Crystal Clear Ch. 18

The fact that I had heard something and formed a thought about that fact meant the shot had not detonated the device.

Daniel said, "One wire is severed."

As Daniel started to stand, I reached down, quickly zipped up the side of the bag to contain the bomb, lifted the device with a wince, and broke into a run down the corridor for the door.

Daniel ran faster than I did, as did one of the policemen directed us to the outside door. I carried the thirty-pound bomb, clutching the backpack to my chest as I ran. It made me unsteady, and by now I knew there couldn't have been any other switch in the bag that would detonate the device if the bag were disturbed.

Daniel held the door for me, as we hit the cool night air. I heard the last verse of Crystal's song start in the distance – that meant I had only two or three minutes to get this thing far away from the stadium. I said a silent prayer of gratitude for my ability to run. Every step I took led me that much further from the people in the stadium. Every step I took meant more people would live. All those morning runs and exercise led me to this moment and the ability to take the bomb to where it could explode in relative safety.

A policeman up ahead gestured to us. Daniel ran ahead of me; "Head that way," Daniel pointed to a deep drainage ditch that had probably been designed to carry rain runoff from the parking lot to the Irish Sea. We cut through some lanes of parked cars and started to run along the lip of the long trench.

Daniel said, "Look!" He pointed at where the channel dipped into a large culvert – a pipe about four feet across with a coarse wire cage across the end to keep humans from entering. We ran and slid down the side of the gully into a wet bog in front of the large pipe.

I rapidly said, "The bag or bomb are both too large to fit through the holes in the bars."

"No, wait," Daniel yelled. He pulled out his Glock again and aimed it at the large pad lock holding the gate in place. He fired, and the lock disintegrated, the metal parts flying in all directions. I saw one graze his face, leaving a small gash.

Daniel swung the large gate open, and I ran about twenty feet into the dark concrete watercourse. I set the bag down, turned and ran back to the opening.

Daniel and I scrambled up the wet slope of the trench, sliding back several times before we reached the edge of the parking lot and level ground.

Several others had been approaching from the same direction we came. Daniel shouted at the top of his lungs, "RUN LIKE HELL! GET AWAY FROM HERE."

We both bore down in our sprint, putting one lane of cars and then a second between us and the culvert holding the bomb.

Just as we sprinted into the third lane of parked vehicles the explosion hit with a HUGE force.

KA-BOOM!!!

I went flying forward between two parked cars because of the pressure wave from the blast. The earth shook as though the planet would crack apart. An immense cloud of debris apparently rose from the explosion in all directions, but mainly out of the open end of the culvert. Shrapnel of all kinds started to rain down upon us. I scrambled under the car I'd fallen beside. I could see Daniel squirming beneath a pickup truck one vehicle over when I looked past the undercarriage of the car I was under. A second later, a rock the size of my head smashed down where I'd fallen leaving a six-inch deep pock mark in the asphalt of the parking lot.

As the shower of rocks and debris slowed and then stopped, I heard the cacophony of hundreds of car alarms triggered by the explosion – maybe thousands. When all seemed clear of falling debris, I slithered out from under the car. My ears ached from the sound of the blast. I found I had a bloody nose, and a gash on my forehead, most likely from my fall. My arms and legs ached. My ears were ringing from the sound wave of the blast. One hand was bloody and badly ached from a severe bruise.

About sixty cars that had been nearest the blast had been turned over or tossed about into the next aisle. I could see the edge of a crater between the first and second row of vehicles. Every vehicle within sight had serious damage. Many other autos had shattered windshields and side windows. The cars in the second row nearest the bomb lay at odd angles; several were upside down or flipped over, and at least a dozen had been flung onto their sides by the force of the blast. As far as the eye could see cars were covered in dirt and rocks of varying sizes – some as large as a living room chair.

I walked to the edge of the crater. Where the culvert containing the bomb had been A crater in the earth about thirty feet deep and about a hundred feet across sat smoldering from the heat of the blast. There had been at least six feet of dirt and paved parking lot atop the culvert; across the crater, it had all been blown into the sky and rained down on the cars. Any trace of the ditch, iron gate, or concrete pipe had been obliterated. The crater continued to smoke like an angry volcano on all sides as I turned to find Daniel.

