Requiem

Pam Robinson follows Jim Snyder, the lead National Response Team agent on scene, into the post office ruins. The lobby reminds her of other bombing scenes. The wall that had held mail slots for outgoing cards, letters, and packages now litters the floor in thousands of pieces. Fragments of stationery drape the rubble like confetti. Remnants of acoustic ceiling tile panels lay all over the blast area. The bomb’s intensity has jarred the building’s second floor but not penetrated it, nor have the passport and accounting offices been breached.
The human toll has not been that great—great being a relative term. Twelve men and women would not share Christmas with loved ones. The bodies of twelve men and women, half of them postal employees, would lie in caskets lined with lilies rather than Christmas roses. Twelve bomb victims would never know why they had been targeted for death.