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  “Yes,” came the swift, confident reply. “I got no other matches. At first, I thought these guys were pulling a joke, so unbeknownst to them I picked up additional photographs of Krueger and ran them through the system: one from Pathe footage taken in Berlin and another from his testimony at Nuremberg. They both match the shot we have of the suspect.”

  The room fell silent. Krueger knew the enormous stress the people around him were under. The families of the deceased and the honor of the nation were demanding they find the man who caused such carnage. He could see the strain in Hawtrey’s eyes. She masked it well, as long years in the service had taught her the importance of projecting an aura of calm confidence during tough times. But she couldn’t hide her weariness. Krueger had seen it in too many eyes during those five tours in the deserts of Iraq and Afghanistan.

  “And when was the NGI database last audited?” Hawtrey asked.

  “Er, last spring as I recall, ma’am,” Colin replied.

  “Time for another,” she said. Hawtrey poured herself a glass of water as she eyeballed Krueger. Her face was as grey as her suit.

  “I’ll get right on it,” Colin said, rising from his seat.

  “No!” Hawtrey said. “You’re not to enter that computer room or access the database until further notice. Is that clear?”

  Judging by the look on Colin’s face, it was all too clear to the young techie. “I didn’t do anything wrong!” he protested. For a small guy, he had quite the pair of lungs.

  “I know that,” Hawtrey said, “but I need to know if there is an error with the technology you are using to make this incredible claim.”

  Hawtrey offered a glass of water to Colin, by way of apology, and beckoned another agent, the young man in the vest and impeccable tie Krueger had seen running into his office that morning.

  “Munroe, call the head of FACE and tell him to send me his best agent. I want the software checked for bugs and malware,” Hawtrey ordered.

  “But… Colin Dubchek is the best, ma’am,” Munroe said.

  “Then get me the second best, dammit! I want someone who has perspective.” Hawtrey replied.

  “It’ll be a waste of time,” Colin grumbled. “The Brits helped imprison Krueger after the war. I asked them to run the same analysis I did this morning, and they drew the same conclusion. So did Interpol.”

  “You had no right to authorize such action!” Hawtrey said, slamming her glass on the table. That’s more potential leakers I need to watch, she thought. Hawtrey grimaced. Journalists had been waving checkbooks and promises of fame in the faces of every person associated with the investigation ever since she’d arrived in the Big Apple. Keeping things secret was fast becoming her biggest challenge, and she feared it was only a matter of time before the suspect’s face was projected on every TV screen in the country.

  There was a crisp knock at the door, and a harried woman in a pencil skirt entered. She wore thick-framed glasses. “I have the information you requested ma’am,” she said. “Wolfgang Krueger was born to aristocratic Prussian parents on June 14th, 1888. His father was—”

  “The death, Jean,” Hawtrey said, “the death is all I care about!”

  “Oh,” Jean replied, hurt that her hard work had been dismissed so casually. She flipped through the stack of pages in her arms. “It’s true what Detective Krueger said. General Krueger died of throat cancer in a sanitarium attached to Spandau Prison in 1951. He was buried in his family’s plot in a cemetery in Berlin.” Jean flashed a photograph of the gravestone as if it were proof. “Spandau was demolished in the 80s, and all records transferred to the German Defense Ministry. But their totenregister proves Krueger died in 1951.” Jean again flashed another print-out to the group, this one showing Wolfgang Krueger’s death certificate.

  Hawtrey finished her water. She desperately wanted to scream but knew her wearied agents were depending on her calm leadership. She would scream later to her husband when he called her that evening from their Maryland home.

  “Okay,” she said, no longer willing or able to confront the mystery surrounding the suspect. “Let’s take a look at the other side of the investigation. Munroe, tell these two detectives what we know so far about the attack. And if any of what Agent Munroe reports is leaked to the media, I will personally destroy the career of the person responsible.”

  With Hawtrey’s threat hanging in the air, Munroe stepped forward. He casually flung photographs taken from various New York CCTV cameras onto the table as he spoke. “At 11:34 hours a 2004 black Lincoln town car pulled up outside the Meyer Cultural Center on 41st Street. The suspect exited from the front passenger seat with a large black haversack. This haversack contained the bomb.”