As I headed to where Daniel had been, he popped up between two cars. He looked stunned and in shock; he had a strange look on his face. His left arm had been ripped open by some piece of debris; blood gushed from just below his bicep.

I whipped off the bandana I'd been wearing as a 'western prop' for the music show, and he allowed me to tie the scarf tightly around his upper arm as a tourniquet. I said to him, "Let's get you to a doctor. Come on. Can you walk?"

He looked at me and haltingly said, "You don't look too good yourself. Better than me, though."

Daniel walked gingerly next to me trying to immobilize his arm as we threaded our way between cars and headed to the stadium. The stadium looked undamaged, but I could see that some smaller rocks and debris had been hurled at least that far. Amazingly, one car had been hurled so it lay crumpled beside the door from the stadium we had exited.

In the distance, I heard the emergency sirens – the klaxons – of dozens of emergency vehicles racing to the scene.

Daniel stumbled, and I brought my arm under him to support him. At that instant, a camera flash went off; there stood the same paparazzi photographer who had been taking pictures of me working on the bomb. He also had some scrapes and bruises, and blood running down his face from a scalp laceration; he must have been in the parking lot when the bomb detonated.

The newsman let his camera swing down to his side; he came to us at a run, "How can I help?" He moved to support Daniel's other side.

Thirty minutes later, I sat with Daniel and Brendan Spencer, the photographer, on the back bumper of an ambulance. We had all been treated for our wounds. Daniel's was the most severe – a broken bone from some falling piece of debris, and he'd need some hospital treatment and many stitches to sew him back together. A field nurse had done what she could to stop the bleeding.

The bomb squad had shown up, but their role had changed from prevention to diagnosis. I knew that they would spend countless hours at the bomb site sifting through every piece of evidence they could find. I also knew I'd spend several more hours with the police recounting details about the knapsack and bomb, and so would Brendan since he'd taken pictures of the device.

The concert had stopped – taken an unplanned intermission as emergency vehicles poured into the parking lot. Public address announcements informed the crowd what had happened and urged them to stay put. Repeatedly, announcements were made that even if people could get to their cars, they would not be able to leave the parking area because of the large gathering of emergency vehicles. The whole stadium had become a crime scene.

Terry and Crystal somehow found us sitting on the ambulance. I introduced them to Daniel and Brendan. After an initial bout of hysteria and concern Crystal quieted down and held me unbelievably close to her. She sobbed wildly, so glad that I was unhurt. Later, I'd have to pay special attention to her, not an unpleasant thing to do. Her concern was genuine, and full of love. I had a huge rush of adrenalin still surging around in my veins. I asked, "Did anybody in the stadium get hurt?"

Crystal and Terry both shook their heads. He said, "I don't think so. Some policewoman escorted Crystal and the band off stage and back into the far side of the stadium about a minute before the bomb went off; people were puzzled about what was happening until the big bang. We could see the fiery explosion because the fiery plum went so high, some small debris rained in here and there, but other than that nothing really bad."

I looked at Crystal who still snuffled into a tissue. "Care to do the second half of the concert? Can we round up the band?" She was still on the edge of tears about what could have happened – all the carnage, but she nodded in agreement and squeezed my hand. We hugged again, and then I held her hand as we headed off to reenter the stadium and finish our show for the now captive crowd. Daniel wished us well.

Fifteen minutes later, Crystal and I walked up onto the stage to a second thunderous round of applause from the fans still in the stands. We had found everyone in the band, and they were more than eager to continue. It appeared that maybe ten or twenty percent of the crowd had left despite the announcements to stay put. I had visions of many people walking home in the middle of the night.

My bandaged hand, forearm, and cheek were obvious additions to the onstage show, plus my costume was covered in dirt, and my backside muddy from where I'd slid down the embankment into the drainage ditch – when there was still a ditch. I'd brought Brendan with us as he turned out to be a good fellow, and he'd helped me get Daniel to medical aide. He wandered around in the VIP seats close to the stage and took a couple of hundred pictures of us before he waved, and sauntered away halfway through our second set.

