Merry Christmas, Alex Cross

CHAPTER 29

I felt someone shaking me. I jerked awake and was surprised to see Detective McGoey standing in a weak, pale light.

“It’s Fowler,” he said. “A couple of minutes ago it sounded like he was going rhino in there, and Nu was getting ready to give his men the go to assault when Fowler answered the phone, finally. He’s asking for you, Alex.”

I nodded, sat up, shook the cobwebs from my head. “Time is it?”

“Six fifteen,” McGoey said.

“I slept for four hours?” I said.

“There was no reason to wake you until now,” he said.

I nodded dumbly, followed him toward the front of the van and Ramiro, who held out a phone to me. “This is Cross,” I said.

“I’m disappointed in you” announced Fowler’s voice. “Very disappointed.”

“Why?”

“You betrayed me. I’ve been looking out my windows. You’ve got me surrounded by an army.”

“That’s the way it usually works when you’re armed to the teeth and you don’t talk to us,” I said.

“Are they coming in after me? Are they going to shoot their way in?”

“Unless you talk to us.”

“Coming in here would be a mistake,” he said. “All you would find are bodies around the Christmas tree, mine included.”

“But you’ll talk to me?” I asked. “Help me try to figure out a way to avoid that?”

He didn’t reply, but he didn’t hang up either.

“Is Dr. Nicholson still alive?” I asked.

“Barry?” he shot back. “Sure, he’s alive. But he’s got a hell of a stomachache.”

“Let him go,” I said. “Let me come in there with another unarmed officer and get him.”

“No,” Fowler said. “I’m enjoying his suffering.”

“Then let someone else in there go. One of your children.”

Silence, and then he said, “A goodwill gesture, isn’t that what you said it would be?”

“That’s right.”

“Wish granted,” he said. “I’m sending out the only one in this house I really care about.”

Nu knocked on the wall, signaled me toward the van’s side window. I got up, saw the front door open. A black Labrador retriever with a red bow around its neck slunk out, and it startled and began to run away, its tail between its legs, when the door slammed shut.