Cross

Chapter 18

A LETTER FROM THAT PSYCHOPATH Kyle Craig arrived for me today, and it blew my mind. How could he get a letter to me? It came to the house on Fifth Street. As far as I knew, Kyle was still locked away in the max-security facility out in Florence, Colorado. Even so, getting a message from him was disturbing.

Actually, it made me sick to my stomach.

Alex,

I've been missing you a great deal lately – our regular talks and whatnot – which is what prompts this little missive. To be honest with you, what I still find distressing is how beneath me you are, both in terms of intellect and imagination. And yet you were the one to catch me and put me in here, weren't you? The circumstances and ultimate result might lead me to believe in divine intervention, but of course I'm not quite that incapacitated yet.

At any rate, I know that you are a busy boy (no slur intended), so I won't keep you. I just wanted you to know that you're constantly in my thoughts, and that I hope to see you soon. In fact, you can count on it. I plan to kill Nana and the kids first, while you watch. Can't wait to see all of you again. I'm going to make it happen – promise.

K

I read the note twice, then I shredded it and tried to do the opposite of what Kyle obviously wanted me to do. I put him out of my mind.

Sort of.

After I called the max-security facility out in Colorado and told them about the letter – and made certain that Kyle Craig was still there in his padded cell.

Chapter 19

ANYWAY, IT WAS SATURDAY. I was off from work. No crime and punishment today. No psychopaths on the horizon, at least none that I knew about yet.

The Cross "family car" these days was an ancient Toyota Corolla that had been Maria's. Other than the obvious sentimental value, and its longevity, I didn't think much of the vehicle. Not in terms of form or function – not the off-white paint job, not the various pockmarks on the trunk and hood. The kids had given me a couple of bumper stickers for my last birthday – I May Be Slow, but I'm Still Ahead of You and Answer My Prayer, Steal This Car. They didn't like the Corolla, either.

So on that bright and sunny Saturday, I took Jannie, Damon, and little Alex out to do some car shopping.

As we rode along, Twista was on the CD player, "Overnight Celebrity," followed by Kanye West's "All Falls Down." All the while, the kids never stopped making wild and crazy suggestions about the new car we needed to buy.

Jannie was interested in a Range Rover – but that wasn't going to happen for all sorts of good reasons. Damon was trying to talk me into a motorcycle, which of course he would get to use when he turned eighteen in four years, which was so absurd it didn't even get a response from me. Not unless a grunt qualifies as communication nowadays.

Little Alex, or Ali, was open to any model of car, as long as it was red or bright blue. Intelligent boy, and that just could work as a plan, except for the "red" or "bright" part.

So we stopped at the Mercedes dealer out in Arlington, Virginia, which wasn't that far from the house. Jannie and Damon ogled a silver CLK500 Cabriolet convertible, while Ali and I tested out the spacious front seat of an R350. I was thinking family car – safety, beauty, resale value. Intellect and emotion.

"I like this one," Ali said. "It's blue. It's beautiful. Just right."

"You have excellent taste in automobiles, buddy. This is a six-seater, and what seats they are. Look up at that glass roof. Must be five feet or so."

"Beautiful," Ali repeated.

"Stretch out. Look at all this leg room, little man. This is an automobile."

A salesperson named Laurie Berger had been at our side the whole time without being pushy or unnecessarily obtrusive. I appreciated that. God bless Mercedes.

"Questions?" she asked. "Anything you want to know?"

"Not really, Laurie. You sit in this R350, you want to buy it."

"Makes my job kind of easy. We also have one in obsidian black, ash upholstery. They call the R350 a crossover vehicle, Dr. Cross. The station wagon meets the SUV."

"And combines the best of both," I said, and smiled congenially.

My pager went off then, and I groaned loud enough to draw stares.

Not on Saturday! And not during car shopping. Not while I was sitting in this beautiful Mercedes R350.

"Uh- oh," said Ali, and his eyes went wide. "Daddy's pager!" he called loudly across the showroom to Damon and Jannie. "Daddy's pager went off."

"You squealed on me. You're a dirty, rotten squealer," I said, then kissed him on the top of his head. This is something I do at least a half a dozen times a day, every day.

He giggled and slapped my arm and giggled some more. He always got my jokes. No wonder the two of us got along so well.

Only this pager message probably wasn't funny. Not in the least. I recognized the number immediately, and I didn't think it would be good news.

Ned Mahoney from Hostage Rescue? Maybe inviting me to a barbecue and dance out at Quantico? Probably not a barbecue though.

I called Ned back on my cell. "This is Alex Cross. I got your call, Ned. Why did I get your call?"

Ned got right to it. "Alex, you know Kentucky Avenue, near Fifteenth in Southeast?"

"Of course I do. It's not too far from my house. But I'm out in Arlington right now. I'm with the kids. We're looking to buy a new family car. Can you say family, Ned?"

"Meet me there, Kentucky and Fifteenth. I need your help, your local knowledge. I don't want to say too much more on my cell." Ned told me a couple more details – but not all of it. Why was that? What was he keeping to himself?

Oh man, oh man, oh man. "How soon? I'm with my kids, Ned."

"Sorry about that. My team will be there in about ten, fifteen minutes at the most. I'm not kidding, all hell's broken loose, Alex."

Of course it had. Why else would the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team be involved inside Washington city limits? And why else would Ned Mahoney call me on a Saturday afternoon?

"What's up?" Ali looked at me and asked.

"I have to go to a barbecue." I think I'm the main course on the spit, little man.

Chapter 20

I PROMISED LAURIE BERGER I would be back for the crossover vehicle soon; then I drove the kids home, and they were quiet and cranky for the ride. Same as me. Most of the way I was behind a station wagon with the bumper sticker First Iraq, then France. I'd been seeing that one all over Washington lately.

Hoobastank was blasting irritatingly from the CD player, so that kept everything near chaos, and in perspective. They were the kids; I was the father; I was abandoning them to go off to work. It didn't matter to them that I needed to earn a living, or that I might have a serious duty to perform. What the hell was going on at Kentucky and Fifteenth? Why did it have to happen today – whatever it was? Not something good!

"Thanks for the great Saturday, Daddy," Jannie said as she was getting out of the car on Fifth Street. "Really good. A memory." Her uppity, sarcastic tone of voice kept me from apologizing, as I'd planned to do for most of the ride home.

"I'll see you guys later," I said instead. Then I added, "Love you." Which I did – intensely.

"Yeah, Daddy, later. Like maybe next week, if we're lucky," Jannie continued, and flipped an angry salute my way. It went like a spear through my heart.

"Sorry," I finally said. "I'm sorry. Sorry, guys."

Then I headed over to Kentucky Avenue, where I was supposed to meet up with Ned Mahoney and his crack team from Hostage Rescue and find out more about whatever emergency was going on there.

As it turned out, I couldn't even get close to Kentucky and Fifteenth. DC police had every street blockaded within ten blocks. It certainly looked serious.

So I finally got out and walked.

"What's going on? You heard anything?" I asked a man loitering along the way, a guy I recognized from a local bakery, where he was a counterman and where I sometimes bought jelly doughnuts for the kids. Not for myself, of course.

"Pigfest," he said. "Cops everywhere. Just look around you, brother."

It occurred to me that he didn't know I'd been a homicide detective, and was FBI now. I nodded at what he said, but you never get used to that kind of resentment and anger, even if sometimes it's justified. "Pigs," "bacon," whatever some people choose to call us, we put our lives on the line. A lot of folks don't really understand what that's like. We're not anything close to perfect and don't claim to be, but it's dangerous out here.

Try getting shot at on your job, bakery-man, I wanted to say to the guy, but didn't. I just walked on, sucked it up one more time, played the Happy Warrior again.

At least I was worked up when I finally spotted Ned Mahoney I flashed my FBI creds so I could get closer. I still didn't know what the hell was going on, just that unidentified hostages had been taken inside a dealer's lab, where drugs were being manufactured and cut. It didn't sound half as bad as it looked. So what was the catch? There had to be one.

"Now aren't you a sight for sore eyes," Mahoney said as he saw me heading his way. "Alex, you're not going to believe this shit. Trust me, you're not."

"Wanna bet?" I said.

"Ten dollars says you haven't seen this one before. Put your money up."

We shook on it. I really didn't want to lose this bet.

Chapter 21

NED SCRATCHED and rubbed at his blondish day-or-two-old facial stubble while he talked in his usual animated nonstop nobody-else-gets-a-word-in manner. I couldn't help staring at his chin. Ned is fair-skinned, and I think it impresses the hell out of him that he can grow a semblance of a beard now that he's in his forties. I do like Ned Mahoney obnoxious as he can be at times. I like the man a lot.

