Merry Christmas, Alex Cross

CHAPTER 102

Omar Nazad sat in the cab of the van, feeling his stinging hands and feet begin to thaw, and stared through the windshield at the one hundred and twenty cubic yards of snow and ice that still lay between him and M Street.

He and the Algerians had broken up and removed at least that amount in the past three hours. They were still only halfway to the road. They hadn’t eaten in twelve hours. And they hadn’t had anything to drink for six. The snow they put in their mouths seemed to make them even thirstier.

“Inshallah,” the Tunisian kept muttering to himself. The will of Allah. It is God’s will that we must suffer and sacrifice and suffer again in order to defeat His enemies. This is a gift, somehow. A blessing.

“We should leave, brother,” Mustapha said from the passenger seat.

“I agree,” Saamad said. “Leave while we still can.”

Nazad looked at them like they were mad. “Leave the best weapon the Family’s ever had? No. That is not what God wants.”

“But what if Allah wants us to get caught and sent to prison?” Saamad demanded.

“Shut up,” Nazad said. He was sick of the Algerians, how quick they were to cut and run. It had to be the French influence.

“I have to eat something, drink something,” Mustapha complained.

“I can’t help you.”

“Maybe there was food in that shed,” Saamad said. “Water too.”

Nazad looked at him again. “You didn’t search the entire place?”

Mustapha shrugged. “The shovels and picks were right by the door.”

Moments later they were all following the path the Algerians had taken to the toolshed earlier. The door hung open on its hinges, flapped in the wind. They went inside, flashed their lights, and saw a portable generator, half a dozen power tools, a jackhammer, three sledgehammers, more picks, a row of hard hats, a surveyor’s transom, and a cooler. Mustapha and Saamad went straight to the cooler, yanked it open, and cried out in delight.

Saamad grabbed a granola bar and a frozen bottle of Gatorade, shook them at Nazad. “Allah be praised! Food and drink, brother.”

“And a jackhammer!” Mustapha cried.

But the Tunisian paid them no mind. He was staring at a metal box attached to the wall and sealed with a Master Lock. On instinct, he retrieved one of the sledgehammers and tried to break the lock, but he couldn’t. He looked closely at the other tools now at his disposal and smiled.

Nazad started the generator. Then he plugged in a Benner-Nawman rebar cutter. He fit the hasp of the lock into the jaws of the cutter and flipped it on. The jaws bit and snapped it in less than a second.

The Algerians had been gnawing on frozen granola bars while he worked. Only when Nazad set the cutter down and pulled open the door to the box did Mustapha become interested.

“What do you find in there, brother?” he asked.

The Tunisian was beaming already, feeling blessed once again by God. The first thing his headlamp had revealed in the box was a row of keys hanging on hooks, all neat and orderly and tagged.

The first key on the right said CAT D6K.