London Bridges Read online

  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 antenna on the Manhattan side of the bridge. A circuit began to close. . . .

  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!

  Part Three

  WOLF TRACKS

  Chapter 57

  THE WOLF SLOWED his powerful black Lotus to just over a hundred miles an hour while he talked on his mobile phone, one of six he had with him in the car. He was headed toward Montauk on the tip of Long Island, but he had important business to attend to on the way, even at one in the morning. He had the American president, the German chancellor, and the British prime minister on the line. Top to top. What could beat that?

  “This call can’t be traced, so don’t waste your time trying. My tech people are better than your people,” he informed them. “Now, what’s on everybody’s mind? We’re eight hours past the deadline. And?”

  “We need more time,” the English prime minister spoke up for the group. Good for him. Was he the real leader of the three? That would be a surprise. The Wolf had thought of him more as a follower.

  “You have no idea —,” the American president started to say, but he was cut off by the Wolf, smiling to himself, relishing the show of disrespect toward the powerful world leader.

  “Stop. I don’t want to hear any more lies!” he yelled into the phone.

  “You have to listen to what we have to say,” the German chancellor interjected. “Give us the opportunity —”

  The Wolf ended the conversation then and there. He lit up a victory cigar, took a couple of satisfied puffs, then set the smoke down in the ashtray. He reconnected the call, using a second cell phone.

  They were still there, waiting for him to call back. He didn’t actually underestimate any of these powerful men, not really, but what choice did they have but to wait on his call?

  “Do you want me to attack all four cities? Is that what I have to do to prove how serious I am? I’ll do it in a flash. I’ll do it now, give the order right now. But don’t tell me you need more time. You don’t! The countries holding the prisoners are your puppets, for Christ’s sake.

  “The real problem is that you can’t be seen for what you really are. You can’t be viewed around the world as weak and powerless. But you are! How did it happen? How did you allow it to happen? Who put people like you into these positions of great power? Who elected you? The money and the political prisoners. Good-bye.”

  The prime minister spoke before the Wolf could disconnect again. “You have it all wrong! It is you who have a choice to make, not us. We take your point about the strength of your position versus ours. It’s a given. But we cannot put this package together quickly. It can’t physically be done, and I think you know that. Of course we don’t want to make a deal with you, but we will. We have to. We just need more time to get it done. We will get it done. You have our promise on it.”

  The Wolf shrugged. The English prime minister definitely surprised him: he was succinct, and he at least had some balls.

  “I’ll think about it,” said the Wolf, then disconnected. He picked up his cigar and savored this idea: he was the most powerful person in the world right now. And unlike any of them, he was the right man for the job.

  Chapter 58

  A BUSINESS-CLASS PASSENGER who called himself Randolph Wohler de-planed the British Airways flight from New York at 6:05 in the morning. His passport and other pieces of ID backed up his identity. It is good to be home again, thought Wohler, who was actually Geoffrey Shafer. And it’s going to be even better if I get to blow London off the map.

  The seventyish-looking gentleman passed through Customs without a problem. He was already thinking about his next move: a visit to his children. That was his piece. Curious and strange. But he was past questioning orders from the Wolf. Besides, he wanted to see his progeny. Daddy had been away for far too long.

  He had a part to play, another mission, another piece of the puzzle. The brat pack lived with his deceased wife’s sister in a small house near Hyde Park. He remembered the house as he pulled up in a rented Jaguar S type. He had a most unpleasant memory of his wife now, Lucy Rhys-Cousins, a brittle, small-minded woman. He’d murdered her in a Safeway in Chelsea, right in front of the twins. That truly merciful act had orphaned his twin daughters, Tricia and Erica, who were six or seven now, and Robert, who must be fifteen. Shafer believed they were far better off without their whining, sniveling mother.

  He knocked on the front door of the house and found that it was unlocked, so he barged in unannounced.

  He discovered his wife’s younger sister, Judi, playing with the twins on the living-room floor, bent over a game of Monopoly, which he believed they were all capable of losing—not a winner in the group.

  “Daddy’s home!” he exclaimed, and beamed a smile that was perfectly horrible. He then pointed a Beretta at dear Aunt Judi’s chest.

  “Don’t make a sound, Judi, not a one. Don’t give me the slightest excuse to pull this trigger. It would be so easy, and such a great pleasure. And yes, I sincerely hate you, too. You remind me of a fat version of your beloved sister.

