The captain who oversaw the bomb squad told Hagen, ‘No way, it’s not going to happen.’ Raveneau was close enough to overhear. He refused to send Juan Garcia, the ex-Army technician alone.
Raveneau mouthed, ‘Let me talk to him,’ and Hagen stared hard at him before saying, ‘I’m going to put Inspector Raveneau on the line.’
When Raveneau brought the phone to his ear Captain Dixon asked, ‘Raveneau, are you ever going to fucking retire?’
‘I’m waiting you out. You go, and then I’ll go.’
‘What would I do every day?’
‘You’d do the same thing you do now, you’d sit around.’
Dixon laughed. Raveneau didn’t know him well but they liked each other.
‘Here’s the problem we’ve got,’ Raveneau said. ‘We’ve discovered what look like bomb casings and we don’t want to alert the owner yet. We need to keep this very quiet. We need a discreet look at them.’
‘Are you staying well away from them?’
‘We are.’
‘You need to get everyone out of the building. What’s the address again?’
Raveneau gave it to him and kept talking.
‘We can’t risk our suspect finding out we’ve discovered this.’
‘We have a very clear protocol, Ben, and I think everyone in the department knows it, you included.’
‘I understand, but we can’t risk the word getting out. If you can’t send him and give us a look and an opinion, we’ll go at it a different way.’
‘No, don’t call the Feds, we’ll get down there. Don’t touch anything and we’ll come in as quietly as we can.’
‘It’s plywood that’s been moved around with a forklift. It rode here on a lumber delivery truck. It can’t be that sensitive. Look, I’ll email you a photo of what we’ve got. I’ll do that right now.’
Ten minutes later Dixon called back, saying he was sending Garcia, the Hurt Locker guy.
While they waited Raveneau made a call to a friend who worked for a company called Shelter Products up in Portland. He figured if there was anyone who could trace where the plywood came from it was Ridge Taylor. He got through to Taylor and after the hellos said, ‘I can’t tell you why but I need to know. I’ve got an order and a delivery tag number. We can fax to you and I can tell you what’s stamped on the wood.’
No one told a joke better than Taylor, but he was quiet and serious as Raveneau went back and forth with him. Shelter Products sold point-to-point. They sold lumber as it was still rolling on a train. They sold into any number of states and after they were clear on the forty-two pieces of finish grade larch he asked Taylor about Branson Trucking, thinking they might know who to call if they didn’t know anything directly.
‘Why don’t I put you through to Hutton and let him tell you. Your plywood came out of a plant in British Columbia. Here’s the address and phone number.’
Taylor gave him that and a website, then put him through to Kurt Hutton. Hutton asked, ‘Are you building a wooden jail?’
‘No, and I can’t talk but I need to know anything you can tell me about Branson.’
‘I can tell you they appeared out of nowhere about four years ago with lower prices than anybody. The CEO, if you want to call him that, was somebody we did business with and he ran into hard times and went under. I don’t know when he connected with the investor money behind Branson. He’s not really the type to go out and find money like that, but obviously he did.’
‘If they’re less expensive why don’t you use them?’
‘They did do some hauling for us, but they couldn’t possibly have made money at the prices they charged us and it was hurting others we work with. They’ve got a good idea with their website though. On the website is a truck and you click and drag and as you load the truck it gives you the weight and you punch in the destination and it gives the hauling price.’
‘I’ve been to it.’
‘With their prices they had to be cutting corners other ways, so we backed away.’
He thanked Hutton as Hurt Locker showed up. He was probably no more than twenty-five but with a quiet walk and manner that made Raveneau remember his son. He watched how Garcia approached the casings and studied them. Ten minutes later he straightened, turned, and looked at them.
‘You’ve got yourself some pretty slick IED casings, except that they don’t look very much like improvised explosive devices. You’ve got four Cadillacs, depending on who puts them together from here. Anyone of these would make one hell of a bomb. See how the nose is shaped, directs the blast.’
He fixed on Raveneau.
‘These are some seriously bad dudes and they aren’t one-off deals. They’re producing them. This is one scary thought.’
‘What would one of these do to a cable car?’
‘Oh, I think you’d be looking for pieces and parts four blocks away.’ He paused. ‘You want to find the bomb maker like right now, pronto.’