Detective Danny Cavanaugh 01 - The Brink

the L’Enfant Plaza Metro station. “Sarin’s a nerve agent. It’s odorless and colorless. But when it’s mixed with other agents, it turns a faint yellow. An FBI biologics team recovered the gassing devices from three recycling bins, one on each level of the station.” Harry pointed to the circled items on the diagram. “A CDC emergency response team then took samples from each device.”
    “Why would they mix the three agents?” Jack asked.
    “They figure if the sarin doesn’t kill the victim straight away, then the hydrogen and cyanide would finish the job. Terrorists like these kinds of weapons because they’re low tech and fairly easy to assemble. The dumbasses that rigged these up though, got them all wrong. CDC confirms that the amount of chemicals inside them was non-lethal. Lucky break for us. ”
    “Do we have any idea which terrorist group is responsible?”
    “This type of weapon is a favorite of numerous groups, mostly Middle Eastern. We’re having every available staffer scour the Internet for individuals or groups taking responsibility. There’s nothing so far. There was no abnormal chatter leading up to this event and none since. I don’t want to even suggest any groups at this point, Mr. President. All we can say for sure is that the biologics team is combing through every newspaper in those bins for fingerprints. Hopefully, we’ll get a good match to a bad person or two.”
    “Anything on video?” the president asked.
    Harry shook his head. “Thirty-eight cameras watch that station, Mr. President. The recycling bins are located in areas the cameras don’t cover.”
    Simon huffed. “They knew where the goddamned blind spots were.”
    Harry eyed Simon Shilling before reassuring the president. “We’re reviewing previous tape, Mr. President. We’re also questioning anyone who has ever worked with those cameras since they were installed. If anyone so much as gave the cameras a second look, or if they bribed a current or former camera company employee for information, we’ll find them. We’ll get whoever did this, sir.”
    “When will we have the full report?” Simon asked Harry.
    “It’ll be sometime tonight at the earliest,” Harry replied.
    Simon gave his famous look of confusion. Why can’t it be faster? He was a master at it. He could plaster those distinct lines in his forehead that rested on those memorable eyeglasses and stare for an eternity at anyone—a reporter, a staffer, a member of Congress—making them fill the silence, like it was their job to explain the look off his face.
    Although Simon had asked the question, Harry addressed the president with the standard bureaucratic answer. “I’ll get more people on it, Mr. President. We’ll have answers for you as soon as possible.”
    Jack nodded. “Tell me more about the devices.”
    “Like I said, they’re fairly crude actually,” Harry started. He dove into his portfolio once again and retrieved an eight by ten close-up of one of the devices. He handed it to the president and began pointing to its various parts with his pen. “It’s really just a sixteen-ounce aluminum canister with a timer and a radio transmitter backup.”
    Jack looked at the photo intently, picturing it doing its job inside the recycling bins. He tried to put himself in the shoes of the first Metro commuters who saw gas emanating from the bins.
    What an awful feeling to think that you’re going to die at any moment, actually seeing your death slowly blowing toward you. A thought of his son cracked across his brain. But isn’t it better to see a quick death coming than to be slowly murdered by a hidden killer?
    “Even if they hadn’t screwed up the mixture, how much coverage are you going to get out of three sixteen-ounce canisters? Can’t be much, can it?”
    “No, sir. Each one had the capacity to only cover about a thousand square feet,” Harry replied. “Whoever did it obviously didn’t give much thought to the size of the station.”
    “Do we know if the device was triggered by the timer or by the radio control?” Jack asked.
    “Why does that matter?” Simon asked.
    Harry breathed deeply. Jack could tell that his Homeland Security secretary was about to educate them with one of his long-winded explanations. Jack beat him to the punch.
    He said, “Because if they set them off using the radio transmitters, they would have to be present when the gassing started.” He looked at Harry. “Why don’t you have your