Razing Beijing: A Thriller (71 page)

Lee craned his neck to look up. High overhead in the
darkness, the unbalanced forces created by the ruptured main catenary cables
had been so massive as to twist the top of the structural steel tower into a
permanent angle. But Lee’s interest was near the massive tower’s base. Nestled
against it and illuminated by floodlights, all manner of remnants from the
collapse had been dragged there by the whip-lashing catenaries. Forming a
two-story mound of tortured scrap were thick plates of gray metal crumpled and
bent beyond recognition amidst thick slabs of asphalt, twisted girders, and a
tangled mass of iron railing. Buried within this debris was one severed end of
a main catenary cable. It was already generally accepted that the north-side
catenary pair had ruptured near the bridge’s mid-span, initiating the collapse.
The cables were the real reason why Lee had bothered to come to the scene.

The first of these was about to be exposed. A burly figure
standing midway up the agonized mound of steel, the words NJ TRANSIT AUTHORITY stenciled
onto the back of his orange denim coveralls, set aside an oxy-acetylene torch
in order to wrestle a pry bar. The man wore an air filtration mask beneath his
construction helmet; his heavy gloves were coated with a layer of
chemical-resistant plastic. Occasionally he kicked with steel-toed boots, or
heaved his weight up and down on shards of metal, in order to clear a path to
the prize, the proverbial smoking gun. Lee studied the man’s motions; the
deliberate pressure of his shoulder against the bar, knees bent, neck muscles
taut, and wondered why the job was taking so long.

The FBI executive reminded himself he could afford to be
patient. To return to the airport with the evidence, he would need to either
commandeer one of the vans dispatched from Newark with the laboratory gear, or
preferably, his special assistant would arrive with the pick-up. Neither
vehicle had arrived, and even when one of them did, sequencing it ahead of
ambulance crews onto the remains of the bridge could be problematic.

TRANSIT AUTHORITY stopped wrenching a twisted piece of
rusted sheet metal in order to shine a light in at his work. He turned and gave
the men below a thumbs-up.

The man’s supervisor standing to Lee’s left turned to face
him. “You can go up and take a look now,” he told Lee in a thick Brooklyn
accent. “Be careful to test your footing as you go. There’s a lot of loose
debris.”

Lee pulled on a pair of gloves. “I just hope your man didn’t
contaminate anything.”

He waited for the worker with the pry bar to climb down and
hand over his flashlight. The senior FBI agent then climbed gingerly up the
tower of twisted metal, stopping once to free his pant leg from a stiff shard
of electrical cable. He soon steadied himself at the entrance to the shallow
cavern that had been cleared away. He was at first concerned by the liberal
quantity of soot from the fire, then decided that could work to his advantage. He
pulled aside a plastic pipe and shined his flashlight in past a gray section of
girder. Buried amidst a tangle of scrap was the exposed end of the severed main
catenary.

Lee’s concern was that the NJTA worker, having seen the
condition of the cable, might circulate comments about it. Of lesser importance
were the remaining three ends of ‘severed’ catenary, which he knew in fact had precipitated
the collapse. At least two of these were reportedly submerged beneath the river
surface and accumulating investigative irrelevance with each corrosive minute. In
any event, whatever controversy their examination might contribute to the
investigation would arrive too late.

Lee understood his mission with a clarity he had not
expected. There could be little doubt that the object before him was in fact the
three-foot diameter steel catenary cable. Actually a composite assembly, the
cable’s smooth cylindrical exterior encased thousands of small wires. The
severed ends of each, like the exposed wall of the cylinder encasing them, were
cut sufficiently straight and clean to reflect the light of his flashlight. The
effect was reminiscent of a dismembered hand he had once stumbled upon at the
scene of a railway accident, its veins and arteries and tendons severed at the
wrist with grotesque precision. Lee frowned. Whatever had caused that cable to
break was clearly no explosive with which he was familiar. His instructions had
indicated that he should expect these various curiosities, indeed, to prepare
for them. Most importantly, he had to keep others from seeing them.