We sang for ninety minutes straight until Crystal and I were both hoarse. At our invitation, Cindy Wonder, the singer fromThe Hobo Palace band joined us on stage for most of our set. The concert that was to have ended at ten o'clock didn't end until half past midnight. The parking lot remained in chaos, particularly in the areas with damaged vehicles. Police had cordoned off a large area and didn't want the vehicles moved until the bomb squad had studied the scene. Several trucks with large spotlights dotted the parking area by then turning night into day; the focus had become everything in the blast zone – probably a radius of 500 feet.

The police had arranged for about a hundred buses for the hundreds of people whose cars were damaged beyond use or in the cordoned off zone. More buses seemed to be arriving by the second. Some crude process had been set up to route people to buses going to particular urban or suburban locations. Our limousines had been damaged beyond use in the explosion. Crystal, the band, and the rest of our entourage filled one bus and eventually got back to the Four Seasons. We fell into bed about three-thirty in the morning, late even by our standards.

Nancy flopped down on the bed beside Crystal and me. We'd both been sound asleep. Through squinted eyes, I peered across Crystal's nude body at the clock – eleven in the morning. Nancy bounced a little on the bed, "Come on, you two. Get up. Time to face the day and a grateful public."

"Huh?"

Nancy, who wore only one of my t-shirts, dropped a stack of newspapers onto the foot of the bed as I sat up. The headlines were all focused on the explosion ... but more than that, they focused on the fact that I'd again become a hero: I'd discovered the bomb, tried to defuse it, and then at great personal risk had gotten the device far enough away from the stadium to minimize damage and save lives. One paper's headlines said I'd put my own life at risk to save thousands: hyperbole at its best.

Reading the front page story in one paper, I learned that only eight people had been hurt by flying debris – all had been in the parking lot, but two people had been killed in the blast: a stadium guard and a policeman who had come after us to help as Daniel and I ran away from the arena with the bomb. We hadn't seen them as we ran from the culvert, and apparently they hadn't heard Daniel's shout to 'Run like hell.' All had been too near 'ground zero' at the wrong time.

Several newspapers quoted a police statement saying that if the bomb had detonated where I had found it, over a thousand people would have been killed instantly and many hundreds more severely injured, and that presumed that the upper tiers of the stadium didn't cascade down on the lower ones.

No one had yet taken credit for planting the device; speculation ran from the IRA to Al Qaeda terrorists, and even included the humorous possibility that someone didn't like country music.

Also on the front page of several papers were pictures of me kneeling or lying down in front of the knapsack inspecting the bomb. One was a close-up of me picking the wires apart on the bomb. A second showed Daniel firing his gun into the bomb to cut the wires. Another picture showed Daniel and me running down the interior corridor of the stadium as I clutched the knapsack to my chest. Others showed the crater, and the chaos in parking lot with all the destroyed and shattered vehicles. If the event hadn't been so tragic, it would have been right out of a B-grade movie.

I had told my story to Brendan as we sat on the bumper of the ambulance. I guess the papers with the most accurate versions were the ones he had some affiliation with.

Nancy leaned and kissed me. "I just wanted to be the second to kiss a real live hero this morning. I'm sure you'll get many more. The lobby is full of paparazzi, but the hotel staff has held them off bothering you. Also, two women called – an Ellen and a Claire who said they were Crystal's sisters; they want you to call them back as soon as you wake up despite time of day. Also, Anna, your sister, and Lauren, your sister-in-law, called separately, and they seem desperate to talk to you too."

A groggy Terry leaned against the door jam. He said in a sleepy voice, "Why don't we do something with the press at twelve-thirty or one o'clock. That'll give us all time to get decent and eat. Oh, and you should know, I talked to Ellen last night; I couldn't sleep so I let them know what had happened. She told me it was already on American television – every channel. Now, can we order up room service?"