"Some guys, maybe a half dozen – well armed – came down here to rob the dealer's lab," he said. "They ran into some major problems, got hung up inside. Also, there are some neighborhood people who work in the lab, around a dozen or so from what we can gather. They're trapped in there too. That's another problem we have to deal with eventually. Then -"

I put up a hand to stop Ned's hyperintense ramble.

"The people you mentioned who work at the lab? People who package the drugs? They would be mostly women, mothers, grandmothers? That the case? Dealers like workers they can trust with the product."

"See why I wanted you here?" Mahoney said, and grinned – at least he showed me his front teeth. His tone reminded me of Jannie's rant earlier. A little bit of a wiseass masking his vulnerability about being such a "man's man."

"So the drug hijackers and the drug dealers are trapped inside? Why don't we just let them shoot each other?"

"Already been suggested," Mahoney deadpanned. "But now we get to the good part, Alex. Here's why you're here. The very well-armed guys who came to jack the lab are DC SWAT. Your old compadres are the other bad guys in today's episode of 'Anything Can Happen and Probably Will!' You owe me ten bucks."

I felt sick again. I knew a lot of guys with SWAT. "You're sure about this?"

"Oh, yeah. Couple of patrolmen heard shots in the building. They went to investigate. One uniform got gut-shot. They recognized the guys from SWAT."

I moved my head around in circles. Suddenly my neck felt a little tight. "So the FBI's HRT is here to fight it out with DC SWAT?"

"Kind of looks that way, my man. Welcome to the suck and all that. You got any bright ideas so far?"

Yeah, I thought: Leave here right now. Go back to the kids. It's a Saturday. I'm off.

I handed Ned the ten dollars from our bet.

Chapter 22

I SURE DIDN'T SEE any way out of this sticky mess, and neither did anyone else. That's why Mahoney had called me in, hoping I might have an idea to bail him out.

And of course, misery loves company, especially on a sunny afternoon when everybody wants to be anywhere but in the middle of a potential shoot-'em-up where people would probably die.

The first situation briefing took place in a nearby grade-school auditorium. It was jam-packed with Washington police personnel, but also FBI agents, including key members from the Hostage Rescue Team. HRT was ready to roll if it came to that, and it looked like it might happen soon.

Near the end of the briefing, Captain Tim Moran, the head of SWAT for the metro police, restated the facts as he knew them. He had to be in a highly emotional state, for obvious reasons, but he appeared calm and in control. I knew Moran from my years on the force and respected his courage. Even more, I respected his integrity, and never more than I did that afternoon when he might have to go against his own men.

"To sum up the situation, the target is a four-story building where black-tar heroin was being turned into powder and a lot of cash. We have at least a dozen drug-lab workers inside, mostly women. We have the lab's guards – well armed and on at least three floors. Looks like about a dozen of them, too. And we have six SWAT members who attempted a robbery and got trapped inside.

"They apparently have a quantity of the heroin and cash in their possession. They're pinned down between drug dealers and other personnel on the top floors, and about half a dozen more armed guards who showed up while the robbery was in progress. At this point we're in a Mexican standoff. We've made initial contact with both sides. Nobody wants to give in. I guess they figure, what do they have to lose, or gain? So they're just sitting tight."

Tim Moran continued in a calm voice. "Because there are members of SWAT inside, given the complications of it, the Hostage Rescue Team will take the lead here. Metro will give our full cooperation to the FBI."

Captain Moran's summation was clear and concise, and it had taken some guts to hand the operation over to the FBI. But it was the right thing to do if somebody had to go inside and possibly fire on the SWAT guys. Even if they were bad cops, they were still cops. It didn't sit well with any of us to have to shoot at our brothers.

Ned Mahoney leaned in close to me. "Now what do we do, Einstein? HRT is caught in the middle of a shit sandwich. See why I wanted you here?"

"Yeah, well, excuse me if I don't fall all over myself thanking you."

"Ah, you're welcome anyway," said Mahoney, and he punched my arm in a bullshit gesture of camaraderie that made us both laugh.

Chapter 23

IT WAS IN HIS BLOOD.

The Butcher was in the habit of monitoring metro police communications whenever he was in DC, and it was hard to miss this baby. What a royal cluster-fuck, he couldn't help thinking to himself. SWAT against Hostage Rescue. He loved it.

For the last few years he'd been cutting back on the kinds of jobs he did, "working less, charging more." Three or four major hits a year, plus a few favors for the bosses. That was more than enough to pay the bills. Besides, the new don, Maggione Jr., wasn't exactly a fan of his. The only real problem was that he missed the thrills, the adrenaline punch, the constant action. So here he was at the Policeman's Ball!

He was laughing as he parked his Range Rover a dozen blocks from the potential firefight scene. Yes, indeedee, the neighborhood was sure jumping. Even on foot, he couldn't get much closer than several blocks away on Kentucky Avenue. On his walk toward the crime scene, he'd already counted more than two dozen metro DC police department buses parked on the street. Plus dozens more squad cars.

Then he saw blue FBI Windbreakers – probably the Hostage Rescue boys up here from Quantico. Damn! They were supposed to be hot shits, right up there with the best in the world. Just like him. This was good stuff, and he wouldn't miss it for anything, even if it was a little dangerous for him to be here. He spotted several command-post vehicles next. And at the "frozen zone," or inner perimeter, he thought he picked out the "incident commander."

Then Michael Sullivan saw something that gave him pause and made his heart race a little. A dude in street clothes talking to one of the FBI agents.

Sullivan knew this guy, the one in civvies. His name was Alex Cross, and well, he and Sullivan had something of a history. And then he remembered something else – Marianne, Marianne. One of his favorite kills and photographs.

This was getting better and better by the minute.

Chapter 24

I COULD DEFINITELY SEE why Ned Mahoney wanted me here.

A heroin factory estimated to have more than a hundred and fifty kilos of poison, street value at seven million. Cops versus cops. It looked like a no-win situation for everybody involved. I heard Captain Moran say, "I'd tell you to go to hell, but I work there and I don't want to see you every day." That sort of summed things up.

No one inside was showing signs of surrendering – not the drug dealers, not the guys from SWAT. They also weren't allowing any of the lab workers trapped on the fourth floor to leave. We had the names and approximate ages for some of the lab workers, and most of them were women, between fifteen and eighty-one. They were neighborhood people who couldn't find other jobs, usually because of language and education barriers, but who needed and wanted to work.

I wasn't doing a whole lot better than anybody else at figuring out a possible solution or an alternative plan. Maybe that was why I decided to take a walk outside the barricades at around ten. Try to clear my head. Maybe an idea would come if I physically put myself outside the box.

By now there were hundreds of spectators, including dozens of reporters and TV camera crews. I strolled a few blocks along M Street, my hands dug deep into my pockets.

I came to a crowded street corner where people from the neighborhood were being interviewed for TV I was starting to walk by, lost in my thoughts, when I heard one of the women talking between wrenching sobs. "That my flesh and blood trapped inside. Nobody care. Nobody give a damn!"

I stopped to listen to the interview. The woman couldn't have been more than twenty, and she was pregnant. From the look of her, she was due any day. Maybe tonight.

"My gramma is seventy-five. She inside to make money so my kids can go to Catholic school. Her name Rosario. She a beautiful lady. My gramma don't deserve to die."

I listened to a few more emotional interviews, mostly with family members of the lab workers – but also a couple with the wives and kids of the drug crew trapped inside. One of the runners in there was just twelve years old.

Finally, I headed back inside the barricades, the inner perimeter, and I went looking for Ned Mahoney. I found him with some administrative types, suits, and Captain Moran outside one of the command-post vans. They were discussing shutting off the building's power.

"I've got an idea," I told him.

"Well, it's about time."

Chapter 25

THE BUTCHER WAS still hanging around the police barricades in Washington, and he knew he shouldn't be there. He was supposed to be home in Maryland hours ago. But this was worth it. The craziness of it all. He wandered through the crowd of looky-loos, and he was feeling like a kid let loose at a state fair, or at least what he thought a kid at a state fair would feel like.

Hell, they even had ice cream and hot dog vendors at the scene. People's eyes glistened with excitement; they wanted to see some real-life action. Well, hell, so did he, so did he.

He definitely was a crime-scene junkie, and he thought it stemmed from the days spent with his old man in Brooklyn. When he was little, his father used to take him on fire and police calls that he intercepted on his two-way. It was about the only good thing he ever did with the old man, and he figured it was because his father thought he'd look like less of a freak if he dragged a kid along beside him.

But his father was a freak. He liked to see dead bodies, any kind – on a slab of pavement, inside a crashed car, being hauled out of a smoldering building. His crazy old man was the original Butcher of Sligo – and much, much worse. Of course, he was the Butcher now, one of the most feared and sought-after assassins in the world. He was the Man, wasn't he? He could do whatever he wanted to, and that's what he was up to now.

