I’d first come across Colonel Geoffrey Shafer in Washington three years ago. He’d murdered more than a dozen people there, though we could never prove it. He would pose as a cabdriver, usually in Southeast, where I lived. The prey was easy to grab, and he knew D.C. police investigations weren’t as thorough when the victims were poor and black. Shafer also had a day job—he was an army colonel working inside the British embassy. On the face of it, he couldn’t have been more respectable. And yet he was a horrible murderer, one of the worst pattern killers I’d ever come across.
A local agent named Fred Wade joined me near the helicopter I’d come in on. I was still studying the climber’s photos. Wade told me he wanted to know what was going on, and I couldn’t blame him. So did I.
“The man who videotaped the explosion is named Geoffrey Shafer,” I told Wade. “I know him. He committed several murders in D.C. when I was a homicide detective there. The last we heard of him, he’d fled to London. He murdered his wife in front of their children in a London market. Then he disappeared. Well, I guess he’s back. I have no idea why, but it makes my head hurt just to think about it.”
I took out my cell phone and put in a call to Washington. As I described what I’d discovered, I was reviewing the last few photographs taken of Colonel Shafer. In one of the photos he was climbing into a red Ford Bronco.
The next was a rear shot of the Bronco as it rode away. Jesus. The license plate was visible.
And that was the strangest thing of all so far: the Weasel had made a mistake.
The Weasel I’d known didn’t make them.
So maybe it wasn’t a mistake after all.
Maybe it was part of a plan.
Chapter 12
THE WOLF WAS STILL in Los Angeles, but reports were coming in from the Nevada desert on a regular basis. Police arriving near Sunrise Valley . . . then helicopters . . . the U.S. Army . . . finally the FBI.
His old friend Alex Cross was out there now, too. Good for Alex Cross. What a good soldier.
Nobody understanding a goddamn thing, of course.
No coherent theory about what had happened in the desert.
How could there be?
It was chaos, and that was the beauty of it. Nothing scared people more than what they didn’t understand.
Case in point, a local L.A. hot shit named Fedya Abramtsov and his wife, Liza. Fedya wanted to be a big Mafiya gangster, but also lead the life of a movie-star type in Beverly Hills. This was Fedya and Liza’s house that he was staying in now, but really, the Wolf thought of it as his house; after all, their money was his money. Without him, they were nothing but small-time punks with big ambitions.
Fedya and Liza hadn’t even known he was at their house. The couple had been at their place in Aspen and finally got back to L.A. at just past ten that evening.
Imagine their surprise.
A powerful-looking man sitting by himself in the living room. Just sitting there. So peaceful. Rhythmically squeezing a rubber ball in his right hand.
They had never seen him before.
“Who the hell are you?” demanded Liza. “What are you doing here?”
The Wolf spread his arms. “I am the one who gave you all of this wonderful stuff. And what do you give me in return? Disrespect like this? I am the Wolf.”
Fedya had heard enough already. He knew that if the Wolf was there, letting himself be seen, then he and Liza were as good as dead. Best to run and hope to God the Wolf is here alone, unlikely as that may be.
He took a single step, and the Wolf raised a handgun from out of the seat cushion. He was good with a gun. He shot Fedya Abramtsov once in the back, once in the back of his neck.
“He’s very dead,” he calmly said to Liza, which he knew to be a nickname of hers. “I prefer Yelizaveta,” he said. “Not so common, so Americanized. Come and sit. Come. Please.”
The Wolf patted his lap. “Come. I don’t like to repeat myself.”
The girl was a pretty one—smart, too—and apparently ruthless as a snake. She walked across the room and sat in the Wolf’s lap. She did as she was told, anyway. Good girl.
“I like you, Yelizaveta. But what choice do I have—you’ve disobeyed me. You and Fedya stole my money. Don’t argue. I know it’s true.” He looked into her beautiful brown eyes. “Do you know zamochit?” he asked. “The breaking of bones?”
Apparently Yelizaveta did, because she screamed at the top of her lungs.
