Your Colonel Shafer. That said it all, didn't it? He's long gone from Fallon. Of course he was.

Chapter 18

I didn't sleep much that night. I think I had awful nightmares about the Weasel. And about the holocaust in Sunrise Valley, Nevada.

Early the next morning I had to sign permission slips so the kids could go on a field trip to the National Aquarium in Baltimore. I signed the slips at four-thirty before they were up and while the house was still dark, then I had to sneak off to work. I didn't get to say good-bye, and I don't like that, but I left love notes for Jannie and Damon. Such a nice pops, right?

I drove to work with Alicia Keys and Calvin Richardson on the CD, good company for the trip and whatever lay ahead.

These days, Major Threats was being run out of FBI headquarters in D.C. Since 9/11, the Bureau had shifted dramatically—from what some people felt was a reactive, investigative organization to a much more proactive and effective one. A recent addition, a $6 million software package at the Hoover Building, included a 40-million-page terrorism database dating back to the '93 bombing of the World Trade Center.

We had a blizzard of information; now it was time to see if any of it was worth a damn.

About a dozen of us met on the subject of Sunrise Valley that morning in the Strategic Information and Operations Center command on the fifth floor. The obliteration of the small town had been listed as a "major threat," even though we had no way to tell whether it was. So far, we didn't have a single clue as to what Sunrise Valley was really about.

There still hadn't been any contact with the bombers, not a word from them.

Surreal. And probably scarier than if we had heard from them.

This particular conference room was one of the jazzier and more comfortable ones: lots of blue leather armchairs, a dark wooden table, wine-colored rug. Two flags—an American and a DOJ—lots of crisp white shirts and striped ties around the table.

I had on jeans and a navy windbreaker that read,FBI TERRORISM TASK FORCE. And I felt that I was the only one dressed correctly for the day. This case sure wasn't going to be business as usual.

The room was loaded with heavy hitters, though. The highest-ranking person was Burt Manning, one of the five executive assistant directors at the Bureau. Also present were senior agents from the National Joint Terrorism Task Force, as well as the top analyst from the new Office of Intelligence, which combined experts from the Bureau and the CIA.

My partner for the morning was Monnie Donnelley, a superior analyst and a good friend from my time at Quantico.

"I see you got your personal invitation," I said as I sat down beside Monnie. "Welcome to the party."

"Oh, I wouldn't miss this. It's like sci-fi, or something. It's so weird, Alex."