What Lee did next was for the benefit of the men watching
below. He reached into his coat pocket and removed a small plastic bag
containing several cotton swabs. He removed one swab and wiped the cotton
around the circumference of the cable assembly, carefully extracting any
residue from the hypothetical explosive agent used to sever the cable and
topple the bridge. He then returned the swab of cotton to the plastic bag. Lee
was careful to place the bag of swabs back into the same coat pocket. The forensic
scientists would soon arrive with their mobile lab equipment, including a
high-resonance magnetic chromatometer that they would use for preliminary
analysis of the residue. Lee would be sure to provide them with the bag tucked
in his pants pocket, its cotton swabs already contaminated with residue
yesterday.

Finally, Lee produced his Fujinon digital camera. He spent
the next few minutes maneuvering into position and snapping frames from various
angles to the critical evidence. Those below observing the stroboscopic flashes
would not suspect that subsequent to each, Lee pressed the button to delete it.

“Any idea what did it?” the NJTA supervisor inquired a few
minutes later.

Lee peeled off his neoprene gloves as he debated how best
to answer the question. Should he hint at something obscure, but ultimately
misleading? He looked into the eyes of the burly man standing beside his boss,
anxiously awaiting Lee’s informed opinion, his face smudged with grease and
soot—the only other witness to the peculiar condition of the cable.

“I’m not free to comment. For that matter, I’m going to
require that only he be allowed back up there,” he said, referring to the
supervisor’s subordinate.

“No way. He’ll need help removing a piece of that thing.”

The FBI executive glanced at the Partner, a powerful
industrial circular saw to which another coverall-clad worker was bolting a
replacement for the eighteen-inch diameter carbide disc. “Two guys, then—but
send him up there to cover it first.”

“You don’t want a forensic photog—”

“What I want is the end capped off in a plastic bag before
you take the saw to it. Preferably Tyvek but Glad trash bags cut to fit will
do. And be sure to tape it off.” Lee glanced at the name stenciled over the
supervisor’s breast pocket. “I cannot stress enough the importance of
preventing contamination, Mr. Brooks. Is that understood?”

“Loud and clear.”

“Good. Now, can you point me—”

“Toward our hero? He’s been waiting for you right over
there,” said Brooks with a jab of his thumb toward the south side of the
bridge.

Lee started to leave, then turned back toward Brooks. “By
the way, how long a section do you plan to remove?”

Brooks shrugged. “A foot or so.”

“A foot or so. Do you know how much that’s going to weigh? Keep
it to three or four inches or we won’t be able to budge it.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Wait a minute.” TRANSIT AUTHORITY stepped forward holding
a roll of duct tape and a folded sheet of black Tyvek plastic. “I want to make
sure you guys understand somethin’. The saw makes a 9 inch-deep cut—only gets
me halfway through. You sound as if you expect me to slice off a 36 inch
diameter piece of bologna here.”

Supervisor Brooks rubbed the back of his neck. “That’s a
point.”

“Get a bigger saw,” Lee suggested.

“That’s the K-18.” Brooks shook his head. “They don’t come
any bigger than that.”

Lee looked at TRANSIT AUTHORITY. “What were you planning to
do?”

“I was thinking I could run the saw over the face and slab
off maybe four big pieces, you know.” The man portrayed this by running the
edge of his hand like a knife across a clenched fist. “Then back maybe six
inches cut—”

“No, no—you
cannot
contact the fracture surface with
any sort of tool. I thought I made that clear. You’ve got to come up with some
other way.”

Supervisor Brooks spent five head-shaking minutes off
caucusing with his men. Afterward, TRANSIT AUTHORITY put forth their proposal
to the FBI man while his supervisor, arms folded, listened nearby. “You don’t
care what we do two feet back from the end, so long as I give you your clean
four inches, that right?”

“I don’t care if you get down on all fours and chew it the
fuck off.”

TRANSIT AUTHORITY nodded. “Chewed is about what you’re
going to get. Okay. I’m going to start in a couple feet, slab with the saw, cut
with the torch, working toward the end until I sever through the thing. Now,
we’re worried about wires fallin’ out. I can try to dabber weld ’em together as
I go, but no guarantees.”

