London Bridges

tried to collect my thoughts and make a rough plan to take us through the next few hours in at least a semiorganized manner. Difficult to do, maybe impossible. We were looking for a small convoy of army trucks and jeeps that seemed to have disappeared, to have been gobbled up by the desert. But also a Ford Bronco with the Nevada license tags 322JBP and a sunset design.
    And we were looking for Geoffrey Shafer.
Why would the Weasel be here?
    While we waited for something to break, maybe a message or a warning, I walked around what had been Sunrise Valley. Where the bomb had actually detonated, buildings and vehicles hadn’t just been flattened, they’d been practically vaporized. Little bits of death and destruction, sparks and ash, were still floating in the air. The night sky was masked by a dark and oily cloud of smoke, and I was struck by the unsettling idea that only man could create something like this, and only man would want to.
    As I wandered through the mounds of debris, I also talked to agents and techs involved in the investigation and I began to make a few crime-scene notes of my own:
    Bits and pieces of the mobile-home camp are scattered everywhere.
    Witnesses describe canisters dropped from a prop plane.
    One falling can seemed about to strike a trailer home, then exploded in midair above the town.
    At first, the explosion was like a “white, undulating jellyfish cloud,” then the cloud ignited.
    High winds from the heat of the fire, convection whirls, apparently blew at gale force for several minutes.
    So far we had discovered only one body in the rubble. Everyone was wondering the same thing: why only one? Why spare the others? Why blow up this trailer-park town at all?
    It just didn’t make sense. Nothing did so far. But especially Shafer’s presence.
    One of the local FBI agents, Ginny Moriarity, called out my name and I turned. She waved excitedly for me to come over. Now what?
    I jogged back to where Agent Moriarity was standing with a couple of local cops. They all seemed exercized about something.
    “We found the Bronco,” she told me. “No army trucks, but we located the Bronco in Wells.”
    “What’s in Wells?” I asked Moriarity.
    “An airport.”

Chapter 14
    “LET’S GO!”
    I was back in the FBI helicopter and headed to Wells in a hurry, hoping to catch up with the Weasel. It seemed like a long shot, but we didn’t have anything else. Agents Wade and Moriarity traveled with me. They didn’t want to miss this—whatever was waiting in Wells.
    As we pulled up and away from what remained of Sunrise Valley, I was aware of the high desert; the former town was at an elevation over 4,000 feet.
    Then I tuned out the surroundings and started thinking about Shafer, trying once again to figure what could possibly tie him to this mess, this disaster, this murder scene. Three years before, Shafer had kidnapped Christine Johnson. It had happened during a family vacation in Bermuda; at the time, Christine and I were engaged to be married. Neither of us knew it, but she was pregnant with Alex when Shafer abducted her. We were never the same after her rescue. John Sampson, my best friend, and I found her in Jamaica. Christine was emotionally scarred, and, of course, I couldn’t blame her. Then she moved out to Seattle, where she lived with Alex. And I blamed Shafer for the custody struggle.
    Who was he working with? One thing was obvious, and probably useful to the investigation: the firebombing at Sunrise Valley had involved a lot of people. So far we didn’t know who the men and women posing as U.S. Army were, but we did know that they weren’t real army national guardsmen. Sources at the Pentagon had helped confirm that much. Then there was the matter of the bomb that had leveled the town. Who made it? Probably somebody with military experience. Shafer had been a colonel in the British army, but he’d also served as a mercenary.
    Lots of interesting connections, but nothing very clear yet.
    The helicopter pilot turned to me. “We should be in visual contact with Wells as soon as we clear these mountains up ahead. We’ll see lights, anyway. But so will they. I don’t think we can sneak up on anybody out here in the desert.”
    I nodded to him. “Just try to land as close as you can to the airport. We’ll coordinate with the state troopers. We might draw fire,” I added.
    “Understood,” the pilot said.
    I started to discuss our options with Wade and Moriarity. Should we try