Michael Davidson - In the Shadow of Mordor

The idea of being cooped up in the small apartment with a recovering Velazquez had not at first filled her with joyous anticipation. Ray was a great guy. There was undoubted romantic heat between them that she wanted to explore further, but she feared that 24/7 propinquity combined with her Irish temper might sour them.

To her surprise, it had not.

She had just downed the Laphroaig when the phone rang.

Chief Fogerty’s voice was immediately recognizable. “Krystal, thank heaven your plane was not delayed. I’m sorry to bother you now, but something’s come up, and all leave is cancelled. “

“I’ll be glad to help, Chief. What’s up?”

“I guess you’ve not heard the news yet. Turn on your TV, and you’ll catch on soon enough. I’ll send a black and white for you.”

The Chief cut the connection before she could ask why he thought she needed someone to pick her up.

She grabbed the TV remote from the kitchen counter and turned to a local channel. The screen was immediately filled with images of first responder vehicles of every description, blue lights and red lights flashing, and people in uniform moving about with grim expressions. A female reporter in a heavy parka looked seriously into the camera as she spoke of an as yet unexplained explosion at the Clarendon Metro Station. Greasy black smoke drifted in the air behind the reporter.

Bad. Really bad.

She switched off the TV and went to the bedroom where she pulled a heavy turtleneck sweater out of a drawer and grabbed a pair of high-topped boots from the floor of the closet. She had a police issue parka in the hall closet and figured she would need that too. It could be a long night.

Ten minutes later she was downstairs when the black and white arrived. The snow had not stopped and was becoming thick on the streets. The distance from her apartment to the scene was only a few blocks, but walking it under these conditions would have been tedious. She hated Washington winters, and she hated Washington summers, too. The Capital was a city of extremes of both weather and politics. How had she ended up here? Because the best job offer came from Arlington, that’s why. At least spring and autumn were nice. Miami didn’t really have that.

Chief Fogerty was in earnest conversation with a small knot of men when she arrived. She sloshed through the slush toward them, her boots making splashing noises in the salt-laden snow. When Fogerty saw her, he waved impatiently for her to join them.

Fogerty introduced the solemn-faced man beside him as FBI Special Agent Nick Ferguson from the Counter Terrorism Task Force, the CTTF. Ferguson may have been in his mid-forties, but it was hard to tell with the watch cap pulled low over his ears and the heavy parka with FBI emblazoned on the back in big, yellow letters. He could have been almost anything under all that, but his face was Bureau-issue square jawed and his brows were black Irish dark. He wasn’t happy. But, of course, who would be under the circumstances? The other two guys were from Homeland Security.

“This is detective Krystal Murphy,” Fogerty said to the men. “She’s the best I have, and she’ll be your primary liaison contact on this.” He waved vaguely behind him toward the Metro station entrance.

The scene was like something right out of a Hieronymus Bosch painting with fire hoses tangled like spilled intestines everywhere over a now ice-coated surface. First responders moved about carefully as salt was spread wherever possible. EMT’s emerged in soot stained gear from the darkened Metro entrance carrying heavy plastic bags that they lay in an irregular line in a roped off area. There were a lot of these bundles, too many.

Ambulances were backed into the area from all directions still being loaded with survivors, and others were queued up to take more. Glancing back over the seen she decided most of them would be heading for the morgue.

Fogerty’s words finally penetrated the shock of horror the scene generated. He’d said “primary liaison contact,” which meant he was dumping all of this on her. She could not imagine how she and the entire cadre of the Arlington County Police could even begin to cope with the scope of this tragedy, but then the gears in her head creaked into motion and she realized it would be Homeland Security and the FBI that would be in charge with all of their abundant resources. But the event had occurred in Arlington, and that meant the ACP also had an oar to dip into the bloody water.

Another reason for the assignment, she realized, was that Fogerty must be aware of her standing relationship with FBI Executive Assistant Director Enoch Whitehall, the Bureau’s eminence gris . This could be good or bad.

She caught Ferguson eyeing her warily from under his watch cap and wondered if he, too, was aware of her relationship with one of the highest ranking officers in the Bureau. That could be a problem if he was one of those feebies who was jealous of position and resented anyone who could leapfrog his chain of command. Of course, he was one of those. Weren’t they all?

Ferguson finally spoke. His voice was scratchy, probably from the smoke. “I think they’re about finished recovering victims. You want to go down and take a look-see with me?”

Murphy certainly did NOT want to go down and “take a look-see,” but she would do it anyway because that was what cops were obliged to do — witness the worst humanity had to offer.

“Yeah,” she said.

She turned to Chief Fogerty. “Are you coming?”

Fogerty’s face went pale with a greenish tinge, and his eyes widened slightly as he imagined what awaited them below ground in the station. “Uh, no. We’ve still got a few things to discuss here,” he said nodding at the Homeland Security guys.

She turned to Ferguson with a resigned shrug. “Lead the way.”

They skated across the icy sidewalk and over the firehoses to the entrance where they were assaulted by emanations that might well have arisen from hell. The dark odor of greasy smoke, burnt plastic and electrical fires laced with the petroleum imbued perfume of spent explosives. But worst was the sickly smell of the carnage that waited below.

An EMT handed them surgical masks at the top of the steps. “Most of the smoke has been cleared out and the flames extinguished,” he said. “And we’ve set up emergency lighting. There’s nothing down there I ever want to see again, though.” There were tears rolling down the EMT’s cheeks, whether from the sharpness of the overloaded air or from weeping, she could not tell. She wouldn’t blame him for the latter.

The steps had been liberally salted and were wet but free from ice. She and Ferguson descended, salt crystals crunching under their feet, and arrived at the blackened train platform. There were still some bodies covered with bright blue blankets and circles drawn in neon yellow chalk on the floor around body parts. Ferguson stopped and she heard him catch his breath.

“Is this your first bombing?” she asked, her voice muffled by the surgical mask.

“So you’ve concluded already that it’s a bombing?”

The presence of the CTTF suggested that terrorism was the likely cause of the explosion. She sniffed the air. “Yeah. No doubt about it. Is this your first?”

“Yes. How about you?” His voice was strangled.

“I spent a good while in Iraq with the military and saw my share over there. Those were all in open areas, though. This is worse. You never forget the smell.”

The vaulted ceiling and walls of the station had served to focus the blast back onto the train and platform thus multiplying the destruction and carnage. The train must have just pulled in when the bomb was detonated. The side of one car had been ripped completely away, creating even more shrapnel than had been in the bomb itself to tear at flesh. The blackened tile walls were pockmarked where the shrapnel had impacted. The effect on human bodies would have been horrific.