Cross Fire

Chapter 72

LEAVING DC in the old white Suburban that morning, Denny had seen in the side mirror vapor trails coming out of the exhaust, but he didn’t think too much about it. With a rig as old as this one, he couldn’t bother himself over every mechanical hiccup.

Now, three and a half hours from home, the hiccup had turned into something more like a death rattle. There was a familiar dry clank coming from the engine.

As they pulled over to the side of Route 70, Mitch looked up from the Penthouse he’d nabbed off the rack at their last pit stop. “What’s going on, Denny? That doesn’t sound right.”

“Can’t you hear the head gasket going?” Denny said. It was amazing how observant Mitch could be with a rifle in his hand, considering how dim he was about most of the rest of his life.

A quick check under the hood told Denny what he already knew, but he waited until they were limping back up the highway to say anything more about it to Mitch.

“Now, don’t freak out or anything, buddy, but the old magic bus ain’t going to make it back to DC. I think we’re going to have to ditch it.”

Mitch’s face lit up like a little kid’s. “I know where we can do it!” he said. “I used to go hunting around here all the time. It’s the perfect place, Denny. Nobody ever goes back there.”

“I’m thinking we stick it in long-term parking at the airport and walk away,” Denny said. “By the time anybody figures out we ain’t coming back…”

But Mitch wasn’t having it.

“Come on, Denny. Please?” He was sitting sideways on the seat now and pulling at Denny’s sleeve like some kind of little punk. “Let’s just… drown this thing, man. Get rid of it once and for all.”

Denny shouldn’t have been surprised. Mitch had been getting more and more paranoid about the Suburban ever since their traffic stop on the last road trip. It was all getting real old, real fast.

At the same time, though, this might be a chance to calm Mitch the fuck down, Denny realized. He needed his boy focused, and that could be worth a lot in the long run.

“Yeah, all right,” Denny said finally. “We can dump most of this stuff. It’s garbage anyway. The rest, we can pack out. Then we’ll do what any other self-respecting American patriot would do.”

Mitch was grinning at him, ear to ear. “What’s that, Denny?”

“Trade up, my man. You ever hot-wire a vehicle before?”

Chapter 73

WHEN IT WAS done, they stopped to wash up in a Mobil bathroom and stole a cone of tulips from a bucket outside the convenience store. Denny would have liked for them to be wearing ties, too, but it was getting late.

In fact, it was after dark when they finally pulled up to the tidy little Cape on Central Boulevard in Brick Township. It was a quiet street, with big trees arching over from both sides to meet in the middle, and you could smell the salt of the ocean in the breeze.

“You grew up here?” Denny said, looking around. “Man, why’d you ever want to leave?”

Mitch shrugged. “I don’t know, Denny. I just did.”

When they got to the front door, Denny unscrewed the porch lightbulb and then rang the bell. A middle-aged woman came to answer. She had Mitch’s same girth and round face, and she squinted out into the dark to see who it was.

“Is that… Mitchell?”

“Hey, Mom.”

The dish towel dropped out of her hand. “Mitchell!” The next second, she was pulling him inside and wrapping her saggy sausage arms around him. “Lord, Lord, you brought my boy home for a visit, and I thank you!”

“Quit it, Mom.” Mitch squirmed under the kisses, but he was smiling as he detached himself, the tulips half crushed in his hand. “This is Denny,” he announced.

“Nice to meet you, ma’am,” Denny said. “I’m real sorry about just dropping in like this. We should have called first. I know we should have.”

Bernice Talley waved it away like so many flies in the air. “Don’t you give it a second thought. Come in, come in.”

As she reached past Denny to close the door, her eyes lingered on the Lexus ES parked at the curb.

“I’ll bet you boys are hungry” was all she said, though.

“Yes’m,” Mitch answered.

“Mitch is always hungry,” Denny said, and Bernice laughed like she knew it was true. Her right hip rode up badly when she walked, but she limped right on past the cane hooked over a doorknob in the hall.

“Mitchell, offer your friend something to drink. I’ll see what I can shake out of this fridge.”

Denny hung back as they passed through the living room. It was all matching furniture in here, but old stuff. “Grandma on a budget” stuff. It was the kind of place where he could imagine his old man trying to sell his vacuums, or knives, or whatever had been paying for the whiskey bottles back then. He couldn’t have been too good at it, though. The son of a bitch never drank anything better than Old Crow.

On a side table, Mrs. Talley had three gold-framed pictures arranged in a perfect little arc. One was of Jesus, with his eyes raised up to God. One was of Mitch, looking young and doofy in a suit and tie. And the third was a military portrait of a middle-aged black man, in full uniform with a decent show of ribbons on his chest.

Denny stepped into the kitchen, where Mrs. Talley was busying herself while Mitch sat at the old Formica table with a couple of open Heinekens in front of him.

“Hey, is that Mr. Talley in the picture out here?” he asked.

The old woman stopped short. Her hand floated halfway to her bad hip before she reached over and opened the fridge instead.

“We lost Mr. Talley two years ago,” she said without looking around. “God rest his soul.”

“I’m real sorry to hear that,” Denny told her. “So it’s just you here by yourself, huh?” He knew he was being a shit, but it couldn’t be helped.

She mistook it for concern. “Oh, I’m fine. There’s a boy who mows the lawn and shovels the snow, and my neighbor Samuel comes over if I got something heavy needs moving.”

“Well, I’m sorry to have brought it up, Mrs. Talley. I didn’t mean to–”

“No, no.” She waved away more of the invisible flies. “It’s perfectly all right. He was a good man.”

“A good man who left behind a fine son,” Denny added.

Mrs. Talley’s face eased into a smile. “You don’t have to tell me that,” she said, and ran a hand over Mitch’s broad shoulder as she passed from fridge to counter with a bag of onions.

Denny could see that, under the table, Mitch’s knee was just starting to bounce up a storm.

Chapter 74

EVEN WITHOUT ADVANCE NOTICE, Bernice Talley managed to pull together a fast New England-style clam chowder, some good bread, a salad, and a couple of microwaved potatoes with everything on them, from butter to sour cream to Canadian bacon. It was the best dinner Denny had eaten since he’d started this whole mess, living in the shelters and that godforsaken Suburban, which he was glad to be rid of now. He contentedly filled himself while Mrs. Talley chattered on about people he’d never heard of. Mitch mostly listened.

Finally, after seconds of Edy’s French Vanilla with gobs of chocolate sauce, Denny pushed back and stretched his arms and legs.

“Ma’am, that was spectacular,” he said.

Mrs. Talley beamed. “Wait until you try my waffles,” she told him.

“We ain’t staying the night, Mom,” Mitch said, more into his ice-cream bowl than to her.

Right away, the woman’s face fell. “What do you mean? Where are you going to go at nine thirty at night?”

“We’re just coming back from a conference in New York,” Denny put in quickly. “Mitch thought it would be nice to drop by, but we’ve got to be back in Cleveland tomorrow morning. We’ll be driving all night just to get there for work.”

“I see,” she said quietly, but the heartbreak in her voice was hard to miss.

“Tell you what” – Denny got up and started clearing dishes – “why don’t you two go talk in the living room for a while? I’ll clean up in here.”

“No, no,” she started in, but he eventually wheedled her out of the room.

When she was gone, he put on the woman’s yellow Playtex gloves and washed all the dishes by hand. He wiped down the sink, the counter, the table, the fridge, and the two bottles of beer he’d drunk. Then he pocketed the gloves.

Half an hour later, he and Mitch were on their way down the front walk.

“Nice lady, sweet lady, great cook,” Denny said. “Sorry we couldn’t stay any longer.”

“That’s okay,” Mitch told him. “We got things to do back in DC.”

Denny gave him a fist bump on that one. It seemed maybe Mitch was getting focused again, back to his old self.

Once they reached the curb, Denny stopped short and snapped his fingers. “Hang on. I left my wallet on the counter. I’ll be right back.”

“I’ll get it,” Mitch said, but Denny put a hand out to stop him.

“Bad idea, Mitchie. You saw your mom’s face just now. Don’t want to make her cry all over again, do you?”

“I guess not,” Mitch said.

“Of course you don’t. Now just sit tight in the car, and don’t come inside. I’ll be back before you know it.”

Chapter 75

I WAS SPENDING as many hours at the house as I could, including all of my desk time. Between Kyle Craig, the Patriot snipers, and these new homicides with the numbers, my attic office was as stuffed with case materials as it had ever been. That meant a lot of crime-scene photos, so I told the kids that Dad’s office was off-limits for the time being, which explained the phone call I got from Jannie that afternoon.

“Hello, Alex, this is Janelle the Banished, calling from the faraway land of the second floor.”

My daughter’s always been one to put the “smart” in smart aleck. I just try to keep up. “Hail thee well, Janelle. How goes it in the nether regions?”

“You have a visitor, Daddy,” she said, back to business. “There’s a man named Mr. Siegel at the front door. He’s an FBI agent.”

At first I thought I’d heard wrong. What could Max Siegel be doing at my house? The last time we’d tangled had been the worst so far.

“Daddy?”

“I’m coming right down,” I said.

When I got to the second floor, Jannie was still waiting there. She trailed after me down the stairs, but I told her to stay inside.

Then I closed the front door behind me on the way out.

Siegel was on the front steps, looking very Brooklyn in jeans and a black motorcycle jacket. He also had a black helmet in one hand and a brown paper bag in the other.

One of our security guys, David Brandabur, had positioned himself on the stoop, between Max and the door.

“It’s fine, David,” I said. “I know him.”

We both waited for David to go back to his car before either of us spoke.

“What are you doing here, Max?” I asked.

Siegel came up another step, just far enough to hand me the bag. Right away, I could see on his face that something had changed.

“I wasn’t sure what you liked,” he said.

I pulled out a fifth of Johnnie Walker Black. Some kind of a peace offering, I supposed, but with Siegel, I really didn’t know what to think.

He shrugged. “I know, I know. Agent Schizo, right?”

“Something like that,” I told him.

“Listen, Alex, I realize what I’m like to work with. I take all this shit very personally. I shouldn’t, but I do. I’m passionate as hell. Maybe it’s part of what makes me good at my job, but I can also be a real asshole sometimes.”

I wanted to say, “Sometimes?” but I just listened to what Siegel had to tell me.

“Anyway,” he went on, “I just came by to say I know you’ve got your hands full these days, and if there’s anything you need, you should let me know. Anything at the Bureau, or even just security backup here at the house – someone to pull an overnight or whatever.”

He looked up at my blank face and finally smiled. “Really. No tricks. No bullshit.”

I wanted to believe Siegel. It certainly would have made things easier. But my instinct was still to distrust him. I couldn’t just shake that off because he came over with a peace offering.

Then the door opened behind me, and suddenly Bree was there. “Everything okay out here?” she asked.

Siegel chuckled. “I guess my reputation precedes me.”

“Actually, we’ve got a teenage news service sitting on the stairs inside,” Bree said. She put out her hand, ever the peacemaker. “I’m Bree Stone.”

“Detective Stone,” he said. “Of course. Good to meet you. I’m Max Siegel, Alex’s nightmare from the Bureau. We occasionally see things a little differently.”

“So I’ve heard,” she said, and they both laughed. It was a little surreal actually. This was a side of Siegel I’d never seen before, the friendly, interested-in-anyone-but-himself side. And it seemed to have come out of nowhere.

“Max was just dropping this off,” I said, showing her the bottle of scotch.

“Right.” Siegel took a step down toward the sidewalk. “So, anyway, mission accomplished. Nice to meet you, Detective.”

“Stay for a quick drink,” she said, and gave my hand a squeeze. “It’s the afternoon. I’m sure we could all stand to wind down a little.”

There was no pretense here; we all knew what she was trying to do. Siegel looked up at me and shrugged. This was my call, and honestly I would have liked to have said no, but that seemed as if it could just create more trouble than it was worth.

“Come on in,” I said, and led the way. “Mi casa es su casa, Max.”

Inside, Jannie had fallen back as far as the kitchen table. Nana and Ali were there, too, in the middle of a game of Go Fish. It was Ali’s latest obsession these days, but they all stopped and looked up as we came in.

“Max, this is everyone. Regina, Jannie, Ali, this is Agent Siegel.”

Ali’s eyes bugged out at the motorcycle helmet, and Siegel put it down in front of him. “Go ahead, little guy. Try it on if you want to.”

“It’s fine,” I said to Ali.

I took out some glasses and ice, and a couple of SmartWaters for the kids. Nana went to open the cabinet where we keep the chips and crackers, but I shook my head no just enough for her to see.

“You’ve got a nice place here,” Siegel said, looking out the window at the backyard. “Great setup in the middle of the city.”

“Thanks.” I handed him a short pour of the scotch, and then one for Bree and myself, and one with water for Nana.

“So here’s to fresh starts,” Bree said pointedly, and raised her glass.

“Here’s to summer coming!” Ali chimed in.

Siegel smiled down at him and put a hand on his shoulder.

“And here’s to this good family,” he said. “It’s really nice to meet you all.”

Chapter 76

SOMETIMES THE BREAKS in a murder case come out of the blue – like a phone call on a Sunday morning, from somewhere you never expected.

“Detective Cross?”

“Yes?”

“This is Detective Scott Cowen from Brick Township PD, in New Jersey. I think we may have a line on your sniper problem up here.”

MPD had been fielding literally hundreds of tips every week on a newly dedicated sniper hotline. More than 99 percent of those calls were fantasy fiction or dead ends, but whatever Cowen was sitting on, it had gotten him past Dispatch. He now had my attention.

I turned my newspaper sideways and started writing in the margin next to the crossword. Cowen. Brick Township.

“Go ahead,” I said.

“Yesterday afternoon, we pulled a white ninety-two Suburban out of the water over at Turn Mill Pond near here. The plates were already gone, no surprise, but I don’t think whoever put it there expected us to find it, at least not this fast. The thing was, we had an ultralight air show going on at the airport this weekend, and a couple of guys flying over saw something down there and called it in–”

“Yes?” I said. Cowen seemed to talk without taking any breath at all.