Michael Sullivan was pulled out of his reverie by the sound of somebody talking into a mike at the hostage scene. He looked up, and it was the detective again – Alex Cross. It almost seemed like fate to him, like ghosts calling to the Butcher from the past.

Chapter 26

I FIGURED MY IDEA was a long shot, and definitely out of left field, but it was worth it if it could save some lives. Plus, nobody had come up with anything better.

So at midnight we set up microphones behind a solid row of police cars and transport buses parked on the far side of Fifteenth. It looked impressive, if nothing else, and the TV cameras were all over it, of course.

For the next hour, I led family members up to tell their stories into the mikes, to reason and plead with the men inside to put down their weapons and leave the building, or at the very least to let the lab workers out. The speakers stressed that it was hopeless not to surrender and that many of those inside would die if they didn't. Some of the stories told at the mikes were heartbreaking, and I watched spectators tear up as they listened.

The best of the moments were anecdotes – a Sunday soccer game a father was supposed to referee; a wedding less than a week away; a pregnant girl who was supposed to be on bed rest but who came to plead with her drug-runner boyfriend. Both of them were eighteen.

Then we got an answer from inside.

It came while a twelve-year-old girl was talking about her father, one of the dealers. Gunshots erupted in the building!

The gunfire lasted for about five minutes, then stopped. We had no way of telling what had happened. We knew only one thing – the words of their loved ones had failed to move the men inside.

No one had come out; no one had surrendered.

"It's all right, Alex." Ned took me aside. "Maybe it bought us a little more time." But that wasn't the result either of us was looking for. Not even close.

At one thirty, Captain Moran turned off the mikes outside. It looked like nobody was coming out. They had made their decision.

A little after two o'clock, it was decided by the higher-ups that the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team would go into the building first. They would be followed by a wave of DC police – but no one from SWAT. It was a tough-minded decision, but that's the way it was these days in Washington – maybe because of the terrorist activity over the past few years. People didn't seem to want to try to negotiate their way out of crisis situations anymore. I wasn't sure what side of the argument I was on, but I understood both.

Ned Mahoney and I would be part of the first assault team to go inside. We were assembled out on Fourteenth Street, directly behind the building under siege.

Most of our guys were pacing, restless, talking among themselves, trying to stay focused.

"This is a bad one," Ned said. "SWAT guys know how we think. Probably even that we're coming in tonight."

"You know any of them? The SWAT team inside?" I asked.

Ned shook his head. "We don't usually get invited to the same parties."

Chapter 27

WE DRESSED UP in dark flight suits with full armor, and both Ned and I had MP5s. You could never predict too much about a night assault, but especially this one, with SWAT types on the inside and HRT as the force coming to get them.

Ned got a message on his headset, and he turned to me. "Here we go, Alex. Keep your head down, buddy. These guys are as good as we are."

"You do the same."

But then the unexpected happened. And this time, it wasn't such a bad thing.

The front door to the building opened. For a few seconds, there was no activity at the door. What was going on in there?

Then an elderly woman dressed in a lab smock wandered out into the bright lights aimed at the building. She held her hands up high and kept saying, "Don't shoot me."

She was followed by more women in lab coats, young and old, as well as two boys who looked to be twelve or thirteen at the most.

People behind the barricades were screaming out names. They were weeping for joy, clapping wildly.

Then the front door slammed shut again.

The exodus was over.

Chapter 28

THE RELEASE OF ELEVEN lab workers stopped the full Hostage Rescue Team assault and opened up communications again. The police commissioner and the chief of detectives appeared on the scene and talked with Captain Moran. So did a couple of ministers from the community. Late as it was, the TV crews were still here shooting film.

At around three, we got word that we were going inside after all. Then there was another delay. Hurry up and wait, hurry up and wait.

At half past, we got the go. We were told it was final.

A few minutes past three thirty, Ned Mahoney and I were up and racing toward a side entrance into the building; so were a dozen other guys from HRT. The good thing about protective gear is that it might stop a fatal or damaging bullet; the bad thing is that it slows you down, makes it harder to run as fast as you need or want to, and forces your breath to come in gulps and gasps.

Snipers were taking out windows, trying to keep resistance from inside as low as possible.

Mahoney liked to call this drill "five minutes of panic and thrills," but I always dreaded it. To me, it was more like "five minutes closer to heaven or hell." I didn't need to be here, but Ned and I had done a couple of assaults together and I couldn't stay away.

A booming, earsplitting explosion took out the back door.

Suddenly, there were swirling clouds of black smoke and debris everywhere; then we were both running through it. I was hoping not to catch a bullet to the head or some other exposed body part in the next couple of minutes. I was hoping nobody had to die tonight.

Ned and I took fire right away, and we couldn't even tell who the hell was shooting at us. Drug dealers or the SWAT guys. Maybe both.

The sound of submachine guns and then grenades was deafening in the hallways and as we inched up a set of winding stairs. There was a whole lot of firepower inside the building now, maybe too much for it to hold together. The noise level made it hard to think straight or keep any focus.

"Hey! Assholes!" I heard somebody shout from above us. A volley of gunshots followed. Flashes of blinding light in the darkness.

Then Ned grunted and went down hard on the stairway.

I couldn't tell where he was hit at first; then I saw a wound near his collarbone. I didn't know if he'd been shot or struck with flying debris. There was a lot of blood spilling from the wound though.

I stayed right there with him, called for help on the radio. I heard more blasts, shouts, male and female screams coming from above us. Chaos.

Ned's hands were shaking, and I hadn't seen him show fear of anything before. The firefight raging in the building only added to the terror and confusion. Ned's face had lost its color; he didn't look good.

"They're coming for you," I told him. "Stay with me, Ned. You hear me?"

"Stupid," he finally said, groaning. "Walked right into it."

"You feeling it yet?"

"Could be worse. Could be better too. By the way," he said, " you're hit too."

Chapter 29

"I'LL LIVE," I told Ned as I huddled over him on the stairwell.

"Yeah, me too. Probably, anyway."

A couple of minutes later, the paramedics were with us in the cramped space. By the time they got Ned out of there, the gunfight seemed to be over. Just like he always said – five minutes of panic and thrills.

Reports started to come in. Captain Tim Moran gave the latest to me himself. The assault on the heroin factory seemed to have had mixed results. Most of us felt we shouldn't have gone in so soon – but it wasn't our decision. Two metro officers and two from HRT were wounded on our side. Ned was headed into surgery.

There were six casualties among those inside the building, including two men from SWAT. A seventeen-year-old mother of two was one of the dead. For some reason she'd stayed inside when the lab workers came out. The girl's husband had died too. He was sixteen.

I finally got home at a little past six in the morning. I was dragging, wasted, bone tired, and something about coming in so late, or early, seemed surreal.

It only got worse. Nana was up waiting in the kitchen.

Chapter 30

SHE WAS SITTING OVER toast and a cup of tea, looking infirm, but I knew better.

The hot beverage was steaming, and so was she. She hadn't gotten the kids up yet. Her small TV was tuned to the local news reports on last night's police action at Kentucky and Fifteenth. It felt unreal to see the footage right here in our kitchen.

Nana's eyes fixed on the scrape on the side of my forehead – the bandage there.

"It's a scratch," I said. "Not a big deal. It's all good. I'm fine."

"Don't give me that ridiculous nonsense answer, Alex. Don't you dare condescend to me like I'm somebody's fool. I'm looking at the line of trajectory taken by a bullet that came an inch from splattering your brains and leaving your three poor children orphans. No mother, no father. Am I wrong about that? No, of course not!

"I am so sick of this though, Alex. I have been living with this sort of terrible dread every single day for over ten years. This time I've had it. Up to here. I've truly had enough. I'm done with it. I'm through! I quit! Yes, you heard me correctly. I quit you and the children! I quit!"

I put up both my hands in defense. "Nana, I was out with the kids when I got an emergency call. I had no idea the call was coming. How could I? There was nothing I could do to stop what happened."

"You accepted the call, Alex. Then you accepted the assignment. You always do. You call it dedication, duty. I call it total insanity, madness."

"I. Didn't. Have. An. Option."

"You do have an option, Alex. That's my whole point. You could have said no, that you were out with your kids. What do you think they would do, Alex – fire you for having a life? For being a father? And if by some accident of good fortune they did fire you, then so be it."

"I don't know what they could do, Nana. Eventually I suppose they would fire me."

"And is that such a bad thing? Is it? Oh, forget it!" she said, and banged her mug down hard against the tabletop. "I'm leaving!" she said.

"Oh, for God's sake, this is ridiculous, Nana. I'm totally exhausted. I was shot. Almost shot. We'll talk about it later. I need to sleep right now"

Suddenly Nana stood up, and she moved in my direction. Her face was wild with outrage, her eyes tiny black beads. I hadn't seen her like this in years, maybe not since I was growing up, and a little on the wild side myself.