  “Hello, children! Say hello to your dear old dad. I’ve come a long ways to see you. All the way from America.”

  His twin girls, his sweet daughters, started to cry, so Shafer did the only thing he could think of to restore order: he pointed his gun straight at Judi’s tear-stained face and walked closer to her. “Make them stop whining and screeching. Now! Show me you deserve to be their k
eeper.”

  The aunt bent low and pressed the girls to her chest, and while they didn’t actually stop crying, the sound was at least muffled and subdued.

  “Judi, now listen to me,” Shafer said as he moved behind her and pressed the barrel of the Beretta to the back of her head. “As much as I would like to, I’m not here to fuck and murder you. Actually, I have a message for you to be passed on to the home secretary. In a strange, ironic twist, your absurd, pitiful life actually matters for now. Can you believe it? I can’t.”

  Aunt Judi seemed confused, her natural state as far as Shafer could tell. “How would I do that?” she blubbered.

  “Just call the sodding police! Now shut up and listen. You’re to tell the police that I came to visit, and I told you that no one is safe anymore. Not the police, not their families. We can go to their houses, just like I came to your house today.”

  Just to make sure she got it, Shafer repeated the message twice more. Then he turned his attention back to Tricia and Erica, who interested him about as much as the ridiculous porcelain dolls covering the mantel in the room. He hated those silly, frilly porcelain doodads that had once belonged to his wife and that she had doted on as if they were real.

  “How is Robert?” he asked the twins, and received no reaction.

  What is this? The girls had already mastered the hopelessly lost and confused look of their mother and their blubbering auntie. They said not a word.

  “Robert is your brother!” Shafer yelled, and the girls started to sob loudly again. “How is he? How is my son? Tell me something about your brother! Has he grown two heads? Anything!”

  “He’s all right,” Tricia finally simpered.

  “Yes, he’s all right,” Erica repeated, following her sister’s lead.

  “He’s all right, is he? Well, that’s all right, then,” Shafer said with utter disdain for these two clones of their mother.

  He found that he was actually missing Robert, though. He rather enjoyed the mildly twisted lad at times. “All right, give your father a kiss,” he finally demanded. “I am your father, you pitiful twits,” he added for good measure. “In case you’ve forgotten.”

  The girls wouldn’t kiss him, and he wasn’t permitted to kill them, so Shafer finally had to leave the dreadful house. On the way out, he swept the porcelain dolls off the mantel, sending them crashing to the floor.

  “In memory of your mother!” he called back over his shoulder.

  Chapter 59

  THE MOST COMMON complaint from soldiers serving in Iraq is that they feel that everything around them is absurd and makes no sense. More and more, this is the way of modern-day warfare. I felt it now myself.

  We were past the deadline and living on borrowed time. That’s how it seemed to me. Feeling as if I hadn’t been able to catch my breath in days, I was on my way to London with two agents from our International Terrorism Section.

  Geoffrey Shafer was in England. Even more insane, he wanted us to know he was there. Someone did.

  The flight into Heathrow Airport arrived at a little before six in the morning and I went straight to a hotel just off Victoria Street and slept until ten. After that short rest, I made my way to New Scotland Yard, just around the corner, on Broadway. It was great to be so near Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, and the Houses of Parliament.

  Upon arrival, I was taken to the office of Detective Superintendent Martin Lodge of the Met. Lodge told me, modestly enough, that he kept the Anti Terrorist Branch, called SO13, running smoothly. On our way to the morning’s briefing he gave me a thumbnail sketch of himself.

  “Like you, I came up through the police ranks. Eleven years with the Met after a stint with SIS in Europe. Before that I trained at Hendon, then a constable on the beat. Chose the detective track and was moved into SO13 because I have a few languages.”

  He paused, and I spoke at the first break. “I know about your AT squad—the best in Europe, I’ve heard. Years of practice with the IRA.”

  Lodge gave me a thin smile, a veteran trouper’s smile. “Sometimes the best way to learn is through mistakes. We’ve made plenty in Ireland. Anyway, here we are, Alex. They’re all waiting inside. They want to meet you very much. Get ready for some incredible bullshit, though. MI5 and MI6 will both be here. They fight over everything. Don’t let it get to you. We manage to sort it all out in the end. Most of the time, anyway.”

  I nodded. “Like the Bureau and the CIA back home. I’m sure I’ve seen it before.”

