Raveneau’s marriage lasted nearly two decades. He still viewed its failure as his fault and some of the loneliness that came after as deserved. When it ended it took him a long time to learn to live alone. Tell him twenty years ago that living alone is where he would be at this age and he wouldn’t have believed you. Post divorce he’d had relationships with several different women, though before Celeste none lasted. He didn’t think of himself as remote or cool to the touch, or as someone with blunted emotions, and maybe it was just aging but he was fine coming home to an empty apartment at night. Now that was changing again.
He poured a glass of wine after getting in the door. He walked out in the cold air and the change from the soft warmth of Hawaii was startling. He walked out to the parapet. The city was his front yard. He called Celeste looking out at the night city.
Celeste lived with a boyfriend for nine, almost ten years. When he fell in love with someone else it had devastated her and he knew the story. She told it to him in one form or another many times after they started going out. Then she had been skittish and hopeful and angry all at once. It must have been six months before he heard her really laugh. Her laugh now was the kind that takes you along like a wave coming in.
After they made their plan for tomorrow and talked and he hung up, he made a sandwich and showered. He poured another glass before sitting to read the blog la Rosa forwarded him. La Rosa read Politico, The Daily Beast, Huffington Post, and other politically oriented websites and posts. She kept up with the local scene. What she forwarded was from Owlseye. com, a local blogger gaining a national reputation for his pipeline of inside scandal. That included the police department where several times he’d correctly predicted a shakeup or reorganization; or rather he leaked it after a tip.
In the blog she forwarded the owlseye wrote,
Sources have confirmed Federal agencies and local police are in a frantic search for alleged perpetrators of a planned bomb plot here! Yes, in San Francisco, and my secret source reveals the Feds muffed a critical play. A big shakeup may happen very shortly at the FBI San Francisco Field Office and inside SFPD. More information soon unless I become a target for ‘lone wolf’ wiretaps, as has happened to the owlseye before. When a federal law enforcement agency gets angry we are all terrorists.
Raveneau thought the tone of it was nauseating, but that didn’t matter. That it was finally leaking out didn’t surprise him. That someone piped in had contacted this blogger versus more traditional media wasn’t even unusual any more.
Very early the next morning he crossed the Bay Bridge and drove south toward SFO and took the long term parking exit. He drove up to the ramp to the upper level and to the space shown on the schematic. He marked the time then clocked the drive south from there to the 92 crossover. He clocked the whole run and tried to picture the surveillance choreography on the winding road leading to Highway 1 and the coast.
Why were Khan and his wife dead? Were the bomb plotters cleaning up behind themselves, systematically removing the links? That was all he could come up with this morning and it wasn’t much. And why did they take such a risk to recover the bomb casings? From the way Khan moved around he must have known he was under surveillance. It occurred to him Khan may not have known his employees would be killed.
Raveneau drove out to the coast before turning around. He drove back toward San Francisco still thinking it through. The plotters, even if they didn’t know about the video feed inside the cabinet shop, would have to assume that Khan loading boxes outside would be watched and followed. What if Khan had been arrested at SFO? What if he had decided to talk? What then? It could only mean that Khan couldn’t connect the dots. He only knew so much. That’s why they could go forward. It has to be that, he thought. It’s the only thing that explains their actions.
Four bombs when finished, a low tech transfer on a windy road at night and not unsophisticated, more like aware. Maybe we’re not seeing these people for what they are. He knew the Feds were here before dawn with dogs working their way up the shoulder of the road, but even now they weren’t sure when the casings were transferred. The driver was skilled, the surveillance teams bottle-necked. The driver made eight stops on the road and each time the surveillance assumed he was watching behind for them, but on one of those stops someone stepped out from the trees and unloaded the boxes before he drove on.
As he came down the offramp into San Francisco he called Coe and asked, ‘Are these plotters getting inside help from somewhere?’
‘How do you come up with that?’
‘I’m asking if there’s suspicion.’
‘There’s always suspicion, especially after a big screw-up.’
‘Is the shakeup at your field office only about losing the bomb casings or is there another element?’
‘We’re getting into territory where I can’t say much, but I’m going to put you on hold and go talk to my SAC about bringing you in. But first tell me where you’re getting this.’
‘I don’t have anything. You’re getting ahead here. I’m just trying to make sense of things. I just drove the route you sent me and I’ve been thinking it over.’
‘Hold on.’
Raveneau stayed on the line a couple of minutes then hung up. Coe had his number. Coe could call him. He did about five minutes later.
‘Raveneau, can you come here this morning? We’ve come to the same conclusion and we’d like to talk more with you. We think we’re dealing with people familiar with our methodology.’
‘Yeah, that’s what I think too.’
‘Can you come by this morning?’
‘I won’t be walking in with anything you don’t already know, but, sure, I’ll stop by.’