Veiled Freedom (55 page)

Steve didn't bother disabusing the other contractor of any personal connection between himself and Amy. “So what weren't you saying back there? Or are you telling me this whole thing is some little industrial accident?”

“I wish.” Ian's admiring stare sobered instantly. “You'd better take a look for yourself.”

The two contractors strode toward the shattered front door. The Afghan men who'd been tackling the fire when the CS team arrived were clustered around the fountain, the chowkidar Rasheed among them. Hostile glances could be explained by two armed Guats standing guard among the blackened columns of the entry portico.

“I ordered everyone out to protect the scene,” Ian elucidated as they entered the hallway. “The primary blast was through there.”

Lingering smoke and chemical fumes, along with the reek of extinguisher foam, were strong enough for Steve to reach for a bandanna to tie over his mouth and nose. He saw immediately why Ian was so sure where the explosion originated. The heavy entrance doors at either end of the hall were blown from hinges, and those leading into a salon that had been locked when Amy gave Steve a tour had been ripped away with enough force to smash through the doors into the schoolroom beyond. A chill went over Steve at the thought of children sitting among those cushions at the time of the blast.

Ian stooped to work something out of a fractured door panel. He held it out to Steve. It was a sliver of stone as sharp as a carving knife. The slab was studded with such. Steve tugged loose another that proved to be a shard of glass. Others looked to be bone fragments.

“Shrapnel. Designed to make it through a metal detector.” Ian's comment was muffled by his bandanna as he glanced around the schoolroom. “Talk about luck. If those first doors hadn't absorbed most of the blast and the second set caught the rest, or if those windows were glass instead of plastic, we'd be looking at shredded bodies instead of cuts and bruises.”

“Then this
was
a bomb,” Steve said slowly.

“There's not a lot of fragments that I saw. But that's my take, yes. Do you know someone who'd want to do this kind of damage to your lady friend out there?”

“I certainly do,” Steve said furiously. “And I told her not to worry, that they were just amateurs. But why a storage room? Unless the idea was to frighten more than kill.”

Steve stepped over debris into the actual blast zone. The polished mosaic floors, high ceiling, tall windows, and French doors might in another world have been intended as a ballroom. Here they looked to have held stored goods from household furnishings to construction and automotive materials to the barrels and plastic containers of workplace chemicals.

Now only firewood remained of any furniture. Plastic containers were melted puddles. Burned-out barrels had flown around the salon, one even across the hall into the schoolroom. Their contents accounted for more damage than any actual bomb blast, shrapnel piercing aluminum and plastic to set off the fireball responsible for all that black, oily smoke.

The black of char contrasted everywhere with the dissolving white of chemical foam. But from the direction of tossed debris and fire damage, Steve judged the explosion to originate just inside those French doors. He threaded carefully across to look out onto a fruit orchard. Here there'd been no plastic panes. Nor, any longer, glass. Doors and windows were blown out, showering the grass beyond with broken glass and twisted ironwork, even nuts and bolts and other wreckage that had ripped into tree bark with the lethal force of gunfire.

Glass crunched under Steve's boots as he stepped outside. A gate separating the orchard from the mechanics yard was standing open, and by scattered shovels, pails, and another hose, an attempt had been made to fight the fire from this side as well. But here too Ian had taken charge, the orchard cleared of personnel and two more third country nationals standing guard at the gate. Steve's fury deepened as he inspected a screwdriver buried to half its length in the trunk of an almond tree. This was no break-in to haul off a wayward sister-in-law. This was a vicious assault that only by chance had destroyed property rather than lives.

Then Steve spotted a cloth fragment caught on the tree bark above the screwdriver. The initial explosion must have thrown it far enough the subsequent flash fire hadn't caught it because a camouflage pattern was still distinguishable. A sharp exclamation drew Ian over as Steve's pocketknife maneuvered loose the cloth fragment. A sniff confirmed suspicion.

“That looks like one of our parkas.”

“Not quite.” Steve compared the fragment to his own sleeve. The difference in brown and green and olive pattern was notable only on close inspection. “It's U.S. Army surplus, same as we handed out to all those new police troops. And it's got C-4 trace on it.”

“Then we're talking suicide bomber?” Ian said blankly. “I thought the local Tallies stuck to dynamite and duct tape like that vest we found on the helicopter pad. No, wait—I know what this is. I saw something similar in Iraq with a suitcase. You roll out C-4 nice and thin inside the lining.”

The military grade plastic explosive was not only as malleable as Play-Doh but had unfortunately become as available on Afghanistan's black market.

“Work as much shrapnel as you can into the explosive, add a detonator, and sew the lining back in place. If it's done well, you'd never know that piece of luggage sliding through security is a ticking bomb. With the right shrapnel, it won't even set off a metal detector.”

“Which means Ms. Mallory wasn't the intended target,” Steve said flatly. “Or even this compound. It's got to be the loya jirga. Half of Afghanistan's top leadership in one room, including the owner of this compound. This thing was designed to come through security on one of those counternarcotics police.”

“So why is it here? Or are you're thinking the bomber couldn't get through, so hitting one of Khalid's properties was fallback?” Ian searched the ground. “And if we're talking suicide bomb, where are the body parts? Unless—”

Both men came to the same thought together. “Remote control detonation.”

Ian straightened to look at Steve. “You think this might be the same guy who dropped that other vest on the roof? It's hardly the same signature.”

“That means zip. If the first was a statement rather than a serious threat, it makes sense they wouldn't use the same design. They wouldn't want to give us a heads-up to be checking out every surplus Army coat coming near Khalid.”

