Detective Danny Cavanaugh 01 - The Brink

like they splurged for the upgrade and got the gyroscope package, too.”
    “Gyroscopes? For what?”
    “If you would have tried to remove this bomb from its position, the gyroscope would have moved.”
    “And there goes the neighborhood.”
    “Bingo.”
    “So how can you deactivate them?”
    “We can’t. We’ll have to blow them. But don’t worry. As long as the trigger signal’s jammed, we can transport them over to our detonation room and set them off there.”
    “What about the gyros?”
    “I can bypass them right here.” O’Brien used his fingernails to pry off the relay’s cover. He already had a pair of wire cutters out and snipped a black wire that looked like several others, which ran into a tiny rectangular component. “This one’s all set.” O’Brien didn’t waste any time. He moved around to the next bomb and pried off the relay cover. Danny was impressed. This kid had obviously been around the block a few times, and had the confidence to prove it.
    Danny followed him and winced as O’Brien nonchalantly cut another wire. “Hey, O’Brien, let me ask you something.”
    “First name’s Jimmy,” he replied, moving to the next bomb.
    “Okay, Jimmy. Can you tell if there are any other explosives down here, say a dirty bomb or other nuclear device?”
    O’Brien motioned to the tripod. “The double T scans for everything. Besides these babies, the room’s clean.”
    “Any idea who could rig up something like this?”
    Jimmy had already pried off the next relay cover. He talked while he hunted for the right wire to cut. “Hell, I’ve been racking my brain ever since I first saw these beauties. But I can tell you this; the bad guys knew what they were doing. These bombs were set up to act like one giant knife.” He swiped through the air with the side of his hand. “Once these babies went off,” he pointed toward the ceiling, “it would have caved in the entire House chamber and killed everyone inside. The guys who did this knew how to set up a picture perfect implosion.”
    Danny remembered what Cannon said about the architecture of the Capitol.
    “The Capitol is actually three buildings in one. The House, the Rotunda, and the Senate are all separate.”
    He also remembered what Simon Shilling had told him about the president’s whereabouts.
    “He’s giving the speech to Simon in the Senate chambers.”
    All the evidence Danny had racked up confirmed his theory. President Jack Butcher and his chief of staff wanted to carry out the most egregious act of terrorism in the history of the country.
    “How many of these setups have you seen, Jimmy?”
    Jimmy finally cut the wire and moved on. “I grew up in the demolitions business back in Philly. Then I graduated from the school of ‘Blowing up Iraqi Shit.’ I’ve seen one or two in my time.”
    “So who could pull off this job?”
    “Job this big? This much planning? Maybe a dozen guys could do this work.”
    “Any idea where I could find them?”
    Jimmy popped off the next cover. “You got access to a private jet?”
    “No.”
    “Well, I suggest you start cashing in your frequent flier miles, ’cause they’re military. Specialists in different countries that I met during my tours in Iraq.”
    Danny rolled his hand. “Countries like?”
    Jimmy was much quicker finding what was hopefully the right wire on this one. “Like Germany and France, if you can believe it. Russia’s got a hell of a guy. England, hell there was a guy there from one of the ‘Stan’ countries.” Jimmy cut the wire as he tried recalling. “Uzbekistan, Kreplakistan, something like that. Anyway, he could blow the stink off of shit. He was a fucking wizard with directionals.”
    “Anyone work with nukes?”
    Jimmy moved to the next bomb and went to work on it. “Straight nukes, no.”
    “What about dirty bombs?”
    “Dirty Debbies? They all talked the talk about Dirty Debbies. Every one of those bastards said that they’d killed at least one or two double Ds.”
    “But you never saw them actually work on one? Either to activate one or defuse one?”
    Jimmy shook his head. “We never encountered Dirty Debbies in Iraq. Shit, in the sandbox, it was all about sniffing out IEDs.”
    Just like that, Danny had answers to all of his questions about the bombs. An English military explosives expert could have rigged them. Both the Dirty Debbies and these explosives in here as well.
    “Should we take him or retreat?”
    The bomber could very