His men came running, and the taller of the two, who I later learned was the chief's son-in-law, handed over the camera. It was a Canon PowerShot and I knew how to get at the pictures.

So what do we have here? The first shots were well-composed nature photos. No people in any of them. Close-ups and wide-angle shots.

Then came pictures of the actual evacuation. Unbelievable.

Then I finally got my first look at the man who had filmed the explosion.

His back was to the camera. At first he was standing, but in the next few shots he was down on one knee. Probably to get a better angle.

I don't know what had prompted the rock climber to take the initial few shots, but his instincts were pretty good. The mystery man was videotaping the deserted town—then suddenly it went up in flames that rose several hundred feet high. It seemed pretty clear that he had known about the attack before it happened.

The next photograph showed the man turning in the direction of the climbers. He actually began to walk toward them, or so it appeared on film. I wondered if he'd spotted one of them taking his picture. He seemed to be looking their way.

That was when I saw his face, and I couldn't believe what I was looking at. I recognized him. And why not? I'd been chasing him for years. He was wanted for more than a dozen murders here and in Europe. He was a vicious psychopath, one of the worst of his kind still on the loose anywhere in the world.

His name was Geoffrey Shafer, but I knew him better as the Weasel.

What was he doing here?

Chapter 11

There were a couple more crystal-clear shots as the hateful Weasel got closer to the photographer.

Just the sight of him sent my brain reeling, and I felt a little sick. My mouth was dry, and I kept licking my lips. What is Shafer doing here? What connection does he have to the bomb that leveled this small town? It was crazy, felt like a dream, completely unreal.

I'd first come across Colonel Geoffrey Shafer in Washington three years ago. He'd murdered more than a dozen people there, though we could never prove it. He would pose as a cabdriver, usually in Southeast, where I lived. The prey was easy to grab, and he knew D.C. police investigations weren't as thorough when the victims were poor and black. Shafer also had a day job—he was an army colonel working inside the British embassy. On the face of it, he couldn't have been more respectable. And yet he was a horrible murderer, one of the worst pattern killers I'd ever come across.

A local agent named Fred Wade joined me near the helicopter I'd come in on. I was still studying the climber's photos. Wade told me he wanted to know what was going on, and I couldn't blame him. So did I.