Rusted Chrome by Karlos Allen	Table of Contents Day One, part 1   part 2   part 3   part 4 Day Two, part 1   part 2 Day Three, part 1   part 2   part 3   part 4 Day Four, part 1   part 2   part 3 Day Five Day Six Day Seven, part 1   part 2   part 3   part 4   part 5   part 6
Day Two part 1 of 2

The next morning O’Leary showed up at the office early. It was quiet, like a tomb. Most of the officers were still out on bed rest and several others had simply called in sick.

Chief Duyck met him at the office door, looking worried. “So tell me, Chuck, it wasn’t a bomb was it?”

“Yeah, it was a bomb.”

“Have you called the feds?”

“Well, that’s procedure isn’t it?”

“Yes, of course. But...”

“Are you asking me to violate procedure and not tell the Federal Government that there has been a terrorist attack on home soil?”

“Possible terrorist attack, you mean. No one’s claimed responsibility, and no threats were made. It might not be terrorism.” He was obviously grasping at straws. “It could be a lone psycho. And after all no one was killed.”

“Oh? What did that IT tech die of? The measles?”

“Well, I’ve spent some time looking at the law regarding this whole mess. It turns out that acts of violence don’t automatically count as terrorism unless they are politically or religiously inspired. This could be a straight criminal act, possibly organized crime. We don’t have to get federal help for that.”

O’Leary decided he’d let him sweat long enough. “As it turns out, Chief, that’s exactly the way I read this too. So no, I haven’t notified the feds yet.” The chief almost looked ready to faint, “However, if it happens again or if any group claims responsibility I’ll notify them in a heartbeat.” He grinned, “Don’t worry, Chief, I’ll let you know afterward.”

O’Leary left Chief Duyck standing on the steps and went to his desk. He poured a quick cup and went online. There was no noise from Margie’s office, and he didn’t have anything waiting for him. Good, he wanted to peruse what the forensics remote had found.

Opening the file cabinet, he found the manila folder and brought it over to the desk. Opening it he saw a single sheet of paper labeled “Pearl District Server Facility 1 Bombing.” When he touched the page, it lit up, showing the video while the tech provided voice-over commentary.

It looked basically the same as it had before. This time the remote spent a lot of time looking closely at the walls, panning around and then backing up to show the big picture.

The tech’s voice came on: “As you can see this was not a single bomb: there were actually four such explosives placed near the corners of the room. This was designed to do the most damage by reflecting the shock waves back toward the center.

“You will also notice the metal balls and aluminum foil. The explosives were loaded with them. The balls were designed to shatter the server boards while the long pieces of foil were designed to fall across live wires exposed by the explosion, thus shorting out anything that worked. These explosives were specifically designed to destroy electronics.”

O’Leary nodded, very good design there; whoever it was hadn’t missed a thing. Curious, he turned the page over to see about the components of the bombs. The page was blank except for a single note: “Chuck, you’d better come see me. — Hans.”

Shaking his head, he called Margie.

“Yes, Mr. O’Leary?”

“Get me Hans, from Forensics, will you?”

“Right away.”

A few minutes later Hans’ avatar appeared in his desktop.

“Hans, I saw the footage. You were right when you said they knew what they were doing. What did you need to see me about?”

“You’re not going to like the analysis, Chuck.”

“Why? Is it pointing to someone I know?”

“No, it’s not pointing at anybody.”

“What? That’s not possible. You can’t buy explosives without so much identification and tagging that you might as well just leave your name and address at the site. Same goes for the components of the explosives.”

“That’s true, Chuck, if you buy them. This person didn’t.”

O’Leary settled back in his chair. “Maybe you’d better take it from top.”

“OK, they didn’t use plastique or ANFO or any of your usual suspects. You can’t blame them. As you said, the components are loaded with nano-tags. They’ll survive any explosion, and they have the contact information of the buyer encoded. This person used gunpowder.”

“You’re kidding!”

“No, why not? It’s a perfectly good explosive. Plenty of wars were fought using it exclusively. Also, you can make it from naturally occurring sources.”

“You mean, just go out and scoop it up off the ground?”

“In some parts of the world, yes, you almost could. We think he bought the charcoal; it’s not traced. Sulfur isn’t either. Saltpeter is, but only if you buy it in large amounts. It’s hard to trace.”

“Where would he get it?”

“Oh, there’s lots of places you can get it. Some stores sell it as a preservative for food. The upshot is that we have no way of tracing this bomb.” He shrugged apologetically, “Sorry, Chuck.”

“Thanks, Hans. I’ll noodle on this a bit, see if I can come up with something.”

“Have another one of your cups of coffee; that usually does it for you.” Hans grinned and hung up.

O’Leary grimaced; he was getting quite a reputation around here. On the other hand — he glanced at the clock — it had been almost half an hour since his last cup, and he’d only had two cups this morning. Well, there was that shot of espresso he’d grabbed on the sidewalk, but espressos are so small they really don’t count. He called Margie.

“Yes, Mr. O’Leary?”

“I’m heading over to Ernie’s Diner for coffee and breakfast, hold my calls will you?”

“Sure, Mr. O’Leary. You know, you really should try the curry.”

He got halfway to Ernie’s before it hit him that his AI had cracked a joke.

Ernie was looking more cheery than ever when O’Leary came through the curtain. “You know, Detective? That was a wonderful woman you had dinner with last night. You should see her again, you could do worse.”

“That’s odd, last night you said I could do better.”

Ernie shrugged philosophically. “With a woman, you can always do better. Of course, you can always do worse too. This one turns out to have excellent and discerning taste. What more could you ask?”

“You’re just saying that because she liked your curry, Ernie.”

“Of course. In fact she came back and complimented me on it. That just proves my point. Would you like some?”

O’Leary shook his head, “No, I’ll have my usual.”

He sat down in his booth shaking his head. He didn’t know why he put up with this kind of abuse. Maybe because it reminded him of his ex.

He sipped his coffee and thought about what the remotes had shown. No nano-tags; somebody was going to a lot of trouble to make this hard. The blast pattern showed that they’d put a lot of thought into it. Why? He couldn’t get past that. Server farms were completely automated. If a person had been present, the bombs would’ve made a real mess of them, but the odds of that were slim.

What about the farm itself? Was there anything special about it? Briefly he wished he could go online from here and check it out. He thought back within his own memory.

Pearl District 1 had been built almost twenty years ago. It was one of the first built to serve the huge demand that Super Wi-Max had generated. Free and fast Web access from literally anywhere in the Metropolitan Area had overtaxed the existing providers. So the farm had been built as a combination data storage area and routing service. It was the last new building in the District. That had been back when it was a nice part of town. Who would want to bomb an oversized router?

His steak appeared, and he chewed on it while his thoughts went back to the remote footage. There had to be something else; maybe the old man was right.

He pushed his plate away and stood up. The steak and eggs were only half-eaten; he knew he’d hear about it the next time he came in. Putting an extra large tip on the card as he walked out salved his conscience; maybe it would salve Ernie’s feelings, too.

Proceed to part 2...

Copyright © 2010 by Karlos Allen