" Ridiculous? You call this ridiculous? How dare you say that to me."

Nana struck me in the chest with the heels of both her hands. The blows didn't hurt, but their intent did, the truth of her words did. "I'm sorry," I said. "I'm just tired."

"Get yourself a housekeeper, a nanny, whatever you can get for yourself. You're exhausted? I'm exhausted. I'm fed up and exhausted and sick to death of worrying about you!"

"Nana, I'm sorry. What else do you want me to say?"

"Nothing, Alex. Don't say anything. I'm tired of listening to you anyway."

She stomped off to her room without another word. Well, at least that was over, I thought as I sat down at the kitchen table, tired and depressed as hell now.

But it wasn't over.

Minutes later, Nana reappeared in the kitchen, and she was lugging an ancient leather suitcase and a smaller traveling bag on wheels. She walked past me, through the dining room, and then right out the front door without another peep.

"Nana!" I called, struggling up from my seat, then starting to jog after her. "Stop. Please, stop and talk to me. Let's talk."

"I'm through talking!"

I got to the door and saw a dented and gashed pale-blue DC Cab throwing off exhaust fumes and plumes of smoke out front on the street. One of her many cousins, Abraham, drove for DC Cabs. I could see the back of his retro Afro from the porch.

Nana climbed into the ugly blue taxi, and it immediately sputtered away from the house.

Then I heard a small voice. "Where's Nana going?"

I turned and lifted Ali, who had snuck around behind me on the porch. "I don't know, little man. I think she just quit on us."

He looked aghast. "Nana quit our family?"

Chapter 31

MICHAEL SULLIVAN WOKE with an awful shudder and a start and knew immediately he wouldn't be able to get back to sleep. He'd been dreaming about his father again, the scary bastard, the boogeyman of all his nightmares.

When he was a little kid, the old man had brought him to work at his butcher shop two or three times a week in the summer. This went on from the time he was six until he was eleven, when it ended. The shop took up the ground floor of a two-story redbrick building on Quentin Road and East Thirty-sixth Street. Kevin Sullivan, Butcher was known for having the best meats in all of the Flatlands section of Brooklyn, but also for his skill in catering not just to the Irish but to Italian and German tastes.

The sawdust on the floor was always thick and swept clean every day. The glass in the windows of the cases sparkled. And Kevin Sullivan had a trademark – after he presented a customer's meat for inspection, he smiled, and then took a polite bow. His little bow got them every time.

Michael, his mother, and his three brothers knew another side of his father though. Kevin Sullivan had massive arms and the most powerful hands imaginable, especially in the eyes of a young boy. One time he caught a rat in the kitchen and crushed the vermin in his bare hands. He told his sons he could do the same thing to them, crush their bones to sawdust, and their mother seldom went a week without a purplish bruise appearing somewhere on her frail, thin body.

But that wasn't the worst of it, and it wasn't what had woken Sullivan that night and so many other times during his life. The real horror story had begun when he was six and they were cleaning up after closing one evening. His father called him into the shop's small office, which held a desk, a file cabinet, and a cot. Kevin Sullivan was sitting on the cot, and he told Michael to sit next to him. "Right here, boy. By my side."

"I'm sorry, Dad," Michael said immediately, knowing this had to be about some dumb mistake he'd made during his chores. "I'll make up for it. I'll do it right."

"Just sit!" said his father. "You have plenty to be sorry for, but that's not it. Now you listen. You listen to me good."

His father put his hand on the boy's knee. "You know how badly I can hurt you, Michael," he said. "You know that, right?"

"Yes, sir, I know."

"And I will," his father continued, "if you tell a single living soul."

Tell them what? Michael wanted to ask, but he knew better than to say a word, to interrupt his father once he had begun to speak.

"Not a solitary soul." His father squeezed his son's leg until tears formed in Michael's eyes.

And then his father leaned forward and kissed the boy on the mouth, and did other things that no father should ever do to his son.

Chapter 32

HIS FATHER HAD BEEN DEAD for a long time now, but the creepy bastard was never far enough away from Sullivan's thoughts, and in fact, he had devised unusual ways to "escape" from his childhood demons.

Around four the next afternoon he went shopping at Tysons Galleria in McLean, Virginia. He was looking for something very special: just the right girl. He wanted to play a game called Red Light, Green Light.

During the next half hour at the Galleria, he approached a few possible game players outside Saks Fifth Avenue, then Neiman Marcus, then Lillie Rubin.

His pitch was straightforward and didn't vary. Big smile, then: "Hi. My name is Jeff Carter. Could I ask you a couple of questions? You mind? I'll be quick, I promise."

The fifth or sixth woman he approached had a very pretty, innocent face – a Madonna's face? – and she listened to what he had to say. Four of the women he'd hit on before her were pleasant enough. One was even flirty, but they all had walked away. He had no problem with that. He liked bright people, and the women were just being cautious about the pickup game. What was the old saying? Don't pick that up, you have no way of knowing where it's been.

"Well, not exactly questions," he went on with his sales pitch to the Madonna of the Galleria. "Let me put it another way. If I say anything that bothers you, I'll stop and walk away. That sound fair enough? Like Red Light, Green Light."

"That's a little weird," said the dark-haired girl. She had a truly gorgeous face and a nice body from what he could tell. Her voice was somewhat monotone – but hey, nobody's perfect. Other than maybe himself.

"But it's harmless," he went on. "I like your boots, by the way."

"Thanks. It doesn't bother me to hear that you like them. I like 'em too."

"You have a nice smile too. You know that you do, right? Sure you do."

"Careful now. Don't lay it on too thick."

They both laughed, hitting it off okay, Sullivan was thinking to himself. The game was on anyway. He just had to avoid getting a red light.

"Okay if I go on?" he asked. Always ask their permission. That was a rule he had whenever he played. Always he polite.

She shrugged, rolled her soft brown eyes, shifted her weight from one booted foot to the other. "I guess. We've gone this far, haven't we? "

"A thousand dollars," Sullivan said. This was where you usually won or lost the game. Right… now.

The Madonna's smile disappeared – but she didn't walk away. Sullivan's heart started to pound. He had her going, leaning his way. Now he just had to close the sale.

"Nothing funny. I promise," Sullivan said quickly, pouring on the charm without being too obvious about it.

The Madonna frowned. "You promise, huh?"

"One hour," Sullivan said. The trick here was how you said it. It had to sound like no big deal, nothing threatening, nothing out of the ordinary. Just an hour. Just a thousand dollars. Why not? What's the harm?

"Red light," she said, and walked away from him in a huff, never even looked back. He could tell she was pissed too.

Sullivan was mad, his heart still beating hard, and something else was rock hard as well. He wanted to grab the Madonna and strangle her in the middle of the mall. Really mess her up. But he loved this little game he'd invented. Red Light, Green Light.

Half an hour later, he was trying his luck outside the Victoria's Secret at the nearby Tysons Corner Mall – he got to "one hour" with a dreamy blonde in a "Jersey Girl" T-shirt and short shorts. No luck though, and he was really getting hot and bothered now. He needed a win, needed to get laid, needed an adrenaline hit.

The next girl he approached had beautiful, shimmering red hair. Great body. Long legs and small, lively tits that moved around in rhythm when she talked. At the "one hour" prompt, she folded her slender arms over her chest. Talk about body language, wow! But Red didn't walk away from him. Conflicted? Sure. He loved that in a woman.

"You're in control the whole time. You choose the hotel or your place. Whatever you want, whatever seems right. It's all up to you."

She looked at him for a moment, silent, and he knew that she was sizing him up – they stared right into your eyes at this point. He could tell that this one trusted her instincts. It's all up to you. Plus, she either wanted, or needed, the thousand dollars. And, of course, he was cute.

Finally, Red spoke in a quiet voice, because nobody else was supposed to hear this, right? "You have the cash on you?"

He showed her a roll of hundreds.

"They all hundreds?" she asked.

He showed her that they were hundreds. "You mind if I ask you your name?" he said.

"Sherry."

"That your real name?"

"Whatever, Jeff. Let's go. The clock is running. Your hour's already begun."

And off they went.

After his hour with Sherry was over, closer to an hour and a half actually, Michael Sullivan didn't have to give her any money. Not a thousand, not a nickel. All he had to do was show Sherry his picture collection – and a scalpel he had brought along.

Red Light, Green Light.

Hell of a game.

Chapter 33

TWO DAYS AFTER she walked out on us, Nana was back at the house, thank God and the heavenly choir, who had to be watching over us. The whole family, but especially me, had learned a lesson about how much we loved Nana and needed her; how many small, often unnoticed and thankless things she did for us every day; how totally indispensable she was, and the sacrifices she made.

