FBI TRUE

- I declare open the games of Atlanta.

- Everybody thought it was the safest place in the world

and nothing's going to happen.

All of a sudden, boom!

- People began to scream. They were crying.

People were hurt.

Then there's another bombing.

- The abortion clinic, where a police officer was killed

and a nurse was seriously wounded.

- We clearly believe that we are dealing with a deranged killer.

- Someone notices someone walking away from the scene.

Now we have a suspect.

That launched probably one of the most extensive manhunts

and fugitive investigations in the FBI's history.

- Even as he was on the run, he hadn't given up

trying to kill people.

He was planning to bomb the FBI command post.

- Time is of the essence. People are dying.

And we don't know where the next bomb is going to go off.

: In the FBI we make a lot of headlines.

Drug busts, mob stings,

terrorist takedowns.

We understand why people want to tell stories about us.

- Mark it. - Freeze!

- FBI. - FBI!

: But they don't know the half of it.

What really goes down?

We save that for each other,

when we're talking agent to agent.

This is FBI True.

July 27, 1996. What was your assignment?

: Kristy Kottis is a 24-year veteran of the FBI.

She worked gangs, crimes against children

as well as human and drug trafficking.

- I was a special agent bomb technician.

And I was dispatched to the Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia.

: Frank Brostrom served for 28 years in the FBI,

working as a special agent bomb technician

and was a joint terrorism task force leader.

I was assigned to lead a diagnostic team

like the other special agent bomb technicians.

When someone called in a suspicious package,

we might do an X-ray or a physical examination.

Then we were to contact the command post

and they would send a bomb squad out.

And Bill, how about you?

- I also was working as a special agent bomb technician.

: Bill Forsyth is a retired

FBI special agent bomb technician,

serving on several high profile cases,

including the Unabomber and the Oklahoma City bombing.

We were assigned that night

to be in the Olympic Centennial Park.

There was a concert going on. Jack Mack and the Heart Attack.

- Atlanta, you gotta make some noise!

- The beer vendors were doing very well, you could tell.

Think of 40,000 people

crammed into about 20 acres, drunk...

And the loud music. It was hot, very hot.

So it's a few minutes before 1 AM.

and we get a call to respond to the base of the NBC tower

regarding a unattended backpack.

We met up with the security officers that had called it in.

They went on to say that there was these five young men

that were obviously overserved

with their beverages that night.

And they got up and started to leave.

The security people asked them, is that your backpack?

And they indicated that it was not.

And they walked on.

So the security personnel called into the command post.

My partner and I walk up to the to the pack.

I'm not at all concerned about it

because this is a very routine call for us.

And my intention was to pick it up

and to put it on the bench where I could sort of open it

and examine the insides more easily.

As I did...

That law enforcement sixth sense came upon me.

Words came to my mind that were almost audible

that said, stop.

You weren't trained like that.

I was just within inches of it,

and it was just this very sickening feeling

in my, you know, in my gut.

I realized that I needed to get my head in the game.

Got down on the ground and tried to look to see if I could see

any kind of wires, if I could see if I could hear ticking,

which I couldn't.

- Why couldn't you hear anything?

You were down right on top of it.

- It was because of how loud the music was

and there was people all around me.

I reach up and I carefully and very gingerly,

squeeze the pack to kind of see if I can feel

if it squishes at all.

I can feel that it was extremely firm

and definitely wasn't someone's lunch or somebody's clothes.

As I flipped the flap back,

now I can see three large pipes.

And through the center of each of the of each of the pipes

were wires coming out.

I can smell it. I can almost taste it.

And now I'm close enough

that I can hear the ticking of a clock.

- It's a bomb. - Oh, my God.

Ready to explode.

This is what I refer to as my BABE.

A big angry bomb almost ready to explode.

The real scary thing is I don't know if it's the next second,

you know, if it's going to be the next tick

or if we have 30 minutes left on the timer,

and with each tick, I'm getting more unnerved.

I'm in absolute shock. I'm scared.

Is this going to be the end?

I was on my hands and knees.

People were tripping over my feet.

It's just hard to understand

just how crowded and loud it was.

I jump up, I talk to my partner,

I asked him to call the command center,

tell them that we need the bomb squad here as soon as possible.

I went over and met with the security people

and I told them we don't know how much time we have.

And we need to get everybody as far away from that device

as we can and get them out.

There must have been, you know, 10,000 people within 50 yards.

- So when you're moving 10,000 people

from a festival where people are cocktailed up.

Are people still stumbling

and meandering into the area you just cleared?

- It was a mess. Yeah. It's like herding cats.

You know, only they're drunken cats.

And that process of trying to move people back

as far as we can, our backs are to the device.

All of a sudden.

Right about now we have

the privilege of working with this...

- We were approximately 43 feet from the device.

Wait a minute. What?

- We have the privilege of working with this...

- What pushed us to the ground was the blast wave.

At first I was just in absolute shock.

And what was surreal about it

is that time almost stood still.

- Nobody's bothered you, right? - Well...

And everything in that park

for about three or four seconds went quiet.

- During that quiet time, were you like, am I still here?

- Well, yeah. I'm not sure if I had, you know...

Had crossed over to the other side or not.

Or, um...

People began to scream. They were crying.

People were hurt.

I was dazed and everybody around me was dazed.

There was officers beside me who were bleeding.

And I wasn't sure if I was hurt or not.

- Do you have any idea how many are hurt?

- Well, there are people hurt, that's all I can say.

There have been some injuries.

: We talked to one man who gave an account

of what appeared to him be shrapnel wounds.

- This thing came down, hit me in the leg,

I heard a couple pieces of metal land on the ground.

- This is a piece of shrapnel, it was hot four minutes ago.

It hit me in the head.

There was steel hitting people

and we were rushing people to medical.

And we came out here and this lady just fell over.

- Now we have this huge crime scene.

There's officers and other agents

that are picking stuff up.

Pandemonium is going on.

People are tramping through our crime scene.

I was walking around trying to look for, you know,

used napkins, just anything that we could use

to maybe help control bleeding.

And that's when I came across

Alice Hawthorne.

- Tell me about Alice Hawthorne.

- Alice Hawthorne was there at the park that night

with her daughter.

They were enjoying the concert.

She was actually sitting about another 45 feet

from where we were at, just over my shoulder and to the left.

And her daughter was sitting right next to her.

Kristy, there was at least 10,000 people

that was between her and where we were trying to

move people back.

There was at least two large pieces of pipe that hit her.

And somehow they missed all of us.

All of us and all of the other people in between.

And she didn't survive this.

: One person was killed.

She's been identified as Alice Hawthorne of Albany, Georgia.

I'm still having trouble now

really believing that she's not here.

- We must not let these attacks stop us from going forward.

We cannot let terror win.

The Olympics will continue. The games will go on.