“Yeah, so it couldn’t have been in the water more than forty-eight hours, I’m thinking, because we still managed to pull some damn good prints off of it. Six of them had a dozen or more points each, which was great in theory, until none of them came up on my first pass through IAFIS–”

“Detective, I’m sorry, but can you explain to me how this connects to my case?”

“Well, this is the thing. I’m thinking we’ve got a dead end here, too, but then this morning I get a call from the state – apparently one of those six prints is a match for your UNSUB down there.”

Now we were getting somewhere. I stood up off the couch and started toward the attic, double time. I needed my charts and notes right now.

UNSUB stands for Unknown Subject, which was the only designation we had for our phantom gunman. The print he’d left behind on the night of the first sniper hit, and then again at the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial, had been deliberate, like a calling card. This new print sounded a lot more like a mistake to me, and at this point in the game, I loved a good mistake.

I wondered whether all of the remaining prints from the car belonged to the same guy, or if maybe we’d just gotten a line on both members of our sniper team.

That thought, I kept to myself for the time being.

“Detective Cowen from Brick Township, you may have just made my month. Can you send me everything you have?” I asked.

“Give me your e-mail,” he said. “They’re all scanned and ready to go. We’ve got six full prints, like I said, plus another nine partials. It was really just a lucky break that we found that vehicle so fast–”

“Here’s my e-mail,” I said, and spit it out for him. “Sorry to rush you, but I’m a little eager to see what you’ve got.”

“No problem.” I heard typing in the background. “Okay, they’re on the way. If you need anything else, or want to come take a look around, or whatever, you should just let me know.”

“I will,” I said.

In fact, I’d already mapped out the route to Brick Township, New Jersey, on my laptop while he was talking. If this turned out to be what it seemed, I’d be meeting Detective Cowen face-to-face before the day was out, and he and I would be taking a look around – or whatever.

Chapter 77

THE LIMITATION ON THESE new prints from New Jersey was that I had nothing to compare them to. No criminal records anyway. Accordingly, there was no way to know whether they’d all come off the same person or not.

I thought about Max Siegel’s offer of help the other day. With the Bureau’s resources, he probably could have gotten further with these than Detective Scott Cowen had. But I just wasn’t ready to jump in there.

Instead, I put in another request with my Army CID contact in Lagos, Carl Freelander. Better to go with a known quantity, I figured, even if he was halfway around the world and maybe getting sick of my calls.

“Twice in one month, Alex? We’re going to have to get you one of those punch cards,” he said. “Tell me what I can do for you people.”

“Meantime, I owe you another drink,” I told him. “And, for what it’s worth, I may just be chasing the same ghost as the last time, but I need to be sure. I’ve got six more prints I want to run through the civil database. Maybe all from the same person, and maybe not.”

Cowen had been right about the quality of the prints. MPD’s standard is thirteen points, meaning anywhere a ridge or line ends, or intersects with another ridge or line. If two prints line up in thirteen or more of those places, it’s a statistical match, and I had half a dozen viable scans to work with.

Carl told me to send them along and leave my line open for an hour or so.

True to his word, he called me back fifty minutes later.

“Well, it’s a good news / bad news kind of thing,” he said. “Two of the six prints you sent me came up military. You got the left index and middle fingers on a guy named Steven Hennessey. U.S. Army Special Forces, Operational Detachment-Delta, from nineteen eighty-nine to two thousand two.”

“Delta Force? There’s a red flag,” I said.

“Yeah, the guy saw action in Panama, Desert Storm, Somalia – and get this: he ran long-gun training for ground forces in Kunduz. Sounds a hell of a lot like a sniper to me.”

I felt as if my slot machine had just come up bar-bar-bar. We’d almost certainly just found our second gunman, and this one had a name.

“What about a last known address?” I said. “Do we know where Hennessey is now?”

“Yeah, that’s the bad news,” Carl said. “Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville, Kentucky. Hennessey’s been dead for years, Alex.”

Chapter 78

THE THREE-AND-A-HALF-HOUR DRIVE to New Jersey flew by. Probably because my mind was running the whole time. It was too bad I was so pressed, because I would have liked to have visited my cousin Jimmy Parker at his Red Hat restaurant along the Hudson in Irvington. God, I needed a break, and a good meal.

Maybe someone was buried down there in Louisville, but I was willing to bet that it wasn’t the real Steven Hennessey. Not with his prints on that Suburban.

The question was, who had Hennessey become in the last several years? Also, where was he now? And what were he and this phantom partner of his doing in New Jersey?

My plan was to meet Detective Cowen at Turn Mill Pond, where the car had been pulled out of the water. I wanted to catch that scene while there was still daylight, then follow him back to the impoundment lot to see the vehicle itself.

But when I called Cowen to tell him I was almost there, he didn’t pick up.

The same thing happened when I got to the meeting point at the south end of the pond. I was pissed, but there was nothing to do now except get out and take a look around.

Turn Mill was one of several bodies of water in the Colliers Mills Wildlife Management Area, which encompassed thousands of acres. From this spot, all I could see were trees, water, and the dirt road I’d just driven in on.

Plenty of privacy for dumping a car anyway.

The ground at the edge of the waterfront was heavily rutted and tamped down, presumably where the police had pulled the Suburban out. It looked to me as though the vehicle had been pushed into the water from the edge of a wooden bridge where the pond narrowed into a channel.

Looking down from above, one would assume the water was plenty deep enough, but it obviously wasn’t. In any case, it wasn’t the kind of thing you could undo.

Once I’d taken all of that in, I headed back to my car. I figured it couldn’t be too hard to the find the police station in town, but that’s when I saw a cruiser coming up the road, fast.

It sped along the pond a ways, curved into the woods, and then came back out again. It stopped right behind where I’d parked.

A uniformed officer, a blond woman, got out and waved as I came over.

“Detective Cross?”

“That’s me.”

“I’m Officer Guadagno. Detective Cowen asked me to drive out here and bring you back as quickly as possible. There’s been a homicide in town, a woman by the name of Bernice Talley.”

I assumed she just meant that Cowen had been pulled away from my case.

“Do we need someone else to let us into the impoundment lot, or can you do that for me?” I asked Guadagno.

“No,” she said. “I mean, you don’t understand. Cowen wants you to come to the scene. He thinks Mrs. Talley’s murder may be related.”

“To the Suburban?” I said. “To my sniper case?”

The cop fiddled with the brim of her hat. She seemed a little nervous. “Maybe both,” she said. “It’s nothing conclusive, but this same woman’s husband was found shot dead two years ago, right over there.” She pointed to a patch of woods about a hundred feet up the shore. “The ME called it a hunting accident at the time, but nobody ever came forward. Cowen figures whoever dumped that Suburban didn’t just stumble onto this place, and frankly we don’t get too many homicides around here. He’s naming the son, Mitchell Talley, as a person of interest in all of it, both deaths.”

She stopped then, her hand on the open car door, and looked at me more directly than before.

“Detective, this may be none of my business, but do you think this guy could be your shooter down in Washington? I’ve been following the case since it broke.”

I demurred. “Let me go take a look at that scene before I say anything,” I told her.

But, in fact, the answer to her question was yes.

Chapter 79

THE POLICE VEHICLES in front of Bernice Talley’s home were two-deep when we got there. They had a tape line around the house, while the neighbors watched from the fringes. I had no doubt that all of them would be locking their doors and windows that night and for many nights to come.

My escort officer walked me inside and introduced me to Detective Scott Cowen, who seemed to be running the show. He was a tall, barrel-chested guy, with a shiny bald head that caught the light as he talked – and talked.

Just like on the phone, he briefed me with a long but mostly informative monologue.

Mrs. Talley had been found dead on her kitchen floor by the boy who mowed her lawn every Sunday. She’d been shot once at close range through the temple, with what looked like a nine millimeter. They were still working on time of death, but it was sometime within the last seventy-two hours.

The woman was believed to have been living alone, ever since the son, Mitchell, had moved out two years earlier – just a short while after the father was killed. Also, there was some word through the grapevine that the elder Mr. Talley had been known to knock his wife around over the years, and maybe to strike Mitchell, too.

“That could go to motive, at least on the father’s death,” Cowen added. “As to why he’d want to come back here and kill his poor mother, I wish to hell I knew. And then, of course, there’s all of these.”

He showed me a shelf in the living room, crowded with trophies and ribbons. They were all shooting awards, I saw – New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Club, Junior NRA, various fifty- and three-hundred-meter competitions, target skill awards. Most of them were first place, some second and third.

“The kid is an ace,” Cowen said. “Some kind of prodigy or whatever. Maybe also a little… you know. Simple.”

He pointed at a framed photo on one of the side tables. “This is him, maybe ten years ago. We’re looking for something more recent we can use.”

The boy in the picture looked to be about sixteen. He had a round face, almost cherubic, except for the dull look in his eyes and the half-assed attempt at a mustache. It was hard to imagine anyone taking him too seriously at that age.

The guns are his power, I thought. Always have been.

I looked back over at all the trophies and awards. Maybe this was the one thing Mitchell Talley had ever been good at. The one thing in his life he’d ever known how to control. On the face of things, it seemed to make sense.

“When was he last seen around here?” I asked. “Did he ever come to visit?”

Cowen shrugged apologetically. “We’re still not sure. You’re catching us right at the beginning of this thing,” he said. “We don’t even have prints on the house yet. We just found the mother. You’re lucky that you’re here.”

“Yeah, lucky me.”

I had the impression that the high profile on this sniper case was making people nervous around here, too. Everyone seemed to know who I was, and they were all giving me a wide berth.

“Don’t worry about it. You aren’t any further along than I would have expected,” I told Cowen. “But I do have some ideas about how we might handle things from here.”

Chapter 80

SEVERAL THINGS HAPPENED really fast in Brick Township, mostly because I needed them to.

I worked my contacts with the Field Intelligence Group in Washington to get hold of the FIG coordinator up in the Newark field office. Because it was a Sunday night, and because we had sufficient reason to believe Mitchell Talley had crossed, or would cross, jurisdictional lines, we were able to get an immediate Temporary Felony Want. Cowen would have forty-eight hours from there to secure an actual warrant, signed and issued. In the meantime, Newark could get word out to law enforcement up and down the eastern seaboard right away.

The idea for now was to leave off any mention of Steven Hennessey, or any accomplice at all. The Want specified only that Mitchell Talley was being sought for questioning in the deaths of Bernice and Robert Talley. Wherever our presumed snipers were, I didn’t want them knowing we’d connected any of this to DC until I had more information.

Cowen agreed to give me some cover on that front. In the meantime, I got his people hooked up with Newark in the search for their suspect. Someone found a more recent snapshot in one of his mother’s photo albums, and they used a scan of it for the local and regional BOLO – Be On The Lookout.

Realistically speaking, no one expected Talley to be in the area. The larger effort was focused on looking at stolen-car reports, monitoring transportation hubs, and tracking down surveillance tapes at area airports and bus and train stations. With luck, someone would be able to turn up an eyewitness or maybe even a relevant piece of video somewhere.

The closest thing to a lead so far had come from an elderly neighbor of Mrs. Talley’s. She’d seen a sedan of some kind parked in front of the house a few nights ago but couldn’t say what kind it was, or what color, or even how long it had been there.

For whatever that was worth, I forwarded the information down to Jerome Thurman, who had been tracking vehicle-related leads on this case for me from the start.

By now, I was beginning to feel like I’d been away from DC for too long. Maybe Talley and Hennessey had no plans to return to Washington, if that’s where they’d even come from in the first place. But I had to assume otherwise. For all I knew, they were already back there and planning their next hit.

The minute I got things wrapped up with Detective Cowen, I was in the car and headed for home. And I was moving fast, using a siren all the way.

Chapter 81

AT EIGHT THIRTY the next morning, Colleen Brophy turned off of E Street and into the churchyard, where I was waiting outside the True Press office. She had a bulging backpack on her shoulders, an armload of newspapers, and a nearly finished cigarette in the corner of her mouth.

“Oh God,” she said when she saw me. “You again. Now what do you want?”

“I wouldn’t come if it wasn’t important, Ms. Brophy. I’m well aware of how you feel about all this,” I said. Still, after my long Sunday on the road, I was in “no mood for ’tude,” as Sampson likes to say.

The True Press editor set down her load of papers and sat on the stone bench where I’d just stood up.

“How can I help you?” she asked, her sarcasm still intact. “As if I have a choice.”

I showed her the picture of Mitchell Talley. “Have you ever seen this man?”

“Oh, come on,” she said right away. “You think this is the guy who sent me those e-mails?”

“I’ll take that as a yes. Thank you. When was the last time you saw him?”

She took out a new cigarette and lit it off the last of the old one before she answered.

“Do you really need me to participate in this?” she said. “The trust I have with these people is so tenuous.”

“I’m not trying to bust a shoplifter, Ms. Brophy.”

“I understand, but it’s the shoplifters I’m worried about. A lot of the homeless people I work with have to break the law from time to time just to get by. If any of them see me talking to you–”

“This can stay a private conversation,” I told her. “Nobody has to know about it. That is, assuming we can get on with this. Do you know this man?”

After another long pause and a few more drags, she said, “I guess it was last week. They picked up their papers on Wednesday, like everyone else.”

“ ‘They’?” I asked.

“Yeah. Mitch and his friend Denny. They’re kind of like a–”

She stopped short then and turned slowly to look at me. It seemed maybe she’d just put two and two together about something. Or maybe I should say one and one.

“Oh God,” she said. “They’re kind of like a team. They’re the ones, aren’t they?”

I could feel that mental click, when something falls into place. Had I just found my Steven Hennessey?

“What’s Denny’s last name?” I asked her.

“I honestly don’t know,” she said. “He’s white, tall, and thin. He’s got lots of stubble, and kind of a–” She waved her hand under her jaw. “Like a sunken chin, I guess you could call it. He sort of leads Mitch around.”

