Criss Cross

Chapter 36

Mahoney quashed that idea the second he heard it.

“I tried to get search and wiretap warrants through two federal judges this morning,” Mahoney said, putting the drone in his car. “Both turned me down. Having an anthill filled with legally bought guns is evidently not enough to warrant a search.”

“Someone’s got to go in there,” I insisted.

“Not without cause, Alex,” he shot back. “If Rivers is your M, we want to get him clean, fair and square, no fruit of the poisonous tree, no giving him a way out of a prison cell or a death chamber.”

I stewed on that after Mahoney got in his car and headed back toward Quantico in the waning light.

“We done?” Sampson said, sliding into the driver’s seat. “Gonna be dark soon, and we are a ways from home.”

“Not yet,” I said, looking through binoculars across the field toward the gravel road that led past Rivers’s driveway.

“C’mon, Alex,” Sampson said. “Without a drone in the sky full-time, we’re not surveilling this guy. We’re just looking at trees.”

“Unless we go into the trees.”

“Jesus, you heard Ned.”

“What if Rivers has a woman in there, John? What if he is M, and he’s got Diane Jenkins in there?”

“What if he does?”

For a long moment, I felt conflicted, but then I didn’t.

“I’m going in there,” I said and yanked the door handle.

“If you’re going, I’m going.”

“No, you stay here. You’re still on the job. I’m a contract employee who’s not under contract at the moment.”

“Which means what?”

“I’m a civilian. The rules are different for me than they are for someone who’s full-time law enforcement.”

“Yeah, try that one in court. You’ll just be some burglar looking at ten years.”

“Hopefully, it won’t come to that. If I’m not back in an hour, use the Find My Friends app and come get me.”

I shut the door before he could protest and set off across the road to Rivers’s property with just enough light to see. Mahoney’s drone had sailed over the woods in seconds, but it took me ten minutes to reach the north edge of the meadow.

I could make out the solar panels, the anthill, and, beyond them, Rivers’s house. There were lights on.

I trained my binoculars on the windows that overlooked the pond and the meadow but I saw no movement. Was he even in there? Or was he inside his bunker?

I didn’t give myself time to think about answers to those questions; instead, I broke out of the woods and ran toward the anthill as fast as I could.

When I was within fifty yards of it, I got down on my belly and used my binoculars to study the exterior. Though the outside walls weren’t completely vertical, no one was climbing that thing without equipment. I remembered several workers quoted in the dossier had said that the entrance to Rivers’s bunker was on its southwest side.

I crouched and skirted the perimeter until I could see a recess in the side of the anthill with a padlocked steel door that looked like something you’d find on a navy ship.

I spotted a camera above the door.

That wasn’t good. I studied the camera and the angle it was aimed at, then moved west again. When I was out of its range, I went to the side of the bunker and sneaked back toward the entrance.

When I got closer, I squatted down, grabbed some loose damp soil, and spit in it to make it muddier. With my back to the wall, I edged along the anthill until I was underneath the camera.

Then I reached up and smeared the lens with the dirt.

I noticed a humming noise coming from the other side of the door. A generator? Then I caught a faint squeal. Or was it a cry?

I pulled my shirtsleeve over my hand to prevent fingerprints and tugged on the padlock. To my surprise, the hasp was not fully engaged. The lock opened.

Either Rivers had made a mistake or he planned to come back soon. I prayed it was a mistake, removed the padlock, and turned the hatch wheel. It spun easily, as if it had recently been greased.

The door swung quietly toward me.

I stepped inside and saw a short hallway lit by dim, red overhead lights leading to a metal staircase. The humming was louder now; it was definitely some kind of machine running.

I hesitated and then walked far enough to my right to look up at the house with the binoculars. No one on the other side of those windows that I could see.

I went back, set the padlock in the latch, stepped inside, and pulled the hatch door snug behind me.