London Bridges

As he continued to walk out on the support structure, Capistran couldn't help humming, then singing the words, "Groovy. Feeling very groovy."

Chapter 55

The strangest, most puzzling thing happened next.

The deadline passed-and nothing happened.

There was no message from the Wolf, no immediate attacks. Nothing. Silence. It was eerie, but also incredibly scary.

The Wolf was the only one who knew what was going on now-or maybe, the Wolf, the president, and a few other world leaders. Rumor had it that the president, vice president, and the cabinet had already been moved out of Washington.

This thing wouldn't stop, would it? The news stories certainly wouldn't. The Post, the New York Times, USA Today, CNN, the networks-they had all gotten hold of some version of the threats against major cities. No one knew which cities, or who was doing the threatening. But after years of yellow and orange alerts from Homeland Security, no one seemed to take the threats and rumors too seriously.

The uncertainty, the war of nerves had to be part of the Wolf's plan, too. I was in Washington for the Memorial Day weekend, and was asleep when I got a call to get over to the Hoover Building right away.

I looked at the alarm clock, squinting to focus, saw that it was three in the morning. Now what? Have there been reprisals? If so, they weren't telling me over the phone.

"I'll be right there," I said, pushing myself out of bed, cursing under my breath. I showered under hot, then cold water for a minute or two, toweled off, threw on clothes, and got in the car and drove through Washington in a horrible daze. All I knew was that the Wolf was going to call in thirty minutes.

Three-thirty in the morning, after a long weekend, with the expired deadline hanging over our head. He wasn't just controlling, he was sadistic.

When I arrived at the crisis room on five, there were at least a dozen others already there. We greeted one another like old friends at somebody's wake. For the next couple of minutes, bleary-eyed agents kept filing into the conference room, nobody seeming completely awake. A ragged line formed at the coffee table as a couple of pots finally arrived. Everybody looked nervous and on edge.

"No Danish?" said one of the other agents. "Where's the love?" But nobody even smiled at his joke.

Director Burns came in a few minutes past 3:30. He was wearing a dark suit and tie, formal for him, but especially at this time of the morning. I had the sense that he didn't have any idea what was happening, either. The Wolf was in charge, not any of us.

"And you thought I was a tough boss," Director Burns cracked after a couple of minutes of silence in the room. Finally, there was a sprinkling of laughter. "Thank you for coming," Burns added.

The Wolf came on the line at 3:43. The filtered voice. The characteristic smugness and disdain.

"You're probably wondering why I scheduled a meeting in the middle of the night," he began. "Because I can. How do you like that? Because I can.

"In case you haven't been able to tell, I don't like you people very much. Not at all, actually. I have my reasons, good ones. I hate everything America stands for. So maybe this is partly about revenge? Maybe you've wronged me somewhere, sometime in the past? Maybe you wronged my family. That's a part of the puzzle. Revenge is a sweet bonus for me.

"But let me get to the present. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I instructed you not to conduct any more investigations into my whereabouts.

"So what do you do? You bust six poor bastards in downtown Manhattan because you suspect they're working with me. Why, one poor girl was so distraught that she went out a third-floor window. I saw her fall! I suppose that your thinking-such as it is-was that if you took out my operatives there, then New York City would be safe.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I almost forgot. There's also a little matter of a deadline you missed.

"Did you think I had forgotten about that? Well, I didn't forget about the deadline. Or the insult in your missing it. Now, watch what I can do."

Chapter 56

At 3:40 in the morning, following instructions, the Weasel took up a position on a bench in the riverfront park on Sutton Place and Fifty-seventh Street. There was a great deal that bothered him about this job, but the problems were balanced by two large positives: he was being paid a lot of money, and he was in the middle of the action again. Jesus, am I ever in the middle of the shit.

He stared down on the East River 's dark, swift-moving currents. A red tugboat marked MCALLISTER BROTHERS was assisting a containership on its way. The city that never sleeps, right? Hell, the bars on First and Second Avenues were just getting down to their last call. A little earlier he'd passed an animal medical center that was still open for late-night pet emergencies. Pet emergencies? Jesus, what a city, what a messed-up country America had become.

A lot of New Yorkers would be wide-awake soon, and they would find it exceedingly difficult to get back to sleep. There would be weeping and the gnashing of teeth. The Wolf was going to make certain of that in a minute or so.

Shafer watched the seconds on his watch tick down to 3:43, but he was also keeping an eye on the river and the Queensboro Bridge.

Cars and cabs and quite a few trucks were whizzing along up there, even at this hour. Easily a hundred vehicles were crossing the bridge right now, probably more than that. The poor wankers!

At 3:43 Shafer pressed a button on his cell phone.

This transmitted a simple coded squirt to a small ante

A primer fired…

Microseconds later, a message straight from hell was delivered to the people of New York City, and the rest of the world.

A symbolic message.

Another wake-up call.

A massive explosion ripped through the girders and trusses of the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge. Joints were severed instantly, shockingly, terminally. The old steel structures snapped like peanut brittle. Huge rivets popped out and plummeted toward the East River. Tarmac crumbled. Reinforced concrete fractured like paper being shredded.

The upper roadbed cracked in two, then enormous sections dropped like bombs onto the lower deck, which was breaking up as well, peeling away, twisting and twirling toward the water below.

Cars were falling into the water. A delivery truck carrying a full load of newspapers from a plant in Queens rolled backward down the inverted roadway and then pirouetted into the East River. It was followed by more cars and trucks, dropping like lead weights. Electric lines drooped and sparked along the entire length of the bridge. More cars, dozens of them, plummeted from the bridge, fell into the river, then disappeared beneath the surface.

Some people were exiting their cars, then jumping to their death in the river. Shafer could hear their terrifying screams all the way across the river.

And in every apartment building lights began to blink on, then TVs and computers, as the people of New York heard the first reports about a terrible disaster that was impossible to believe and that would have been unthinkable until a few years ago.

His work for the night done, Geoffrey Shafer finally rose from his park bench and went to get some sleep. If he could sleep. He understood this much: things were just getting started. He was on his way to London.

London Bridge, he thought. All the bridges of the world, falling, crashing down. Modern society coming apart at the seams. The sodding Wolf may be a madman, but he is a brilliant bugger at being bad. A bloody brilliant madman!