“And you say they pick up papers on Wednesday?”

She nodded. “Sometimes they come back for more if they sell out, but I haven’t seen them lately. I swear. I know this is serious now.”

“I believe you,” I said. Everything about her demeanor had changed. Now she looked more sad than anything. “Any idea where I might look for the two of them?”

“All over. Denny has this old white Suburban he drives around, when he can get gas. I know they sleep in there sometimes.” The Suburban was a dead end now, but I didn’t say anything about it to Ms. Brophy.

“And you can try the shelters. There’s a list of them in the back of the paper.” She took a copy off the top of her stack and handed it to me. “God, you know, I hate myself for telling you all this.”

“Don’t,” I said, and paid her a dollar for the paper. “You’re doing the right thing.”

Finally.

Chapter 82

AFTER A LONG DAY of canvassing homeless shelters and soup kitchens, I wasn’t any further along than I’d been that morning. For all I knew, Talley and Hennessey were still in New Jersey. Or gone to Canada. Or up in smoke.

But when I went back to the office for some files to bring home, Jerome Thurman caught me at the elevator with some news.

“Alex! You heading out?”

“I was,” I said.

“Maybe not anymore.”

He held up a page from some kind of printout. “I think maybe we’ve got something here. Could be good stuff.”

Normally, Jerome works out of First District, but I’d gotten him a space in the Auto Theft Unit down the hall, where he could monitor vehicle leads for me. And by “space,” I mean a stack of crates in their Records Room where he could set up his laptop, but Jerome’s never been a complainer.

What he had was a list of hot license plate numbers from an NCIC database. One of the entries was circled in blue pen.

NJ – DCY 488

“It’s a Lexus ES, reported stolen from an apartment complex in Colliers Mills, New Jersey,” he said. “That’s, like, two, three miles down the road from where your white Suburban went into the water.”

I risked a half smile. “Tell me there’s more, Jerome,” I said. “There’s more, right?”

“Best part, actually. An LPR camera picked up the same plate number coming into long-term parking out at National on Saturday morning at four forty-five.”

LPR stands for License Plate Reader. It uses optical scanning software to read the tag numbers on passing cars and then compares those numbers against lists of wanted and stolen vehicles. It’s an amazing bit of technology, even if all the kinks haven’t quite been worked out yet.

“Any reason we’re just finding out about this now?” I asked. “That’s well over forty-eight hours ago. What was the problem?”

“The system isn’t live at the airport,” Jerome said. “There’s a manual download once a day, Monday to Friday. I just got this a few minutes ago. But, bottom line, Alex? I’m guessing your little birdies came home to roost.”

“I’m guessing you’re right,” I said, and turned back toward the office.

Even before I got to my desk, though, my excitement started turning into something else. This was a double-edged sword, at best. Considering the heat on Talley and Hennessey right now, I couldn’t imagine too many reasons why they’d come back to DC. Chances were, if we didn’t find at least one of them soon, some other fox in the henhouse was going to get a bullet in the brain.

Nothing like a little pressure to help you do your best work, right?

Chapter 83

IT WAS JUST after midnight when Denny approached the black Lincoln Town Car parked on Vermont Avenue and got in. The man he knew only as Zachary was waiting for him. Zachary’s usual nameless driver/goon was sitting face front at the wheel.

“The clock’s winding down on this thing,” Denny said straight-out. “We need to put it to bed before it all blows up.”

“We agree,” Zachary said. Like it was his decision. Like the big man in the ivory tower, whoever he was, didn’t pull the strings, write the checks, and call the shots here.

Zachary took a plain manila folder out of the seat pocket and handed it to him. “This will be our last arrangement,” he said. “Go ahead. Take it.”

Arrangement. The guy was too much.

Inside the folder were two dossiers, if that’s what you could call them – a couple of pictures, a few paragraphs, and some Google maps slapped together on copy paper, like somebody’s shitty little school project. Wherever the boss man spent his billions, it sure as hell wasn’t on document prep.

But as for the names on those dossiers? Now they were impressive.

“Well, well,” Denny said. “Looks like your man wants to go out with a bang. That’s a pun, little joke. No extra charge.”

Zachary pushed his pretentious horn-rims a little higher on his nose. “Just… focus on the material,” he said.

It would have been nice to go upside this guy’s head one time. Nothing major, just enough to put some kind of expression on his face. Any expression at all would be a big improvement.

But this was no time to start coloring outside the lines. So Denny kept his mouth shut and took a couple of minutes to absorb the information. Then he slid the manila folder into the seat pocket and sat back again.

This part was all rote by now. Zachary reached over the seat, took the canvas pouch from Mr. Personality in the front, and put it on the armrest. Denny picked it up.

Right away, he could feel it was light.

“What the hell is this?” he said, and dropped it back on the armrest between them.

“That,” Zachary said, “is one-third. You’ll get the rest afterward. We’re doing things a little differently this time.”

“The hell we are!” he said, and just like that, the driver was up and over the seat with a fat.45 shoved halfway up Denny’s nose. He could even smell traces of gunpowder. The weapon had been used recently.

“Now listen to me,” Zachary said. More like purred. “You’re going to be paid in full. The only change here is our terms of delivery.”

“This is bullshit!” Denny said. “You shouldn’t be messing around with me now.”

“Just listen,” Zachary told him. “Your incompetence up in New Jersey was not appreciated, Steven. Now that the authorities know who you are, this is just good business practice. So, are we going to have a smooth finish to this thing or not?”

It wasn’t a real question, and Denny didn’t answer. What he did was reach down and take back the canvas pouch. That spoke for itself. The.45 was dislodged from his face and the driver pulled back, although he didn’t turn around.

“Did you see the car parked behind us?” Zachary asked softly, as if they’d been sitting here having a friendly chat the whole time.

And, yes, Denny had seen it, an old blue Subaru wagon with Virginia plates. His spotter’s radar wasn’t something he turned on and off.

“What about it?” he said.

“You need to get out of the city. We’ve got too much exposure here. Take Mitch and go somewhere discreet – West Virginia, or whatever you think is best.”

“Just like that? What am I supposed to tell Mitch?” Denny said. “He’s already asking too many questions.”

“I’m sure you’ll think of something to handle him. And take this.” Zachary handed over a silver Nokia phone, presumably encrypted. “Keep it off, but check it at least every six hours. And be ready to go when we tell you.”

“Just out of curiosity,” Denny said, “what’s this ‘we’ shit anyway? Do you even know who you’re working for?”

Zachary reached across and opened the door to the sidewalk for him. They were done here.

“This one’s your big payout, Denny,” he said. “Don’t blow it. Don’t make any more mistakes either.”

Chapter 84

FOR THE SECOND DAY of canvassing at homeless shelters, I did what I already should have and pulled in more of my team, including Sampson. I even called in that favor with Max Siegel, to see if he could spare any warm bodies.

Max surprised me by showing up himself, along with two eager young assistants. We split up the list and agreed to come together at the end of the day to check out mealtime and evening sign-in at one of the larger facilities.

At five o’clock that afternoon, we were all at Lindholm Family Services when they opened their doors for dinner. The shelter served more than a thousand meals a day, to a clientele that was everything you might expect, and some things you might not.

There were families with kids, and people who talked to themselves, and folks who looked like they just came from an office somewhere, all eating shoulder to shoulder at long cafeteria tables.

For the first hour or so, it was a frustrating repeat of the day before. None of the people who were willing to talk to me recognized Mitch’s picture or the old file photo I’d pulled of Steven Hennessey, aka Denny. And some people wouldn’t talk to the police at all.

One guy in particular seemed to be in his own world. He was sitting at the end of a table, turned away from everyone else, with his tray balanced on the corner. He mumbled to himself as I came over.

“Mind if I talk to you for a second?” I said.

His lips stopped moving, but he didn’t look up, so I held the picture down low where he could see it.

“We’re trying to get a message to this guy, Mitch Talley. There’s been a death in the family he needs to know about.”

This is the kind of half-truth you have to be comfortable with to get things done sometimes. We were all in street clothes today, too. Jackets and ties can be counterproductive in a place like this.

The man shook his head. “No,” he said, too fast. “No. Sorry. I don’t recognize him.” He had a thick accent that sounded eastern European to me.

“Take another look,” I said. “Mitch Talley? Usually hangs out with this guy named Denny. Any of it ringing a bell? We could use your help.”

He looked a little longer and ran a hand absently over his salt-and-pepper beard, which was matted halfway to dreadlocks.

“No,” he said again, without ever looking up. “I’m sorry. I do not know him.”

I didn’t push it. “All right,” I said. “I’ll be around for a while if you think of anything.”

As soon as I stepped away, he went right back to the mumbling, and on a hunch, I kept an eye on him.

Sure enough, I’d barely started talking to the next person before the mumbler got up to leave. When I looked over, his tray was still there – along with most of his dinner.

“Excuse me, sir?” I called out loudly enough that a few people around him turned their heads.

But not him. He just kept going.

“Sir?”

I was moving now, and that caught Sampson’s attention. The mumbling guy was clearly making a beeline for the exit. When he finally did look back, realizing we were coming after him, he broke into a run. He shot straight out the double doors and onto Second Street ahead of us.

Chapter 85

OUR RUNNER WAS HALFWAY to the corner by the time Sampson and I got outside. He’d looked maybe early fifties to me, but he was moving pretty well.

“Damnit, damnit, damnit–”

Foot pursuit sucks. It just does. Never mind all the variables – it’s nothing you want to be doing at the end of a long day. But here Sampson and I were, tearing ass down Second Street after a crazy man.

I shouted a few times for him to stop, but that obviously wasn’t in his game plan.

The rush-hour traffic on D had bunched up enough that he made it across the street fairly easily.

I cut right behind him between a taxi and an EMCOR truck, while a couple of guys on lawn chairs outside the shelter shouted after us.

“Go, buddy! Go!”

“Dig, dig, dig, dig, dig!”

I was guessing they weren’t talking to me.

He ran straight on, into the little park by the Labor Department. It cut a diagonal between the high-rise buildings toward Indiana Avenue, but he never got that far.

The ground was terraced here, and when he lurched up and over the first retaining wall, it slowed him down just enough. I got one foot on the wall and both my hands on his shoulders, and we came down hard in a patch of ground cover. At least we weren’t on the sidewalk anymore.

Right away, he started scrabbling with me, trying to pull free, then trying to bite me. Sampson got there and put a knee down on his back while I stood up.

“Sir, stop moving!” John shouted at him as I started a quick pat down.

“No! No! Please!” he yelled from the ground. “I haven’t done anything! I am an innocent person!”

“What’s this?”

I had pulled a knife out of the side pocket of his filthy barn coat. It was sheathed in a toilet paper roll and wrapped in duct tape.

“You can’t take that!” he said. “Please! It is my property!”

“I’m not taking it,” I told him. “I’m just holding on to it for now.”

We got him up on his feet and walked him back over to the wall to sit down.

“Sir, do you need medical attention?” I asked. There was an abrasion on his forehead from where we went down. I felt a little bad about that. Trembling here in front of me, he just seemed kind of pathetic. Never mind that he’d been holding his own until a minute ago, trying to bite off one of my fingers.

“No,” he said. “No.”

“You’re sure?”

“I am not required to talk to you. You have no reason to arrest me.”

His English was good, if a little stilted. And he obviously wasn’t as out of it as I’d thought, although he still wouldn’t look at us.

“How about this?” I said, indicating the knife. I handed it to Sampson. “Look, you just ran away from your dinner. You want a hot dog? Something to drink?”

“I am not required to talk to you,” he said again.

“Yeah, I got that. Coke okay?”

He nodded at the ground.

“One hot dog, one Coke,” Sampson said, and headed over to the carts on D Street. I could see Siegel and his guys on the sidewalk, waiting to find out what had happened. At least Max was keeping his distance; that was a welcome change.

“Listen,” I said. “You notice I haven’t asked for your name, right? All I want is to find the guy in the picture, and I think you know something you’re not saying.”

“No,” he insisted. “No. No. I am just a poor man.”

“Then why did you run?” I said.

But he wouldn’t answer, and I couldn’t force him. He was right about that. My hunch wasn’t enough to detain him.

Besides, there were other ways to get information.

When Sampson came back with the hot dog, the guy ate it in three bites, downed the soda, and stood up.

“I am free to go, yes?” he said.

“Take my card,” I said. “Just in case you change your mind.”

I gave it to him, and Sampson handed back the knife in the cardboard sheath. “You don’t need money for a call,” I said. “Just tell any cop on the street you want to talk to me. And stay out of trouble with that blade, okay?”

There was no good-bye, of course. He pocketed the knife and headed straight up D Street while we stood there watching him go.

“Talk to me, Sampson,” I said. “Are we thinking the same thing here?”

“I think we are,” he said. “He knows something. I’m just going to let him get around the corner first.”

“Sounds good. I’ll ask Siegel to finish up at the shelter. Then I want to get this Coke can over to the lab, see if it tells us anything.”

Our mystery man had just reached First Street. He turned left and continued on out of sight.

“All right, that’s my cue,” Sampson said. “I’ll call if there’s anything to tell.”

“Same here,” I said, and we split up.

Chapter 86

WALKING AWAY from the police detectives, Stanislaw Wajda could feel his heart still bucking in his chest. This wasn’t over yet. No. No. Not at all.

In fact, when he reached the corner and chanced a quick look back, they were still watching. They’d probably follow him, too.

It had been a mistake to run like that. It only made things worse. Now there was nothing to do but keep moving. Yes. Figure it out later. Yes.

The grocery cart was right where he’d left it, in an alcove at the back of Lindholm. You weren’t supposed to use the back door here. In fact, very few people seemed to even know about it.

The alcove was just big enough to tuck the cart away – out of sight of the street – when he couldn’t keep an eye on it himself. He pulled it out now and proceeded up the road, slowly and cautiously, but ready to run again if he had to.

