London Bridges

The novel opens in Salvador, Brazil, where Colonel Geoffrey Shafer, a psychopathic killer known as the Weasel, murders young prostitutes with impunity. Three men ambush Shafer outside his villa and torture him. Their leader, a bearded man who compulsively squeezes a black rubber ball, identifies himself as the Wolf and tells Shafer he has a job for him.

In Sunrise Valley, Nevada, a remote mobile-home town of 315 people, soldiers in U.S. Army uniforms forcibly evacuate all residents. A cargo plane drops a homemade fuel-air bomb, a weapon designed to flatten large areas, obliterating the town. The Wolf watches via live cameras from a mansion in Los Angeles and calls the attack "just a warm-up."

Alex Cross, an FBI agent and the novel's narrator, is visiting his almost-three-year-old son, Little Alex, in Seattle, where the boy lives with his mother, Christine Johnson. Alex flies to San Francisco to see his girlfriend, Homicide Inspector Jamilla Hughes, but FBI agents intercept him at the airport and reroute him to Nevada. At the bomb site, Alex reviews photographs and recognizes Geoffrey Shafer videotaping the explosion. One photo reveals Shafer's license plate, a mistake Alex finds suspiciously deliberate. Shafer's handler later confirms the photographer works for the Wolf: Shafer was meant to be identified.

Alex returns home to Washington, D.C., to his grandmother, Nana Mama, and his children, Jannie and Damon. At FBI headquarters, he and analyst Monnie Donnelley attend briefings. Two surface-to-air missiles have gone missing from a base in New Mexico, and firebombings have struck England and Germany, killing over a hundred people combined.

The Wolf calls FBI Director Ron Burns, CIA Director Thomas Weir, and Homeland Security official Stephen Bowen. He demands total obedience, announces four target cities, New York, London, Washington, and Frankfurt, and warns against public disclosure without providing a deadline.

Shafer, operating in Washington in a wheelchair disguise, hires Captain Nikki Williams, a former army sniper. An elaborate diversion at the Hoover Building draws agents to the courtyard while a helicopter carrying Williams flies alongside the building. She fires through an upper-floor window and kills Thomas Weir. The Wolf later claims Burns was the intended target, but Alex suspects Weir was deliberately chosen. Williams is killed on the Wolf's orders for having disclosed the mission to her husband.

The Wolf delivers his full demands: $2.15 billion across the four cities, plus the release of 57 political prisoners from the Middle East, with a four-day deadline. World leaders confer and agree the Wolf must be found, though no intelligence service has a confirmed identity or location. Alex is sent to Guantánamo Bay to interview a Saudi prisoner who claims the Wolf negotiated with dissident royals and may be a woman, but the information is secondhand and uncertain.

Meanwhile, Shafer murders a young prostitute near Alex's home as provocation. In Manhattan, Shafer is spotted visiting an al Qaeda cell near the Holland Tunnel. Alex joins a raid and captures several operatives, but Shafer escapes through a basement tunnel. Interrogation reveals Shafer offered the terrorists access to suitcase nuclear bombs, portable Soviet-era weapons. A teenager outside delivers a warning from the Wolf.

As retaliation for the raid, the Wolf orders the bombing of the Queensboro Bridge in Manhattan. Shafer detonates the charges remotely, collapsing the bridge and sending dozens of vehicles into the East River before heading to London. The Wolf doubles his ransom demand and eliminates several of his own associates from the Red Mafiya, a Russian organized-crime network, by bombing a gathering on Long Island to destroy anyone who knew his face.

Alex travels to London and works with Detective Superintendent Martin Lodge of the Metropolitan Police. Shafer, disguised as an elderly man, terrorizes his own twin daughters at their aunt's home and recruits Henry Seymour, a former British Special Air Service (SAS) demolition expert, for a suicide bombing. Near Westminster, Alex encounters Shafer, and after a brutal fight, shoots and kills him. Shortly afterward, Seymour detonates a van bomb on Westminster Bridge, causing massive destruction.

The Wolf issues a new ultimatum: 96 hours, with the target cities changed to Washington, London, Tel Aviv, and Paris. The ransom rises to four billion dollars, and the threat leaks to the press, causing worldwide panic. In Paris, Alex is partnered with French detective Maud Boulard. A Russian in a white limousine shoots Boulard dead and forces Alex to a farmhouse, where a white-bearded man claims to be the Wolf and shows him a suitcase containing a tactical nuclear bomb. Alex is handcuffed to the device and left in a public plaza. The bomb lacks a trigger but contains genuine fissile material. The man, later identified as arms dealer Artur Nikitin, is captured, but Alex suspects Nikitin was deliberately given up.

As the deadline approaches, the full ransom is paid in all four cities. Despite the payment, a massive explosion destroys a three-block area near the Louvre, killing close to a thousand people. The Wolf makes no contact.

Back in Washington, Alex and Monnie discover that former CIA agent Joe Cahill, part of the team that originally extracted the Wolf from Russia, has been compromised. Under interrogation, Cahill confirms he received orders through his partner, Corky Hancock. The FBI cracks Hancock's encrypted files and traces his Swiss bank deposits to an account linked to luxury car purchases in Nice. The buyer owns an estate on the Cap-Ferrat peninsula.

Alex organizes a nighttime raid on the villa, but Stinger missiles strike the compound in a prepared trap. Alex chases a blue Mercedes fleeing along cliffside roads. The car crashes, and the driver proves to be Martin Lodge. Dying, Lodge tells Alex he never saw the Wolf.

Alex learns that Lodge's wife, Klára, is not Czech but Russian. She came out of Russia with the Wolf during his defection, and Lodge married her after changing her identity. Klára agrees to cooperate and reveals that a tracking device has been implanted under the Wolf's shoulder blade since he left Russia. Lodge always knew the Wolf's location, which is what kept Lodge alive.

Using the signal, the FBI locates the Wolf at a plastic surgeon's office in Manhattan, where he has undergone extensive facial reconstruction. Alex and Ned Mahoney, head of the Hostage Rescue Team, lead a pursuit. The Wolf grabs a child as a hostage, throws a grenade, and flees to a rooftop. Alex fires four shots, and the Wolf falls to his death in the alley below.

Alex rushes home to celebrate but finds Nana and the children kidnapped. Five days later, an email arrives signed "Klára Cernohoska, Wolf." It promises the family's safe return as repayment for Alex's help protecting Klára's children and warns Alex never to pursue the matter. The family is returned safely.

FBI Director Burns and new CIA Director James Dowd reveal the Wolf's true name: Anton Christyakov, a KGB agent extracted from Russia in 1990. In 1994, Christyakov's wife, parents, and two young sons were killed in Paris on the very streets he later destroyed, likely by the Russian government after someone leaked his location. Christyakov blamed the CIA and Thomas Weir, explaining his years-long campaign of revenge. A key detail emerges: He habitually squeezes a black rubber handball, a birthday gift from one of his dead sons.

Six weeks later, Alex visits the compound of Tolya Bykov, the most powerful Red Mafiya leader in New York. As he leaves, he spots a bodyguard squeezing a black ball, with a beard and cold, piercing eyes. Alex realizes the man killed in Manhattan was an impersonator. He tackles the real Wolf, but the man bites down on a poison capsule and dies. Alex picks up the fallen handball and heads home to his family.