Nancy chided him, "Eat and sex. You must be a guy!" Terry just nodded numbly in his stupor.

When the press conference started, Terry estimated there were two hundred members of the media present, and more kept filing into the back of the ballroom the hotel had assigned us for the press event. Television cameras from two-dozen networks across the globe had been set up; two score of photographers sat in the front row taking pictures of everything that happened; and a mass of microphones and pocket recorders lay on the podium or the adjacent table to pick up the audio of the press conference. The room broke into pandemonium when Terry, Nadia, Jill, Nancy, Crystal, and I walked in the door. By agreement, Terry would moderate the press conference.

Over the initial shouts of a hundred questions, Terry held his hands up. The room didn't quiet for two minutes, but finally the din died down. Terry and I walked up to stand behind the podium. Crystal and the others lined up along one wall. Terry autocratically stated that the press conference would start with me giving my version of the events, and then we would entertain questions only from people he called upon. No unruly shouted questions would be answered.

I described going for a short meditation during the intermission, coming back, seeing the out of place bag, sensing something was wrong, and doing a little exploratory probe of the knapsack. I told about ordering up some help, and then falling back on my Army Special Forces experience to figure out what we could do with the bomb, particularly how to move it. I told of Daniel's arrival and how he saved the day by innovatively shooting the wires to the pressure plate that we couldn't reach, and then how he'd led me to the culvert where we'd stashed the bomb. I told about how we'd been blown to the ground by the pressure wave, sought shelter under a couple of vehicles, and then how we'd found ourselves, described our injuries, and our feelings after the debris stopped falling from the sky. I also applauded the bravery of the two policemen who had died in the incident, pointing out that we were all trying to preserve life and property.

At that point Terry opened the room up for questions, picking on various individuals for over an hour. By that time, I had to answer many questions being asked with 'I don't know,' 'You'll have to ask the police that,' or other deflecting statements. My part in the explosion had been hashed over, as well as a few questions about what Crystal thought of me, and whether we were going to the premiere the following evening (Yes, the less disruption we allow this terrorist to create, the better off we all are).

The explosion and press event diverted people's attention from being horny, at least until after dinner. Nancy had left for several hours in the afternoon to put the iPod I'd smuggled out of Russia into 'better hands,' and to go to her hotel and get some other clothing and makeup. When she rejoined us, she brought a suitcase and wore an attractive casual but sexy short dress with a three-inch wide black belt that accentuated her narrow waist and amplified her rack. Nancy started to spice things up when she twirled her skirt to show us she had gone commando for the rest of the day. She also pulled aside part of the top of the dress to prove she was braless as well.

I teased Nancy about the black belt, saying something about karate, and martial arts. She nodded and told us she indeed had those qualifications in Tae Kwon Do, the Korean martial arts, explaining that in this art the black belt or 'third Dan' also contained three levels indicated by black stripes on a white belt; she had all three black stripes. She amazed me further by explaining that she could conduct many strikes of the art wearing high heels, a fact that could turn deadly for any opponent since she wore stiletto heels most of the time, even during a couple of our sexual escapades.

We had a catered dinner in the hotel room because so many paparazzi remained in the public areas of the hotel. Nancy became the target of our conversation and entertained us at dinner with stories from her CIA training at the Arlington, Virginia headquarters and later at Camp Peary near Williamsburg – a place affectionately known as 'The Farm.' She was careful to explain that everything she told us was unclassified. She had funny stories about all the training activities and the tricks they tried to play on the instructors: students practiced surveillance and counter-surveillance techniques, clandestine communications methods, brush passes, servicing dead drops, explosives, weaponry, and defensive and offensive driving to mention a few unusual skills. Nancy had specialized in the Baltic countries and Russia because she had taken Russian in high school and college, so had some background in the area. She also had some other qualifications, such as a commercial pilot's license.

I couldn't share with Nancy and the others that I too had been at Camp Peary for two weeks when I was in the Army Special Forces for some highly specialized training about a mission we were about to conduct in the Middle East. I was about eight years older than she was, so I thought it unlikely we'd been there at the same time.