Not that Nana ever really let us forget her contributions under ordinary circumstances. It was just that she was even better than she thought she was.

When she waltzed in the kitchen door that morning, she caught Jannie eating Cocoa Puffs and let her have it in her own inimitable style: "My name is Janelle Cross. I am a substance abuser," Nana said.

Jannie raised both arms over her head in surrender; then she went and emptied the chocolate cereal right into the trash. She looked Nana in the eye, said, "If you're in a vehicle traveling at the speed of light, what happens when you switch on the headlights?" Then she hugged Nana before she could try to answer the unanswerable.

I went and hugged Nana too and was smart enough to keep my mouth shut but my powder dry.

When I got home from work that night, my grandmother was waiting for me in the kitchen. Uh-oh, I thought, but the second she saw me, Nana put her arms out for a hug, which surprised me. "Come," she said.

When I was in her arms, she continued, "I'm sorry, Alex. I had no right to run away and leave you all like that. I was in the wrong. I missed all of you as soon as I was in the cab with Abraham."

"You had every right -," I started to say.

Nana cut me off. "Now don't argue with me, Alex. For once, quit while you're ahead."

I did as I was told, and shut up.

Chapter 34

BIG STUFF – NOW HERE WE GO. On Friday morning of that week, at a few minutes past nine o'clock, I found myself all alone in the alcove outside Director Ron Burns's office on the ninth floor of the Hoover Building, FBI headquarters.

The director's assistant, Tony Woods, peeked his round, deceptively cherubic face out of Burns's outer office.

"Hey, Alex, there you are. Why don't you come on in. Good job the other day on Kentucky Avenue. Under the circumstances especially. The director's been wanting to talk to you about it and some other things he has on his mind. I heard Ned Mahoney's going to make a full recovery."

Terrific job – I almost got myself killed, I thought as I followed Woods into the inner office. Ned Mahoney got shot in the neck. He could have died too.

The director was there waiting for me in his sanctum sanctorum. Ron Burns has a kind of funny way about him: He's a hard-charging guy, but he's learned to make meaningless small talk and smile a lot before he gets down to business. That's pretty much a requirement in Washington, especially if you have to deal with as many sneaky politicians as he does. Like many type-A business-minded men, though, Burns is pretty awful at small talk. But we chatted about local sports and the weather for a good ninety seconds before we got into the real reason for my visit.

"So what's on your mind these days?" Burns asked. "Tony said you wanted to see me, so I take it this isn't purely a social call.

"I have a few things to go over with you too. A new assignment for starters: a serial up in Maine and Vermont of all places."

I nodded and let Burns rattle on. But suddenly I was feeling tense and a little unsure of myself. Finally, I had to cut him off. "There's no good way to ease into this, Director, so I'll just say it. I'm here to tell you that I'm going to be leaving the Bureau. This is very difficult, and it's embarrassing. I appreciate everything you've done for me, but I've made a decision for my family. It's final. I'm not going to change my mind."

" Shit," Burns said, and he hit his desk hard with the palm of his hand. "Damn it all to hell, Alex. Why would you leave us now? It makes no sense to me. You're on a very fast track at the Bureau. You know that, right? Tell you what, I'm not going to let you do it."

"Nothing you can do to stop me," I told him. "I'm sorry, but I'm sure I'm doing the right thing. I've thought this through a hundred times in the last few days."

Burns stared into my eyes, and he must have seen something resolute there, because he stood up behind his desk. Then he came around it with his hand outstretched.

"You're making a terrible mistake, and an atrociously bad career move, but I can tell there's no point in arguing with you. It's been a real pleasure, Alex, and an education," he said as we shook hands. We made some more uncomfortable chitchat for the next couple of minutes. Then I got up to leave his office.

As I reached the door, Burns called, "Alex, I hope I can still call on you from time to time. I can, can't I?"

I laughed in spite of myself, because the remark was so typical of Burns's never-say-die attitude. "You can call on me eventually. But why don't you give it a few months, okay?"

"Couple of days anyway" said Burns, and at least he winked when he said it.

We both laughed, and suddenly it sunk in – my brief, somewhat illustrious career with the FBI was over and done with.

Also, I was unemployed.

Chapter 35

I'M NOT A BIG FAN of looking back on the stages of my life with anything like regret, and anyway, my time at the FBI had been mostly very good and probably even valuable in the long run. I'd learned things, accomplished a fair amount – like stopping a Russian Mafia psycho called the Wolf. And I'd made some good friends – the head of Hostage Rescue, maybe even the director – which couldn't hurt and might even help me out someday.

Still, I wasn't prepared for the incredible feeling of relief I experienced as I carried a cardboard box stuffed full of my possessions out of the FBI building that morning. It felt as if at least a couple of hundred pounds of dead weight had been lifted off my shoulders, a burden I hadn't even known was there. I didn't know for sure if I'd just made a good decision, but it sure felt like it.

No more monsters, human or otherwise, I was thinking to myself.

No more monsters ever.

I headed toward home at a little before noon. Free at last. I had the car windows open and was listening to Bob Marley's "No Woman, No Cry," the words "everything's gonna be all right" blasting from the radio. I was singing along. I didn't have a plan for what I was going to do next, not even for the rest of the day – and it felt pretty terrific. Actually, I liked the idea of doing nothing for a while, and I was beginning to think I might be pretty good at it too.

There was something I needed to do right now, while I was in the mood. I drove out to the Mercedes dealership and found the salesperson Laurie Berger. I took a test drive in the R350, and all that leg room was even more fun on the open highway than it had been in the showroom. I liked the vehicle's zip and also the dual-dash zone climate control, which would keep everybody happy, even Nana Mama.

But even more important, it was time for the family and me to move away from Maria's old car. It was time, I had money from my books in savings, and so I bought the R350 and felt wonderful about it.

When I got home, I found a note from Nana on the kitchen table. It was meant for Jannie and Damon, but I read it anyway.

Go out and get some fresh air, you two. There's coq au vin in the Crock-Pot. Delicious! Set the table for me, please. And get a start on your homework before dinner. Damon has choir tonight. Remember to "support your breath,"young man. Aunt Tia and I have taken Ali to the zoo, and WE'RE LOVING IT.

Your Nana isn't here, but I'm watching you anyway!

I couldn't help smiling. This woman had saved me a long time ago, and now she was saving my kids.

I'd been hoping to hang out with Ali, but there would be plenty of time for that in the near future. So I fixed myself a leftover pork and coleslaw sandwich, and then for some strange reason I made popcorn for one.

Why? Why not! I don't even like popcorn that much, but suddenly I was in the mood for some hot, buttered junk food. Free to be me; free to be stupid if I wanted to.

I ate the freshly popped popcorn and played the piano for a couple of hours that afternoon – Duke Ellington, Jelly Roll Morton, Al Green. I read several chapters from a book called The Shadow of the Wind. And then I did the truly unthinkable – I took a nap in the middle of the day. Before I drifted off, I thought about Maria again, the best of times, our honeymoon at Sandy Lane in Barbados. What a blast that had been. How much I still missed her and wished she was here right now to hear my news.

For the rest of the afternoon, the phone never rang once. I didn't have a pager anymore, and in the words of Nana Mama – I was loving it.

Nana and Ali came home together, then came Jannie, and finally Damon. Their staggered arrivals gave me the chance to show off our new car three times, and to get their praise and applause three times. What a fine, fine day this was turning out to be.

That night at dinner we chowed down on Nana's delicious Frenchified chicken, and I kept the big news to myself until the end of the meal – pumpkin ice cream and cafe au lait.

Jannie and Damon wanted to eat and run, but I kept everybody sitting at the table. Jannie wanted to get back to her book. She was tripping out on Eragon these days, which was okay, I guess, but I didn't understand why it is that kids have to read the same book half a dozen times.

"What now?" she rolled her eyes and asked, as though she already knew the answer.

"I have some news," I said to her, and to everybody else.

The kids looked at one another, and Jannie and Damon shared a frown and a head shake. They all thought they knew what was coming next – that I was leaving town on a new murder investigation, probably a serial. Maybe even tonight, just like I always did.

"I'm not going anywhere," I said, and grinned broadly. "Quite the opposite actually. In fact, I'm going to attend Damon's choir practice tonight. I want to listen to that joyful noise. I want to see how well he supports his breath these days."

"You're going to choir practice?" Damon exclaimed. "What, is there some killer in our singing group?"

I was purposely stretching it out some, my eyes methodically going from face to face. I could tell that none of them had a clue what was coming next. Not even our crafty, know-it-all Nana had figured it out yet.

Jannie finally looked down at Ali. "Make him tell us what's going on, Ali. Make him talk."

"C'mon, Daddy," said the little man, who was already a skillful manipulator. "Tell us. Before Janelle goes crazy."