  As it turned out, Detective Superintendent Lodge was right on about the turf wars, and I figured that the feud was probably hurting progress in London, even under the present crisis circumstances. Also in the room were a few Special Branch men and women. The prime minister’s chief of staff. Plus the usual crowd from London’s emergency services.

  As I took a seat I groaned inside—another goddamn meeting. Just what I didn’t need. We’re past the deadline—they’re blowing up things! I wanted to yell.

  Chapter 60

  THE LARGE BEACH HOUSE outside Montauk on Long Island didn’t belong to the Wolf. It was a rental, forty thousand a week, even in the off-season. A complete rip-off, the Wolf knew, but he didn’t mind so much. Not today, anyway.

  It was quite an impressive place, though—Georgian style, three stories rising above the beach, immense swimming pool shielded from the wind by the house itself, pebbled driveway lined with cars—mostly limousines, muscular drivers in dark suits congregating around them.

  Everything here, he thought with some bitterness, paid for with my money, my sweat, my ideas!

  They were waiting for him, several of his associates in the Red Mafiya. They were gathered inside a library/sitting room with panoramic views of the deserted beach and the Atlantic.

  They pretended to be his dearest, closest friends as he entered the room, shaking his hand, patting his broad back and shoulders, muttering easy lies about how good it was to see him. The very few who know what I look like. The inner circle, the ones I trust more than anyone else.

  Lunch had been served before he arrived, and then the entire household staff had been removed from the house. He had parked in back, then come in through the kitchen. No one had seen him except the men in this room, nine of them.

  He stood before them and lit up a cigar. To victory.

  “They have asked for an extension of the deadline. Can you believe it?” the Wolf said between satisfying puffs.

  The Russian men around the table began to laugh. They shared the Wolf’s disdain for the current governments and leaders around the world. Politicians were weak by nature and the few strong ones who snuck into office somehow were soon weakened by the process of government. It had always been that way.

  “Drop the hammer!” one of the men shouted.

  The Wolf smiled. “You know, I should. But they have a point—if we act now, we lose, too. Let me get them on the line. They’re expecting an answer. This is interesting, no? We negotiate with the United States, Britain, and Germany. As if we were a world power.”

  The Wolf raised his index finger as the call went through. “They’re expecting to hear from me. . . .”

  “You’re all on the line?” he spoke into the phone.

  They were.

  “No small talk, the time for that has passed. Here is my decision. You have another two days, till seven o’clock, eastern standard time, but . . .

  “The price has just doubled!”

  He disconnected. Then he looked around at his people.

  “What? You approve, or what? Do you know how much money I just made for you?”

  They all began to clap, then cheer.

  The Wolf stayed with them for the remainder of the afternoon. He endured their false compliments, their requests thinly disguised as suggestions. But then he had other business in New York City, so he left them to enjoy the house by the sea, and whatever.

  “The ladies will arrive soon,” he promised. “Models and beauty queens from New York. They say th
e most beautiful pussy in the world. Have fun.” On my money, my sweat, my brilliance.

  He was back in the Lotus then, heading toward the Long Island Expressway. He was squeezing the black rubber ball, but finally he set it down. He took out his cell phone again. Pressed a few numbers. A code was transmitted. A circuit closed. A primer fired.

  Even from that far away, he heard the beach house explode. He didn’t need them anymore; he didn’t need anyone.

  Zamochit! The bombs had broken every bone in all of their worthless, useless bodies.

  Payback, revenge.

  It was a beautiful thing.

  Chapter 61

  WE RECEIVED WORD in London that the deadline had been extended forty-eight hours, and the relief, though temporary, was still extraordinary for all of us. Within the hour, we got word of a bombing on Long Island—several Red Mafiya bosses reported dead. What did it mean? Had the Wolf struck again? At his own people?

  There was nothing useful for me to do after the long round of meetings at Scotland Yard. About ten at night, I met with a friend from Interpol at a London restaurant, the Cinnamon Club, which was on the site of what had once been the Old Westminster Library on Great Smith Street.

  I was past being exhausted and, in fact, had gotten my second wind. Besides, I always looked forward to spending time with Sandy Greenberg, who was probably the smartest police officer I had ever worked with. Maybe she had a new idea about the Wolf. Or the Weasel. At any rate, no one knew the European underworld better than she did.

  Sandy is Sondra to all but her closest friends, and I am fortunate enough to be one of them. She’s tall, attractive, chic, a little gawky, witty, and very funny. She gave me a big hug and kisses on both cheeks.