“She’s part of the IED investigation. I saw her on the news. You, too.”
“The FBI’s brought me in as a consultant.”
Kate sat forward in her chair. “What happened in Union Station this morning?”
“Beyond what’s on the news, Kate, I really can’t talk about it.”
“But I can help you,” she said eagerly. “If there’s one thing I know, it’s IED bombers, Dr. Cross. How they think, how they act, what to look for, how to sniff them out. With or without dogs.”
I tried not to look skeptical.
“It’s what I did in Iraq,” she said. “My team. We were assigned to guard supply convoys, but we were IED hunters, pure and simple.”
Kate said her team, including a German shepherd named Brickhouse, rode in an RG-33 MMPV, a “Medium Mine Protected Vehicle” that often led convoys into hostile territory. Her job demanded she sit topside in a .50-caliber machine gun turret, scanning the road ahead for signs of ambush or possible IED emplacements.
“What did you look for?” I said. I noted how much her demeanor had changed.
“Any significant disturbance in the road surface, to start,” she said. “Any large boxes or cans on the shoulder of the road or in the brush. Any culverts ahead? Any bridges? Loose wires hanging to soil level from power poles. Any spotters on rooftops watching us? Men or women hurrying away from the road with red dirt all over their robes? Were they using cell phones? Were they using binoculars? If it was night, were we picking up anything in infrared images? It’s a long list that gradually added up to gut instinct.”
I studied her a long moment, wondering if it was possible she was involved. The bomber’s voice had been soft, androgynous. But I saw no deceit in Kate’s body language, nothing but openness and honesty.
“C’mon, Dr. Cross,” she said. “I can help you.”
“All right,” I sighed. “I can’t tell you everything. But, yes, an IED went off in Union Station early this morning. No one was hurt. The bomb caused minimal damage.”
“Radio controlled?”
“Timer.”
That seemed to surprise her, but she shrugged. “He’s not trying to hi
t a moving target, though, is he? What’s the medium he’s using? Fertilizer?”
I hesitated, but was intrigued by the line of questioning. “Plastic explosive.”
“C-4. We saw that when they targeted bridges. Describe the placements?”