  “Who was driving the car?” Krueger asked.

  “This fella,” Munroe answered, holding up an image of a man behind the wheel. He wore a grey roll-neck sweater, a woolen cap pulled down low over his ears, large sunglasses, and an obviously fake beard.

  “Slow down,” O’Brian said, raising his hand. “Why did they go to such trouble hiding this guy’s appearance, but let Krueger…I mean the suspect…walk in without a disguise.”

  “Maybe he was disguised to look like Krueger?” Munroe asked.

  “Impossible,” Dubchek protested, but the rage inside him was shrinking into a small ball of greasy disappointment. Hawtrey, Munroe, and the others clearly had no respect for his labors. “I know my tech, and it knows how to spot everything from a disguise to a doppelgänger.”

  “Carry on Munroe,” Hawtrey said, ignoring Dubchek.

  The younger agent nodded and flipped through his photographs.

  “While the car circled the block the suspect deposited the bomb in the ground-floor men’s restroom before returning outside and getting back into the Lincoln at 11:42 hours.”

  “That old guy, the suspect, he carried the bomb?” asked Krueger, being careful to keep his voice neutral. “How heavy was that bag?”

  “With the amount of tovex sausages and nitromethane needed for a blast of such size,” said a nearby ATF agent, “we estimate the bomb weighed a little under three hundred pounds.”

  Krueger chewed his lip. His grandfather, if it was him, was carrying the haversack as if it contained nothing more than cotton candy.

  “So not only a ghost, but a ghost with super-human powers,” O’Brian whispered.

  “And where is this car now?” Krueger asked, eager to change the subject.

  “We found it in a parking lot near Gramercy Park,” Munroe answered. “The way we figure it, they drove to the lot, exited the Lincoln and left using another vehicle.”

  “Damn it,” O’Brian muttered.

  “There must be something in the car,” Krueger said. He remembered a militia cell in Iraq had tried a similar trick in Fallujah when he’d first arrived in the city. But the driver had left a crushed napkin under his seat, which was all the evidence Krueger had needed to collar him.

  “Not a thing,” Hawtrey said. “That car looks like it just rolled off the assembly line. It was reported stolen three weeks ago from a retirement home in Harlem. Apparently, it is in better shape now than the day it was taken.”

  “Mysteries everywhere,” O’Brian whispered to Krueger.

  Krueger nodded in agreement and was amazed to find himself ashamed as the conversation continued. His grandfather, his own blood, was responsible for all the pained, tired looks he saw around the table.

  “So now you know what we know,” said Hawtrey, reassuming command of the room. “Which amounts to a hill of beans. Even worse, we will soon be under the clock, people: FBI Director Cullingworth has decided to release the suspect’s image to the press this afternoon, and when he does, we’ll start getting a thousand tip-offs an hour from people convinced they know the suspect.”

  You can’t do that! Krueger’s mind screamed. He pictured his mother, frail but defiant, crushed by the news. And he knew it’d only be a matter of time before some basem
ent-dwelling sleuth made the connection between the suspect and his disgraced grandfather.

  O’Brian had the same idea. “You sure that’s wise, ma’am?” he asked. “Some World War II nut might find the link between Krueger and the suspect and post it online… and then we’ll be a laughing-stock.”

  Hawtrey pursed her lips. The idea had crossed her mind, but with so few tangible leads, she needed help, even if it meant a few unfavorable headlines in the New York press.

  “Okay, can we move on from this zombie shit?” the ATF agent asked, throwing his hands up to reveal ugly sweat patches on his suit jacket. “Finding this dead Nazi is just one thread in the investigation, but with all due respect, it’s a thread I don’t think will lead anywhere. The bomb is much more promising. We need to investigate every sale of tovex and nitromethane from the last year at least, maybe more, and that will mean a lot of valuable man hours.”

  “And thefts must be checked, too,” Hawtrey added. “Nitromethane can be used as an expensive fuel in various motorsports, and a few of those motorbike and drag racer fans prefer to steal it from dealerships rather than pay. All the reported thefts will have to be followed up as well.”

