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Nearly eight hundred miles away, the Wolf was watching in live time what was happening in the desert. What a flick! There were four cameras on the ground at Sunrise Valley that were pumping video footage to four monitors in the house in the Bel Air section of Los Angeles, where he was staying. For the moment, anyway.
He watched closely as the inhabitants of the mobile-home park were escorted by army personnel into waiting transport trucks. The clarity of the footage was very good. He could see the patches on the soldiers’ arms: NEVADA ARMY GUARD UNIT 72ND.
Suddenly he spoke out loud, “Shit! Don’t do that!” He started to squeeze the black handball rapidly in his fist, a habit when he was anxious or angry, or both.
One of the male civilians had pulled a gun and had it pointed at a soldier. Incredibly dumb mistake!
“You imbecile!” the Wolf shouted at the screen.
An instant later the man with the handgun was dead, facedown in the desert dust, which actually made it easier to get the other retards from Sunrise Valley into the transport trucks. Should have been part of the plan in the first place, the Wolf thought. But it hadn’t been, so now it was a small problem.
Then one of the handheld cameras focused on a small cargo plane as it approached the town and circled overhead. This was just gorgeous to behold. The handheld was obviously on board one of the army trucks, which were, he hoped, speeding out of range.
It was amazing footage—black and white, which somehow made it even more powerful. Black and white was more realistic, no? Yes—absolutely.
The handheld was steady on the plane as it glided in over the town.
“Angels of death,” he whispered. “Beautiful image. I’m such an artist.”
It took two of them to push the bladder of gas out the payload door. Then the pilot banked a hard left, fire walled the engines, and climbed out of there as fast as he could. That was his job, his piece of the puzzle, and he’d done it very well. “You get to live,” the Wolf spoke to the video again.
The camera was on a wide angle now and captured the bomb as it slowly plummeted toward the town. Stunning footage. Scary as hell, too, even for him to see. At approximately a hundred feet from the ground, the bomb detonated. “Ka-fucking-boom!” said the Wolf. It just came out of his mouth. Usually he wasn’t this emotional about anything.
As he watched—couldn’t take his eyes away—the Daisy Cutter leveled everything within five hundred yards of the drop site. It also had the capacity to kill everything within an area that large, which it did. This was utter devastation. Up to ten miles away windows blew out of buildings. The ground and buildings shook in Elko, Nevada, about thirty-five miles away. The explosion was heard in the next state.
And actually, much farther away than that. Right there in Los Angeles, for instance. Because tiny Sunrise Valley, Nevada, was just a test run.
“This is just a warm-up,” said the Wolf. “Just the beginning of something great. My masterpiece. My payback.”
WHEN EVERYTHING STARTED, I was blessedly out of the loop, on a four-day vacation to the West Coast, my first in over a year. First stop: Seattle, Washington.
Seattle is a beautiful, lively city that—in my opinion, anyway—nicely balances the funky old and the cyber new, with possibly a tip of a Microsoft cap to the future side of things. Under ordinary circumstances I would have looked forward to a visit there.
These were kind of shaky times, though, and I had only to look down at the small boy tightly holding on to my hand as we crossed Wallingford Avenue North to remember why.
I had only to listen to my heart.
The boy was my son Alex, and I was seeing him for the first time in four months. He and his mother lived in Seattle now. I lived in Washington, D.C., where I was an FBI agent. Alex’s mom and I were involved in a “friendly” custody struggle over our son, at least it was evolving that way after a very stormy couple of encounters.
“You having fun?” I asked little Alex, who still carried around Moo, a spotted black-and-white cow that had been his favorite toy when he lived with me in Washington. He was almost three, but already a smooth talker and even smoother operator. God, I loved this little guy. His mother believed that he was a gifted child—high intelligence, high creativity—and since Christine was an elementary-school teacher, and an excellent one, she would probably know.
Christine’s place was in the Wallingford area of Seattle, and because it’s a pleasant walking neighborhood, Alex and I had decided to stay close to home. We started out playing in the backyard, which was bordered with Douglas firs and had plenty of room, not to mention a view of the Cascade Mountains.
I took several pictures of the Boy, per my instructions from Nana Mama. Alex wanted me to see his mother’s vegetable garden, and as I expected, it was very well done, full of tomatoes, lettuce, and squash. The grass was neatly mown. Pots of rosemary and mint covered the kitchen windowsills. I took more pictures of Alex.
After our tour of the yard, we walked over to the Wallingford Playfield and had a catch-and-batting session, then it was the zoo, and then another hand-holding walk along nearby Green Lake. Alex was pumped up about the upcoming Seafair Kiddies Parade and didn’t understand why I couldn’t stay for it. I knew what was coming next and I tried to brace myself for it.
“Why do you always have to go away?” he asked, and I didn’t have a good answer. Just a sudden, terrible ache in my chest that was all too familiar. I want to be with you every minute of every day, buddy, I wanted to say.
“I just do, buddy,” I said. “But I’ll be back soon. I promise. You know I keep my promises.”
“Is it because you’re a policeman?” he asked. “Why you have to go away?”
“Yes. Partly. That’s my job. I have to make money to buy VCRs and Pop-Tarts.”
“Why don’t you get another job?” asked Alex.
“I’ll think about it,” I told him. Not a lie. I would. I had been thinking about my police career a lot lately. I’d even talked to my doctor about it, my head doctor.