It felt good to move. The walking eased his mind. And the sound of the cart rattling and shimmying over the sidewalk was a kind of white noise that blocked out the other sounds of the city. It created a space where he could think clearly and focus on his work, and what to do next.

Now, if he could just remember where he’d been when he left off.

Mersenne 44, was that it? Yes. That was it. Mersenne 44.

It came back slowly, shimmering into his mind as if out of the shadows, until he could see it clearly.

See it and speak it.

The words tumbled out of him when they came, but quietly, in nothing more than a mumble. Nothing anyone would overhear, just enough to help make the number real once again.

“Two to the thirty-two million, five hundred eighty-two thousand, six hundred and fifty-seventh,” he said.

Yes. That was it precisely. Mersenne 44. Yes. Yes. Yes.

He picked up his pace now and continued up the street without looking back again.

Chapter 87

IT WAS QUIET at the Fingerprint Analysis Section when I got there. The only person in the lab was one of the civilian staff, an analyst named Bernie Stringer who usually went by “Strings.” I could hear the heavy metal on his iPod blaring away while he worked.

“I hope that’s not priority!” he shouted, and then pulled out an earbud. “Narcotics is already kicking my ass here.” There were two full boxes of slides on the bench next to him.

“I just need some prints off of this,” I said, holding the Coke can up by the lip.

“Tonight?” he said.

“Yeah, actually. Now.”

“Knock yourself out, man. Cyanoacrylate’s in the drawer by the fuming chamber.”

That was fine by me. I like working in the lab every once in a while. It makes me feel smarter, even if printing is Forensics 101.

I went over to the fuming chamber and set the can upright inside. Then I put a few drops of cyanoacrylate, which is really just superglue, on a dish and sealed it all up to heat for a while.

In about fifteen minutes, I had a nice four-print set standing out on the surface of the can. Sampson’s paw print was there, too, but it was easy enough to differentiate, sizewise.

I dusted the ones I wanted with black powder and took a few pictures, just in case.

After that, it was only a matter of lifting them with clear tape and laying them back down on a card for scanning.

“Hey, Strings!” I shouted over. “Can I use your system?”

“Knock yourself out! Password’s B-I-G-B-U-T-Z.”

“Of course it is,” I said.

“Huh? What’s that?”

“Nothing.”

Once I got the prints onto the computer, it took IAFIS about half an hour to spit out four possible matches. A lot of the time, the final comparison is done by eye, which is good. It helps keep the process human.

And it didn’t take long for me to confirm one of the four.

The tented arch pattern on our man’s index finger was fairly distinctive, even as these little puzzles go.

With a few keystrokes, I had his name and record right there in front of me.

He was Stanislaw Wajda.

That explained the accent anyway. He’d been arrested just once, on a domestic assault charge in College Park, Maryland, a year and a half earlier. It didn’t seem like too much to go on.

But, in fact, I’d just stumbled onto a killer.

Chapter 88

AN INITIAL ONLINE search for “Stanislaw Wajda” brought up all kinds of different results. When I filtered for news reports, I got a whole slew of year-old stories about a missing-persons case.

That seemed promising, and I clicked on the first one, from the Baltimore Sun.

Questions Persist in Professor’s Disappearance

April 12, College Park – The search continues for University of Maryland professor Stanislaw Wajda, 51, who was last seen leaving the A. V. Williams Building on the university campus the evening of April 7.

Wajda’s mental state at the time of his disappearance has since become a matter of widespread speculation. While local police and UM officials have declined to comment on the issue, the professor’s erratic behavior over the last six months is a matter of public record.

In October, police were summoned to Wajda’s home on Radcliffe Drive for a domestic-disturbance call. Wajda, who had no previous criminal record, was charged with aggravated assault and held overnight, until the charges were dropped.

On campus, Professor Wajda has been brought before the university provost two times in the past year, once for unspecified aggressive behavior toward a graduate student, and a second time following what one eyewitness described as an explosive episode in the university library over a missing periodical.

Wajda, a professor of mathematics, came to the United States from Poland in 1983 to study at Boston University, where he won several top academic prizes in his field. More recently, he was featured in the PBS NOVA documentary “Ones to Watch” for his study of prime numbers, and specifically his pursuit of a proof for what many consider to be the holy grail of mathematics today: Riemann’s hypothesis…

I stopped reading right there, got up, and dialed Sampson’s number on my way out the door.

“Strings, thanks much.”

“No problem. Glad to help out.”

Chapter 89

“WHERE ARE YOU, JOHN?”

“I’m outside of the damn shelter, if you can believe it. I can’t. Guy pushed a shopping cart around the block a few times and then checked back in for a bed before Siegel and the others were even gone. I’ve got Donny Burke coming to take the overnight for me.”

“We need to pull the guy out of there,” I said.

“Why do you sound like you’re running?”

“He’s a math professor, John. An expert in prime numbers. And Riemann’s hypothesis.”

“What?”

“Yeah. His name’s Stanislaw Wajda, and he’s been missing for a year. Wait for me. I’ll be right there.”

It was faster to run over to the shelter than get my car. I was already down the back stairs and cutting across Judiciary Square.

“I’ve got this,” Sampson said. “I’ll have him out by the time you get here.”

“John, don’t–”

But he’d already hung up. Sampson can be just as stubborn and pigheaded as I am sometimes, which is why it’s hard to hold it against him.

I picked up the pace.

From Judiciary Square, I came out on Fourth Street and cut around the block toward Second. Before I got there, though, I saw Sampson coming right toward me as if he’d just been around the back of the building.

“He’s gone, Alex! His cart’s not there anymore, and there’s a goddamn door in the back. He duped me! He’s out!” Sampson turned away and kicked a garbage bag off the curb, sending a shower of trash into the street.

Before he could take another swinging kick, I pulled him back. “Hang on, John. One thing at a time. We don’t know anything for sure yet.”

“Don’t even start with that,” he told me. “It’s him. I put that damn knife back in his hand, and then I let him get away.”

“We both did, John,” I said. “We both did.”

But Sampson wasn’t hearing me. I could tell he was going to blame himself no matter what I said, so I stopped trying and switched to action.

“He can’t be far,” I said. “It’s not like he hopped into a cab or something. We’ll walk the neighborhood all night if we have to. I’ll get this out on WALES right away. Put some more eyes on the street. Maybe get someone from Warrant Squad in the morning, if it comes to that. Those guys are bloodhounds. We’ll get him.”

Sampson nodded and started up the street without another word. No time like the present.

“What’d you say the name was?” he asked as I came up alongside him.

“Stanislaw Wajda,” I told him.

“Stanislaw…?”

“Wajda.”

“Screw it. I’ll learn to say it after we find the son of a bitch.”

Chapter 90

IT WAS THREE DAYS BEFORE we got anywhere even close to some forward movement. No Talley. No Hennessey. No Wajda.

And then the worst happened.

On Friday morning, for the third time that month, I got an early call from Sampson about a dead body. Another junkie had been beaten to death, with more of the same numbers gibberish carved into his forehead and across his back.

But one thing was different this time, and it changed everything.

“They found Stanislaw’s shopping cart next to the body,” Sampson told me. “At least, I’m pretty sure it’s his. Hard to tell one from another, you know?” His voice was hoarse. I wasn’t sure how much sleep he’d gotten since Wajda had disappeared. “This poor kid doesn’t look like he was much more than eighteen, Alex.”

“Sampson, are you going to be okay?” I asked. “You don’t sound like yourself.”

“I sure hope so.”

“This isn’t your fault, John. You know that, right?”

He still wasn’t ready to answer that one. All he said was “You don’t have to come down here.”

“I’m coming,” I said. “Of course I am.”

Chapter 91

THE SCENE AT Farragut Square was depressingly familiar when I got there. I’m never sure which is worse – the shock of something I’ve never seen before, or the weight of seeing it one too many times.

“The cart’s definitely his,” Sampson told me. “We just found this.”

He held up an evidence bag with my own smudged business card inside. It felt like a hard kick to the head. What a mess this was.

“There’s also visible blood spatter on the frame, and a sawed-off sledgehammer on the bottom rack. Presumably our murder weapon.”

“I’ve been thinking about this,” I said. “There’s a long underpass right by Lindholm. Homeless people sleep there all the time. That may be where he’s been hunting for his victims.”

“Maybe so,” John said. “But then why cart them all the way over here? I don’t get this at all. Why K Street?”

Not counting Kyle Craig’s fake-out with Anjali Patel, all three victims in this case had been left somewhere along K, each one near the intersection of a prime-numbered street – Twenty-third, Thirteenth, and now Seventeenth. With two incidents, it had been harder to see, but with three, the pattern popped right out. I wondered if the letter “K” represented something specific in mathematics, but I wasn’t sure. And, moreover, “The man’s insane, Sampson. That’s the one constant. We may not get very far looking for motive here.”

“Or for him,” John said, and thumbed over at the cart. “Whatever made him leave his stuff behind, something’s changed, Alex. I don’t know what it is, but I have a feeling we may never see this guy again. I think he’s history.”

Chapter 92

STANISLAW WAJDA BLINKED AWAKE. It was hard for him to see at first. A chiaroscuro of vague forms filled his vision. Then, slowly, things began to distinguish themselves. A wall. Concrete blocks. An old boiler on a cracked cement floor.

The last he remembered, he’d been in the park. Yes. The boy. Was it just last night?

“Hello,” someone said, and Stanislaw jumped. His heart lurched into a gallop as he suddenly knew enough to be scared.

A man was there. Dark hair. Vaguely familiar.

“Where am I?” said Stanislaw.

“Washington.”

“I mean–”

“I know what you mean.”

His hands were unbound, he realized. His feet, too. No chains, no handcuffs. He’d almost expected otherwise. He looked down and saw that he was sitting, half slumped, in an old wooden chair.

“Don’t get up,” the man said. “You’re still going to feel a little bit groggy.”

He’d seen this man’s face before. At the shelter. Yes. With the two black detectives. Yes. Yes.

“Are you the police?” he said. “Am I arrested?”

The man chuckled low, which was very odd indeed. “No, Professor. May I call you Stanislaw?”

Even as the situation began to take shape, none of it made any sense to him.

“How do you know my name?” he said.

“Let’s say I’m an admirer of your work,” the man told him. “I saw what you did in Farragut Square last night, and I don’t mind telling you, it was a thrill. Definitely worth the effort for me to get all the way over there.”

Wajda’s stomach lurched. He felt as though he might vomit. Or even faint.

“Oh Jezu–”

“Not to worry. Your secret’s safe with me.” The man pulled another chair over and sat down across from him. “But tell me something, Stanislaw. What’s with the prime numbers? The police reports say it’s something about Riemann’s hypothesis. Is that accurate?”

So he knew. This strange fellow knew what he’d done. Stanislaw could feel tears warming the corners of his eyes.

“Yes,” he said. “Riemann’s. Yes.”

“But what about it, specifically? Enlighten me, Professor. I’m dying to know.”

It had been a long time since Stanislaw had seen curiosity in a young person’s eyes. Years and years. A lifetime ago…

“The Riemann zeta function zero, as you know, lies on the critical line with real part between zero and one, if the zeta function is equal to zero–”

“No,” the man said. “Listen to me carefully. Why do you kill for it? What does it mean to you?”

“Everything,” he said. “To understand it is to grasp infinity, do you see? To conceive of a framework so vast as to transcend ideas of size or even limitation–”

The man slapped him hard across the face. “I don’t want one of your stupid college lectures, Professor. I want to know why you kill those boys in the way that you do. Now, can you answer that for me or not? You’re intelligent – it should be simple.”

He could, Stanislaw realized suddenly. Yes. Yes. The outcome had been taken from his hands. There was no longer room for anything but the truth.

“Those boys are better off dead,” he said. “There is nothing here for them but misery and suffering. Don’t you understand? Don’t you see?”

“I do see.”

“They have fallen out of God’s reach, but I can still help them. I can give them that which is infinite,” he said. “I can give them back to God. Do you understand?”

“I think I do,” the man said, and stood up. “This is very disappointing. We might have – “ He paused and smiled. “Well, never mind about what might have been. Thank you, Professor. It’s been an education.”

“No,” Stanislaw said. “Thank you.”

He saw the ice pick then, and followed it with his eyes as the man raised it up and to the side until it disappeared into silhouette against a bare bulb in the ceiling. Then Stanislaw lifted his own chin high, opening himself as widely as possible so that no matter what happened, the man would be sure not to miss.

Chapter 93

I’M SO USED to my own phone going off at all hours that I was reaching for the nightstand before I realized it was Bree’s cell ringing, not mine. The clock by the bed said 4:21. Oh, good God Almighty, what now?

“This is Stone.” I heard her in the dark. “Who’s this?”

Right away, she sat up. When she turned on the light beside the bed, the phone was pressed against her chest, and she whispered so low that she practically mouthed the next words to me.

“It’s Kyle Craig.”

Now I was up, too. When I took the phone, I could hear Kyle still talking on the other end of the line.

“Bree, sweetheart? Are you there?”

If he’d been in front of me, I honestly believe I could have killed him without thinking twice. But I kept my head as best I could. I grabbed control of my emotions.

“Kyle, it’s Alex. Don’t ever call this number again,” I said, and hung up.

Bree’s jaw literally dropped. “What was that?” she said. “Why did you do that?”

“My line in the sand. It doesn’t do me any good to let him keep setting the rules.”

“Do you think he’ll call back?”

“Well, if he doesn’t, we’ll both get a little more sleep,” I said.

Something had changed in me. I wasn’t going to keep playing this game forever. I couldn’t.

And, in any case, my own cell phone rang a few seconds later.

“What?” I answered.

“Bree never answered my question,” Kyle said. “About how the wedding plans were coming along. I figured that was more her department than yours.”

“No,” I said. “You wanted to make yourself seem more threatening.”

He laughed almost congenially. “Did it work?”

