Much of the inside of the bus was charred. Most of the officers, the sheriff’s tactical squad as well as the agents from the FBI’s violent crimes task force, had only seen training photographs and films of buses that had been hammered by terrorists in the Middle East.
None of them had ever seen anything like this on American soil. And while they had trained for it, the presumed targets were always soft, inner-city commuter buses and trains, not a locked-down sheriff’s transport bus. In a way this was worse. Once the door had been blown, none of the passengers on board had a chance of escape. They were chained to their seats.
A line of ambulances long enough that no one bothered to count them lined up under the freeway overpass, waiting their turn as paramedics and police worked through the bodies on the bus.
The bomb squad gingerly checked the box truck for explosives. Two of the FBI agents had already been badly injured in the blast from the getaway van, and authorities were taking no more chances. The box truck had to be cleared before moving it so that ambulances could pull up on the ramp.
“I don’t, sir.” One of the FBI agents was on the phone with Thorpe, in Washington. “They’re on the bus looking for both of them now. I know. I know. There’s nothing the hostage rescue team could have done, believe me. They made no contact with any authorities, no evidence of any interest in negotiating anything. When the sheriff’s department tried to communicate with them through the speaker on one of the squad cars up at the top of the ramp, the assailants just opened on them. The minute they blew the door off the bus, they just entered and started shooting people. We had no choice, we had to move in.
“No, from what we can see, there were eight of them. All dead, yes, sir, unfortunately. It’s hard to tell. We went through the pockets of the two we killed outside the bus on the ramp. They were carrying nothing. No identification. They were wearing jeans and street clothes. They could have bought them anywhere. But it’s pretty clear they’re not Islamic. The two outside had gang graffiti tattooed on their bodies. Somebody from the sheriff’s gang unit is trying to decipher it now. I have a feeling we’re going to find out they’re not local, probably from over the border.
“The weapons, yes, sir, Chinese made, AKs, all original military actions, fully automatic. The explosives we don’t know yet. We think most of them went up in the van explosion, but we should be able to get residue, trace compounds and markers that should tell us where they originated. I’d say it’s pretty clear that it’s not ideological. It’s either drug related or they were after your woman on the bus.”
“Get them out of here.” A big, beefy sergeant from the jail unit at Las Colinas had taken charge on board the bus. He was the same one who had slipped the small Walther pistol to Carla two days earlier.
“Crime scene is gonna want them left where they lay.”
“I don’t give a shit.” The sergeant turned on the officer, still decked out in SWAT gear. He had lost two friends, Jed the driver and the guard, and he was in no mood to debate the issue. “We’ve got wounded people here and I want this aisle clear. Get some officers to drag those bodies out of here.” He gestured toward the dead button boys piled up in the aisle.
“See that they lay ’em outside far enough away so they don’t block access to the ambulances. Crime scene can process them there. And tell them to hurry up and get that truck out of there.”
“They just cleared it for explosives. They’re looking for the keys.”
“Let’s hope they didn’t go up with the van,” said the sergeant. “Check their pockets before you take them out of here. The truck keys may be there. Here.” The sergeant handed a different set of keys to one of the agents on the FBI assault team. He had found them outside on the ground, near the body of the guard.
The agents and officers were busy trying to get the ankle bracelets off the wounded and remove the waist chains so they could be separated from the dead as paramedics checked the victims and conducted triage. The officers already knew that most of the women up front were dead. Those who hadn’t been shot were killed in the blast when the last satchel charge was tossed inside. It had blown a hole in the roof of the bus and ripped out four of the bench seats, bending them sideways, so that they now rested against the bulging walls of the bus.
“What do you want to do with this?” One of the agents was holding the small Walther pistol.
“Here, give it to me.” The sergeant took it, dropped it on the floor, and kicked it under the body of one of the dead button boys. It was clear that one of the women had managed to get the gun away from them. What wasn’t clear was how many of them she shot or from what angle or distance. The medical examiner and the forensics team would have to figure that one out, and having moved the bodies, it would be anybody’s guess.
The agent worked with the keys, found the one that worked, turned it, and the manacle on her ankle popped open.
“It should be the same key on her waist,” said the sergeant.
Two seconds later the agent had it unlocked. “I know her last name, what’s her first name?” the agent asked the sergeant.
“Katia. Katia Solaz.”
“Katia, listen to me. We have to take you off the bus now. Is she okay to move?” asked the agent.
Katia could see his lips move, but she couldn’t hear a word, or any sound for that matter, just a constant ringing in her ears.
One of the paramedics glanced over. “There’s a shallow flesh wound, right thigh. I bandaged it. It doesn’t look serious. She’s got some concussive injury from the overpressure of the blast. May have blown her eardrums, I’m not sure. They’ll have to check her at emergency. Make sure they don’t give her any depressants in the meantime. But she should be okay to move, if you can get her outside and on a gurney.”
“Katia, listen, you have to come with us now. Please.” The agent took her hands and tried to pry her arms open.
Katia started to struggle. She tried to fight him off. She wasn’t going to let go, no matter what they did. Who were they? If they were here to help, why had they waited so long? Why didn’t they come sooner? She buried her head next to Daniela’s and clung to her for life, praying that her friend would wake up, that she would stir, open her eyes and offer the reassurance she had given Katia since the moment they’d met-that everything would be okay.
The agent gave up trying to pry her hands from the dead woman. Katia stopped struggling. She looked at them with an expression of fierce determination. Then, with her fingertips, she brushed a few of the bloody and matted hairs from Daniela’s face and hugged her, rocking back and forth on the floor between the seats as if in a trance. The last thing Katia remembered was the image of Daniela as she pushed her down and threw herself on top of her an instant before the brilliant white flash engulfed them both. She remembered the French braid of Daniela’s shimmering black hair suspended straight out in the flare of superheated air, and then nothing.
She watched as the men talked to one aother, but she heard nothing. Two of them nodded. And then the one who had been kneeling down, seeming to talk to her, instead knelt down and leaned in. He worked with a set of keys until he found the one that worked to unlock Daniela’s ankle shackle. He removed the manacle from her leg and the chain from her waist. Before Katia realized what was happening he’d lifted Daniela into his arms and suddenly she was gone, being carried down the aisle of the bus, toward the door.
Katia struggled to get to her feet, but her leg hurt. It seemed that it would no longer support her. One of the other men leaned down, put his arm under her shoulder and whisked her up into his arms. They followed Daniela down the aisle and off the bus. It seemed so long, a lifetime since the two of them had climbed on the bus at the jail and talked about the honor farm, Katia’s family, and her mother being in Colombia. She knew that Daniela had not told her the truth about who she was or what she wanted. But to Katia it no longer mattered. They had been through so much together that nothing, not even death, could now break the bond she felt.