“This is good,” said the Wolf as he grabbed the woman’s slender left wrist. “Everything is going so well today.”
He started with Yelizaveta’s little finger, just the pinkie.
Chapter 13
HAD A WAR STARTED? If it had, who was the enemy?
It was pitch-black, and it was freezing cold in the desert. Scary and disorienting, to put it mildly. No moon out. Was that part of the plan? What was supposed to happen next? Where? To whom? Why?
I 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 to land at the airport itself, or nearby in the desert? Had either of them fired their weapons before, or been fired on? I found out that they hadn’t. Neither of them. Terrific.
The pilot turned to us again. “Here we go. Airport should be coming up on our right. There.”
Suddenly I could see a small airfield with a two-story building and what looked like two airstrips. I spotted cars, maybe half a dozen, but I didn’t see a red Bronco yet.
Then I saw a small private plane taxiing and getting ready for takeoff.
Shafer? It didn’t seem likely to me, but neither did anything else so far.
“I thought we shut down Wells?” I called to the pilot.
“So did I. Maybe this is our boy. If it is, he’s gone. That’s a Learjet 55 and it moves pretty damn good.”
From that moment on, there was very little we could do but watch. The Learjet shot down one of the runways, then it was airborne, winging away from us and making it look ridiculously easy. I could imagine Geoffrey Shafer on board, looking back at the FBI helicopter, maybe giving us the finger. Or was he giving me the finger? Could he know that I was there?
A few minutes later we were on the ground at Wells. Almost immediately I got the jolting news that the Learjet was off radar.
“What do you mean ‘off radar’?” I asked the two techies inside the tiny Wells control room.
The older of the two answered. “What I mean is that the jet seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth. It’s like it was never here.”
But the Weasel had been there—I’d seen him. And I had photographs to prove it.
Chapter 15
GEOFFREY SHAFER DROVE a dark blue Oldsmobile Cutlass full-bore through the desert. He wasn’t on board the jet that had flown out of Wells, Nevada. That would have been too easy. Weasels always have several escape routes planned.
As he drove, Shafer was thinking that the oddly brilliant plan in the desert had worked well, and there had certainly been backup contingencies just in case something didn’t work right. He had also learned that Dr. Cross, now with the FBI, had shown up in Nevada.
Is that part of the big picture, too? Somehow, he expected that it was. But why Cross? What does the Wolf have in mind for him?
The Weasel eventually made a stop in Fallon, Nevada, where he was scheduled to make his next contact. He didn’t know exactly who he was contacting, or why, or where this whole operation was leading. He just knew his piece—and his explicit orders were to call in from Fallon and get the next set of instructions.
So he followed his orders, registered at the Best Inn Fallon, and went straight to his room. He used a cell phone, which he’d been told to destroy after he made the call. There were no pleasantries exchanged, no unnecessary words. Just the business at hand.
“This is the Wolf,” he heard as contact was made, and Shafer wondered if that was so. According to rumor, the real Wolf had impersonators, maybe even body doubles. All of them with their piece, right?
Next he heard disturbing news. “You were seen, Colonel Shafer. You were spotted and photographed near Sunrise Valley. Did you know that?”
At first, Shafer tried to deny it, but he was cut off.
“We’re looking at copies of the pictures right now. That’s how the Bronco was followed to Wells. Which is why we told you to exchange vehicles outside town and drive to Fallon. Just in case something went wrong.”
Shafer didn’t know what to say. How could he have been spotted out in the middle of nowhere? Why was Cross there?
The Wolf finally laughed. “Oh, don’t worry your pretty head, Colonel. You were supposed to be spotted. The photographer works for us.
“Now proceed to your next contact point in the morning. And have some fun tonight in Fallon. Paint the town, Colonel. I want you to go and kill somebody out in the desert. You choose a victim. Do your stuff. That’s an order.”
Chapter 16
THE LEVEL OF frustration and tension I was feeling was increasing by the hour, and so was the general confusion about the case. I’d never seen so much chaos, so fast, in my entire life.