"All right, all right, all right. Here's the deal. I'm afraid I have to tell you that I'm now unemployed, and that we're practically destitute. Well, not really. Anyway, this morning I resigned from the FBI. For the rest of the day I did nothing. Tonight, it's the rehearsal of 'Cantante Domino' for me."

Nana Mama and the kids went wild with applause. "Destitute! Des-ti-tute!" the kids began to chant.

And you know what? It had a nice ring to it.

So did no more monsters.

Chapter 36

THE NEXT BEAT in the story went like this. John Sampson was a star in the Washington PD these days. Ever since Alex left the department and moved over to the FBI, Sampson's reputation had been rising, not that it hadn't been on a high level before, not that Sampson didn't get a lot of respect for all sorts of reasons. The curious thing, though, was that Sampson couldn't have given a rat's ass. Peer approval had never meant much of anything to the Big Man. Unless maybe it was Alex's, and even that was a hit-and-miss thing.

His latest case was definitely a challenge. Maybe because he hated the bad actor he was trying to bring down. The scum in question, Gino "Greaseball" Giametti, operated strip joints and massage parlors as far south as Fort Lauderdale and Miami. His "sideline" was catering to pervs who needed adolescent girls, sometimes prepubescent ones. Giametti himself was obsessed with the so-called Lolita complex.

" Capo," Sampson muttered under his breath as he drove up Giametti's street in the ritzy Kalorama section of DC. The self-important term referred to capitano, a captain in the Mafia. Gino Giametti had been a significant earner for years. He'd been one of the first mobsters to figure out that big money could be made bringing in pretty young girls from the former Soviet bloc, especially Russia, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. That was his specialty, and it was the reason Sampson was riding his ass now. His one regret was that Alex couldn't be with him on this bust. This was going to be a sweet takedown.

At a little past midnight, he pulled up in front of Giametti's house. The mobster didn't live too extravagantly, but all his needs were met. That was how the Mafia took care of its own.

Sampson peered into his rearview and saw two more cars ease up against the curb directly behind him. He spoke into a mike sticking out from his shirt collar. "Good evening, gents. I think this is going to be a fine night. I can feel it in my bones. Let's go wake up the Greaseball."

Chapter 37

SAMPSON'S PARTNER THESE DAYS was a twenty-eight-year-old detective named Marion Handler, who was almost as big as Sampson was. Handler was certainly no Alex Cross, though. He was currently living with a large-breasted but small-minded cheerleader for the Washington Redskins, and he was looking to make a name for himself in Homicide. "I'm fast-tracking, dude," he liked to say to Sampson, without a hint of humor or self-effacement.

Just being around the cocky detective was exhausting, and also depressing. The man was plain stupid; worse, he was arrogant about it, flaunting his frequent logic lapses.

"I'll take the point on this one," Handler announced as they reached the front porch of Giametti's house. Four other detectives, one holding a battering ram, were already waiting at the door. They looked to Sampson for direction.

"Take the lead? No problem, Marion. Be my guest," he said to Handler. Then he added, "First in, first to the morgue." He spoke to the detective holding the battering ram: "Take it down! Detective Handler goes in first."

The front door collapsed in two powerful strikes with the ram. The house alarm system began to wail, and the detectives hurried inside.

Sampson's eyes took in the darkened kitchen. Nobody there. New appliances everywhere. An iPod and CDs scattered on the floor. Kids in the house.

"He's downstairs," Sampson told the others. "Giametti doesn't sleep with his wife anymore."

The detectives hurried down steep wooden stairs on the far side of the kitchen. They hadn't been inside more than twenty seconds. In the basement, they burst in the first door they came to. "Metro Police! Hands up. Now, Giametti," Marion Handler's voice boomed.

The Greaseball was up quickly. He stood in a protective crouch on the far side of the king-size bed. He was a short, potbellied, hirsute man in his midforties. He looked groggy and still out of it, maybe drugged up. But John Sampson wasn't fooled by his physical appearance – this man was a stone-cold killer. And much worse.

A pretty, naked young girl with long blond hair and fair white skin was still on the bed. She tried to cover her small breasts and shaved genital area. Sampson knew her name, Paulina Sroka, and that she was from Poland originally. Sampson had known she would be here and that Giametti was rumored to be madly in love with the blond beauty he'd imported from Europe six months ago. According to sources, the Greaseball had killed the girl's best friend because she'd refused to have anal sex with him.

"You don't have to be afraid," Sampson said to Paulina. "We're the Washington police. You're not in any trouble. He is."

"Just shut the hell up!" Giametti yelled at the girl, who looked both confused and scared. "Don't say a word to them! Not a word, Paulie! I'm warning you!"

Sampson moved faster than it looked like he could. He threw Giametti on the floor, then cuffed him like a steer at a rodeo.

"Don't say a word!" Giametti continued to yell, even though his face was pressed into the shag rug. "Don't talk to them, Paulie! I'm warning you! You hear me?"

The girl looked pathetic and lost as she sat among the rumpled bedsheets, attempting to cover herself with a man's shirt she'd been given by the detectives.

She finally spoke in the softest whisper. "He make me do anything he say. He do everything bad to me. You know what I am saying – everything you could imagine. I can hardly walk… I am fourteen years old."

Sampson turned to Handler. "You can take it from here, Marion. Get him the hell out of here. I don't want to touch the slime."

Chapter 38

AN HOUR LATER, Gino Giametti was basted, then grilled until he was well-done under bright lights in Investigation Room #1 at the First District station house. Sampson wouldn't take his eyes off the vicious gangster, who had a disturbing habit of scratching his scalp compulsively, hard enough to make it bleed. Giametti didn't seem to notice it himself.

Marion Handler had carried the show so far, done most of the preliminary questioning, but Giametti didn't have much to say to him. Sampson sat back and observed, sizing up both men.

So far, Giametti was getting the best of it. He was a lot smarter than he looked. "I woke up and Paulie was sleeping in my bed. Sleeping – just like when you busted in. What can I tell you? She has her own bedroom upstairs. She's a scared little girl. Crazy sometimes, too. Paulie does housekeeping and shit like that for my wife. We wanted to put her in the local schools. The best schools. We were letting her work on her English first. Hey, we were trying to do the right thing by that kid, so why are you busting my balls?"

Sampson finally pushed himself forward in his seat. He'd heard enough bullshit for tonight. "Anybody ever tell you you could do stand-up?" he asked. And, Marion, you could be his straight man.

"Matter of fact, yeah," Giametti said, and smirked. "Couple of people told me that exact same thing. You know what? I think they were cops too."

"Paulina has already told us she saw you kill her friend Alexa. Alexa was sixteen years old when she died. The girl was garroted!"

Giametti slammed his fist down on the table in front of him. "The crazy little bitch. Paulie is lying through her teeth. What'd you do, threaten to send her back? Deport her to Poland? That's her biggest fear."

Sampson shook his head. "No, I said we'd help her stay in America if we could. Get her into school. The best. Do the right thing by her."

"She's lying, and she's nuts. I'm telling you, that pretty little girl is two kinds of crazy."

Sampson nodded slowly. "She's lying? All right, then how about Roberto Gallo? Is he lying too? He saw you kill Alexa and stuff the body in the trunk of your Lincoln. He made that up?"

"Of course he made it up. That's total bullshit; it's complete crap. You know it. I know it. Bobby Gallo knows it. Alexa? Who the hell is Alexa? Paulie's imaginary friend?"

Sampson shrugged his broad shoulders. "How would I know Gallo's story is bullshit?"

"Because it never happened, that's how! Because Bobby Gallo probably made a deal with you."

"You mean – it didn't happen that way? Gallo wasn't actually an eyewitness? But Paulina was. Is that what you're saying?"

Giametti frowned and shook his head. "You think I'm stupid, Detective Sampson? I'm not stupid."

Sampson spread his hands to indicate the small, very bright interview room. "But here you are."

Giametti thought about it for a few seconds. Then he gestured toward Handler. "Tell Junior here to go take a nice long walk off a short pier. I want to talk to you. Just you and me, big man."

Sampson looked over at Marion Handler. He shrugged and rolled his eyes. "Why don't you take a break, Marion?"

Handler didn't like it, but he got up and left the interrogation room. He made a lot of noise on the way out, like a petulant high school kid who'd just been given detention.

Sampson didn't say anything once he and Giametti were alone. He was still observing the mobster, trying to get under the punk's skin. The guy was a murderer – that much he knew. And Giametti also had to know that he was up shit creek right now. Paulina Sroka was fourteen years old.

"The strong, silent type?" Giametti smirked again. "That your act, big boy?"

Still not a word from Sampson. It went on that way for several minutes.

Giametti finally leaned forward, and he spoke in a quiet, serious voice. "Look, you know this is bullshit, right? No murder weapon. No body. I didn't clip any little Polack girl named Alexa. And Paulie is crazy. Trust me on that one. She's young in years, but she's no little girl. She was hooking in the old country. You know about that?"