“Any chance this wasn't the only one?”

“I'm about to find out.” Steve hit speed dial. “Meanwhile, seal off this property. No one goes in or out.”

Jamie McDuff answered on the first ring. “I was just about to call you. The loya jirga finished without a wrinkle. Everything okay on your end?”

“No, it isn't.” Swiftly, Steve explained. “Don't trouble Khalid or Ismail until their event finishes, but I want complete body checks of anyone within a hundred feet. I'm calling Hamilton now.”

By the angry shouts and running feet, Ian was carrying out his orders. The two Condor operatives at the orchard gate now had their M4s up.

“Jason? Those forensic trainees you had sweeping the MOI roof—I need a team here now. Yes, I've every reason to believe it's connected to Khalid, maybe even Waters. That's right, the whole works. I want this guy found before he tries it again.”

“Steve, why are your men sealing off the gates and keeping people inside?” Amy called out. “And the house. I need to get everyone out of this cold, and your guards won't even let me in for supplies. I had to have Phil make the guards bring me over here.” Stepping through the orchard gate, she picked through glass to the veranda. A neat bandage now showed white under her headscarf. Her eyes went wide with horror as she peered past Steve into the blackened wreckage of the storage depot.

“Sorry about that.” Steve lowered the phone. “I'll give orders to safety check enough space to get you all out of the weather. But I'm afraid this is just the beginning. You might warn your people that everyone and his dog are about to descend on this place.”

Amy shook her head dazedly. “But I thought your friend said this was just an accidental explosion triggered by the chemicals and stuff stored in there.”

“Sure, except a bomb triggered the chemicals. And since your security system is functioning properly, whoever planted that bomb either had access to this facility or was let in by someone who did.”

Steve hardened himself against a sudden stricken look in her eyes, his tone impersonal. “Which makes this property a crime scene and every person on it a suspect.”

By afternoon, it seemed to Amy all the peace and sanctuary she'd worked so hard to establish at New Hope had been blown apart in the same explosion that blasted those doors. Within the hour of Steve's horrifying announcement, the compound was swarming with armed and uniformed men. And dogs, Steve's comment having proved literal. K-9 units, Amy gathered, watching animals and handlers sniffing around the orchard quadrant. Maybe even Gorg's parents.

By then Steve had kept his word. Amy was still explaining to Becky and the others when the contractor named Ian came by to say the kitchen salon and its neighboring dormitory had passed inspection and could be put back to use. What they'd been looking for, Amy couldn't imagine. She was just grateful to get everyone back inside.

The dormitory became a sickbay, and Amy was soon even more grateful for Steve's medic friend. From somewhere, Phil requisitioned additional first aid supplies when New Hope's own scant stock ran out. With Jamil's help, he expertly tugged that dislocated shoulder into place. And between him and Becky and Jamil, they made short shrift of swabbing, stitching, and bandaging, along with doling out cough drops and sedatives with a liberal hand.

Now that Amy had seen that burned-out storage depot, she was even more grateful it hadn't been worse. That shattered glass and wood and metal could so easily have been the flesh and blood of precious small bodies.
Thank you, heavenly Father. Thank you for your mercy! Thank you for watching over these precious human beings you've entrusted to me.

All in all, it astonished Amy how quickly and matter-of-factly all the children and mothers settled back to routine with a resilience of people so accustomed to their world falling apart; a bomb blast was just one more inconvenient interruption. By the time the last patient was resting and Steve's men had vacated the inner courtyard, a warming lentil stew had been dished up. Scavenged plywood offered a temporary barricade over the broken hallway doors. And though an odor of smoke still clung to everything, air quality had improved to Kabul's usual smog.

Amy wished she could muster as much resilience. Perhaps because she'd breathed more fumes than the others, her throat and face hurt so she could hardly speak, every movement an effort as she walked Becky to the gate.

Amy's hug was fervent. “I can't thank you enough. I don't know what I'd have done if you weren't here.”

“You'd have managed. If I didn't have that TB clinic this afternoon, I'd stay. I don't like abandoning you like this.”

“Of course you have to go. And I'm hardly alone, as you can see.” Amy gestured to the swarm of CS personnel and police uniforms.

“You know what I mean. You look like you should be in bed yourself. Just be sure to take that ibuprofen as soon as you can get off your feet.”

As Becky's minivan pulled away, Amy turned back toward the house. The burned-out front entrance was still a beehive of uniforms and guns. Missing were the volunteer firemen, who'd been herded over to the other side. Rasheed had opened the guest rooms to shelter the detainees, among them that stocky loiterer from two nights ago.

I forgot to ask Rasheed if he's one of the mechanics.

No, Amy didn't even want to think about Rasheed. If he had seemed appreciative of the CS team's help in putting out the fire, he'd been infuriated at the arrival of police uniforms, even more so at the quarantine. He'd ranted and raved so furiously at the security personnel who'd taken over gate duty Amy could be glad they'd confiscated Wajid's Kalashnikov. He'd yelled even more angrily at Hamida when he caught his wife helping the women to their quarters.

Amy had tried not to think of Steve's assertion that someone on her property was responsible for placing a bomb in that storage depot. After all, why would any of her personnel risk possible injury to themselves?

Except that none of Amy's resident staff had been in the building when the bomb went off.

A coincidence, surely. And as in that earlier invasion, Amy could rule out Jamil at least. She'd seen horrified shock when he'd rushed in, witnessed the distress and compassion with which he'd tended the injured children.
I've got to change his mind about going back to medical school; he'd make such a wonderful doctor.