Page 11 of Flash and Bang

“Do I know you?” he asked.

“I’m not certain, Captain.” Jarrett replied with clipped tones denoting the man’s status as a superior officer. “Semper Fi.”

Thayne felt a shiver of honest to God admiration course through him as he watched his partner’s usually relaxed composure as he came to attention. His very tall frame suddenly seemed even taller as he stood straight. He relaxed only when Carrillo nodded.

“Semper Fi, Evans. I take it I may have run into you around here on base at some time in the past. You’re not still active duty?”

“No, sir,” Jarrett replied. “My service was up two years ago but in answer to your question, yes. I have been here once before. I don’t remember you, sir, but then again I was only here long enough to jump a transport headed overseas.”

“Headed to where?”

Thayne watched Jarrett meet the man’sinquiry head on with a tiny shake of his head. His expression looked regretful. “I’m sorry, sir, that’s still classified,” Jarrett replied, gracefully.

Alfredo Carrillo nodded, looking Jarrett over even harder. “Yes, now I know, Evans. You were a sniper and from what I hear, a damned good one.”

Thayne watched Jarrett closely.

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

“No need for all that formality, Special Agent. You’re retired from the Corps now and Ada tells me that you men need to be shown around the scene of the incident. If you’ll both follow me outside, I’ll take you out to the parade grounds where we’ve preserved everything for you.”

“Thank you, Captain. Investigator Carrillo tells us there is some evidence pointing to the incident being a crime and not just an accident,” Thayne said as they walked.

“Yes, well, my Ada is very thorough,” Carrillo said, sparing no words. “We didn’t suspect sabotage at first either but then my wife pointed out certain things.”

“We’ll get to those but tell me why you didn’t suspect sabotage,” Thayne said.

“Honestly, we were skeptical that a criminalcould have gotten onto the base to sabotage the fireworks display and we thought it must have been a horrible accident. But I suppose that’s why you folks are here.”

“Yes, sir.” Jarrett sounded as skeptical as Thayne was.

They walked out into the warm summer air and Captain Carrillo directed them over to a golf cart. “This will save us time,” he said. They all climbed in and took the golf cart out to the parade grounds. Thayne looked around noting the various structures on the base as he rode in the backseat with Jarrett. In the distance the loud whoop whoop of a helicopter could be heard coming closer. Thayne put a hand up to shield his eyes from the sun as he looked up to see a massive black helicopter approaching. It was one of the largest helicopters Thayne had ever seen and as it got closer, the sound of it was almost deafening. He leaned over to Jarrett and shouted over the noise of the rotors.

“What is that?” Thayne asked.

Jarrett gave him a smirk as he leaned forward. “It’s a helicopter.”

Thayne rolled his eyes. “Don’t be an ass. What kind?”

Jarrett’s chuckle was drowned out but he was grinning, showing off those dimples Thayne loved. He leaned toward Thayne again. “That’s a Sikorsky UH-60 but you’ve probably heard it called a Black Hawk,” he said loud enough to be heard over the helicopter rotors. “Used ‘em a lot in Iraq and Afghanistan most recently but they’ve been around more’n twenty-five years. Been used in every major conflict goin’ back to the early 80s. They’re a damned fine work horse and real reliable in the field.”

Captain Carrillo drove them away from the area where the huge helicopter was landing but Thayne kept his eyes on it as it slowly lowered itself to the tarmac, kicking dust and dirt up into the air from its massive whirring blades. He marveled at how heavy the thing must be and the technology it must take to keep something like that in the air. He’d always been fascinated with all things mechanical. It’s one of the reasons he’d been so excited to see all the weaponry Jarrett’s friend, Tate Heston, had given him when Roberto Virgil Romero had been chasing them. Unfortunately, the weapons hadn’t exactly been legal and they’d been confiscated when he and Jarrett had been airlifted to the hospital with bullet holes in them.

They drove up to an area cordoned off with yellow caution tape and Thayne spotted the remainsof a very large fire among a pile of ashes and what remained of the firework detonation. Thayne had read the report on the incident while Jarrett had driven them over this morning, though seeing it was much better than reading through the report Stanger had given them. The thin file said that sometime shortly before the firework show was to begin, the display had exploded. That must have been when the lead, Gregory Mason, had been gravely injured along with several spectators. Looking over the scorched earth which must have been thirty feet in diameter and the circle of debris that more than quadrupled that size, the explosion must have been massive. Several sets of bleachers were set up about 800-900 feet away and Thayne wondered how anyone in the public could have been injured sitting at that distance. They stopped and got out of the golf cart and Carrillo led them over to just outside the roped off area.

“As you can see, it was a massive explosion,” Ada said.

Thayne glanced at Jarrett who was staring at the pile of debris and then over to Ada. “Do you know how all of this works, Ada?” Thayne asked. “I get the general idea but I haven’t been involved in a fireworks investigation since my training at the academy almost nine years ago.” He glanced atJarrett who just shrugged.

“Don’t look at me. I’m new to all this. Learning it in training is a lot different than seeing it in person,” Jarrett added.

Ada smiled. “I’ll do my best to explain what I’ve learned. This very large rectangular board with the remains of what looks like tubes in the center of the scorched area, is called a launching system. In very large fireworks displays like this one, that board will have launch tubes attached, as you can see the remains, here.” She pointed to several scorched tubes that had been blown apart. “Those tubes should be pointed straight up into the air so that they don’t get launched out toward a crowd. The launch tubes are where ball or cylinder shells are placed as part of the setup. Then those individual tubes in the launching system are hooked up to an ignition board with wires leading to an ignitor or what industry professionals called an electronic match. The e-match is then attached to a firing panel, sometimes called a pinboard.” Ada spoke with great knowledge and talked with her hands, making it seem easy for a layman to understand as she pointed at the remains of what she described. Everything had been blown to hell as one would expect in a massive explosion. “As you can see, there are the remains of some launch tubes that are slanted, almost pointed toward thebleachers.”

“So, they were aimed at the crowd rather than bein’ aimed straight up in the air?” Jarrett asked, sounding incredulous.

“Well, yes. But it remains to be seen whether they toppled sideways during the explosion or whether they were intentionally set up that way. It would be very hard to go unnoticed by someone doing setup,” Ada said.

“So this lead person, Mason…, he couldn’t set it up that way and have it go unnoticed by the other members of the crew?” Jarrett asked.

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