Drivers continued maneuvering the huge trucks, efficiently form-ing a barrier blocking the scene of action from the crowd's view.
Bronschweig disappeared into the melee. When he reached the tanker trucks he ducked between them and surreptitiously withdrew a cell phone. His face tight, he punched in a number, waited, and then spoke.
"Sir? The impossible scenario we hadn't pla
"Well, we better come up with a plan."
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CHAPTER 2
FEDERAL BUILDING DALLAS, TEXAS
One week later, fifteen agents in dark wind-breakers emblazoned with the letters FBI watched impassively as another helicopter hov-ered above them. They stood in seemingly ran-dom formation on a rooftop, their eyes shielded by reflective sunglasses, faces uniformly expres-sionless. At the sides of a half-dozen of them, leashed Dobermans and German shepherds lolled exhausted, tongues hanging out as they vainly sought relief from the shimmering heat of midday. When the chopper touched down, the dogs flattened their ears against their skulls, but otherwise took no notice. A moment later the helicopter's side door was flung open, and a single man emerged. Hatchet-faced, his eyes narrowing as he took in the men and women waiting on the roof, Special Agent-in-Charge Darius Michaud paused, then walked authorita-tively toward them.
"We've evacuated the building and been through it bottom to top." One of the agents met him, cell phone in hand, and motioned at the sweep of gray roof around them. "No trace of an explosive device, or anything resembling one."
Michaud looked at him, his mouth tight. "Have you taken the dogs through?" The agent nodded.
"Yes, sir."
"Well, take them through again." For an instant the agent stared at him, unable to hide the weariness in his face. Then, "Yes, sir," he replied, and turned back to his charges.
Behind him Michaud turned and sca
For a minute or two he stood like this, register-ing the familiar silhouette of the Dallas skyline, the flat silvery expanse of cloudless sky beyond and the dull array of ladders and turbines and concrete atop the adjacent skyscraper.
Suddenly he stiffened. Shading his eyes with his hand, he walked slowly to the edge of the roof, leaning against the barrier there. He said nothing, but the line of his mouth grew even tighter as he stared to where a solitary fig' ure emerged from a door on the neighboring roof. Even from this distance, he could see the resolve with which the slender form moved beneath its FBI windbreaker, and the glint of sunlight on her shoulder-length auburn hair. Michaud's hands clenched at the edge of the wall.
On the other rooftop, Special Agent Dana Scully winced as the door slammed shut behind her. Her finger jabbed at her cell phone as she stepped carefully down the stairs and onto the roof, looking around warily.
"Mulder?" she said urgently, the cell phone cool against her cheek as she paused. "It's me."
Mulder's voice echoed ti
"I'm on the roof."
"Did you find anything?"
She brushed a drop of sweat from her nose. "No. I haven't."
"What's wrong, Scully?"
Scully drew herself up and shook her head impatiently, as though Mulder stood in front of her and not somewhere on the other end of a cell phone. "I've just climbed twelve floors, I'm hot and thirsty and I'm wondering, to be hon-est, what I'm doing here."
"You're looking for a bomb," Mulder's un-flappable voice replied.
Scully sighed. "I know that. But the threat was called in for the federal building across the street."