Knoll nods his head. “And you think Ailes and his geek pack might have a better chance at breaking this than we do in the field?”

“I think it’s just as important.”

“All right. I’ll call you if we need you back here.”

An hour later I’m sitting in the lounge at the Fort Lauderdale–Hollywood International Airport thinking about the fact that the men of the Flight 19 Avenger squadron were last seen just a few hundred yards from where I am. It’s a strange feeling.

I’m trying to ignore the news on the television hanging over my head. They don’t have anything new to add. They just keep repeating the images of the Avenger on the sandbar and the pillar of fire at the cemetery. Even without the image of Chloe climbing out of the ground, it’s biblical enough. By now the connection between the two events is obvious, due to their apparently supernatural nature, and “Warlock” keeps showing up on the closed captioning.

I imagine him laughing at us as he sits over his Dungeons & Dragons game board in his Batman underwear.

On my laptop screen is the image of the feather. It’s obviously a big, bright, neon clue. Forensics had already identified it as a dove feather by the time I made it to the airport. I’m sure everyone in the conference hall is trying to figure it out.

I’m afraid it’s a red herring. And if it’s not, it’s only going to make sense to us after we see what the Warlock has planned next. It’s a clue, but a distracting one. We can’t help but look at it and wonder. We’re trying to figure out what one hand is doing while the other has already palmed off the aces.

The Warlock’s code on the FBI website wasn’t meant to be cracked until he was ready. Knowing where the sand came from wouldn’t have stopped him. It could have come from twenty miles in either direction. If he’d seen a stakeout, he probably would have dropped the plane elsewhere.

But they’re not clues, are they?

They’re calling cards.

They’re his way of telling us that the next mystery is his creation. He thinks he’s too important to write us a note. He only wants to communicate through his miracles.

This is how gods talk to mortals.

Gods speak in symbols too. I’m sure there’s a pattern to what he’s doing. The airplane may have been a lucky break, but to him it symbolizes something.

Chloe’s double was found in the grave. The airplane and body was found on a sandbar in the ocean.

I try to think of how he wants us to see the illusion. The Chloe died crawling out of the ground. The dirt. The “pilot” died in the air.

Earth.

Air.

Classical elements.

I pull up the Wikipedia page on the classical elements. The Babylonians had five: earth, sky, fire, sea and wind. The Greeks were almost the same: air, fire, earth, water and aether.