London Bridges

no.
    Besides, there was another target to consider.
    A grudge to settle.
    What could be better than that?
    Revenge, a dish best served cold,
thought the Wolf, squeezing his rubber ball again and again.

Chapter 26
    WELCOME TO THE
PROCESS-OBSESSED
federal government and its completely bizarre way of doing things.
That was my mantra lately, something I told myself nearly every time I entered the Hoover Building. And never truer than during these past few days.
    What happened next followed the prescribed protocol under a couple of recent presidential decision directives that affected the Bureau. The response to the Wolf would fall into two distinct categories: “investigation” and “consequence management.” The FBI would oversee the investigation; the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) would be in charge of consequence management.
    Very neat and orderly, and
unworkable.
In my opinion, anyway.
    Because the threat was to a major U.S. metropolitan area—
two,
actually, New York City and Washington—the Domestic Emergency Support Team was deployed, and we met with them on the fifth floor of the Hoover Building. I was starting to feel that I worked out of the crisis center; still, it was anything but dull.
    The morning’s first subject was threat assessment. On account of the three bombed towns, we were taking the “terrorists” seriously, of course. The discussion was led by the new deputy director of the Bureau, a man named Robert Campbell McIllvaine Jr. The director had recently talked him out of retirement in California because he was so good at what he did. Some of the talk was about false alarms, since there had been many of them in the past couple of years. It was agreed that this wasn’t a false alarm. Bob McIllvaine was certain of it, which was enough for most of us.
    The second topic was consequence management, so FEMA ran the session. The ability of health-care providers to deal with a big blast in Washington, New York, or both cities simultaneously was called into question. The dangers of sudden evacuation were now a major issue because the sheer panic to get out of either city, but especially New York, could kill thousands.
    The theoretical but very frank talk that morning was the scariest I’d ever been a part of, and it got only worse. After a thirty-minute lunch—for those with an appetite—and a break for phone calls, we launched into suspect assessment.
    Who is responsible? Is it the Wolf? The Russian mob? Could it be some other group? And what do they want?
    The initial list of alternatives was long, but it was quickly whittled down to al Qaeda, Hezbollah, the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, or possibly a freelance group operating for profit and maybe working with one of the organized terrorist units.
    Finally, the talk turned to “action steps” to be spearheaded by the Bureau. Mobile and fixed, or static, surveillance was being set up on several suspects around the United States, but also in Europe and the Middle East. We had begun a huge investigation already, one of the largest in history.
    All of it against the explicit and threatening orders given by the Wolf.
    Late that evening I was still going over some of the most recent data that had been collected on Geoffrey Shafer here and in Europe.
Europe?
I wondered.
Is that where this plot is coming from? Maybe England, where Shafer lived for so many years? Maybe even Russia? Or one of the Russian settlements inside the United States?
    I read a few reports about Shafer’s years working as a procurer of mercenaries in Africa.
    Then something hit me.
    When he had traveled back to England recently, he’d used a disguise: he’d gone into the country in a wheelchair. He’d apparently traveled around London using the wheelchair disguise. It was also doubtful he knew that
we
knew.
    It was a clue, and I put it into the system immediately. I flagged it as something important.
    Maybe the Weasel was using a wheelchair in Washington.
    And maybe we were suddenly one step ahead of him, instead of two steps behind.
    On that note, I finally called it a night. At least, I hoped the day was finally over.

Chapter 27
    VERY EARLY THE FOLLOWING morning, the Weasel made his way through crowded and noisy Union Station in a black, collapsible wheelchair, and he was thinking mostly happy thoughts. He liked to win, and he was winning at every twist and turn.
    Geoffrey Shafer had very good military contacts in Washington, D.C., which made him extremely