Free Hell's Corner by David Baldacci Page B

face was inscrutable at this comment. The FBI had clearly not been privy to the unedited video. Stone filed that one away for now. “Source of the gunfire?” he asked.
    Gross pointed to the northern end of the park. “Rooftop garden of the Hay-Adams Hotel. We found lots of shell casings. TEC-9 rounds.”
    “Interesting choice of weapon,” said Stone.
    “Why?” asked Gross.
    “Limited range. About twenty-five useful meters. Which is shorter than the height they were firing down from. And it’s hard to hit anything with a TEC-9 that’s not standing right in front of you.”
    “Well, they didn’t hit anything.”
    “But you found no guns?” Stone asked.
    Gross shook his head.
    “How was that possible?” asked Chapman. “Do people just walk around in the States carrying machine guns? I thought the British press was making that up.”
    “Not sure yet. And no, people do not walk around here carrying machine guns,” Gross added indignantly. “The hotel folks arecooperating fully. The garden is popular but not incredibly secure. Of course we shut the hotel down until the investigation is over. We kept all the guests on premises and are interviewing them right now.”
    Stone asked, “Were the guns set up remotely or were human fingers pulling the triggers?”
    “If they were operated remotely all traces were removed. For now I think we have to assume human involvement.”
    “You said you locked the hotel down?” Stone said.
    “Yes, but there was a time gap,” Gross conceded.
    “How long?”
    “It was pretty much chaos down here for a couple hours. When the source of the gunfire was confirmed, that was when the lockdown was set up.”
    “So, easily enough time for the gunners to slip out, taking their hardware with them?”
    “Multiple machine guns wouldn’t be exactly inconspicuous,” Gross pointed out.
    Stone shook his head. “If you know what you’re doing you can break down a TEC-9 very quickly and fit it inside a briefcase.”
    “We shut things down as fast as we could. But it is what it is.”
    “Hopefully, someone at the hotel will remember seeing people leaving, perhaps with a bulky case?” noted Chapman.
    Gross didn’t look too confident. “An event they had there was just letting out. Lots of people with briefcases leaving about that time, apparently.”
    “That wasn’t a coincidence,” said Stone. “That was good prep work.”
    A guy in a hazmat suit walked over to them. He tugged off his head covering. He was introduced as an agent from the ATF, Stephen Garchik.
    Gross said, “Good to go?”
    Garchik nodded and grinned. “Nothing that’ll kill you.”
    Stone looked at the tent markers. They were divided between orange and white. The orange were far more numerous and were spread out relatively evenly around the park. The white markers were almost all on the western side of the park.
    “Orange is bomb debris and white are locations of found slugs?” Stone ventured.
    Garchik nodded approvingly. “Yep, obviously there were far more bomb bits than bullets, emanating from the blast seat.”
    “What kind of explosive device was it, Agent Garchik?” Stone asked.
    “Just make it Steve. Too early to tell. But by the size of the debris field and damage to that statue, it was some powerful stuff.”
    “C-4, or Semtex maybe?” asked Chapman. “They can both do serious damage in relatively small footprints.”
    Garchik said, “Well, this is a lot of damage for a stick of TNT or even a pound of Semtex. Maybe it was a cocktail of components. Maybe HMX or CL-20. That stuff is scary powerful. They’re all in the family of most potent non-nuclear high explosives. But it most likely wasn’t military ordnance.”
    “How do you know that?” asked Stone.
    Chapman answered. “White smoke on the video. Military grade is oil-based, leaving a black smoke trail. White is usually commercial.”
    The ATF agent smiled appreciatively. “You know your stuff. We’re bagging and tagging now.