“Let’s use Oklahoma City as an example again,” Nimec said, nodding. “The bomb that was detonated was big and crude because the perpetrators couldn’t get their hands on more sophisticated, more tightly controlled demolitions ... not in sufficient quantities to achieve their goal, at any rate. So instead they follow a recipe that’s been disseminated in cheap kitchen explosives handbooks, Internet message boards, you name it. A scene in the Turner Diaries becomes their mission blueprint, and the rest is history. The whole episode’s characterized by a lack of imagination, and a reliance on materials that can be obtained easily and legally.”

“The eyewitness accounts I’ve been hearing all agree that the initial blast emanated from a vender’s booth on Forty-second Street,” Nordstrum said. “There’s also supposed to have been an incident involving a K-9 cop and the vender just minutes earlier.”

“That’s been confirmed by the visual record,” Nimec said. “I’ve already had our experts do computer magnifications of the televised footage. And we’re trying to dig up amateur videos. There must have been thousands of people with minicams at the scene. But even in the absence of other evidence, I think we can assume the bomb was inserted into the area by means of the booth. Whether it was with or without the knowing complicity of the donut man is still anybody’s guess.”

“One thing’s for sure,” Scull said, “whoever planted the charge got plenty of bang for his buck.”

Nimec looked stiffly at the eyehole camera lens atop the video monitor.

“The charge was very compact in proportion to its effectiveness, yes,” he said, his frown making it clear that he disliked Scull’s particular shorthand. “I’m guessing it was something like C-4 or HBX.”

“And the secondary explosions?” Gordian asked.

Nimec shrugged. “Hard to tell at this stage,” he said.

The room was quiet for a moment. Gordian drank some coffee.

“Okay, Pete, supposing we go along with your assessment for now, and put aside homegrown terrorists as the culprits,” he said. “What about militant Islamic fundamentalists?”

“All of them, you mean?”

Gordian looked at him. “I wasn’t trying to be funny.”

“Neither was I. It’s just that things aren’t always very straightforward when it comes to our enemies in the Arab world. On the one hand, they’re more likely to be interested in causing mass destruction for its own sake. Their hatred of America makes no distinction between its government and its citizens,” Nimec said. “On the other hand, we in this room really must draw a distinction between state-sponsored terrorism and acts committed by extremist fringe groups, or by lone wolves with nebulous ties to both. The line between them isn’t always clear, but it exists. And it may be very relevant in this instance.”

“As I’m sure you’ll explain,” Gordian said, still regarding him steadily.