The television is playing a news report about an airplane that landed on the beach. It looks like Fort Lauderdale.

Damian turns up the volume. “Navy officials are trying to confirm if it is indeed one of the original Avenger bombers last seen in 1945 that some claim were lost in the Bermuda Triangle . . . Authorities have sealed the sandbar off and aren’t allowing news crews close enough to take photographs of the body inside . . .”

I forget about the gun in my hand.

The World War II plane is sitting on a sandbar with Coast Guard boats on either side. Thick fuselage and stubby wings, like a huge engine with a plane built around it. A tarp is over the long cockpit section. The bomber looks as if it’s been sitting on the bottom of the ocean for a hundred years. Maybe it has.

Damian points to the television. “I bet you anything the pilot is going to be a dead ringer for one of the missing airmen from 1945. Your bad boy loves duplicates. Doesn’t he?”

Damian flashes me a smile. He has an almost gleeful look on his face. The Warlock connection doesn’t hit me at first. The screen flashes a close-up look at the bomber, then a graphic of the Bermuda Triangle like you see on those paranormal shows, and some archival photos of the bombers.

I knew on some level the Warlock was going to try something bigger and even more impressive, but this is just beyond the pale.

The plane looks exactly like the photograph of one that went missing more than fifty years ago. Now it’s come back with a corpse inside.

A reporter on the beach says the Pentagon is trying to track down the serial numbers. They haven’t made any comment about the body. But I bet Damian is right.

“One minute.” Damian stands up.

I’m still looking at the television.

“A word of warning, darling. What’s the one thing magicians hate more than anything else in the world?” He steps out onto my balcony and leans over the railing.

I turn away from the television. “A skeptic.”

“Clever girl.” He blows me a kiss, then climbs over.

“Damian!” I call out to him.

By the time I get to the ledge, he’s gone.

I live on the nineteenth floor.

My phone rings at the same time the police knock on my door.

I try to explain to the cops that it’s a false alarm. They look a little suspicious and want to stay longer and ask me questions. I think it has to do with how I’m dressed. Meanwhile, Ailes is on the phone telling me to get to the airfield in forty minutes. Assistant Director Breyer had a change of heart.

They need me in Fort Lauderdale as soon as possible.

15

I BARELY MAKE IT to the airfield in time. Fortunately, I’m not the last one on the FBI jet. It’s a full plane. All forty seats are taken up by forensic specialists and some naval officials teaching at the FBI academy who requested to come aboard. Our last passenger is an older man, a retired pilot who teaches history at the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis. Although we’ve all been looking up the same Wikipedia page on our laptops and phones, he gives us the overview of the mystery on the trip down.