James Patterson - London Bridges

"As you know, I have worked in the trenches and on the front lines of law enforcement for many years myself. So I wanted you to hear from me now. I also wanted to be with you for these final minutes before the deadline runs out.

"I have news. The money has been raised. In Paris. In London. Washington. And in Tel Aviv, with help from many friends of Israel around the world. The entire sum will be transferred in three and a half minutes, approximately five minutes before the deadline expires.

"I want to thank everyone in this room, and all of those you represent, for countless hours of hard work, for personal sacrifices that no one should ask, for the most heroic effort, incredible bravery by so many. We did the best that we could, and most important, we will survive this crisis. Eventually we will get these inhuman bastards, all of them! We will get this Wolf, the most inhuman of them all."

There was a gold Empire clock on the wall behind the president. Everyone watched it intently. How could we not?

At 5:55 Paris time, President Debauney said, "The money is being transferred now. It will happen in a matter of seconds… All right. It's done. This should be over now. We will be all right. Congratulations to all of you. Thank you."

There was an audible sigh of relief in the cavernous room, smiles and handshakes, some hugs.

Then we waited, almost a reflex action.

For any kind of communication from the Wolf.

For breaking news from the other targeted cities: Washington, London, Tel Aviv.

The final sixty seconds before the deadline were incredibly tense and dramatic, even though the ransom had been delivered. I could do nothing but watch the second hand on the clock. Finally, I said a prayer for my family, for the people in all four cities, for the world we live in.

Then it was six in Paris and London; twelve in Washington; seven in Tel Aviv.

The deadline had passed. But what did it mean? Were we truly safe?

There were no significant changes on any of the monitors, no disruptions, no explosions on the live video feeds. Nothing.

And there was no call from the Wolf.

Two more minutes passed.

Ten minutes.

And then, a terrible explosion rocked the room-and the world.

The bomb, or bombs, not nuclear, but powerful enough to cause massive damage, went off in the first arrondissement, near the Louvre. The entire area, a maze of lanes and dead-end streets, was nearly flattened. Close to a thousand people died immediately, or at least within a few seconds. The terrible multiple explosions were heard, and felt, all over Paris.

The Louvre suffered only minor damage from the blasts, but the three-block area covering rue de Marengo, rue de l'Oratoire and rue Bailleul was almost completely destroyed. As was a nearby bridge-a small one-crossing the Seine.

A bridge. Another bridge. In Paris this time.

Not a word of explanation was heard from the Wolf. He didn't take credit for the wanton and despicable act, nor did he deny it.

He didn't need to explain his actions, did he? He thought he was God.

There are other supremely arrogant people who labor inside our government in Washington, and also some who work in the national media, who believe that they can accurately predict what will happen in the future because they know, or think they know, what happened in the past. I suspect it's the same in Paris, London, Tel Aviv, and everywhere else in the world: all these basically intelligent, maybe even well-intentioned people who proclaim, "That couldn't happen," or "Here's how it would happen in the real world." As if they really know. But they don't know. Nobody knows.

All bets are off nowadays. Anything can happen, and sooner or later, it probably will. We don't seem to be getting any smarter as a species, just crazier and crazier. Or at the very least, a whole lot more dangerous. Unbelievably, unbearably more dangerous.

Or maybe that was just my mood as I flew back from Paris. A terrible, terrible tragedy had occurred there after all. The Wolf had won, if what he did could be called winning, and it hadn't even been a close contest.

A power-mad Russian gangster had adopted the tactics of terrorism, or so it seemed. He was better than we were-more organized, more cunning, and far more brutal when he needed results. I couldn't even remember the last time we'd had a victory in our battle with the Wolf and his forces. He was smarter. I just prayed that it was over now. Could it be? Or was it another calm before another storm? I couldn't bear to think about that possibility.

I arrived home a little before three on a Thursday afternoon. The kids were back; Nana had never left Fifth Street. When I got there I insisted on cooking dinner, wouldn't take no for an answer. It was what I needed: cook a good meal, talk to Nana and the kids about anything we wanted to talk about, get lots of hugs. Not have a single thought about what had happened in Paris, or the Wolf, or any kind of police work.

So I made my interpretation of a French-style dinner and I even spoke French with Damon and Jannie while the meal was being prepared. Jannie set the dining table with Nana's silver, cloth napkins, a lace tablecloth that we used only for special occasions. The meal? Langoustines rôties brunoises de papaye poivrons et oignons doux -prawns with papaya, peppers, and onions. For a main course, chicken stew in a sweet red wine sauce. We drank small glasses of wine with the meal, a delightful Minervois, and ate with enthusiasm.

But for dessert-brownies and ice cream. I was back in America, after all.

I was home, thank God.

Home again, home again.

The next day I didn't go to work and the kids stayed out of school. It seemed to satisfy everybody's needs, even Nana Mama's, who encouraged us all to play hooky. I called Jamilla a couple of times, and talking to her helped, as it always did, but something seemed off between us.

For our day of hooky-playing I took the kids on a day trip to St. Michaels, Maryland, which is situated on Chesapeake Bay. The village turned out to be a lively snapshot of quaint, coastal charm: a thriving marina, a couple of small inns with rockers set out on the porches, even a lighthouse. And the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, where we got to watch real shipwrights working on a skipjack restoration. It felt as though we were back in the nineteenth century, which didn't seem like such a bad idea.

After lunch at the Crab Claw Restaurant we embarked on an actual skipjack charter. Nana Mama had taken her school classes there many times over the years, but she stayed home this trip, protesting that she had too much work to do around the house. I only hoped she was really feeling okay. I still remembered the way she used to teach her students on the field trips, so I took over as the guest lecturer.

"Jannie and Damon, this is the last fleet of working sailing vessels in North America. Can you imagine? These ships have no winches, just manpower and blocks and tackles. The fishermen are called watermen," I told them, just as Nana had told her classes years before.

Then off we went on the Mary Merchant for a two-and-a-half-hour cruise into the past.

The captain and his mate showed us how to hoist a sail with a block and tackle, and soon we had caught a breeze with a loud whoosh and the rhythmic smack of waves against the hull. What an afternoon it was. Gazing up at a sixty-foot mast made from a single log shipped all the way from Oregon. The smells of salt air, linseed oil, residual oystershells. The closeness of my two eldest children, the look of trust and love in their eyes. Most of the time, anyway.

We passed stands of pine woods, open fields where tenant farmers raised corn and soybean, and great white-columned estates that had once been plantations. I almost felt as if I were back in another century and it was a good break, much needed R amp; R. Only a couple of times did I drift into thoughts of police work, but I quickly pulled myself back.