“I’m hanging up, Kyle.”

“Wait!” he said. “There is something else. It’s important, or I wouldn’t be calling so early.”

I didn’t ask what it was. In fact, I was about to hang up anyway when he went on.

“I got you an engagement present,” he said. “Of sorts. Since I’m allowing you to get married and all. A little something to free up your schedule, so you can focus on that pretty little bride to be.”

Now my heart sank. I had to know. “Kyle? What have you done?”

“Well, if I told you, that would spoil the surprise, wouldn’t it?” he said. “Twenty-ninth and K, northeast corner. And you might want to hurry.”

Chapter 94

BY SUNRISE, we had a full tactical team in place at the corner of Twenty-ninth and K. There was very little I’d put past Kyle, and while it could be a mistake to show up when and where he specified, I couldn’t just ignore the phone call. So we took precautions, as much as we possibly could.

The location was at the edge of Rock Creek Park, with the Whitehurst Freeway running overhead. We put officers with MP5s on the overpass, and a barrier of armored SWAT vans hugging the corner to block as many sight lines as possible.

Our nerve center was a coffee shop on K, where the SWAT unit commander, Tom Ogilvy, could stay in radio contact with his team. Sampson and I listened in on headsets.

EMS was on standby, with patrol units barring the street a block away in each direction. All personnel were outfitted with Kevlar and helmets.

And maybe it was all for nothing. Was Kyle actually watching? Was he armed? Ready with something up his sleeve? Or maybe none of the above. I think that’s exactly what he wanted me to wrestle with now.

In any case, it didn’t take long for the entry team to find something. Less than five minutes after they’d snaked into the park from Twenty-ninth, their lead man radioed over.

“We’ve got a body here,” he said. “White male, middle-aged. Looks like it could be a homeless guy.”

“Proceed with caution,” Ogilvy radioed back. We’d already briefed everyone about the possibilities here. “I want a full visual check around that body before anyone touches it. B Team, I need you on high alert.”

Three more minutes of silence ticked by until the “all clear” came back – such as it was. When I reached for the coffee shop door, Sampson grabbed my arm.

“Let me do this one, Alex. If Kyle’s here, it could be you he’s waiting for.”

“No way,” I told him. “Besides, if Kyle ever comes for me, it’s going to be face-to-face, not from a distance.”

“Oh, because you know everything there is to know about that maniac?” he said.

“I know that much,” I said, and headed outside.

Even before we got close to the body in the park, I recognized Stanislaw Wajda’s filthy barn coat. He’d been left on his side, shoved under a clump of bushes, just like his own victims before him.

There was no carving this time. The only visible injury was a single puncture wound to the throat, similar to the one we’d seen on Anjali Patel.

The skin on his neck was a solid stain of dried blood, and it continued down under his shirt. That meant he’d most likely been sitting up when he was stabbed. Probably when he died, too.

We’d already run prints on the shopping cart and sledgehammer from Farragut Square. There was no doubt anymore that Wajda was our Numbers Killer. Still, whatever he’d done when he was alive, I felt a wave of pity for him now.

“What’s this?” Sampson pointed at something in Wajda’s hand. I pulled on some gloves and knelt down to take whatever it was from between the clenched fingers.

It was a small greeting card – the kind you usually send with flowers. This one had a picture of a wedding cake on the front, with an African-American bride and groom at the top.

“It’s my engagement present,” I said. I felt a little sick to my stomach.

When I opened the card, I instantly recognized the precise block letters of Kyle’s handwriting.

TO ALEX: YOU’RE WELCOME, – K.C

Chapter 95

AFTER FIVE DAYS of lying low with Mitch in the West Virginia woods, Denny got the call he’d been waiting for. Then it was another several days for reconnaissance in DC before they were good to go. It wouldn’t be much longer now, just a little while and he’d be a free man. A very rich, free man.

The door banged open behind him as they came out onto the roof of the National Building Museum.

He turned around, and Mitch held up a hand.

“My bad,” he said.

“Just shut the damn thing and come on,” Denny said, harsher than he meant to.

It wasn’t as if the noise really mattered. The museum was closed for the night, and the nearest threat risk was the twentysomething mope sitting downstairs at a ground-floor security desk, watching horror movies on his laptop. It was more about having spent one too many nights sleeping elbow to elbow in the old Subaru with Mitch, living off of canned food and listening to him yammer on about the “mission.”

He shook it off and walked over to the southwest corner of the roof to look out.

Traffic on F Street was light for a Friday. There was a slight breeze, with the promise of showers for later, but so far everything was quiet. The first limos would start pulling up in front of Sidney Harman Hall – or just “the Harman,” to the locals – in about fifteen to twenty minutes.

Mitch came along and waited silently behind Denny as he unrolled the canvas tarp. Then Mitch set out his gear and started assembling the M110.

“You mad at me or something, Denny?” he said finally. “We got a problem?”

“Naw, man,” Denny said right away. There was no sense in making him uptight tonight. Especially not tonight. “You’re doin’ great. I’m just ready to get this one done, you know? A little overeager. My bad.”

That seemed to satisfy him. Mitch nodded once and went right back to business. He flipped down the bipod, set the rifle on the ledge, and put his eye up to the scope. Once he’d adjusted the buttstock against his cheek, he could start dialing in.

“We’re working in a range tonight,” Denny said, keeping his tone nice and easy now. “Cars are going to be stopping all up and down the block.”

Mitch swept left and right a few times, getting a feel for the sidewalk in front of the theater. “You said these crumbums are a couple of judges?”

“That’s right,” Denny said. “Two of the most powerful fuckers in the country.”

“What’d they do?”

“You know what an activist judge is?”

“Not really. What’s that?”

“Well, let’s just say that the good old U.S. of A.’s better off without them,” Denny said. “I’ll spot ’em and you drop ’em, Mitchie, but it’s going to be fast. You’ve got to be ready, okay? One, two – then we’re out of here.”

Mitch held his position like always, but the corners of his mouth turned up just a hair. It was the closest thing to a cocky little smile Denny had seen on him in a while.

“Don’t worry, Denny,” he said. “I won’t miss.”

Chapter 96

BY SEVEN THIRTY, F Street was one long line of black cars.

The event tonight was “Will on the Hill,” an annual fund-raiser for arts education in DC. Two dozen Capitol Hill movers and shakers were all set to perform an “inside-baseball” version of Will Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night for an audience of more of the same – congressmen, senators, Hill staffers, and half of K Street, probably.

Denny watched the road through his sighting scope. “No shortage of foxes in the henhouse tonight, am I right?”

“I guess,” Mitch said, still eyeing over the crowd. “I thought this was going to be a bunch of famous people. I don’t recognize none of them down there.”

“Yeah, well, you’re kind of famous now, too, and nobody knows what you look like,” Denny said.

Mitch smiled. “Point.”

Rahm Emanuel and his wife were just arriving. The House minority leader and Senate president pro tempore had shown up together a minute ago, grabbing a much-needed photo op in the middle of a contentious legislative session.

Each one got out of his car and crossed the redbrick sidewalk, maybe six paces, until he was under the cantilevered glass wall that hung over the theater’s main entrance. This was definitely going to be tight when it happened.

Finally, at ten minutes to eight, Denny spotted who he was looking for. A short Mercedes limo stopped at the curb.

The driver got out and came around to open the door, and the Honorable Cornelia Summers stepped into view.

“Here we go, Mitch. Ten o’clock. Long blue dress, getting out of the Mercedes.”

Right behind her, Justice George Ponti stood up. They stopped long enough to wave self-consciously at the press and the gawkers gathered behind police lines on the sidewalk. Even from a distance, Denny noticed that these two looked out of their element.

“Number two’s in the tux, with the gray hair.”

Mitch had already adjusted his stance. “I’m there.”

“Shooter ready?”

Summers took Ponti’s arm, and they turned to go inside, just a few steps away now.

“Ready,” Mitch said.

“Send it.”

The M110 gave off a familiar sharp pop as the bullet passed through the suppressor at three thousand feet per second. In virtually the same moment, Cornelia Summers collapsed to the ground with a small red blossom just above her left ear.

Justice Ponti stumbled as she came off his arm, and the second shot missed. A glass door about ten feet from the man’s head shattered into a million pieces.

“Again,” Denny said. “Now.”

The Supreme Court justice had turned back toward the car. He already had one hand on the door.

“Do it, Mitchie.”

“I got him,” Mitch said, and there was another sharp pop.

This time Ponti went down for real, and the entire block in front of the Harman was thrown into full-blown pandemonium.

Chapter 97

DENNY WATCHED THE STREET while Mitch broke down. A steady rain had started to fall, but that didn’t stop hundreds of people in very nice evening wear from scattering like cockroaches up and down the block.

“What’s going on, Denny?” Mitch had already packed the scope, stock, and magazine away.

Denny motioned Mitch over. “Come here. You should see this. It’s amazing what you’ve done.”

Mitch seemed torn, but when Denny waved him over again, he set down his gear and duckwalked back to the ledge. Then he peered at his work.

The Harman looked like some kind of glass-fronted insane asylum. Police flashers were already rolling in the street, and the only people not moving down there were the two bodies laid out on the sidewalk.

“You know what that’s called?” Denny said. “That’s mission accomplished. Couldn’t have gone better.”

Mitch shook his head. “I messed up, Denny. That second shot–”

“Don’t mean nothing now. You just soak this shit up for a minute and enjoy it. I’ll get us ready to go.”

Denny stepped back and started securing the clasps on Mitch’s pack while Mitch watched, transfixed.

“Not bad for a night’s work, right, Mitchie?”

“Yeah,” Mitch said, only half out loud, more to himself than anything. “Kind of awesome, actually.”

“And who’s the hero of the story, bro?”

“We are, Denny.”

“That’s right. Real live American heroes. Nobody can ever take that away from you, no matter what. Understand?”

Mitch didn’t even answer this time, except to nod. It was as if, once he’d gotten a glimpse, he couldn’t tear his eyes from the scene.

A second later, Mitch was dead – with a bullet in his head.

The poor guy probably didn’t even hear Denny’s muzzled Walther go off, it happened that fast. Just as well. It was a goddamn awful business sometimes; the least Denny could do for him was make it quick and professional.

“Sorry, Mitchie. Couldn’t be helped,” he said.

Then he picked up Mitch’s pack, left everything else, and headed for the stairs without looking back at the evening’s third homicide.

Chapter 98

I’D BEEN WORKING at the Daly Building when the first terrible report came in, and this time I was on the scene within minutes of the gunfire. I tried hard to ignore the chaos in the street, tried not to think about the victims – not yet – and focused on the one thing I needed to know most.

Where did the shots come from? Was it possible they’d made a mistake this time?

An MPD sergeant on the sidewalk had an initial report that Cornelia Summers had gone down first, and that she’d been on George Ponti’s left as they headed into the Harman. Two Supreme Court justices – even now, it seemed unbelievable!

I looked to the left, down F Street. The Jackson Graham Building was a possibility, but if I’d been the gunman, I would have gone for the National Building Museum. It was a couple of blocks up, well clear of the scene, and had a flat roof with plenty of cover.

“Get me three more uniforms,” I told the sergeant. “Right away. I’m going to that building – the National.”

Within minutes, we were down the street and pounding on the museum’s front doors. One very alarmed-looking security guard came running to let us in. The Federal Protective Service had jurisdiction here, but I’d been told it would be a good half hour before they could get a team on-site.

“We need to get to the roof,” I told the guard. His tag said DAVID HALE. “What’s the fastest way up there?”

I left one patrol officer behind to radio in for a full lockdown of the building, and the rest of us followed Hale through the museum’s central hall. It was a huge, open space with Corinthian columns all the way to the ceiling, which was several stories overhead. That’s where we needed to go.

Hale brought us to an emergency exit at the far corner. “Straight up,” he said.

We left him there and took the stairs in rough formation, leapfrogging one flight at a time, with flashlights and weapons drawn.

At the top, we came to a fire door.

It should have been alarmed, but the metal housing was on the ground and the mechanism itself was hanging loose by a couple of wires.

My heart was already pounding from the run. It notched up again now. We’d come to the right place.

When I opened the door, an empty expanse of roof was in front of me, with the top of the Accountability Office visible across G Street beyond that. The rain was coming down hard, but you could still hear the sirens and shouting coming from the Harman.

I signaled for one officer to go right and the other to follow me out in the direction of the street noise.

As we came around toward the southwest corner, a row of raised skylights was blocking our view.

I saw the shadow of something by the farthest one – a pack of gear, or maybe just a garbage bag – and pointed it out to the cop next to me. I didn’t even know the guy’s name.

We worked our way along the roof with our lights off, staying low just in case.

Once we got close enough, I could see that someone was still there. He was on his knees, facing the Harman and not moving.

My Glock was up. “Police! Freeze!” I aimed low for his legs, but there was no need, as it turned out. As soon as the other officer hit him with a flashlight beam, we saw clearly the dark hole at the back of his head, washed clean by the rain. His body had lodged in the corner of the half wall that ran around the roof, holding him up that way.

One look at his face, and I recognized Mitch Talley. Now, suddenly, my legs were like Jell-O. This was too much, it really was. Mitch Talley was dead? How?

“Jesus.” The patrol officer with me leaned in for a better look. “What is that, nine millimeter?”

“Call it in,” I told him. “Get an APB on Steven Hennessey, aka Denny Humboldt. He couldn’t have gotten far yet. I’ll call CIC. We need to shut this neighborhood down – now. Every second counts.”

Unless my instincts were way off here, Hennessey had just broken up the Patriot sniper team, for whatever reasons of his own.

If I were him, I would have been running like hell. I would already be out of Washington and I’d never look back.

But I wasn’t Hennessey, was I?

Chapter 99

DENNY DROVE AROUND for hours. He stayed north and stopped at a couple of different drugstores in Maryland. He bought a Nationals ball cap, a shaving kit, a pair of weak reading glasses, and a box of chestnut-brown hair dye. That should do it.

