The Faithful Spy

And his next mission would put this night to shame. ricky gutierrez might have lived if he had reached a hospital in time, but the twin blasts overwhelmed the Los Angeles police and fire departments. They had drilled for one bomb, not two explosions miles apart. By the time ambulances arrived in force at the Hollywood explosion, Ricky and dozens of others who survived the initial fireball had died.

Two weeks later, when the last victim died at Cedars-Sinai and reports of the missing stopped coming, the death toll from the Los Angeles bombings reached 336: 132 at the synagogue, 204 in Hollywood. It was the worst attack since September 11, and no one was surprised when al Qaeda took responsibility. exley woke on the first ring. She hadn’t been fully asleep anyway. The boundary between sleep and consciousness, once easy for her to cross, these days seemed bounded by barbed wire and broken glass. She grabbed for the phone and heard Shafer’s voice. “Jennifer. Get in here.” Her clock radio glowed 1:15 a.m. in the dark. “There’s been a bombing. In L.A.”

Her mind spun.

“It’s bad. Two bombs.” Click.

On her way to Langley she flicked on the radio to hear the mayor of Los Angeles declaring that an emergency curfew would begin in an hour. “Only police, fire, and hospital vehicles are permitted in the emergency zone. All others are subject to arrest. The emergency zone is bounded by the Santa Monica Freeway to the south. ”

She turned off her radio and looked at the dark silent highway around her and tried to comprehend why someone would blow up kids out for fun on a Friday night. But she couldn’t. She understood intellectually, of course: she knew all about asymmetric warfare, the relationship between terrorists and failed states, the financial and religious motivations of suicide bombers. But in the end those words were as meaningless as wrapping paper for an empty box. Nothing justified these bombs. She couldn’t help but feel that these killers were barbarians, something less than human. Which, she was sure, was exactly how they felt about Americans. at langley, no one needed to say the obvious: U.S. intelligence and law enforcement had failed terribly. Again. Hundreds of Americans had died, and so far clues were scarce. The bombers wouldn’t be talking; they had been so completely obliterated that the FBI would never find enough tissue for DNA samples. For the moment, anyway, they had no leads.

But they did have a suspect, as Exley realized when she arrived at her office and found one of Duto’s assistants waiting to demand that she give him Wells’s file from her safe. “For Vinny,” the assistant said. She said nothing, just unlocked her safe and handed over the file. She was looking at the first flash reports when Shafer appeared.

“What’s your gut?”

She didn’t need to ask what he meant. “It wasn’t him.”

“Explain.”

“One, he was just in Montana. This thing didn’t get put together in a day.”

“Two?”

“Two, if it was his, why would he risk blowing it by visiting his ex?”

“Three?”

“Three, even if he’s flipped, he would never attack soft targets.”

“He’s violent.”

“Not against civilians. He wouldn’t consider that fair.”

“Four?”

“I don’t have a four.”

Shafer held his thumb and index finger an inch apart. “Duto’s this close to having Tick flash a bulletin for him.” A bulletin to police and the FBI about Wells.

“On what evidence?” Exley said.

“On the evidence that he’s scared shitless his own guy just killed three hundred people and he wants to get in front of it. If Wells did this, getting fired is the least of it. You and I could go to jail. On general principles.”

“He didn’t do it.” The conviction in her voice surprised her.

“Come on, let’s talk to Vinny.”

As she stood, her phone rang.

“Yes?”

“Jennifer Exley?” a man asked. She knew his voice immediately.

“Where are you?”

“Here. Washington.”

She couldn’t help herself. “Thank God, John.”

“I think I need to come in.”

“Yes,” she said. “You do.”

5

“it was a mistake,” Wells said again. “I made a mistake.”