Almost a full day after the bombing, there was nothing but a hole in the ground in the Nevada desert, and a couple of questionable leads. We had talked to the three hundred or so residents of Sunrise Valley, but none of the survivors had a clue, either. Nothing unusual had happened in the days before the bombing; no stranger had visited. We hadn’t found the army vehicles or discovered where they had come from. What had happened in Sunrise Valley still didn’t make sense. Neither did Colonel Geoffrey Shafer’s being there. But it sure shook us up.
No one had even taken credit for the bombing yet.
After two days, there wasn’t too much more I could do out in the desert, so I caught a ride home to Washington. I found Nana, the kids, even Rosie the cat out on the front porch, waiting for me.
Home, sweet home again. Why didn’t I just learn a lesson and stay there?
“This is real nice,” I said, beaming as I bounded up the steps. “A welcoming committee. I guess everybody missed me, right? How long you been out here waiting for your pops?”
Nana and the kids shook their heads pretty much in unison, and I smelled conspiracy.
Nana said, “Of course we’re glad to see you, Alex,” and finally cracked a smile. They all did. Conspiracy, for sure.
“Gotcha!” said Jannie, who was ten. She had on a crocheted sun hat with her braids hanging out. “Of course we’re your welcoming committee. Of course we missed you, Daddy. Who wouldn’t?”
“Got you bad!” Damon taunted from his perch on the rail. He was twelve and looked the part. Sean John T-shirt, straight-leg jeans, Hiptowns.
I pointed a finger at him. “I’ll get you, you break my porch rail.” Then I smiled. “Gotcha!” I said to Damon.
After that, I had to answer all sorts of questions about little Alex and show around my digital camera with dozens of pictures of our beloved little man.
Everybody was pretty much laughing now, which was better, and it was definitely good to be home again, even if I was still waiting for more news about the bombing in Nevada and about Shafer’s involvement.
Nana had held dinner for me, and after a delicious meal of roast chicken with garlic and lemon, squash, mushrooms, and onions, the family congregated in the kitchen over cleanup and bowls of ice cream. Jannie showed off a pen-and-ink of her heroes Venus and Serena Williams, which was sensational; eventually, we watched the Washington Wizards on TV. Finally, everybody started to wander off to bed, but there were hugs and kisses first. Nice, very nice. Much, much better than yesterday and, I was willing to bet, not as good as
tomorrow.
Chapter 17
ABOUT ELEVEN, I finally climbed the steep stairs to my office in the attic. I reviewed my case file on Sunrise Valley for twenty minutes or so in preparation for the next day, then I called Jamilla in San Francisco. I’d talked to her a couple of times over the past two days, but I’d mostly been too busy. I figured she might be home from work by now.
All I got was a voice message, though.
I don’t like to leave messages myself, especially since I’d already left a couple from Nevada, but I finally said, “Hi, it’s Alex. I’m still trying to sell you on the idea of forgiving me for what happened at the airport in San Francisco. If you want to come East sometime soon, I’m buying the plane ticket. Talk to you soon. I miss you, Jam. Bye.”
I hung up the phone, then let out the sigh I’d been holding in. I was blowing it again, wasn’t I? Hell, yes, I was. Why would I do such a thing?
I went downstairs and ate a double-size piece of corn bread that Nana had made for the next day. It didn’t help, just made me feel even worse, guilty about my eating habits. I sat on a kitchen chair with Rosie the cat in my lap, stroking her.
“You like me, right? Don’t you, Rosie? I’m kind of a nice guy?”
The phone calls weren’t over for the night. Just past midnight I received a call from one of the agents I’d worked with out in Nevada. Fred Wade had something he thought I might find interesting. “We just got this from Fallon,” he told me. “Receptionist in a Best Inn there was raped and murdered two nights ago. Her body was left in the brush near the motel parking lot. Like we were supposed to find it. We got a description of a guest who could be your Colonel Shafer. Needless to say, he’s long gone from Fallon.”
Your Colonel Shafer. That said it all, didn’t it? He’s long gone from Fallon. Of course he was.