Sampson finally spoke. "Here's what I know, and what I can prove. You were having sex with a fourteen-year-old in your own house."

Giametti shook his head. "She's not fourteen. She's a little whore. Anyway, I have something for you, something to trade. It's about a friend of yours – Alex Cross. You listening, Detective? Hear this. I know who killed his wife. I know where he is now too."

Chapter 39

JOHN SAMPSON GOT OUT of his car slowly, and he trudged along the familiar stone walkway, then up the front stairs of the Cross family house on Fifth Street.

He hesitated at the door, trying to collect his thoughts, to calm himself down if he could. This wasn't going to be easy, and no one would know this more than he did. He knew things about Maria Cross's murder that even Alex didn't.

Finally, he reached forward and rang the bell. He must have done this a thousand times in his life, but it never felt like it did now.

No good would come of this visit. Nothing good whatsoever. It might even end a long friendship.

A moment later, Sampson was surprised that it was Nana Mama who came to the door. The old girl was dressed in a flowery blue robe and looked even tinier than usual, like an ancient bird that ought to be worshipped. And in this house, she surely was, even by him.

"John, what's the matter now? What is it? I'm almost afraid to ask. Well, come inside, come inside. You'll scare all the neighbors."

"They're already scared, Nana," Sampson drawled, and attempted a smile. "This is Southeast, remember?"

"Don't try to make a joke out of this, John. Don't you dare. What are you here for?"

Sampson suddenly felt like he was a teenager again, caught in one of Nana's infamous stern glares. There was something so damn familiar about this scene. It reminded him of the time he and Alex got caught stealing records at Grady's while they were in middle school. Or the time they were smoking weed behind John Carroll High School and got busted by an assistant principal, and Nana had to come to get them released.

"I have to talk to Alex," Sampson said. "It's important, Nana. We need to wake him up."

"And why is that?" she tapped one extended foot and asked. "Quarter past three in the morning. Alex doesn't work for the city of Washington anymore. Why can't everybody just leave him be? You of all people, John Sampson. You know better than to come around here now, middle of the night, looking for his help again."

Sampson didn't usually argue with Nana Mama, but this time he did. "I'm afraid it can't wait, Nana. And I don't need Alex's help this time. He needs mine."

Then Sampson walked right past Nana and into the Cross house – uninvited.

Chapter 40

IT WAS ALMOST 4:00 A.M., and Sampson and I were riding back to the First District station house in his car. I was wide awake now, and wired. My nervous system felt like it was vibrating.

Maria's murderer? After all these years? Was it even a faint possibility that the killer could be caught more than ten years after my wife was shot down? The whole thing felt unreal to me. Back then, I'd been all over the case for a year, and I'd never completely given up the chase. And now we might suddenly find the killer? Was it possible?

We arrived at the station house on Fourth Street and hurried inside, neither of us talking. A precinct house during the night shift can be a lot like an emergency room: You never know what to expect when you step inside. This time, I didn't have a clue, but I couldn't wait to talk to Giametti.

It seemed unusually quiet when we walked in the front door – but that all changed in a hurry. It was obvious to both Sampson and me that something was wrong when we got down to the holding cells. Half a dozen detectives and uniforms were standing around. They looked way too alert and anxious for this time of morning. Something was definitely up.

Sampson's new partner, Marion Handler, spotted us and hustled over to John. Handler ignored me, and I did my best to pay him no mind, either. I'd talked to him a couple of times, and I thought the detective was a showy punk. I wondered why John put up with him the way he did.

Maybe he saw something in Handler that I didn't, or maybe Sampson was finally mellowing just a little.

"You're not gonna believe this shit. It's off the charts," he said to Sampson. "Somebody got to Giametti. I shit you not, Sampson. He's over there dead in his cell. Somebody got to him in here."

I was feeling numb all over as Handler led us back to the last holding cell on the block. I couldn't believe what I'd just heard. First we had a lead on Maria's killer's whereabouts, and then the man who gave us that lead was murdered? In here?

"He even had a private room," Handler said to Sampson. "How could they get to him in here? Right under our noses?"

Sampson and I ignored the question as we stepped inside the last cell on the right. There were two evidence techies working around the body, but I could see all I needed to. An ice pick had been driven right up Gino Giametti's nose. It looked like the pick had been used to gouge out his eyes first. "See no evil," said Sampson in his deep, flat voice. "Has to be the mob."

Chapter 41

WHEN I GOT HOME later that morning, I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep very well. So what was new about that? The kids were off at school, Nana was out; the house was quiet as a tomb.

Nana had put up another of her goofy "mistake" newspaper headlines on the fridge: Juvenile Court to Try Shooting Victim. Pretty funny, but I wasn't in the mood for smiles, even at the expense of journalists. I played the piano on the sunporch and drank a glass of red wine, but nothing seemed to help.

I could see Maria's face and hear her voice inside my head. I wondered, Why do we begin to forget, then sometimes remember with such clarity people we've lost? Everything about Maria, about our time together, seemed to have been stirred up inside me again.

Finally, around ten thirty, I made my way upstairs to my room. There had been too many days and nights like this. I would make my way up to bed and sleep there alone. What was that all about?

I lay down on the bed and shut my eyes, but I didn't really expect to sleep, just rest. I'd been thinking about Maria since I left the station house on Fourth Street. Some of the images I saw were of Maria and me when the kids were little – the good and the hard parts, too, not just selective memories of the sentimental stuff.

I tensed up in bed thinking about her, and I finally understood something useful about the present – that I wanted my life to make sense again. Simple enough, right? But could it still happen? Could I move on?

Well, maybe. There was somebody. Somebody I cared about enough to make some changes for. Or was I just fooling myself again? I finally drifted off into a restless, dreamless sleep, which was about as good as it got these days.

Chapter 42

ALL I HAD TO DO was move on, right? Make some intelligent changes in my life. I'd gotten rid of Maria's old junker and moved onward and upward to our cross-vehicle. What could be so hard about making some other changes? And why did I keep failing at it?

Alex has a big date, I told myself at various times during the following Friday. That's why I'd picked the New Heights Restaurant on Calvert Street over in Woodley Park. New Heights was a big-date sort of place. Dr. Kayla Coles was meeting me there after she finished work – early, by her standards anyway – at nine.

I took a seat at our table, partly because I was afraid they might give it away if Kayla showed up late – which she did, at around quarter after.

Her being late didn't matter to me. I was just happy to see her. Kayla was a pretty woman, with a radiant smile, but more important, I liked spending time with her. It seemed like we always had something to talk about. Just the opposite of a lot of couples I know.

" Wow," I said, and winked when I saw her gliding across the dining room. She had on flats, possibly because she's five foot ten without them, or maybe just because she's sane and can't stand the discomfort of heels.

"Wow, yourself! You look good too, Alex. And this view. I love this place."

I had asked to be seated at a bank of windows overlooking Rock Creek Park, and it was kind of spectacular, I had to admit. The same could be said for Kayla, who was decked out in a white silk jacket with a beige camisole, long black pants, and a pretty gold sash tied around her waist, gently falling off to the side.

We ordered a bottle of Pinot Noir and then had a terrific meal, highlighted by a black-bean-and-goat-cheese pate that we shared; her arctic char, my au poivre rib eye; and bittersweet chocolate praline crumble for two. Everything about the New Heights Restaurant worked great for us: the cherry trees out front, in bloom in the fall; some pretty interesting local art up on the walls; delicious cooking smells – fennel, roasted garlic – permeating the dining room; candlelight just about everywhere our eyes went. Mostly, though, my eyes were on Kayla, usually on her eyes, which were deep brown, beautiful, and intelligent.

After dinner, she and I took a walk across the Duke Ellington Bridge toward Adams Morgan and Columbia Road. We stopped at one of my favorite stores in Washington, Crooked Beat Records, and I bought some Alex Chilton and Coltrane for her from Neil Becton, one of the owners and an old friend who once wrote for the Post. Then Kayla and I wound up in Kabani Village, just a few steps from the street. We had mojitos and watched a theater workshop for the next hour.

On the walk back to my car we held hands and continued to talk up a storm. Then Kayla kissed me – on the cheek.

I didn't know what to make of that. "Thank you for the night," she said. "It was perfect, Alex. Just like you."

"It was nice, wasn't it?" I said, still reeling a little from the sisterly kiss.

She smiled. "I've never seen you so relaxed."

I think it was the best thing she could have said, and it sort of made up for the kiss on the cheek. Sort of.

Then Kayla kissed me on the mouth, and I kissed her back. That was much better, and so was the rest of the night at her apartment in Capitol Hill. For a few hours anyway, it felt like my life was starting to make some sense again.

