technology had all aspects of unit 3, as the row was called, under surveillance.
Boldt never experienced a moment of feeling tired. To the contrary, he had to slow himself down on several different occasions, simply to be understood. The nearly one hundred participants engaged in Operation Inferno were his orchestra; Lou Boldt was the conductor. Neil Bahan and Sidney Fidler were his first chairs, for only Bahan and Fidler understood both the fire and the police sides of the planned incident. Shoswitz, Bahan, Fidler, two Marshal Fives, an ATF man named Byrant, and three FBI special agents, along with two dispatchers, worked out of the conference room in the Seattle Field Office of the FBI, whose communications capabilities dwarfed any resources owned or operated by the city. Dozens of radios and cellular phones were all tied into a central dispatch, coordinated by the team assembled there.
The Santori house was under full surveillance. A part of ERT was in position to move on Garman if the ruse failed. With that considered a last resort, the emphasis of the police side of the operation was on field coverage. By 6 A.M., there were police officers and federal agents in place posing as telephone linemen, street people, construction workers, garbage collectors, electric company meter readers, a variety of delivery men, and assorted other occupations. Every major intersection between Airport Way and the Santori house had some degree of representation by armed law enforcement. It was a virtual gauntlet-with Jonny Garman its sole target.
At 8 A.M. the U-Stor-It office was opened by an FBI special agent, who took his place behind the desk inside and went about his work as if it had been part of his daily routine for years. At 8:12 A.M., the first report of activity at storage unit 311 was verified by three separate scouts and delivered to Boldt over a radio earpiece. At 8:15 A.M. a light rain began to fall. Lou Boldt felt it a bad omen.
To have driven Airport Way on that morning would have seemed no different than any other, except for a few detours that required different routes. But in Seattle, as in any major city, construction was a daily part of urban life and traffic accidents were a regular part of morning delays. Heading north into the city was not discernibly different from any other day: hurry up and wait.
A white pickup truck bearing Nevada plates pulled out of unit 311 and stopped. A man with a disfigured face, wearing a sweatshirt hood drawn tightly around his head and a pair of sunglasses, was seen climbing out of the truck and returning to shut and lock the unit’s door. For approximately fifteen seconds, Jonny Garman was nearby but out of his truck. This possibility-which some viewed as an opportunity-had been discussed in great depth among various factions of the operation’s coordinators. In the end it was decided that he would be too close to both his lab and his truck to attempt any kind of pick at that location. A suggestion had been made to use a sharpshooter on Garman, but with the boy’s life at stake it had been quickly dismissed. The suspect climbed back behind the wheel of his truck and drove out through the facility’s automatic gate, joining the slow-moving traffic, hindered by detours more than a mile ahead.
“This is Birdman,” reported a voice in Boldt’s ear. The helicopter was owned by KING radio and used for traffic reports. On that day, it was being used for surveillance. “Looking down through the windshield, I’m not showing a hostage. Contents in the back of the truck don’t look as promising. There appear to be two fifty-five- gallon drums, a variety of boxes, and assorted other items. No tarp in place.”
At the Santori house, Marianne Martinelli prepared to make herself seen leaving the home, if it came to that.
At the abandoned machine shop, three ladder trucks and two pumpers stood by, lights flashing, hoses ready. Inside, last-minute preparations were made as the incendiary charges and detonator wire were checked and double-checked.
Dressed in coveralls, Lou Boldt threw a pickax into a dirt hole in a vacant lot across from the machine shop. The three men around him, including Detective John LaMoia, also wore coveralls but were working shovels. Boldt didn’t understand why he always got the pickax.
“Dig,” Boldt said. “He’s a half mile and closing.”
LaMoia jumped on the shovel and dug into the wet earth. Boldt’s hands were wet on the pickax’s handle, but it had little to do with the rain. His weapon weighed down the coverall’s right pocket, within easy reach.
“Hey,” LaMoia said, sensing everyone’s sudden tension. “This is a damn good-looking hole. Listen, if we fuck this up, Sarge, maybe we’ve found ourselves a second occupation.”
“Gravediggers?” one of the shovelers asked.
The three other workers stared this man down.
“Sorry,” he said.
73
When Garman’s vehicle crossed an imaginary line one mile from the U-Stor-It facility, two members of the SPD bomb squad moved into place, accompanied by Tech Service Officer Danny Kotch and psychologist Daphne Matthews.
Kotch worked flawlessly with the fiber-optic camera, Daphne immediately alongside. The thin black wire was fed under the gap in the garage door and the first images of the unit’s contents were revealed.
Daphne leaned onto Danny Kotch in order to get a good look at the tiny screen. She gasped aloud and began to cry as she saw Ben tucked into a ball in the corner, a single piece of rope binding him. There was no gag in place, and she wondered why he hadn’t called out. The screen was too small to show his eyes.
The space was empty except for some black PVC pipe, a pair of beach chairs, and some cardboard boxes from Radio Shack.
Attempting to sound professional, Daphne sniffed back her tears and said to the bomb squad team. “He’s inside. We want him out as quickly as possible.”
“With a torch like this, we’re going to move slowly,” the man wearing the thick vest informed her.
She had been warned of this already, but she found the thought of even a minute longer too long.
“Ben, can you hear me?” she shouted.
The little head rocked up, and a single eye angled to look for her. She felt herself burst into tears. Through a blur she told the others, “Shit, hurry it up, would you? I want him out of there.”
A plainclothes detective ran toward them, a radio held in his hand. He shouted, “Matthews, Garman is a half mile and closing. They need you for the count.” He met up with her and passed her the radio.
The decision of when to light the house was hers and hers alone. Boldt had insisted that, of all those involved, she understood the dynamics of the psychology best of all and the call should be hers. This had offended Bahan and others, especially several of the Marshal Fives.
She grabbed the radio, repeating what she had told Boldt several times. “Is the suspect within full visual range of the structure?” she inquired.
“A half mile and closing,” a deep male voice informed her.
“But can he see the building?” she repeated, amazed how so simple a question could become so complicated an issue.
“No. He wouldn’t have a visual at this time.”
Speak English, she wanted to shout.
“When he’s got the building fully in sight,” she informed the dispatcher, “torch it. But he has to see it ignite if he’s to get off on it. He has to
“Another hundred yards,” the dispatcher told her. “I’m told he’ll have full visual in another hundred yards.”
“Let’s go with full visual, shall we?” she said sarcastically.
Releasing the radio’s button, she told the bomb team, “Hurry it up. I want the boy out of there. And I want it
