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Even before the on-scene officers had pieced together all the circumstances of the accident, Sandra Lamb was delivering her report as the lead-in on the midday news.
“In an exclusive for Channel 8 News,” the grave voice of Sandra’s co-anchor, Jim Woods began, “News 8’s Sandra Lamb’s investigation into domestic terrorism ended today with the death of a suspected terrorist. Sandra?”
The scene shifted to Sandra standing with a microphone in her hand by the demolished bridge railing. A crane towered in the background with its cables in the water. Peppering the view were assorted emergency and police vehicles with rotating beacons and blaring, pizzicato radios screaking and kvetching.
“A Department of Homeland Security investigation into suspected domestic terrorist Jack Benny Hicks, fifty-three, of Hamlet, Maryland, ended today in tragedy when Hicks lost control of a home-made truck bomb constructed of diesel fuel and fertilizer and crashed into the Mantagua river. The truck bomb was allegedly intended for a target in Washington, DC.
“Sources inside Homeland Security told this reporter that Hicks’ purchases of diesel fuel and fertilizer had been closely monitored and that there was never any risk to Federal employees or property. Hicks came to the attention of Homeland Security during an ongoing dispute with the Bureau of Land Management and his subversive activities were discovered soon after. He was a regular visitor to anti-American websites and a member of several radical groups...”