It’s comforting to hear him kid around with his subordinates like that. I get the feeling that all they want to do is impress him and be impressed by each other.

Ailes adopts a sympathetic tone. “Well, unless you want to dig around down there, you’re welcome to come back to the brain trust up here and bounce ideas around. Maybe we can figure out the next one before it happens.”

I look over at the chaotic room and realize that there’s really no place for me. Everyone has their task. Maybe if I’m with Ailes and his geeks we can make some headway.

“Sounds good. Let me talk to Knoll.”

“Hold on . . . You seeing this?” ask Ailes.

I look over at the overhead screens. An image appears from inside the engine duct. The metal is dark green and rusty. But the thing we’re supposed to see stands out clear as day.

The Warlock’s clue.

A feather.

A solitary white feather.

20

THE INSTANT THE feather appears on the screen, a group of forensic techs are on the phone with local zoos and universities tracking down an expert on plumage.

Since I don’t know much about birds, other than how to hide them in a sequined tuxedo, I clear things with Knoll so I can head back to Quantico.

Knoll’s standing over the shoulder of an agent who is flipping through online images of birds. “What can you tell us about birds, Blackwood?”

“I got bit by my grandfather’s macaw when I was ten.” I still have the scar on my arm. A nasty bird, he clamped onto my arm when I was changing the newspapers in his cage.

“Nice.” He turns away from the laptop. “What’s up?”

“I was thinking I might be of more use in Quantico, now that the bomber is in forensics’ hands.” I gaze up at the screens showing the feather and photos of the plane.

“You think Ailes and his group might make some headway?”

“I think an unconventional approach might be helpful. There are still some things about the Chloe murders that should be pursued.”

“The whole thing is nagging me,” replies Knoll.

“Yeah. I just think there’s some deeper part to this. We’ve got two victims that can’t be who we think they are. The pilot’s fingerprint is likely a record switch. Something about the two Chloes . . .”

“You don’t think the inferno was to destroy the evidence?”

I shake my head. “I think he wanted an apocalyptic pyre. I think he wants us to think we know what he did. That he just found some girl that looked like Chloe and tried his best to pass her off as Chloe.”

“Why?”

I’ve been going over and over this. “To pull the rug out from under our feet. To get us to build false confidence so he can destroy it.”

“Destroy it? How?”

“I’m not sure. The pilot we found is a dead ringer for the one that went missing in 1945. Our two Chloes are indistinguishable from what we can see. But there’s only one body to examine, a partial one at that. There’s something else . . .”