London Bridges: A Novel by James Patterson

late-night drive out to FBI Director Burns's home in the Washington suburbs.
    What a desirable life the man seemed to live with his family. The Wolf genuinely felt that way.
    An attractive, well-kept ranch house—modest enough, consistent with an American Dream of a sort. A blue Mercury sedan in the driveway. Bike rack with three two-wheelers. Basketball hoop with a glass backboard and a bright white square above the rim.
    Should this family die? A simple enough task to execute. Pleasurable in a way. Richly deserved.
    But was it the most effective lesson?
    The Wolf wasn't sure. So the answer was probably no.
    Besides, there was another target to consider.
    A grudge to settle.
    What could be better than that?
    Revenge, a dish best served cold, thought the Wolf, squeezing his rubber ball again and again.

Alex Cross 10 - London Bridges

Chapter 26
    Welcome to the process-obsessed federal government and its completely bizarre way of doing things. That was my mantra lately, something I told myself nearly every time I entered the Hoover Building. And never truer than during these past few days.
    What happened next followed the prescribed protocol under a couple of recent presidential decision directives that affected the Bureau. The response to the Wolf would fall into two distinct categories: “investigation” and “consequence management.” The FBI would oversee the investigation; the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) would be in charge of consequence management.
    Very neat and orderly, and unworkable. In my opinion, anyway.
    Because the threat was to a major U.S. metropolitan area—two, actually, New York City and Washington—the Domestic Emergency Support Team was deployed, and we met with them on the fifth floor of the Hoover Building. I was starting to feel that I worked out of the crisis center; still, it was anything but dull.
    The morning's first subject was threat assessment. On account of the three bombed towns, we were taking the “terrorists” seriously, of course. The discussion was led by the new deputy director of the Bureau, a man named Robert Campbell McIllvaine Jr. The director had recently talked him out of retirement in California because he was so good at what he did. Some of the talk was about false alarms, since there had been many of them in the past couple of years. It was agreed that this wasn't a false alarm. Bob McIllvaine was certain of it, which was enough for most of us.
    The second topic was consequence management, so FEMA ran the session. The ability of health-care providers to deal with a big blast in Washington, New York, or both cities simultaneously was called into question. The dangers of sudden evacuation were now a major issue because the sheer panic to get out of either city, but especially New York, could kill thousands.
    The theoretical but very frank talk that morning was the scariest I'd ever been a part of, and it got only worse. After a thirty-minute lunch—for those with an appetite—and a break for phone calls, we launched into suspect assessment.
    Who is responsible? Is it the Wolf? The Russian mob? Could it be some other group? And what do they want?
    The initial list of alternatives was long, but it was quickly whittled down to al Qaeda, Hezbollah, the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, or possibly a freelance group operating for profit and maybe working with one of the organized terrorist units.
    Finally, the talk turned to “action steps” to be spearheaded by the Bureau. Mobile and fixed, or static, surveillance was being set up on several suspects around the United States, but also in Europe and the Middle East. We had begun a huge investigation already, one of the largest in history.
    All of it against the explicit and threatening orders given by the Wolf.
    Late that evening I was still going over some of the most recent data that had been collected on Geoffrey Shafer here and in Europe. Europe? I wondered. Is that where this plot is coming from? Maybe England,