Late in the afternoon, long after the bomb technicians, firefighters, structural engineers, metro engineers, train specialists, and others had declared the emergency over and the scene safe, the mayor arrived. He came with his entourage—a photographer, a public relations officer, a political spokesman, a driver, and a bodyguard. Both the driver and the guard were on-duty police officers, but the mayor liked them to dress in identical black suits, which were a little like the livery of servants. Both men were muscular and formidable, but neither was quite as tall as the mayor, nor was any other member of the retinue. Experts had advised the mayor never to allow himself to look short in a photograph, because the taller man almost always won an election.

The police chief and Deputy Chief Ogden were both taller than the mayor, but in their uniforms, with their pistols and badges and utility belts crowded with gear in black leather pouches, they looked more like instruments of the mayor’s power than colleagues. He always walked a couple of paces ahead of them, trying to look like their commander in chief.

The flat, paved area above the subway entrance held satellite trucks from the four major local news channels parked at odd angles, each of them with booms and dishes extended and a reporter and camera operator standing by. The reporters needed to stand in the foreground to provide teasers and superfluous commentary while the camera operators followed the mayor around.

Television cameras were like sunlight and water to the mayor. He stood straighter, and his eyes and facial muscles assumed the look his underlings called “resolute.” He seemed to drink power from the microphones.

At this moment he was giving the reporters a somber procession, a portrait of the city’s wise leader walking the scene to survey the damage. The camera operators took in the sight and transmitted it to their studios, and the reporters spoke in reverent tones, knowing the mayor would be out again soon to give them the chance to question him, to ask him respectfully how the people of the city should feel about today’s developments. They knew he was as aware as they were of the need to get the interview transmitted in time to make the early evening news, so they trusted him.

As soon as the entourage had traveled down on the escalator to the platform, the chief checked to be sure the newspeople were too far behind to hear. Then he said to the mayor: “I’m sorry to get into this right now, Mr. Mayor, but we’re on an emergency footing. We’ve lost two officers, an engineer, and three civilians. You’ll recall that when we let Dick Stahl resign, we made an agreement with the police commission to approve a contract with his security company to let us use him as a civilian consultant to the Bomb Squad.”

“I remember the idea, but I never signed off on it,” the mayor said.

“After what happened today, I’m convinced we ought to make a move on this now.”

The mayor got to the bottom of the escalator and waited while the chief and Deputy Ogden glided down. “You’re telling me that having Stahl on the payroll would have prevented this? Would he have put on a bomb suit and gone down there to defuse the bomb himself?”

“I don’t know what he would have done, sir, and that’s exactly the point. He knows the best ways to approach an explosive device, and we don’t have anybody else who knows it as well. We know he personally defused three very large and complicated devices during his few weeks as commander, at least a couple of them so big that there was no point in wearing a bomb suit.”

The mayor’s expression became brooding and resentful. “How do you know he hasn’t been setting these bombs himself and then taking them apart? He would know just how to do it because he put them together. I’m not the first one to wonder about that, either. At least two of the reporters up there have said as much.”

The chief was frustrated, and his voice turned hard. “He’s been cleared of any suspicion. Homicide Special found that there was no chance he did any of these crimes. None. Zero.”

Deputy Chief Ogden said, “He wasn’t even in the country the day the fourteen men were killed. He was in Mexico. I was in his office and saw him arrive from there the day after it happened.”

The chief said, “He’s got alibis for every bomb. He was in front of the TV cameras defusing a bomb when—”

“What about Gloria Hedlund? What was he doing when she blew up?”

“He was at the station, from the time of the press conference until seven, with other police officers present while he cleared his office. And then he was with Sergeant Hines all night until morning, when Captain Almanzo woke him.”

“She’s Stahl’s girlfriend, for Christ’s sake. And she had reason to hate Gloria too. You call that an alibi?”

“She’s a sergeant on the police force. And she’s also a victim of the bomber with severe injuries.”

“I don’t believe having Richard Stahl inside our government and giving his advice to our police would have done anything to prevent this.”

“We just lost a bomb technician supervisor with twenty-two years of experience. He wasn’t good enough to outsmart this bomber. Stahl has done it repeatedly. We have the best explosives expert in the West still willing to help us. We’d be foolish not to take his help.”

“I’ll do better than that,” said the mayor. “Call the FBI again and ask them for their very best man to be assigned here on temporary duty. We’ll pay his salary and expenses, and he can be in charge of all bomb-related activity. We’ll give him all the support he wants.” The mayor shrugged. “Problem solved.”

As the mayor moved ahead, Deputy Chief Ogden said to the chief: “Mind if I go back up for a minute?”

“No,” said the chief. “Calling Stahl?”

“Yes. I think I should tell him.”

“Right. But let him know we’re going to keep trying.”