After another stop, in a Sunoco bathroom in Chevy Chase, he made his way back down to the city. He parked in Logan Circle and walked the two blocks over to Vermont Avenue, where the familiar black Town Car was waiting.

Zachary gave a rare unguarded smile as Denny slid into the backseat.

“Look at you,” he said. “All set to fade into the woodwork. I’ll bet you’re good at it, too.”

“Whatever,” Denny said. “Let’s get this done. So I can fade away, as you say.”

“It sounds as though things went off well enough, assuming the news reports are to be believed.”

“That’s correct.”

Zachary stayed where he was. “They didn’t say anything about an accomplice, though. Nothing about Mitch.”

“I’d be surprised if they did,” Denny said. “This lead investigator, Cross, likes to keep his cards close to the vest. But, believe me, it’s taken care of. And I don’t really want to talk about Mitch anymore. He did his job well.”

The contact man studied Denny’s face a little longer. Finally, he reached over the front seat and took the pouch from the driver. It seemed right this time, but Denny unzipped the bag and checked, just to be sure.

Zachary sat back now and seemed to actually unclench a little. “Tell me something, Denny. What are you going to do with all that money? Besides getting a new name, I mean.”

Denny returned the smile. “Put it somewhere safe, for starters,” he said, and tucked the pouch into his jacket as if to illustrate the point. “Then after that–”

There was no rest of the sentence. The Walther fired from inside his pocket and caught the driver in the back of the head. A spray of blood and gray matter hit the windshield.

The second shot took care of Zachary, right through those pretentious horn-rims of his. He never even got to reach for the door. It was over in a matter of seconds – the two most satisfying shots Denny had ever taken.

Except, of course, not Denny. Not anymore. That was a pretty good feeling, too. To leave this all far behind.

No time for celebrations, though. The car had barely gone quiet before he was out on the sidewalk and back to doing what he’d always done best. He kept moving.

Chapter 100

THE TWENTY-FOUR HOURS following the hits at the Harman were a full-court press like I’d rarely seen in Washington. Our Command Information Center had traffic checks going on all night; Major Case Squad put both units on the street; and NSID was told to drop all nonessential business, and that was just inside the MPD.

Details were operating out of Capitol Police, ATF, and even the Secret Service.

By morning, the hunt for Steven Hennessey had gone from regional to national to international. The Bureau was fully activated and looking for him everywhere it was possible for the Bureau to look. The CIA was involved, too.

The significance of these murders had really started to sink in. Justices Summers and Ponti had been the unofficial left wing of the Supreme Court, beloved by half the country and foxes in the henhouse, basically, to the other half.

At MPD, our late-afternoon briefing was like a march of the zombies. Nobody had gotten much sleep overnight, and there was a palpable kind of tension in the air.

Chief Perkins presided. There were no introductory remarks.

“What are we looking at?” he asked straight-out. Most of the department’s command staff were there, too. Every seat was taken, and people were standing around the edge of the room, shifting on their feet.

“Talk to me,” he said. “Anyone.”

“The hotline and website are on fire,” one of the district commanders, Gerry Hockney, reported in. “It’s all over the place, literally. Hennessey’s a government operative. He’s holed up in a storage facility in Ohio, he’s in Florida, he’s in Toronto–”

Perkins cut him off. “Anything credible? I need to know what we have, not a lot of useless bullshit.”

“It’s too early to say, to commit to anything. We’re overwhelmed, sir.”

“In other words, no. Who else? Alex?”

I waved from where I was. “Waiting on a weapons report from that double homicide on Vermont Avenue last night. Two John Does found shot dead in a car, with cash on them but no IDs.

“It was definitely nine millimeter, but we don’t know yet if it was the same weapon that killed Mitch Talley.”

A huge buzz went up around the room, and I had to shout to get everyone’s attention back.

“Even if it was,” I went on, “the most it can tell us about Hennessey in the short term is that he was in the city sometime between twelve and four a.m.”

“Which means he could be anywhere by now,” Sampson said, giving the shorthand version for me. “Which means we should wrap this shit up and get back out there.”

“Do you think Hennessey was working for the two dead guys in the car?” someone asked anyway.

“Don’t know,” I said. “We’re still trying to track down who they were. It does seem like he’s cleaning house, though. Whether or not he’s finished is another question we don’t have an answer for.”

A lieutenant in the first row spoke up. “Do you mean finished cleaning house, or finished with these sniper killings?”

The questions were natural, but they were starting to get on my nerves. I held my hands out in a shrug. “You tell me.”

“So, in other words,” Chief Perkins cut in, “we’re nearly twenty-four hours out and we know less than we did before these murders, is that it?”

Nobody wanted to answer. There was a long silence in the room.

“Something like that,” I said finally.

Chapter 101

TWO MORE DAYS of nerve-rattling quiet went by without much progress or any sign of Steven Hennessey or even anyone who might know him. Then, finally, there was some movement over at the Bureau. Max Siegel called me himself to tell me about it.

“We got something over the Web,” he said. “Anonymous, but this one checked out. There’s a guy going by Frances Moulton, supposedly fits Hennessey’s description down to the toenails. He’s got an apartment over on Twelfth, except nobody’s seen him for approximately two months. Then, this morning, someone spotted him coming out of there.”

“Someone – who?” I asked.

“That’s the ‘anonymous,’” he said. “The super at the building backed it up, though. He hasn’t seen this Moulton character in months either, but he gave me a positive ID on Hennessey’s picture when I brought it over.”

Either this was huge or it just felt that way given the zeros we’d racked up until now. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference, when you’re desperate.

“What do you want to do with this?” I asked. Whatever it meant, it was still Siegel’s lead, not ours.

“I’m thinking you and I might sit up on this place for a while, see what happens,” he said. “If you want, I’m game. See? I can change.”

It wasn’t the answer I’d expected, and my own pause spoke for itself.

“Don’t bust my balls, here,” Siegel said. “I’m trying to play nice.”

In fact, it seemed like he was. Did I love the idea of spending the next eight hours or more in a car with Max Siegel? Not really, but more than that, I didn’t want to be on the outside of this investigation for a second.

“Yeah, okay,” I said. “I’m in. Where can I meet you?”

Chapter 102

I EVEN BROUGHT coffee.

Siegel brought some, too, so there was plenty of caffeine to go around. We parked in a Bureau-issue Crown Vic on the east side of Twelfth Street between M and N. It was a narrow, tree-lined block with a lot of construction going on, but not at the Midlands. That was Frances Moulton’s place and, if we were on the right track, Steven Hennessey’s address as well.

The apartment in question was on the eighth of ten floors, with two large windows facing the street. They were both dark when we got there. Max and I settled in for the long haul.

Once we’d said everything there was to say about the case, it got a little awkward – long silences set in. Eventually, though, the conversation loosened back up. Siegel threw me a softball, the kind of thing Bureau guys ask when they don’t have something better to say.

“So, why’d you get into law enforcement?” he asked. “If you don’t mind my asking.”

I smiled into my lap. If anything, he was trying too hard to do the buddy-buddy thing.

“Hollywood just didn’t work out. Neither did the NBA,” I deadpanned. “What about you?”

“You know. The exotic travel. The great hours.”

For once, he got a laugh out of me. I’d decided before coming that I wasn’t going to just sit there and hate him all night. That would have been like torture.

“I’ll tell you this much,” he said. “If things had gone differently? I think I could have been a pretty good bad guy, too.”

“Let me guess,” I said. “You have the perfect murder in your head.”

“Don’t you?” Siegel said.

“No comment.” I popped the lid on my second coffee. “Most cops do, though. Perfect crime anyway.”

After another long pause, he said, “How about this: if you could take someone out – someone who really deserved it – and you knew you could get away with it, would you be torn?”

“No,” I said. “That’s too slippery a slope for me. I’ve thought about it.”

“Come on.” Siegel laughed and leaned back on the car door to look at me. “Say it’s just you and Kyle Craig alone in some dark alley. No witnesses. He’s all out of ammo and you’ve still got your Glock. You’re telling me you don’t pull the trigger now and ask questions later?”

“That’s right,” I said. The Kyle reference was a little weird, but I let it slide. “I might want to, but I wouldn’t do it. I’d take him in. I’d like to bring him back to ADX Florence.”

He looked at me, grinning as if he were waiting for me to break.

“Seriously?” he said.

“Seriously.”

“I don’t know if I believe you.”

I shrugged. “What do you want me to say?”

“That you’re a human being. Come on, Alex. You can’t get by in this business without at least a little walk on the dark side.”

“Absolutely,” I said. “Been there, done that. I’m just saying, I wouldn’t pull the trigger.” Whether or not it was true, I really wasn’t sure. I just didn’t want to go there with Siegel.

“Interesting,” he said, and turned back to face the front door of the Midlands. “Very interesting.”

Chapter 103

ALEX WAS LYING through his teeth. He was a good liar, but he was lying. If he had any idea he was sitting across from Kyle Craig right now, that Glock would be out in a heartbeat, and one round shy a second later.

But that was the whole point, wasn’t it? Cross didn’t have a clue. Any doubts about that were well behind them. This couldn’t possibly be more delicious, could it? No, it could not.

Kyle sipped his coffee and went on. “That’s what this is all about, isn’t it?” he said offhandedly. Interesting – Siegel’s speech and inflection were now more natural to him than his own.

“What do you mean?” Cross asked.

“The whole ‘foxes in the henhouse’ thing. The good guys and the bad guys, all mixed in together. The line between good and evil isn’t so clear anymore.”

“That’s true,” Cross said. “More for the Bureau than the PD, though.”

“I mean everywhere,” Kyle said. “The crooked congressman. The greedy son of a bitch CEO who just can’t get by on that first ten million. Hell, embedded terror cells. What’s the difference? They’re all out there, right under our noses, living next door. It’s as if the world used to be black and white, and now it’s all just gray, if you squint a little.”

Alex was staring now. Right into his eyes. Was he finally tuning in?

“Max, are you talking about Steven Hennessey here? Or yourself?”

“Huh-oh,” Kyle-Max answered, and shook a finger at him. “I didn’t even see you switch hats. Very slick, Dr. Cross.”

And Alex just laughed. It was amazing, really. Kyle had managed to make Cross hate Max Siegel, and now, with the turn of a few screws, Kyle was well on his way to making Alex into a true-blue fan of the smart but obnoxious agent.

Who knows – Siegel might have gotten all the way to an invitation for family dinner or some such thing, at the rate this was going. But then something happened that even Kyle hadn’t expected.

A bullet came through the windshield.

Chapter 104

SIEGEL AND I were both out on the pavement and behind our doors at the same time. I heard another shot hit the grille, and then a sickening thud as one hit Siegel’s side of the car.

“Max?”

“I’m okay. Not hit.”

“Where’s it coming from?”

My Glock was out, but I didn’t even know where to point it. My other hand was dialing 911 while my eyes scanned the buildings around me.

“One of those two,” Max said, pointing at the Midlands and the place just north of it.

I looked up at Hennessey’s apartment again – still dark, with the windows closed. Rooftops were his thing anyway. Wasn’t that true?

“Hello? Are you there?” said someone on my phone. “This is Nine-One-One Emergency. Can you hear me?”

“This is Detective Cross, MPD. We have an active shooter at Twelve Twenty-one Twelfth Street Northwest. I need immediate assistance, all available units!”

Another shot exploded a planter and a second-floor window directly behind me, one after the other. I heard a scream come from inside an apartment.

“Police!” I shouted for anyone who could hear. “Stay down!” At least half a dozen people were still out on the sidewalk, scrambling for cover, and there was no way to keep more from coming along the walkway on the road.

“We’ve got to do something. We can’t just stay here. Someone’s going to get shot,” said Max.

I looked at him across the driver’s seat. “If he’s using a scope, and we move fast, he might not be able to keep up.”

“Not with both of us anyway,” he said grimly. “Take the Midlands. I’ll get the next one up.”

This was completely outside of protocol. We should have waited for backup, but with the potential for so much collateral damage, we weren’t willing to delay any further.

Without another word, Siegel came out of his crouch and sprinted across the street. I wouldn’t have thought he had it in him.

I counted to three to put some space between us, then started running with my head down. Another window shattered somewhere behind me. I barely noticed. My only focus right now was on getting to the other side of that apartment building’s front door – and then getting inside after Hennessey.

Chapter 105

ONCE INSIDE, I took the stairs. It was ten flights to the roof, but I’m in pretty good shape. Adrenaline did its job, too.

A few minutes later, I was coming out on top of the Midlands. It was a strange deja vu – a lot like the other night at the museum.

I swept my Glock left and right – nothing. No one behind the door either.

I’d come out through a utility room, and the walls were blocking my view of the Twelfth Street side of the building. That’s where Hennessey would have been shooting from if he was here.

Sirens were wailing in the distance; with any luck, they were headed my way.

I pressed my back against the wall and moved slowly to the corner, weapon first.

The street side of the roof, though dimly lit, looked deserted to me. There were a couple of folding lawn chairs and a steel barrel lying on its side.

No sign of Hennessey, though.

I came to the edge and looked out. Twelfth Street was quiet down below. Other than the Bureau car with its doors open and a patch of broken glass on the ground, there wasn’t any indication of what had just happened.

A few people were even walking by, oblivious to the damage.

Then, as I leaned out for a better look, my foot hit something that made a small, metallic clinking sound. I took out my Maglite and pointed it at the ground to see what it was.

Shell casings. Several of them.

My pulse spiked, and I turned around – right into the barrel of a Walther nine millimeter.

The man with his finger on the trigger, presumably Steven Hennessey, held the pistol up about an inch from my forehead.

“Don’t move,” he said. “Not a goddamn muscle. I won’t miss from this distance.”

Chapter 106

HE’D DONE A pretty good job of changing his appearance – glasses, dark hair, clean-shaven. Enough to let him move around the city anyway.

