He returned to one of several apartments he owned around the world, this one a stunning penthouse overlooking the East River, and made a phone call. Lightly squeezing his black rubber ball, he spoke to a senior agent from the New York FBI office, one of their top people, a woman.

The agent told him everything the Bureau knew so far and what they were doing to find him, which was basically nothing of consequence. They had a far better chance of suddenly finding bin Laden than of finding him.

The Wolf yelled into the telephone receiver. "I'm supposed to pay you for this shit? For telling me what I already know? I should kill you instead."

But then the Russian laughed. "Just a nasty joke, my friend. You bring me good news. And I have news for you: there is going to be an incident in New York very soon. Stay away from the bridges. Bridges are very dangerous places. I know this from past experience."

Chapter 54

Bill Capistran was the man with the plan, and also a very bad and dangerous attitude—serious anger-management problems, to put it mildly. But soon he'd also be the man with 250 large in his bank account in the Caymans. All he had to do was his particular job, and what he had to do wasn't going to be that hard. I can do this, no problemo.

Capistran was twenty-nine years old, slim and sinewy, originally from Raleigh, North Carolina. He had played lacrosse for a year at North Carolina State, then left for the Marines. After a three-year stint he'd been recruited to do merc work for a company out of Washington. Then two weeks ago he'd been approached by a guy he knew from D.C., Geoffrey Shafer, and he'd agreed to do the biggest job of his career. Two hundred fifty thousand's worth.

He was on the job now.

At seven in the morning, he drove a black Ford van east across Fifty-seventh Street in Manhattan, then turned north at First Avenue. Finally, he parked near the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge, also called the Queensboro.

He and two men in white painters' overalls climbed out of the van, then gathered up equipment from the back. Not paint and drop cloths and aluminum ladders. Explosives. A combination of C4 and nitrate to be packed into the bridge's lowest trusses at a strategic point near the Manhattan side of the East River.

Capistran knew the Queensboro inside and out by now. He stared up at the sturdy, ninety-five-year-old bridge, and what he saw was an open, flexible structure, a cantilever-truss design, the only one of the four East River bridges that wasn't a suspension bridge. Which meant that it required a special kind of bomb, one that he just happened to have in the back of the van.

This is something else, Capistran couldn't help thinking as he and his compadres hauled their gear toward the bridge. New York City. The East Side. All these fancy-assed big-business dicks, these blond princesses, walking around as though the world was theirs for the taking. Nerves aside, he was almost enjoying himself now, and he found himself whistling a song that struck him as pretty funny. "The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)" by Simon and Garfunkel—whom he considered to be typical New York City assholes, too. Both of them—Curly and the Midget.