  “Chalk that up as item 7,001 on our to do list,” Munroe said.

  “It sure is,” Hawtrey said, “and each of those items needs to be checked off. Now Munroe, make sure the NGI database is audited just like I asked. Jean, keep in contact with the German authorities. Hassler, if you want to make yourself useful, then find me some volunteers ready to help go through all the public’s tip-offs. Most of them will likely be garbage, but they’ve got to be checked nonetheless.”

  Hawtrey rolled off her list of instructions, giving each person in the room a task to complete. But she ignored Krueger and O’Brian.

  When the meeting broke and her subordinates flew off in different directions, she approached the two cops. “We are sending a team to speak with your mother,” Hawtrey said calmly.

  “I understand,” Krueger replied. “When do we leave?”

  A single, swift shake of her head revealed that Krueger was not part of Hawtrey’s plans. “You’ll be staying in New York, detective. I’m ordering you to report to my team so that we can analyze your family history. I want a full accounting of whatever you know. This suspect could, after all, be some long-lost cousin you don’t know about.”

  “The Hell I am staying here!” Krueger roared. “That’s my mother!”

  “You know as well as I do,” Hawtrey said, taking Krueger’s arm gently in her hand, “that law enforcement never interviews their own damned family. Not even for informational interviews. Your mother might clam up.”

  Krueger opened his mouth to speak, but a small shake of O’Brian’s head told him to hold his tongue. Wait till we’re out of the room, he appeared to be saying.

  “Get him back to Police Plaza,” Hawtrey said to O’Brian, “and get him a coffee. My agents will be waiting when you get there.”

  O’Brian grunted, which Hawtrey took as an affirmation, and led his young partner out of the conference room.

  An hour later, Krueger was still steaming. And so was the coffee which O’Brian served him in a chipped mug. “I gotta see my ma,” Krueger said. “I gotta warn her.”

  “Sure you do, kid,” O’Brian said. They were conspiring together in the break room, watching the buttoned-down FBI agents standing impatiently by Krueger’s desk. “But let’s do it right. Let’s figure out how I can distract these Washington pukes while you head to the parking lot.”

  Krueger smiled. For a man who so proudly and regularly broke police procedure, it was amazing O’Brian still had a job on the force.

  “Can you go make small talk with ‘em?” Krueger asked hopefully. “Show them the ol’ Irish charm while I sneak out?”

  O’Brian chuckled. “That might work on a rookie cop, Joey,” he said, “but these guys are Quantico-trained hard asses. They’ll see through it.”

  Krueger drained his coffee cup, thinking about how best to get past the agents waiting for him outside. But just as he did so, he heard a loud scream coming from the bullpen.

  His distraction had arrived.

  -3-

  “WHAT THE HELL IS going on?” Krueger yelled, drawing closer to O’Brian and looking into the bullpen. From the window, he could see half the narcotics team swarming around Captain Hassler’s office door.

  “It don’t matter, kid,” O’Brian replied, pointing to the FBI agents as they both headed toward the commotion. “This is your chance. Get to your car!”

  O’Brian slowly opened the door, and Krueger darted out. He walked softly, but also with speed and purpose, like a ballet dancer. Within seconds, Krueger was obscured by the shadows in the stairwell next to the break room.

  “Call you later,” he said, before disappearing.

  Alone, O’Brian lumbered up to Hassler’s office, picking up the raised voices as he drew closer.

  “Now, ma’am, if you just remain ca—” someone said in a smooth voice, before being cut off by a loud and distraught woman.

  “Damn you!” she cried.

  O’Brian barged past the crowd to discover an incredible scene: an old woman, crooked with age and grief, jabbed her thin, claw-like fingers into the toned, tanned chest of a man who looked to O’Brian to be a surfer. Next to him was a pimpled youth wearing glasses too big for his porcine nose.

  “You!” the women cried, stabbing another tobacco-stained talon into the tall man’s chest. “You are responsible! It was you who put the Center’s name in all the tabloids. You may as well have put on target on my husband’s back!”