And probably enough to walk away from here unrecognized, too, I realized. It was all starting to fall into place.

“Hennessey?”

“Depends who you ask,” he answered.

“You left that anonymous tip at the Bureau yourself, didn’t you?” I said. This whole thing was a setup, I felt sure, and we’d given him exactly what he wanted – a quiet surveillance detail by the people who knew the most about him. Whether he’d been trying to kill us in the car or draw us closer, I still didn’t know.

“And look what I caught,” he said. “Now, I want you to reach back slowly and drop that Glock right off the roof.”

I shook my head. “I’ll throw it over there. I can’t put this thing in the street.”

“Sure you can,” he said. The tip of his Walther was cool when he pressed it into my forehead. Presumably he’d been using something bigger a few minutes ago.

I reached back and let the Glock fall. When it smacked onto the concrete below, my stomach clenched.

He took a step back then, out of arm’s reach.

“To tell you the truth, I just wanted you dead and out of the way. But now that you’re here, I’m giving you thirty seconds to tell me what you’ve got on me,” he said. “And I’m not talking about what’s already in the papers.”

“No, I don’t imagine you are,” I said. “You want to know how deep you need to go before you can disappear again.”

“Twenty seconds,” he said. “I might even let you live. Talk to me.”

“You’re Steven Hennessey, aka Frances Moulton, aka Denny Humboldt,” I said. “You were with U.S. Army Special Forces until two thousand two, most recently in Afghanistan. There’s a grave in Kentucky with your name on it, and I’m assuming you’ve been running freelance off the radar since then.”

“What about the Bureau?” he said. “Where else are they looking for me?”

“Everywhere,” I said.

He adjusted his grip and locked his elbows. “I know who you are, too, Cross. You live on Fifth Street. No reason I can’t make a stop there tonight, too. Understand?”

I felt a rush of anger. “I’m not messing with you. We’ve been grasping at straws. Why do you think we don’t have a whole team here?”

“Not yet you don’t,” he said. The sirens were definitely getting closer, though. “What else? You’re still alive. Keep talking.”

“You killed your partner, Mitch.”

“Not what I’m asking about. Give me something I can use,” he said. “Last chance, or you won’t be the only Cross to die tonight.”

“For God’s sake, if I had something, I’d tell you!”

The first police cruiser came screaming up the block down below.

“Looks like your time’s up,” he said.

A gun fired – and I flinched before I realized it wasn’t Hennessey’s. His eyes opened wide. A line of blood rolled onto his upper lip, and he collapsed straight down in front of me, as if someone had just dropped his strings.

“Alex?”

I looked to the right. Max Siegel was standing on the roof of the next building, lit from behind by a small shaft of light from the stairwell. His Beretta was still up and pointed my way, but he lowered it when I turned to him.

“You okay?” he called.

I stepped on Hennessey’s wrist and took the Walther out of his hand. There was no pulse at the neck, and his eyes were like blank saucers. He was gone. Max Siegel had taken him out and saved my life.

By the time I stood up again, the street was filling fast. Besides the sirens, I could hear doors slamming and the squawk of police radios. The block was locked down, but I still needed to go and find my Glock.

Siegel appeared to stare after me as I headed for the door. I owed him a thank-you, to say the least, but the street noise would’ve swallowed my words, so I just flashed a thumbs-up for now.

All good.

Chapter 107

IT RAINED THE NEXT MORNING. We had planned to do our big press briefing outside but ended up moving it to the Daly Building lineup room instead. A hundred reporters, maybe more, had shown up for this thing, and we put a live audio feed in the lobby for the spillover and also for any latecomers.

Max and I sat at a table at the front with Chief Perkins and Jim Heekin from the Directorate. The sound of camera shutters was everywhere, most of them pointed at Max and me. We were most definitely the odd couple.

This was one of my famous moments. I’d had a few before. There would be a couple of weeks of constant interview requests, maybe a book offer or two, and definitely some number of reporters waiting outside my house when I got home that night.

The briefing started with a statement from the mayor, who took about ten minutes to explain why all of this meant we should vote for him in the next election. Then the chief gave a rundown of the basics of the case before we opened up the floor to questions.

“Detective Cross,” a Fox reporter asked right out of the gate, “can you walk us through the events of what happened on that roof last night? A real blow-by-blow? Only you can tell that story.”

This was the “sexy” part of the case – the stuff that sells papers and ad space as well. I gave an answer that was short enough to keep things moving along but detailed enough to keep them from spending the next hour hounding me about how it feels to come face-to-face with a cold-blooded killer.

“So, would you say that Agent Siegel saved your life?” someone followed up.

Siegel leaned into his mike. “That’s right,” he said. “Nobody takes this guy out but me.” They gave him a good laugh for that one.

“Seriously, though,” he went on, “we may have had our bumps in the road, but this investigation is a perfect example of how federal and local authorities can work together in the face of a major threat. I’m proud of what Detective Cross and I accomplished here, and I hope the city’s proud of us, too.”

Apparently even Siegel’s good side had a huge ego. But I was in no mood to be picky or small. If he wanted the face time, he could have it.

I held back for the next several questions, until inevitably someone asked, “What about motive? Can you tell us definitively at this point that Talley and Hennessey were operating on their own? And for what reason?”

“We’re looking into all possibilities,” I said right away. “What I can tell you is that the two gunmen responsible for the Patriot sniper killings are now deceased. The city should go back to normal. As to any open aspects of the investigation, we have no comment at this time.”

Siegel looked at me but kept his mouth shut, and we moved right along with our dog and pony show.

The full truth, which we would never share with the press, was that we had plenty of reasons to believe Talley and Hennessey had been following someone else’s game plan. Maybe we’d find out whose, and maybe we wouldn’t. If I’d had to guess that morning, I would have said this case was as closed as it was going to get.

It happens. A lot of police work is about skimming the bottom layers off things without ever getting to the top. In fact, that’s exactly what the people at the top count on. The ones who work for them – the guns for hire, the thugs, the street criminals – those are the ones who absorb most of the risk, and all too often they’re the only ones who take the fall.

Something about “foxes in the henhouse” comes to mind.

Chapter 108

AFTER TWO MORE DAYS of boring and exhausting paperwork, I took a long weekend and spent some time playing what the kids like to call Ketchup. Mostly it’s just me turning off my cell and hanging out with them as much as possible, although Bree and I did sneak away for a few blessed hours on Sunday afternoon.

We drove up to a place called Tregaron, in Cleveland Heights. It’s a huge neo-Georgian mansion on the Washington International School campus, available for rentals in the summer months. We got a tour from their tightly wound community relations director, Mimi Bento.

“And this is the Terrace Room,” she said, walking us in from the grand foyer.

It was a parquet-floored hall with brass chandeliers, open to a canopied patio at the back. Beyond that were the pristine gardens and a view of the Klingle Valley. Not too shabby. Beautiful, actually. And classy.

Ms. Bento checked her leather folio. “It’s available August eleventh, twenty-fifth, or… next year, of course. How many guests were you thinking?”

Bree and I looked at each other. It seemed weird that we hadn’t thought about this in much detail, but we hadn’t. We wanted to keep it somewhat small, I guess. It was all kind of new for us.

“We’re not sure yet,” Bree said, and the corners of the woman’s mouth turned down almost imperceptibly. “But we definitely want the ceremony and reception in the same place. We’d like to keep everything relatively simple.”

“Of course,” she said. You could just see the dollar signs getting smaller in her eyes. “Well, why don’t you look around a little more, and I’ll be in the office if you have any questions.”

Once she was gone, we walked outside to see the terrace. It was a perfect spring day, and easy to imagine a wedding happening here.

“Any questions?” Bree said.

“Yes.” I took her hand and pulled her in. “Is this where we’d have our first dance?”

We started swaying right there while I hummed a few bars of Gershwin in her ear. No, no, they can’t take that away from me…

“You know what?” Bree said suddenly. “This place is absolutely gorgeous. I love it.”

“Then it’s settled,” I said.

“Except I think we should skip it.”

I stopped dancing and looked at her.

“I don’t need to spend the next few months thinking about what color the invitations are going to be or who’s going to sit next to who,” she said. “That’s someone else’s wedding, not mine. Not ours. I just want to be married to you. Like now.”

“Now?” I said. “Like – now?”

She laughed and reached up to kiss me. “Soon anyway. After Damon comes home from school. What do you think?”

I didn’t have to think. All I needed out of this wedding was for it to be exactly what Bree wanted – fancy mansion or Washington courthouse, I didn’t care. As long as she was there.

“After Damon comes home, then,” I said, and sealed the deal with another kiss. “Next question: do you think we can sneak out the back, or do we have to tell Mimi?”

Chapter 109

THE BACKYARD WAS BEAUTIFUL, the way everyone did it up for us. Sampson, Billie, and the kids had put little white lights in the trees, and candles everywhere you looked. There was jazz in the air, and a dozen high-backed chairs arranged on the patio for the friends and family we’d invited on short notice.

The kids stood up with us for the ceremony – Ali, with the rings; Jannie, beaming in the beautiful white dress we’d let her splurge on; and Damon, looking like a taller and much more self-aware and confident version of the kid we’d dropped off at Cushing last fall.

As for Bree, no surprise, she was stunning in a simple white strapless dress. Simple and perfect in my eyes. She and Jannie had the same little white flowers in their hair, and Nana sat proudly in the front row with a single hibiscus tucked over her ear and a sparkle in her eyes that I hadn’t seen in the last few years.

At six thirty sharp, our pastor from St. Anthony’s, Dr. Gerry O’Connor, nodded to Nana that it was time to start the proceedings. She’d made one request for today – that she be allowed to offer up a convocation of her own sort.

“I believe in marriage,” she said, standing up to address the group. You could hear the church in her voice already. “More specifically, I believe in this marriage.”

She came over to where Bree and I were standing and took each of us by the hand. “You two haven’t asked me for this, but I’m giving you to each other tonight and I am so honored to do it.

“Bree, I never knew your parents, God rest their souls, but I have to believe they’d be pleased as punch to see you marrying my grandson. This man is a good man,” she said, and I could see a few rare tears brimming in her eyes. “He’s my one and only, and I don’t share that lightly.

“And you,” she said, turning to me. “You have hit the jackpot here, mister.”

“Don’t have to tell me that,” I said.

“No, but when did that ever stop me? This woman is love, Alex. I can see it on her face when she looks at you. I can see it when she looks at the children. I can even see it when she looks at loquacious, silly old me. I’ve never known a woman more generous with her spirit. Have you?” she asked the larger group, and they all came back with a decisive “No!” or, in a few cases, “No, ma’am!”

“That’s right,” she said, and leveled a bony finger at me. “So don’t ever mess it up!”

She sat back down while everyone else was still laughing, many of us through our own tears. Just a few words, but she seemed to have covered everything beautifully.

“All yours, Pastor,” she said.

And when Dr. O’Connor opened his book to begin, and I took in that circle of smiling faces around me – my best friend, John Sampson; my grandmother; my beautiful children; and this amazing woman, Bree, whom I’d come to realize I couldn’t even imagine trying to live without – I knew that his first two words could not have more perfectly captured everything that was in my heart and mind at that exact moment.

Those words were “Dearly Beloved.”

Chapter 110

THE BEST PARTY EVER lasted long into the night. We didn’t skimp on the food, bringing in a friend’s catering company for endless amounts of jerk pork, coconut rice, fried plantains, and something Sampson had decided to call a Breelex. It was two kinds of rum, pineapple, ginger, and a cherry – or just pineapple, ginger, and a cherry for the kids, although Damon sampled the adult beverage once, that I know of.

Jerome Thurman jammed with his combo, Fusion, in the backyard, where there was plenty of dancing under the stars and even a little bad singing from me, after a Breelex or two. Or three. The kids said I was “pitchy” and “absolutely dreadful.”

We were all up bright and early the next morning, though. A cab took us to the airport for a flight to Miami, and then on to Nassau. At the other end, a limo picked us up and whisked us off to the aptly named One & Only Ocean Club.

Bree and I had seen this place in my favorite James Bond movie, Casino Royale, and I swore I’d get her here one day. The Bond jokes started as soon as we pulled into the familiar teardrop-shaped driveway, with the drool-worthy cars everywhere you looked.

“Cross,” she said as I helped her out of the limo. “Bree Cross.”

She’d surprised a lot of people, I think, by taking my name. It was entirely up to her, but I loved that she did. I liked hearing it as much as saying it.

“Dr. and Mrs. Cross, checking in,” I told the gracious, very welcoming woman at the front desk. Bree squeezed my hand, and we laughed like a couple of kids. Or maybe just a couple of newlyweds. “How soon do you think we can be out in that ocean in your backyard?”

“I’d say about three and a half minutes,” the woman told us, and slid our keys across the desk. “You’re all set here. That’s one double suite in the Crescent Wing and one ocean-side villa. Enjoy your stay.”

“Oh, we will!” Jannie had just come up behind us. Nana, Damon, and Ali were still outside ogling the white sand beach and turquoise water. It really was turquoise.

“Here you go, Miss J.” I handed her the suite key. “I’m officially putting you in charge of that, and we’ll see you guys for lunch tomorrow.”

“Daddy, I still think you’re crazy for bringing us,” she said, and leaned in as if she had a secret to tell. “But I’m really glad you did.”

“Me, too,” I whispered back.

Besides, it would still be a honeymoon. That’s what DO NOT DISTURB signs are for.

Chapter 111

OUR VILLA WAS the piece de resistance. Just like in the movies, as they say. There was a full wall of sliding louvered doors that opened up to a private terrace and infinity pool, with stairs leading down to the beach. The staff had placed fresh flowers everywhere, inside and out, and the mahogany California king bed alone probably cost a year’s salary.

“Yeah, this will do,” I said, closing the door to the outside world behind us. “Good enough for Double Oh Seven, and all that.”

“Oh, James, James,” Bree joked some more, pulling me down onto the bed. “Ravish me, James, as only you can.”

