Chapter 5

George came back into the room with some papers in his hands. "Did you get ahold of the bomb squad?" Emily asked him as she turned towards the doorway where he was standing. "I did," he began. "They said he used acetylene. It's a dissolved gas used for things like welding and cutting. It is chemically unstable so it can explode if exposed to the right amount of PSIs...But here's the funny thing-"

"What is it? And how did he get a gas in there? What kind of container did he keep it in?" Charlie interjected with a list of questions. "I was getting there," George replied in his soft voice. "The gas can be held in an aerosol container for some of its uses; however, it does not explode until it hits 30 PSI. A pressure cooker doesn't reach that. At most, it reaches 15 PSI, which is half the amount needed to cause the explosion."

"So what does that mean?" Sophie asked, puzzled by what George had just told them all. "It means that somehow he was able to make this pressure cooker reach 30 PSI. He had some sort of knowledge of how to alter it," he explained.

Amelia wrote down what George just told the team onto the whiteboard with all the other notes they had. George handed her the images of the bomb that had been faxed over by the bomb squad and she taped those to the board next to the notes she had just written.

She put the marker onto the ledge and took a step back from the board. She stared at the board for a long while, analyzing all the notes that were there. When she was finished, she began to speak. "So he messed with the wiring on the pressure cooker, probably had the canister inside of it when he brought it in, or he stole it from the mechanic's shop at the airport. Then he pretended that it was something for the party and…" she stopped, not sure where to go next.

"Where was the party in relation to the explosion?" Charlie asked. Amelia pulled out the floorplan of the airport that they had been given by the airport security. She circled a small room on the left side of the paper and started to answer his question. "This is where the party was," she stated, as she pointed to the circled room with the marker. She drew an "X" on another area on the paper, quite a ways away from the circled room. "And this is where the explosion happened," she finished.

"I see," Charlie said, as he stroked his chin with his fingers while he thought. "So he must've gotten it over there somehow, then someone must've seen him," he continued, squinting at the floorplan on the table. "Do we have any footage of the areas between the two points?" he asked, his question directed at Jack who was still reviewing the footage of the employees.

"More footage?" Jack angrily asked from his desk in the corner. "You want me to look at more footage? Can't you see I'm neck deep in this crap and you want me to look at more footage?" he continued, getting angrier by the moment. "I don't think you realize how much time this takes and you want me to look at more? If you wanna do it, fine, have a gander at it, but I can't look at any more footage right now," he stated, as he finished his rant.

"Maybe once we have a good look at his face we can look through that footage using the software," Emily inserted, trying to appease Jack, who now seemed to be in a very angry state rather than the frustrated state that he had previously been in. "I know it's hard trying to look through all that footage, we just have to be a little patient that's all," she said looking at Charlie, hoping that he would understand what she was trying to say.

"Aye," he said as he sat down on the edge of the table. "So what do we do in the meantime?" he asked in a softer tone than usual. "Evans, why don't you call over to the airport and see if security can pull the rest of that footage?" Emily asked, attempting to put a little space between him and Jack. "Okay. I'll be back in a bit," Charlie said and walked out of the room and into the room next door.

Sophie started to pick up where they had left off. "So, if the explosion wasn't meant for the party, then why did it go off and why in that particular spot?" she asked, as she looked down at the floorplan. "What was so important in that one area that he had to put it there?" she continued.

"Is there a certain airline that comes in and out of that terminal or is it just random?" Amelia asked, seeming to be onto something. "I'm not sure," Emily responded. "Why don't you tell Evans to ask them while he's on the phone with them?" she suggested. "Will do. Be back in a flash," Amelia replied and headed towards the room Charlie was in.

"If there's only one airline in that terminal all the time," George spoke up, "then he might be targeting that airline, maybe something they did pissed him off," he suggested. "Pissed off enough to bomb them?" Sophie asked as though it was hard to believe. "Well, if it was big enough to make him that angry then yes," George answered her. "Maybe there was something that they did that made him so angry he felt he had to take matters into his own hands," he added.

"That would determine the reasoning," Emily chimed in and moved towards the whiteboard. She picked up the marker and circled the words "ax to grind." She looked at the board again and then began to speak. "I guess the question now is what did they do that made him that angry?"

"I don't know that we'll know that until we know who he is," Sophie shrugged. "We can only speculate until then," George replied. "What else can we do in the meantime while we wait for Jack to finish?" George asked, looking at Emily.

"Well, the next step would be to see if there were any witnesses, anyone who would have seen him bringing the pressure cooker into the area where the terminal was, or if they saw any suspicious activity," she responded.

"Aye, we should probably head back over there to find out," George recommended. "I agree," Emily approved, "Why don't you get Amelia and go check that out while Sophie, Evans, and I stay here in the event that Jack finishes before you get back." "Sounds like a plan to me. I'll go get Amelia and we'll be on our way," George said as he headed for the door.

Emily sat down in a chair so that she could think of what they could do next, instead of just sitting around until Jack got through reviewing the footage. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Evans, Amelia, and George exit the room next door. Evans entered the room and joined the rest of the team, sharing with them what he'd learned from airport security.