Henning shook his head with admiration. “Now this is even more impressive. When the fuel hit the lid, it would jerk it up fully, causing the strikers on either side to spark, creating a delay effect.” Vail recognized the strikers. They were used by welders and looked like giant safety pins with a metal bottle cap at one end. “In other words, first you’re soaked with the fuel, and a split second later it’s ignited, ensuring the target is turned into charcoal in less than three seconds.” Henning pointed to the back of the bladder. “There was a little of the fuel spilled around the intake plate. That’s probably what you smelled, Steve. It isn’t just gasoline, it’s napalm. It’ll stick to you. I’ve never believed in evil genius, but this comes close.”

“Napalm? Can we trace something like that?” Kate asked.

“It’s probably homemade. You just dissolve common Styrofoam in gasoline. It’s been used since the sixties, but it’ll stick to you just like the expensive spread.”

“Is this safe for us to search now?” Vail asked.

“Just let me get some photos of it. Then I’ll cut back those trigger wires and it’ll be completely inert.” Henning pulled a camera from his case and started taking the photos.

When he finished, he used a small pair of wire cutters to trim the rest of the three wires hanging from the underside of the trunk lid that had been attached to the two welding strikers and the gas cylinder before he disarmed them.

For the next fifteen minutes, Kate and Vail searched the car while Henning watched. Vail suspected that Henning was watching Kate more than him. But then he was sure that’s why the cop had come out in the first place. Vail stole a glance at Kate as she moved from the front seat to the back, putting herself in awkward but candid positions. She straightened up quickly and caught Vail. Not knowing why he was watching her, she asked, “Did you find something?”

Vail pulled at his gloves, slightly embarrassed. “Not yet.”

“Where does this leave us?”

Vail bent down and picked up the compressed-air tank, turning it upside down. “There’s a serial-number plate on this. Manufacturer is in Minnesota.”

“I know the ASAC there. We were on the inspection staff together. Should be a one-phone-call lead. Are we done here?”

“I am. Why don’t you make that call, and I’ll talk to someone about storing the car.”

Kate walked over to Henning. “Thanks, Mike, you’ve saved the day.”

“Any time, Kate.”

“Come on, I’ll walk you to your van,” she said. “This doesn’t have to go into a report right away, does it?”

“Would it be better if there was no report?”

Vail watched her hook her arm through his as they started out of the garage. “That wouldn’t cause you any problems?”

Vail turned his attention back to the air tank. They had found no fingerprints, no hairs, fibers, or blood anywhere in the trunk. But a traceable serial number? Even if the deadly device had been ignited, the digits engraved in the metal plate would likely have survived. Were they trying to distract the Bureau again by pointing them in a new direction, one that could also be deadly? Even if they were, it didn’t matter; he and Kate had no choice but to follow it.

Kate came back and Vail looked at her, amused. “What?” she said. “He’s a nice guy.”

Vail smiled. “And very Maltese Falcon.”

“Is that bad?”

“Let’s see, at the end of the movie, the woman is arrested for killing one of the detectives. That gives me a fifty-fifty chance. I guess you can’t ask for better odds than that these days.” Vail wrote down the manufacturer and serial number off the tank and handed the slip of paper to her. “Please call your friend in Minneapolis.”

“Okay, ahhh…”

“What?”

“Do you think it’s time to go to Kaulcrick and tell him what we’ve got? Get some manpower to start looking for Radek?”

“Again—our best shot at solving this case right now is if we have two investigations going at the same time: one in the direction Radek wants, and one in a direction that he doesn’t know about.”

“How sure are you about all this?” Kate asked.

“How sure do you need me to be?”

“To keep my sanity? Absolutely positive.”

“Then Agent Bannon, you are in serious trouble.”

“APPARENTLY YOU HAVEN’T HEARD, Don, but J. Edgar Hoover is dead. The FBI no longer calls the shots. Your agency is under the auspices of the Department of Justice, not the other way around.”

Del Underwood was the United States attorney in Los Angeles. He was in his midforties and was athletically trim, a noticeable anomaly among the notoriously sedentary population of lawyers. He also wore large wire-rimmed glasses that were popular in the seventies as though trying to recapture some past image of himself. He adjusted them as he leaned forward, placing his elbows on his desk to send the message that he was ready for the fight that was apparently brewing across the assistant director’s face.

“This is not about who’s in charge,” Kaulcrick said. “This is a national case that has literally taken the FBI from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific. We’ve had two agents murdered, and we’re about to arrest another for being one of the people responsible. We have a great deal more invested in this than the United States attorney’s office does. And the director thinks if Pendaran’s arrest was released as national news in Washington, it would have much less of an impact on the Bureau’s image.”

“If you’re so worried about your image, maybe you should have fired someone like Pendaran when you had the choice.”

“What really worries me is when political appointees start examining everyone else’s ethics.”

“What does that mean?” Underwood said, his voice rising.

“It means that you’re the United States attorney simply because your party is in the White House. If that changes in the next election, you’ll be gone to some fat-salary law firm, and we’ll still be here dealing with your self-serving decisions.”

“Why, because we won’t let you hog the credit?”

“We solved the case.”

“And we have to take this into a courtroom and prosecute it, your mistakes and all.”

“Who do you think is closer to the attorney general, you or the director of the FBI?”

“The local United States attorney always makes the press releases concerning arrests in his or her jurisdiction. Let’s call the AG and let him decide.”

“Fine. While you’re calling him, I’ll call the director.”

Out of deference to the two men’s positions, Mark Hildebrand had not said anything, but now he decided it was time to interject himself. In a calm tone, he said, “If I may. Calling bosses will give them the wrong impression about your ability to handle your duties. A compromise will serve everyone much better. I can see both sides of this because I work for Don, but I work more regularly with you, Del. So how about this? We’ll have the news conference here in Del’s office. He can make the opening statement, a kind of ‘The Los Angeles United States attorney today announced the arrest of…’ Then Don, representing himself as someone out of Washington, can give all the details and make it more of a national release like they would have in Washington, telling how the entire FBI, coast to coast, has worked to uncover one of its own gone bad. That way it’s both local for the United States attorney’s office here and national for the FBI.”

Kaulcrick looked at the SAC, somewhat surprised at his diplomatic skills. Then he glanced at the United States attorney to see if he would agree. Underwood crossed his arms in front of his chest and leaned back in assumed contemplation. Finally the assistant director said, “I guess I can live with that.”

Underwood pondered it a few more seconds for effect and then said, “So can I. Exactly how much of the evidence are you going to reveal?”