James Patterson - London Bridges

His twin girls, his sweet daughters, started to cry, so Shafer did the only thing he could think of to restore order: he pointed his gun straight at Judi's tear-stained face and walked closer to her. "Make them stop whining and screeching. Now! Show me you deserve to be their keeper."

The aunt bent low and pressed the girls to her chest, and while they didn't actually stop crying, the sound was at least muffled and subdued.

"Judi, now listen to me," Shafer said as he moved behind her and pressed the barrel of the Beretta to the back of her head. "As much as I would like to, I'm not here to fuck and murder you. Actually, I have a message for you to be passed on to the home secretary. In a strange, ironic twist, your absurd, pitiful life actually matters for now. Can you believe it? I can't."

Aunt Judi seemed confused, her natural state as far as Shafer could tell. "How would I do that?" she blubbered.

"Just call the sodding police! Now shut up and listen. You're to tell the police that I came to visit, and I told you that no one is safe anymore. Not the police, not their families. We can go to their houses, just like I came to your house today."

Just to make sure she got it, Shafer repeated the message twice more. Then he turned his attention back to Tricia and Erica, who interested him about as much as the ridiculous porcelain dolls covering the mantel in the room. He hated those silly, frilly porcelain doodads that had once belonged to his wife and that she had doted on as if they were real.

"How is Robert?" he asked the twins, and received no reaction.

What is this? The girls had already mastered the hopelessly lost and confused look of their mother and their blubbering auntie. They said not a word.

"Robert is your brother!" Shafer yelled, and the girls started to sob loudly again. "How is he? How is my son? Tell me something about your brother! Has he grown two heads? Anything!"

"He's all right," Tricia finally simpered.

"Yes, he's all right," Erica repeated, following her sister's lead.

"He's all right, is he? Well, that's all right, then," Shafer said with utter disdain for these two clones of their mother.

He found that he was actually missing Robert, though. He rather enjoyed the mildly twisted lad at times. "All right, give your father a kiss," he finally demanded. "I am your father, you pitiful twits," he added for good measure. "In case you've forgotten."

The girls wouldn't kiss him, and he wasn't permitted to kill them, so Shafer finally had to leave the dreadful house. On the way out, he swept the porcelain dolls off the mantel, sending them crashing to the floor.

"In memory of your mother!" he called back over his shoulder.

The most common complaint from soldiers serving in Iraq is that they feel that everything around them is absurd and makes no sense. More and more, this is the way of modern-day warfare. I felt it now myself.

We were past the deadline and living on borrowed time. That's how it seemed to me. Feeling as if I hadn't been able to catch my breath in days, I was on my way to London with two agents from our International Terrorism Section.

Geoffrey Shafer was in England. Even more insane, he wanted us to know he was there. Someone did.

The flight into Heathrow Airport arrived at a little before six in the morning and I went straight to a hotel just off Victoria Street and slept until ten. After that short rest, I made my way to New Scotland Yard, just around the corner, on Broadway. It was great to be so near Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, and the Houses of Parliament.

Upon arrival, I was taken to the office of Detective Superintendent Martin Lodge of the Met. Lodge told me, modestly enough, that he kept the Anti Terrorist Branch, called SO13, running smoothly. On our way to the morning's briefing he gave me a thumbnail sketch of himself.

"Like you, I came up through the police ranks. Eleven years with the Met after a stint with SIS in Europe. Before that I trained at Hendon, then a constable on the beat. Chose the detective track and was moved into SO13 because I have a few languages."

He paused, and I spoke at the first break. "I know about your AT squad-the best in Europe, I've heard. Years of practice with the IRA."

Lodge gave me a thin smile, a veteran trouper's smile. "Sometimes the best way to learn is through mistakes. We've made plenty in Ireland. Anyway, here we are, Alex. They're all waiting inside. They want to meet you very much. Get ready for some incredible bullshit, though. MI5 and MI6 will both be here. They fight over everything. Don't let it get to you. We manage to sort it all out in the end. Most of the time, anyway."

I nodded. "Like the Bureau and the CIA back home. I'm sure I've seen it before."

As it turned out, Detective Superintendent Lodge was right on about the turf wars, and I figured that the feud was probably hurting progress in London, even under the present crisis circumstances. Also in the room were a few Special Branch men and women. The prime minister's chief of staff. Plus the usual crowd from London 's emergency services.

As I took a seat I groaned inside-another goddamn meeting. Just what I didn't need. We're past the deadline-they're blowing up things! I wanted to yell.

The large beach house outside Montauk on Long Island didn't belong to the Wolf. It was a rental, forty thousand a week, even in the off-season. A complete rip-off, the Wolf knew, but he didn't mind so much. Not today, anyway.

It was quite an impressive place, though-Georgian style, three stories rising above the beach, immense swimming pool shielded from the wind by the house itself, pebbled driveway lined with cars-mostly limousines, muscular drivers in dark suits congregating around them.

Everything here, he thought with some bitterness, paid for with my money, my sweat, my ideas!

They were waiting for him, several of his associates in the Red Mafiya. They were gathered inside a library/sitting room with panoramic views of the deserted beach and the Atlantic.

They pretended to be his dearest, closest friends as he entered the room, shaking his hand, patting his broad back and shoulders, muttering easy lies about how good it was to see him. The very few who know what I look like. The inner circle, the ones I trust more than anyone else.

Lunch had been served before he arrived, and then the entire household staff had been removed from the house. He had parked in back, then come in through the kitchen. No one had seen him except the men in this room, nine of them.

He stood before them and lit up a cigar. To victory.

"They have asked for an extension of the deadline. Can you believe it?" the Wolf said between satisfying puffs.

The Russian men around the table began to laugh. They shared the Wolf's disdain for the current governments and leaders around the world. Politicians were weak by nature and the few strong ones who snuck into office somehow were soon weakened by the process of government. It had always been that way.

"Drop the hammer!" one of the men shouted.

The Wolf smiled. "You know, I should. But they have a point-if we act now, we lose, too. Let me get them on the line. They're expecting an answer. This is interesting, no? We negotiate with the United States, Britain, and Germany. As if we were a world power."

The Wolf raised his index finger as the call went through. "They're expecting to hear from me…"

"You're all on the line?" he spoke into the phone.

They were.

"No small talk, the time for that has passed. Here is my decision. You have another two days, till seven o'clock, eastern standard time, but…

"The price has just doubled!"

He disconnected. Then he looked around at his people.