That specific concern had already been allayed within Lee’s
instructions. He shook his head. “That’s a virtual shrink-fit inside the
cylinder. Ever heard of Poisson’s ratio?”

The middle age mechanic-at-large rubbed his nose.

“Never mind. Don’t let loose wires slow you down because
there aren’t going to be any. And don’t hand over something weighing
two-thousand pounds.”

“You’ll get what you need, but it ain’t going to be
pretty.”

“Sounds beautiful to me. Just treat those last few inches
like your pension depended upon them.”

TRANSIT AUTHORITY blinked. “It might take a few hours.”

Lee examined his watch. “You’ve got two.”

Over the supervisor’s vigorous objections, Lee accompanied TRANSIT
AUTHORITY back up the scrap heap to assist with taping Tyvek over the exposed
end of the cable. For good measure, Lee insisted that they also drape the final
product in heavy canvas before attempting to lower it to the roadbed. Satisfied
he and the laborer were of like minds on technique, Lee descended in order to
make way for the man’s assistant.

Lee finally turned his back to the stream of sparks
spraying overhead and headed for the southern face of the bridge. Side-stepping
bottomless potholes and asking directions from an ATF agent, Lee found the
witness sitting alone on a handrail with a blanket draped over his shoulders.

Lee presented his FBI identification. “I’m sorry you had to
wait.”

The man gazed back at him resignedly and slowly extended
his hand. “Joe Ciccone, New York PD.”

Lee took in the bloodstained gauze wrapped around the man’s
knee. One of the local field agents had already briefed him on what the police
officer had lived through. “You’re injured. Why are you still here?”

“This official, or you just here to wish me well?” Ciccone
quickly waved the words away. “Forget I said that. I’m not hurt near as bad as
most of these folks. I know why you’re here. I’m happy to help.”

Lee noted the man’s irritation. “I understand you responded
to a disabled vehicle here on the bridge last evening. Can you describe the men
you saw?”

Ciccone looked away. He seemed to be struggling with some
sort of torment. “I think both men were Iranian, professionally attired
middle-class types. We ran the plates, looked pretty clean, no prior arrests. One
mentioned he was here on a grad student visa. I’m sure it’s all on file.”

“I know it’s getting late, but would you mind sitting with
one of our artists?”

Ciccone nodded forlornly and reminded Lee that they could
also try the bridge surveillance and squad car videos. He looked Lee in the
eye. “I need to make something perfectly clear. There was absolutely no cause
to suspect anything other than what I reported, two guys changing a flat. I’m
sure you can appreciate my taking the time to reflect on this.”

“Of course.”

“The only suspicious thing about it is, in hindsight, where
on the bridge it was they happened to stop. There was nothing in the trunk but
a spare and a jack. A briefcase or two...” Ciccone shrugged.

“But there could have been something in the trunk before
you arrived. Did you see inside the briefcases?”

“I had no probable cause to open them.”

Lee considered the man’s overall persona. Perfect, he
thought. Comes across credibly, acted courageously under duress, putting his
own life at risk while saving others—the press will latch onto everything he
says. “I’d recommend you and the department withhold from making public comment
for the time being.”

“I got no problem with that. I can’t speak for the brass.”

“You seem certain they were Iranian.”

“Well...yeah. They exchanged a few words in
Farsi
.” The
police officer noticed him frowning. “My brother-in-law spent a few years in
Tehran,” Ciccone explained.

“Ah.”

WITH THE AID
of a
block-and-tackle attached high up the side of the tower structure, Lee watched
beneath the glare of floodlights as the two NJTA men maneuvered the irregular
slab of cable down toward the roadbed. True to his word, TRANSIT AUTHORITY had
delivered something that more resembled a log freed by the teeth of a beaver
than a high-tension structural member. And it
was
exceedingly heavy and
awkward to handle, a contingency for which the rented pick-up truck waiting
below was equipped with a hydraulic crane.

Aloof from the contingent of emergency personnel, a man
with his hands in the pockets of a hooded FBI parka rested his foot on the
bumper of the pick-up. Lee caught the man’s attention. The hooded figure joined
him and the others in order to help.