Chapter 43

THE BUTCHER HAD always felt that Venice, Italy, was kind of overrated, to be honest.

But nowadays, with the unending onslaught of tourists, especially the rush of arrogant, hopelessly naive Americans, anyone with a quarter of a brain would have to agree with him. Or maybe not, since most people he knew were complete imbeciles when you came right down to it. He'd learned that by the time he was fifteen and out on the streets of Brooklyn, after he'd run away from home for the third or fourth time as an adolescent, a troubled youth, a victim of circumstances, or maybe just a born psychopath.

He had arrived outside Venice by car and parked in the Piazzale Roma. Then, as he hurried to catch a water taxi to his destination, he could see the excitement, or maybe even reverence for Venice, on nearly every face he passed. Dumb-asses and sheep. Not one of them had ever entertained an original idea or come to a conclusion without the aid of a stupid guidebook. Still, even he had to admit that the cluster of ancient villas slowly sinking into the swamp could be visually arresting in the right light, especially at a distance.

Once he was on board the water taxi, though, he thought of nothing but the job ahead – Martin and Marcia Harris.

Or so their unsuspecting neighbors and friends in Madison, Wisconsin, believed. It didn't matter who the couple really was – though Sullivan knew their identity. More important, they represented a hundred thousand dollars already deposited in his Swiss account, plus expenses, for just a couple days' work. He was considered one of the most successful assassins in the world, and you got what you paid for, except maybe in L.A. restaurants. He'd been a little surprised when he was hired by John Maggione, but it was good to be working.

The water taxi docked at Rio di San Moise, off the Grand Canal, and Sullivan made his way past narrow shops and museums to sprawling St. Mark's Square. He was in radio contact with a spotter, and he'd learned that the Harrises were walking around the square, taking in the sights in a leisurely fashion. It was nearly eleven at night, and he wondered what would be next for them. A little clubbing? A late-night dinner at Cipriani? Drinks at Harry's Bar?

Then he saw the couple – him, in a Burberry trench; her, in a cashmere wrap and carrying John Berendt's City of Falling Angels.

He followed them, hidden in the midst of the festive, noisy crowd. Sullivan had thought it best to dress like an average Joe – khaki Dockers, sweatshirt, floppy rain hat. The pants, shirt, and hat could be discarded in a matter of seconds. Underneath, he wore a brown tweed suit, shirt and tie, and he had a beret. Thus, he would become the Professor. One of his favored disguises when he traveled in Europe to do a job.

The Harrises didn't walk far from St. Mark's, eventually turning onto Calle 13 Martiri. Sullivan already knew they were staying at the Bauer Hotel, so they were heading home now. "You're almost making this too easy," he muttered to himself.

Then he thought, Mistake.

Chapter 44

HE FOLLOWED MARTIN and Marcia Harris as they walked arm in arm through a dark, narrow, and very typical Venetian alleyway They entered a gateway into the Bauer Hotel. He wondered why John Maggione wanted them dead, but it didn't really matter to him.

Moments later, he was sitting across the bar from them on the hotel terrace. A nice little spot, cozy as a love seat, it overlooked the canal and the Chiesa della Salute. The Butcher ordered a Bushmills but didn't drink more than a sip or two, just enough to take the edge off of things. He had a scalpel in his pants pocket, and he fingered it while he watched the Harrises.

Quite the lovebirds, he couldn't help thinking as they shared a long kiss at the bar. Get a room, why don't you?

As if he were reading the Butcher's mind, Martin Harris paid the check, and then the couple left the crowded, subdued terrace lounge. Sullivan followed. The Bauer was a typical Venetian palazzo, more like a private home than a hotel, lavish and opulent at every turn. His own wife, Caitlin, would have loved it, but he could never take her here, or ever come back himself.

Not after tonight and the unspeakable tragedy that was going to happen here in a matter of minutes. Because that's what the Butcher specialized in – tragedies, the unspeakable kind.

He knew that there were ninety-seven guest rooms and eighteen suites in the Bauer, and that the Harrises were staying in one of the suites on the third floor. He followed them up the carpeted stairs and immediately thought, Mistake.

But whose – mine or theirs? Important question to consider and be ready to answer.

He turned out of the stairwell – and it all went wrong in a hurry!

The Harrises were waiting for him, both with guns drawn, and Martin had a nasty smirk on his face. Most likely, they were going to take him to their room and kill him there. It was an obvious setup… by two professionals.

Not too shabby a job, either. An eight out of ten.

But who had done this to him? Who had set him up to die in Venice? Even more curious – why had he been targeted? Why him? And why now?

Not that he was thinking about any of that now, in the dimly lit corridor of the Bauer, with two guns pointed toward him.

Fortunately, the Harrises had committed several mistakes along the way: They'd made following them too easy; they'd been careless and unconcerned; and too romantic, at least in his jaded opinion, for a couple married twenty years, even one on holiday in Venice.

So the Butcher had come up the stairs with his own pistol drawn – and the instant he saw them with guns out, he fired.

No hesitation, not even a half second.

Chauvinist pig that he was, he took out the man first, the more dangerous opponent in his estimation. He got Martin Harris in the face, shattered the nose and upper lip. A definite kill shot. The man's head snapped back, and his blond hairpiece flew off.

Then Sullivan dove, rolled to the left, and Marcia Harris's shot missed him by a foot or more.

He fired again – and got Marcia in the side of her throat; then he put a second shot into her heaving chest. And a third in her heart.

The Butcher knew the Harrises were dead in the hallway, just lying there like sides of meat, but he didn't run out of the Bauer.

Instead, he whipped out his scalpel and went to work on their faces and throats. If he'd had the time, he would have stitched up the eyes and mouths too – to send a message. Then he took a half dozen photographs of the victims, the would-be assassins, for his prized picture collection.

One day soon, the Butcher would show these photos to the person who had paid to have him killed and failed, and who was now as good as dead.

That man was John Maggione, the don himself.

Chapter 45

IN HIS MICHAEL SULLIVAN PERSONA, he had the habit of thinking things through several times, and not just his hit jobs. The lifelong habit included things about his family, small details like how and where they lived, and who knew about it. Also, images from his father's butcher shop in the Flatlands were always with him: an awning of wide stripes with the orange, white, and green of the Irish flag; the bright whiteness of the shop on the inside; the loud electric meat grinder that seemed to shake the whole building whenever it was turned on.

For this new life of his, far away from Brooklyn, he had chosen affluent, and mostly white-bread, Montgomery County in Maryland.

Specifically he had picked out the town of Potomac.

Around three on the afternoon that he arrived back from Europe, he drove at exactly twenty-five miles an hour through Potomac Village, stopping like any other good citizen at the irritatingly long light at the corner of River and Falls Roads.

More time to think, or obsess, which he usually enjoyed.

So, who had put a hit out on him? Was it Maggione? And what did it mean to him and his family? Was he safe coming home now?

One of the general "appearances," or "disguises," that he had carefully selected for his family was that of the bourgeois bohemian. The ironies of the lifestyle choice gave him constant amusement: nonfat butter, for example, and NPR always on the radio of his wife's trendy SUV; and bizarre foods – like olive-wheatgrass muffins. It was patently absurd and hilarious to the Butcher: the joys of Yuppie life that just didn't stop.

His three boys went to the private Landor School, where they hobnobbed with the mostly well-mannered, but often quite devious, children of the middle rich. There were lots of rich doctors in Montgomery County, working for NIH, the FDA, and Bethesda Naval Medical Command. So now he headed out toward Hunt County, the ritzy subdivision where he lived, and what a private hoot that was – "Hunt County, home of the Hunter."

And finally, there was his home, sweet home, purchased in 2002 for one point five million. Six large bedrooms, four and a half baths, heated pool, sauna, finished basement with media room. Sirius satellite radio was the latest rage with Caitlin and the boys. Sweet Caitlin, love of his straight life, who had a life coach and an intuitive healer these days – all paid for by his dubious labors on the Hunt.

Sullivan had called ahead on his cell, and there they were on the front lawn to meet and greet – waving like the big happy family that they thought they were. They had no idea, no clue that they were part of his disguise, that they were his cover story. That's all it was, right?

He hopped out of the Caddy, grinning like he was in a fast-food commercial, and sang his theme song, the old Shep and the Limelites classic "Daddy's Home."

"Daddy's home, your daddy's home to stay." And Caitlin and the kids chorused, "He's not a thousand miles a-waaay."

His life was the best, wasn't it? Except that somebody was trying to kill him now. And of course there was always his past, the way he grew up in Brooklyn, his insane father, the Bone Man, the dreaded back room at the shop. But the Butcher tried not to think about any of that right now.

He was home again; he'd made it – and he took a nice big bow in front of his family, who, of course, cheered for their returning hero.

That's what he was, yeah, a hero.