At 3:40 in the morning, following instructions, the Weasel took up a position on a bench in the riverfront park on Sutton Place and Fifty-seventh Street. There was a great deal that bothered him about this job, but the problems were balanced by two large positives: he was being paid a lot of money, and he was in the middle of the action again. Jesus, am I ever in the middle of the shit.

He stared down on the East River's dark, swift-moving currents. A red tugboat marked MCALLISTER BROTHERS was assisting a containership on its way. The city that never sleeps, right? Hell, the bars on First and Second Avenues were just getting down to their last call. A little earlier he'd passed an animal medical center that was still open for late-night pet emergencies. Pet emergencies? Jesus, what a city, what a messed-up country America had become.

A lot of New Yorkers would be wide-awake soon, and they would find it exceedingly difficult to get back to sleep. There would be weeping and the gnashing of teeth. The Wolf was going to make certain of that in a minute or so.

Shafer watched the seconds on his watch tick down to 3:43, but he was also keeping an eye on the river and the Queensboro Bridge.

Cars and cabs and quite a few trucks were whizzing along up there, even at this hour. Easily a hundred vehicles were crossing the bridge right now, probably more than that. The poor wankers!

At 3:43 Shafer pressed a button on his cell phone.

This transmitted a simple coded squirt to a small antenna on the Manhattan side of the bridge. A circuit began to close. . . .

A primer fired. . . .

Microseconds later, a message straight from hell was delivered to the people of New York City, and the rest of the world.

A symbolic message.

Another wake-up call.

A massive explosion ripped through the girders and trusses of the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge. Joints were severed instantly, shockingly, terminally. The old steel structures snapped like peanut brittle. Huge rivets popped out and plummeted toward the East River. Tarmac crumbled. Reinforced concrete fractured like paper being shredded.

The upper roadbed cracked in two, then enormous sections dropped like bombs onto the lower deck, which was breaking up as well, peeling away, twisting and twirling toward the water below.

Cars were falling into the water. A delivery truck carrying a full load of newspapers from a plant in Queens rolled backward down the inverted roadway and then pirouetted into the East River. It was followed by more cars and trucks, dropping like lead weights. Electric lines drooped and sparked along the entire length of the bridge. More cars, dozens of them, plummeted from the bridge, fell into the river, then disappeared beneath the surface.

Some people were exiting their cars, then jumping to their death in the river. Shafer could hear their terrifying screams all the way across the river.