The Coffin Dancer by Jeffery Deaver Page A

agent-examiners and technicians. They didn’t find lEDs—improvised explosive devices, the law enforcement term for bombs—and they didn’t render them safe. Their job was to analyze bombs and bomb crime scenes and to trace and categorize the makers and their students (bomb manufacture was considered an art in certain circles and apprentices worked hard to learn the techniques of famous bomb makers).
    Sachs was poking over the bags. “Doesn’t a bomb destroy itself?”
    “Nothing’s ever completely destroyed, Sachs. Remember that.” Though as he wheeled closer and examined the bags, he admitted, “This was a bad one. See those fragments? That pile of aluminum on the left? The metal’s shattered, not bent. That means the device had a high brisance—”
    “High ... ?” Sellitto asked.
    “Brisance.” Rhyme explained: “Detonation rate. But even so, sixty to ninety percent of a bomb survives the blast. Well, not the explosive, of course. Though there’s always enough residue to type it. Oh, we’ve got plenty to work with here.”
    “Plenty?” Dellray snorted a laugh. “Bad as puttin’ Humpty-Dumpty together again.”
    “Ah, but that’s not our job, Fred,” Rhyme said briskly. “All we need to do is catch the son of a bitch who pushed him off the wall.” He wheeled farther down the table. “What’s it look like, Mel? I see battery, I see wire, I see timer. What else? Maybe bits of the container or packing?”
    Suitcases have convicted more bombers than timers and detonators. It’s not talked about but unclaimed baggage is often donated to the FBI by airlines and blown up in an attempt to duplicate explosions and provide standards for criminalists. In the Pan Am flight 103 bombing, the FBI identified the bombers not through the explosive itself but through the Toshiba radio it had been hidden in, the Samsonite suitcase containing the radio, and the clothes packed around it. The clothing in the suitcase was traced back to a store in Sliema, Malta, whose owner identified a Libyan intelligence agent as the person who’d bought the garments.
    But Cooper shook his head. “Nothing near the seat of detonation except bomb components.”
    “So it wasn’t in a suitcase or flight bag,” Rhyme mused. “Interesting. How the hell did he get it on board? Where’d he plant it? Lon, read me the report from Chicago.”
    “ ‘Difficult to determine exact blast location,’ ” Sellitto read, “ ‘because of extensive fire and destruction of aircraft. Site of device seems to be underneath and behind the cockpit.’ ”
    “Underneath and behind. I wonder if a cargo bay’s there. Maybe ...” Rhyme fell silent. His head swiveled back and forth, gazing at the evidence bags. “Wait, wait!” he shouted. “Mel, let me see those bits of metal there. Third bag from the left. The aluminum. Put it under a ’scope.”
    Cooper had connected the video output of his compound microscope to Rhyme’s computer. What Cooper saw, Rhyme could see. The tech began mounting samples of the minuscule bits of debris on slides and running them under the ’scope.
    A moment later Rhyme ordered, “Cursor down. Double click.”
    The image on his computer screen magnified.
    “There, look! The skin of the plane was blown inward.”
    “Inward?” Sachs asked. “You mean the bomb was on the outside?”
    “I think so, yes. What about it, Mel?”
    “You’re right. Those polished rivet heads are all bent inward. It was outside, definitely.”
    “A rocket maybe?” Dellray asked. “SAM?”
    Reading from the report Sellitto said, “No radar blips consistent with missiles.”
    Rhyme shook his head. “No, everything points to a bomb.”
    “But on the outside?” Sellitto asked. “Never heard of that before.”
    “That explains this,” Cooper called. The tech, wearing magnifying goggles and armed with a ceramic probe, was looking over bits of metal as fast as a cowboy counts heads in a herd. “Fragments of ferrous metal. Magnets.