And that’s what I did. One thing very quickly led to another, and our immediate beach plans got moved to sometime in the future. Still, we did manage to work up an appetite. By the time we were on our feet again, the sun was dipping down and we were both ready for a great meal.

I’m not sure which was better that evening – the French-Caribbean food at Dune, the amazing bottle of Pinot Noir we ordered, or just the feeling of having nowhere else I needed to be for a change, nowhere else I wanted to be either.

We made a full night of it, too, and stopped at the casino at the Atlantis Resort after dinner for some blackjack. Bree was up for a while, then I was, but we left around midnight a few dollars in the hole. And who cared? Not us.

We walked back to our place the long way, holding hands along the beach.

“Happy?” I said to Bree.

“Married,” she said. “Happily married. It doesn’t even feel real yet. This is the real world, though, isn’t it? I’m not dreaming this, am I, Alex?”

I stopped to put my arms around her, and we stood watching the moon’s reflection bouncing off the ocean.

“You know, we still haven’t been in that blue, blue water yet,” I said. My fingers started in on the top buttons of her shirt. “Up for a night swim, Mrs. Cross?”

Bree looked around. “Is that a dare?”

“Just an invitation,” I said. “But I’d feel a little silly, all naked and alone out there.” She was already working on my pants.

We left our clothes on the sand and swam out. I could hear steel drums coming from the hotel somewhere, but it was as if we had the whole ocean to ourselves. We kissed in the water for a while and then ended up making love again, right there on the shore. It was a little risky, and sandy, but just the kind of danger I’ll take any day of the week.

Chapter 112

WE SLEPT IN LATE the next morning and took our time getting ready for the day. Bree was just looking over the room-service menu and I was pulling on a T-shirt when the phone rang. It was still early for the kids to be calling, but I didn’t mind. Actually I was looking forward to taking some razzing from them.

“Good morning!” I answered.

“Yes, it is.” Kyle Craig’s unmistakable voice wormed into my ear. “And how was the wedding?” he said.

I should have seen it coming. Should have taken more precautions. These calls had become a signature of Kyle’s.

Before I said another word, a plane roared overhead – and I realized with a sudden jolt that I could hear it over the phone, too.

I ran to the front window to look out. “Kyle? Where are you? What’s going on?”

“Did you notice I kept my promise?” he said. “I told you I’d let you get married, and I did.”

“Let me?”

There was no sign of him outside, but that didn’t mean anything, did it? He could have been hiding anywhere. Clearly, he was here. And close, too.

“And do you want to know why?” he asked.

My breath was heavy in my chest as I continued to check out the grounds. “No,” I said. “I don’t.”

“Because I believe in marriage,” he said, aping Nana’s voice. “Isn’t that what she said the other night?”

Suddenly I couldn’t breathe at all.

“And besides,” he went on, “a wife’s so much more fun to take from a man than a girlfriend. I’ve been patient, Alex, but it’s time to move on.”

“Move on? What the hell are you talking about?” I said, but I was afraid I already knew.

“Enlightenment, my friend,” he said. “Look down toward the water. See what you see.”

I threw back the glass door and looked out. It took me a second, but then I saw them.

Jannie and Ali were down on the beach, waving my way. A few steps behind them, somehow, impossibly, stood Max Siegel. He was in shades and a loud shirt, with a beach towel covering his right hand and a cell phone in the other. He smiled when he saw me, and then as his mouth moved, I heard Kyle Craig’s voice in my ear.

“Surprise,” he said.

Chapter 113

IT FELT AS if my heart stopped and then started up again. My mind was racing. Kyle must have had some kind of major procedure. His face wasn’t Kyle’s at all.

“That’s right,” he said. “Everything you’re thinking right now is true. Except for the part where you save everybody. That’s not happening.”

Farther up the beach, Nana was watching from under an umbrella. Damon, the only one not to have met Max Siegel, was on a lounge chair beside her, listening to his iPod.

“What do you think, kids?” Kyle said, putting some Siegel back into his voice. “Want to go give your dad a good-morning kiss?”

He pocketed the phone and took up Ali’s hand, making sure to show me a flash of whatever was under that towel. A gun of some kind.

God, no. This wasn’t happening.

We’d left our own weapons back in DC, very much on purpose. Now that seemed like a horrible mistake. I’d have to improvise. But how? Using what as a weapon?

I whispered fast and low to Bree as they came across the beach. There was no time to consider options. There was just my instinct, and a quick prayer that we got this right.

“Hey, Daddy!” Ali called out as they came toward the terrace stairs. He tried to pull ahead, but Siegel – Kyle! – kept hold of his hand. It was everything I could do to stay where I was.

Jannie ran ahead of them. “Can you believe Mr. Siegel is staying here, too?” she said, and kissed me on the cheek. “Is that crazy or what?”

“Unbelievable,” I said. Neither she nor Ali seemed to notice how hollow my voice sounded.

“Sorry to drop in like this,” Kyle said, as Max. He was grinning at me, daring me with his eyes, obviously wanting me to make some kind of move. And the voice – it wasn’t Kyle’s, but it was Kyle’s. How could I have missed the similarities before? It’s amazing how the brain follows what the eyes see – or don’t see.

“No problem,” I said. I kept the charade up for the kids’ sake and moved back inside. “Come on in. Bree’s taking a shower, but she’ll be right out.”

Kyle put a hand on Ali’s shoulder, and my stomach turned. “Why don’t you go and get her?” he said, smiling. “I’ll wait here with the kids. I’m sure she’d like to know I was here. What a coincidence. Is this crazy?”

Something like an electric charge passed between us – something a lot like hatred. “Bree?” I called out. I moved toward the bathroom with my eyes still on Kyle. “Can you come out here?”

For just a second, I poked my head in. “Max Siegel just dropped by,” I said, loud enough for his benefit.

Bree was slipping out of her T-shirt and sticking her head under the running water while we stared helplessly at each other.

“Be right there!” she called back.

I turned to face Kyle again. He was still holding on to Ali.

Jannie was sitting on the edge of the unmade bed, but now she was watching me intently. I think she had started to sense that something was wrong.

“She’ll be right out,” I said, as naturally as I could.

“Good,” Kyle said. “Then I’m going to take you all for a drive. Kids, you up for a little adventure?”

“Sure!” Ali said. Jannie stayed quiet. The whole time, Kyle kept his right hand covered with that towel, his gun out of sight.

When Bree came into the room, she was in bare feet and wearing one of the resort’s robes. You’d never know from watching her that she was just as scared and pumped up as I was.

“Max, good to see you,” she said, and extended a hand as she came toward him.

“Not as good as it is to see you,” he said, without hiding his pleasure anymore.

But then as they went to shake, Bree’s free hand whipped a small canister out of the pocket in her robe – the hair spray from the complimentary kit in the bathroom. She sprayed it in Kyle’s eyes. He yelled in pain, and with a second fluid motion, Bree kneed him in the groin.

At the same time, I took a glass decanter off the bar, where I’d positioned myself. I crossed the floor in three fast steps and swung as hard as I could. The heavy container smashed into Kyle’s jaw and nose. He crumpled to the floor. Shards of glass flew everywhere.

Ali screamed, but there was no time for explanation or soothing. Bree scooped him up as if he were weightless, grabbed Jannie’s arm, and got them out the door.

And I fell onto Kyle with everything I had.

Chapter 114

KYLE SWUNG HIS fist and caught me square in the jaw. A shock ran through my head, but I couldn’t swing back. I now had one hand on his wrist and the other on the gun he’d carried in.

I head-butted him instead, hard, where he’d already been cut. It was enough to wrench the weapon free. A Beretta nine millimeter. Max Siegel’s gun.

I scrambled backward on the floor, aiming it between his eyes, which he was rubbing at furiously, trying to see.

“Roll over!” I told him, getting to my feet. “Face down on the floor, hands away from your body!”

Kyle smiled. His eyes were practically bloodred, running with tears, but I knew that he could see me again.

“This is ironic,” he said. “I could have sworn you were lying that night in the car, but you really can’t pull that trigger, can you?”

“Not without a reason,” I said. “So either give me one, or roll over and kiss the floor – right now! Do it!”

“You know I don’t say this lightly, Cross, but fuck you.”

Suddenly, he did roll, too fast, and a shard of glass clenched in his hand crossed the space between us. I felt the muscle in my calf tear. My knee buckled. I was halfway to the ground before I knew what happened.

And Kyle was up on his feet.

He stumbled on his way out, and it probably saved his life. The one shot I managed to get off splintered the sliding door instead of his head, just before he jumped off the terrace and disappeared outside.

Chapter 115

I FIRED ONCE into the air as I came onto the beach. Anyone who wasn’t already moving out of Kyle’s way started scattering now. His gait was erratic. It was possible he had a concussion, but my leg wasn’t doing me any favors either. I had never seen a chase like this one.

Some people were screaming; others were pulling their kids out of the water. Then, without a clear shot, I could only watch as Kyle reached down and plucked a small boy, maybe two or three years old, off the ground before his mother could get to him.

The woman ran right at them, but Kyle clutched her boy over his torso like a shield.

“Get back!” he screamed. “Get back, or I’ll–”

“Take me!” The mother was on her knees, unable to come closer or turn away. “Take me instead!”

“Kyle, put him down!”

He turned to look at me then, and I was close enough to see the calm coming back into his eyes. He had the bargaining chip he needed, and he knew it.

“You came here for me, not this boy,” I said. “Let him go! Take me.”

The poor boy was sobbing and reaching out for his mother, but Kyle just hitched him up a little higher and held on even tighter.

“I’ll need that gun back first,” he said. “No more talk. Just set the gun down and back away. Three. Two–”

“Okay.” I started kneeling slowly. My leg was seizing up, and I could barely move it now. “I’m putting it down,” I said.

But I didn’t trust that boy’s life to Kyle’s word. So I took the chance I had to take. I turned the gun at the last second and fired low. The boy wasn’t big enough to shield Kyle top to bottom. My shot caught him just below the kneecap.

He howled like a wild animal. The boy dropped to the sand and then scrambled for his mother. Kyle tried to stand, but he could get up only on one leg – and only until I shot that one, too.

He flew back into the sand, his chest heaving with pain. His legs were a bloody mess now, and it felt good. I especially liked taking him down with his own weapon.

I saw Bree then, running toward us with two uniformed officers. She pointed Kyle out to them as they came, and then ran straight over to me.

“Oh my God.” She put an arm around me to take some of the weight off my leg. “Are you all right?”

I nodded. “He’ll need an ambulance.”

“It’s on the way,” one of the police officers said.

Kyle’s eyes were closed, but he opened them when my shadow crossed between the sun and his face.

“It’s over, Kyle,” I said. “For good this time.”

“Define ‘over,’” he wheezed. His breath was ragged, and he was shaking with pain. “You think you’ve won something here?”

“I’m not talking about winning,” I said. “I’m talking about putting you away where you can’t hurt anyone ever again.”

He tried to smile. “Didn’t stop me the last time,” he said.

“Well, you know what they say. The only thing worse than going into solitary is going back,” I said. “But maybe it’s just an expression.”

For possibly the first time ever, I saw something like fear in Kyle Craig’s eyes. It lasted only a second before he snapped back to the same rigid demeanor.

“This isn’t over!” he croaked, but he was already talking to my back.

The ambulance was just pulling up to where we were, and I wanted to warn the EMTs.

“Take care of him first,” I said, “but you need to be careful. This man is extremely dangerous.”

“We’ve got this, sir,” one of the policemen told me. “And I need you to surrender that weapon.”

I handed it over a little reluctantly, and Bree helped me down onto a lounge chair, where I could still keep an eye on things. In the meantime she grabbed a towel and wrapped it tightly around my leg.

Kyle didn’t bother to resist as the med techs gave him a drip and an oxygen mask, then cut away his pant legs. He’d lost a lot of blood. His face was paper white. I think the reality of going back to ADX Florence was really starting to sink in.

They got him onto a gurney and put the IV bag and oxygen tank between his legs so that they could lift everything up into the ambulance.

“You need to cuff him,” I called over to the cops. “And don’t let those EMTs ride alone!”

“Just calm down, sir,” one of them told me in an angry voice.

“I’m a police officer, and I know what I’m talking about,” I said. “This man’s wanted by the FBI, and you need to restrain him. Right now!”

“Okay, okay.” He motioned to his partner, and they walked over toward Kyle.

Almost as if the scene were in slow motion, I watched as the first cop stepped into the back of the ambulance. The cuffs came up – and then I saw Kyle reach for them, with the kind of channeled strength only a psychopath like him could muster in that condition. He used the cuffs to pull the officer down to him and, in a second, had the man’s gun in his hand.

Bree stood up instinctively to help, but I rolled off the lounge chair and pulled her down with me.

There was a gunshot, and then another.

Then the first of two loud explosions. We would find out later that a bullet had pierced Kyle’s oxygen tank.

It burst into a ball of flame inside the confines of the ambulance, followed quickly by the fuel tank.

The entire vehicle imploded with a blast that stunned my eardrums. Glass and metal flew more up than out, and a shower of sand rained down over us. People were screaming again.

When I raised my head, I saw that there was no question of survivors. The ambulance was a black carcass, with flames and dark smoke still rising into the air. Both police officers and both EMTs were dead.

And so was Kyle. By the time the fire was out and we got close enough to see his body, we realized that it was charred from top to bottom.

The face he’d invested so much in was completely unrecognizable, just a featureless black mask where the man used to be. In fact, not that much of him was even there anymore.

As to whether Kyle fired into that oxygen tank on purpose, I have to wonder. Maybe going back to solitary confinement was more than he could bear. Prison might have easily killed him in the end, and maybe Kyle knew that.

Maybe he was even trying to take me out with him as he went – one last effort to finish the job that, for whatever reason, he’d turned into his life’s work.

Actually, I think I know what the answers to all those questions are, but of course I’ll never know for sure. And maybe someday I won’t care anymore either.