And we were looking for Geoffrey Shafer. Why would the Weasel be here?

While we waited for something to break, maybe a message or a warning, I walked around what had been Sunrise Valley. Where the bomb had actually detonated, buildings and vehicles hadn't just been flattened, they'd been practically vaporized. Little bits of death and destruction, sparks and ash, were still floating in the air. The night sky was masked by a dark and oily cloud of smoke, and I was struck by the unsettling idea that only man could create something like this, and only man would want to.

As I wandered through the mounds of debris, I also talked to agents and techs involved in the investigation and I began to make a few crime-scene notes of my own:

Bits and pieces of the mobile-home camp are scattered everywhere.

Witnesses describe canisters dropped from a prop plane.

One falling can seemed about to strike a trailer home, then exploded in midair above the town.

At first, the explosion was like a "white, undulating jellyfish cloud," then the cloud ignited.

High winds from the heat of the fire, convection whirls, apparently blew at gale force for several minutes.

So far we had discovered only one body in the rubble. Everyone was wondering the same thing: why only one? Why spare the others? Why blow up this trailer-park town at all?

It just didn't make sense. Nothing did so far. But especially Shafer's presence.

One of the local FBI agents, Ginny Moriarity, called out my name and I turned. She waved excitedly for me to come over. Now what?

I jogged back to where Agent Moriarity was standing with a couple of local cops. They all seemed exercized about something.

"We found the Bronco," she told me. "No army trucks, but we located the Bronco in Wells."



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