London Bridges

employer’s request. I didn’t think twice about it. The Wolf would still be there in the morning.
    The kids had come into the city with their aunt Tia. Nana was there on Fifth Street, too. We spent the night together at our house, the one Nana had been born in. In the morning the kids would return to Maryland with Tia. Nana would stay on Fifth Street, and so would I. Maybe the two of us were more alike than I wanted to admit.
    About eleven that night, someone was at the front door. I had been playing the piano on the sunporch, and it was only a few steps to the door. I opened up and saw Ron Burns standing there with a couple of his agents. He ordered his men to go wait by the car. Then he invited himself in.
    “I need to talk to you. Everything has changed,” the director said as he walked past me at the door.
    And so I sat out on our small sunporch with the director of the FBI. I didn’t play the piano for Burns; I just listened to what he had to say.
    The first thing had to do with Thomas Weir. “We have no doubt that Tom had some connection with the Wolf back when he came out of Russia. He may have known who the Russian was. We’re on it, Alex, and so is the CIA. But, of course, this puzzle refuses to unravel easily.”
    “Everybody’s
cooperating
with everybody else, though,” I said, frowning. “How nice.”
    Burns stared at me. “I know that this has been tough for you. I know the job isn’t the perfect fit so far. You want to be in the middle of the action. And you want to be with your family.”
    I couldn’t deny it, not any of what Burns had said. “Go ahead, Director. I’m still listening.”
    “Something happened in France, Alex. It involved Tom Weir and the Wolf. It happened a long time ago. A mistake was made, a big one.”
    “What mistake?” I asked. Were we finally getting close to some answers? “You have to stop playing games with me. Do you wonder why I’m having second thoughts about my job?”
    “Believe me, we don’t know what happened back then. We’re getting closer to an answer. A lot has happened in the last few hours. The Wolf made contact again, Alex.”
    I sighed heavily, but I listened, because I promised that I would.
    “You said it before, that he wants to hurt us, to break our back if he can. He says that he can. He said that the rules are changing and that he’s the one changing them. He’s the only one with the answers to this puzzle.
You’re
the only one with a clue about him.”
    I had to stop Burns. “Ron, what are you trying to say? Just tell me. I’m either in this thing—all the way—or I’m all the way out.”
    “He gave us ninety-six hours. Then he promised a doomsday scenario.
    “He changed some of the target cities. It’s still Washington and London, but also Tel Aviv and Paris. He won’t explain the change. He wants four billion dollars, and he wants the political prisoners released. He won’t explain a goddamn thing to us.”
    “That’s all?” I said. “Four doomed cities? A few billion in ransom? Free some murderers?”
    Burns shook his head. “No, that’s not all. He’s given everything to the press this time. There’s going to be panic around the world. But especially in the four cities: London, Paris, Tel Aviv, and here in Washington. He’s gone public.”

Chapter 73
    ON SUNDAY MORNING, after breakfast with Nana, I left for Paris. Ron Burns wanted me in France. End of discussion.
    Exhausted and probably depressed, I slept for a good part of the flight. Then I read a lot of CIA files about a KGB agent who had lived in Paris eleven years ago and might have worked with Thomas Weir. That agent supposedly was the Wolf. And something had happened. A “mistake.” A big one, apparently.
    I’m not sure what kind of reception I was expecting from the French, especially given the recent history between our countries, but things went fairly smoothly once I arrived. In fact, it seemed to me that the command center in Paris worked better than the similar command centers I’d seen in London and Washington. The reason for this was clear immediately.
    The infrastructure in Paris was simpler, the organization much smaller. One official told me, “It’s easy to share here, because the file you need is next door or right down the hall.”
    I received a quick briefing, then was thrown into a high-level meeting. A general in the army looked at me and addressed me in English. “Dr. Cross, to be honest with you, we haven’t ruled out