  The last words sounded as though they had been wrenched from her tormented soul, and the woman collapsed into a female officer’s waiting arms, her wails piercing even the hardened hearts of the veteran cops surrounding her.

  “Who is this?” O’Brian whispered to the nearest cop, who was watching the altercation.

  “It’s Sara Simovich,” the cop replied. “Her husband died in the blast. She’s got it into her head that Dennilson’s responsible.”

  “Dennilson?” Sam asked.

  “Curt Dennilson,” the cop said, nodding toward the man who looked like a surfer. “You telling me you’ve never heard of the world’s seventh richest man? He’s the founder of Gemini.com, the first combined online retailer and bank. Imagine Walmart and Bank of America joined together and set up a website. That’s what Dennilson’s got. And it’s made him a fortune.”

  O’Brian looked at the surfer with new-found respect. He had the tan of a native Californian and wore what was the undisputed uniform of the Silicon Valley magnates: open-collared shirt, casual pants, and sneakers.

  “What the heck has he got to do with the bombing?”

  “It’s his money that funded the Meyer Center’s latest exhibit: Antiquities from the Time of the Torah,” the cop replied, before sauntering back to his office. With the outburst over, the rest of the crowd slowly returned to the work waiting on their desks.

  But Dennilson was not left alone. Mac Hassler, acting as though he could smell the fame and fortune on his body, came bounding up to him with his hand outstretched.

  “Mr. Dennilson,” he said, beaming. Dennilson returned the smile, revealing two rows of brilliantly white teeth, which contrasted with his dark tan. “I’m so sorry to disturb your vital work, captain,” the magnate said in a deep voice, which sounded as though it had been marinated in rum.

  Hassler, of course, assured him that he was making no such disturbance, and attempted to hustle him into his office.

  But Sam O’Brian stopped him. A forty-year veteran with no family, he’d made police work his life. And he’d developed a healthy distrust of people intruding on cop work.

  “You’re that internet guy,” O’Brian said, feigning surprise, as he approached Dennilson. O’Brian saw that Dennilson’s brown eyes were wide and shone with an easy charm. Only the eyebrows, which reared like furry ca
terpillars, revealed the calculating intelligence that bubbled beneath.

  “Well, yes, I suppose I am,” Dennilson replied, smiling broadly, before introducing himself. “This is my Vice President of Imagination, Preston Gates,” Dennilson said, introducing the bespectacled youth. He, too, was wearing an open-necked shirt, as if mimicking his boss, but the similarities ended there. Gates was wan, and his lips, filmed with spittle, were twisting into a poisonous scowl.

  “I sure don’t have a clue what that means,” O’Brian said, only half joking, “but it sounds important.” He dismissed Hassler’s fierce look of annoyance with a wink.

  “I am a futurist,” Gates replied huffily. His auburn hair was receding and greasy. “Curt and I dream about what the future should look like, and then we build it.”

  O’Brian smiled and casually put his arm against Hassler’s office door, preventing anyone from entering.

  “If you don’t mind, dete—”

  “So what’s a pair of futurists doing in our dingy office?” O’Brian asked, interrupting his captain. Hassler had never worked the streets, never been close enough to a thug to feel their hot, threatening breath on his collar. O’Brian knew he didn’t have the guts to challenge him in front of people he was desperate to turn into friends.

  “Well,” said Dennilson, hiding his embarrassment at O’Brian’s brazenness with fake laughter. “I know you fellows are doing such stellar work in very difficult conditions, and I wanted to make it known that we, the citizens of the nation, are deeply grateful for your efforts. I bought along donuts as a small token of my deepest respect.”

  Dennilson pointed to the stacked boxes on a nearby melamine flip-top table. The donuts had come from the boutique bakery near Riverside Park, the one where a cup of coffee costs you half your paycheck. Of course they’d come from there, O’Brian thought.

  O’Brian said nothing as he turned back to face Dennilson. The silence soon became oppressive, and the tall Californian planted his hands on his slender hips in frustration. Back in San Francisco, his employees recognized this pose and had learned to dread it. It was the sign that he was, like a viper, about to strike.