Cross down, p.10
Cross Down, page 10
Chapter
45
Maynard is in McLean, Virginia, sitting on a picnic bench near a McDonald’s playground, doing his best to ignore the cheerful sounds of the kids playing as he updates the Boss on the past twenty-four hours.
When he’s done, the Boss says, “We’ve an emerging situation and I want you to take care of it. Personally. Especially since the hit on Sampson was a failure.”
“Absolutely, sir,” Maynard replies, feeling good that the Boss isn’t blaming him for that mess, three unidentified dead men found in a small motel in rural North Carolina. Even made goddamn CNN.
The Boss says, “Sampson has met up with an army buddy of his from Fort Bragg. It looks like they’re getting the band back together, the survivors who went to Afghanistan. Their reunion needs to be terminated quickly and efficiently.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Pick three of your finest. I’ll contact you in a few hours with the target situation. I want you on Sampson. When other members of that Afghan unit make themselves known, I’ll assign teams to them as well.”
“Very good, sir. But what about Alex Cross? Today’s mission didn’t get the job done.”
“His time will come in another day or two. Anything else?”
“No, sir,” he says.
The Boss disconnects, and Maynard starts eating his Quarter Pounder with Cheese, in his opinion one of the finest burgers in the land, no matter what the prissy foodies say. All Maynard knows is that a Quarter Pounder in Virginia tastes the same as one in California, and that’s a fine achievement indeed.
As he eats his lunch, Maynard thinks, The Boss’s voice is really starting to irritate me. He’s been working for the Boss for more than two years, preparing this operation, doing the planning, sweating, and bleeding to get to this point, and he’s had enough. He wants to know who the hell the Boss is and what his credentials are. He thinks of the voice synthesizer the Boss uses. Supposedly it’s impossible to clean it up to get to the real voice, but from his years working at the National Security Agency, Maynard knows there are back doors to all sorts of encryption that will allow him to run a recording of the voice through software and hear the real voice.
He looks at his phone. According to the Boss’s orders, it should be a low-tech burner phone. But today it’s not. It’s a government-issue device from where he once worked, and it has astounding abilities.
Time to find out who the hell he’s working for.
Chapter
46
We take a break at mile marker 142 on I-95 north at a rest area with a pleasant-looking one-story wooden building with a peaked white roof; it wouldn’t look out of place in New England.
Mel is working his phone, trying to reach out to other military personnel who were with us on our secret cross-border mission to Afghanistan, and I get out of the car and call Bree Stone for a variety of reasons.
She picks up after one ring and says, sobbing, “Oh, John, I wish you were here.”
My heart feels like a chunk of granite and I feel sweat pop out at the base of my neck. “Tell me what’s going on with Alex.”
Another muffled sob. “He’s okay. He’s doing all right. But a few hours ago, somebody tried to kill him in his bed in the ICU.”
Happy families and travelers swirl around me while I stand at the entrance to the rest stop. Bree tells me the details of what happened earlier this morning at George Washington University Hospital, how the assassin has only one form of legitimate ID—her Big Red One tattoo—and how Bree’s people at Bluestone Group are trying to track down her real identity.
When she takes a breath, I say, “Where’s Alex now? Have they moved him?”
“No, he has to stay in the ICU. There’s now a Metro Police checkpoint in the corridor outside the ICU, and there’s an officer in his room twenty-four/seven. That idiot officer who let the would-be killer in is going to end up in the traffic bureau, if he’s lucky. How are you?”
One hell of a question, and I’m not about to tell her what happened to me at the motel. I say, “I’m coming back north with an army buddy of mine, Sergeant Mel Carr. We’re tracking down some information that might help us get to the source of these terror attacks. And the shooting of Alex.”
“Good. You be safe now.”
“Safe as I can,” I say. “How’s Willow?”
“Good, though she misses her daddy,” Bree says. “And after Alex got shot yesterday, I arranged for my firm to send security personnel to her school.”
I choke up for a moment. Willow has been on my mind nearly every minute since I left her at the Cross home, and now I feel better about her safety. I say, “Can you go to the Bluestone Group favor bank one more time for me?”
“Yes, of course,” Bree says. “What do you need?”
“I need a current phone number and address for Elizabeth Deacon,” I say. “Two years ago she was an officer with the CIA. I don’t know where she is now, but it’s vital I get in contact with her.”
“Got it, John,” she says. “Anything else?”
“Not at the moment,” I say. “And you be safe as well.”
A harsh chuckle. “I nearly killed a woman who was threatening Alex. Don’t you worry about me.”
Chapter
47
Just after the SUV crosses the border from Virginia into North Carolina, Maynard hears his driver, Cameron, say, “Ah, shit.”
“What’s up?” he asks.
“Flashing blue lights behind us, that’s what,” Cameron says.
Maynard doesn’t make the rookie mistake of swiveling in his seat and alerting the cop that the front-seat passenger is nervous enough to look back; instead, he glances at the Ford Explorer’s side-view mirror.
A North Carolina highway patrol cruiser is coming right up on their ass.
In the rear seat are Juarez and Roccilli, good men he can trust. Juarez says, “What now, boss?”
“What do you think?” Maynard says. “Cameron, pull over. And how fast were you going when you spotted the blues back there?”
“About eighty-one,” he says.
“Fool,” Roccilli says from the rear seat.
“All right, stay cool,” Maynard says. “Juarez, hand me that blanket. You and the others get ready. And for Christ’s sake, Cameron, look cheerful when the trooper asks for your license and registration.”
After pulling her silver and black Dodge Charger over behind the Explorer with Virginia plates, Belinda Gorman calls in the stop to dispatch, then steps out, puts on her dark gray campaign hat, and approaches the vehicle.
As she passes the tail end of the SUV, she gently presses her hand against the smooth black metal, a reminder from her training days that job number one is going home safe and sound after the shift is over, something she’s kept close to her heart for the past seven years. She has a lot to go home to: her husband, Raymond—who works from home for Atrium Health’s IT department—and their three-year-old twin boys, Peter and Paul. But if the worst happens, at least she’s left a handprint on the vehicle to prove she was here, despite what any future defense lawyers might say.
Belinda walks up to the driver’s side of the SUV as the window comes down. She’s pleased to see the driver has both hands on the steering wheel. Nice way to proceed with a traffic stop. Right hand on her holstered SIG Sauer .357 pistol, she notes that the vehicle has four occupants. “Afternoon, sir,” she says. “License and registration, please.”
“Certainly, ma’am,” the driver says, and in that instant, Belinda notices something odd about the four men in the SUV. All are wearing orange earplugs, like the ones you use on a firing range.
She starts to move back as the front passenger drops a blanket from his lap and raises a sawed-off pump-action shotgun, and the orange-yellow light blossoming from the end of the barrel is the last thing she sees.
A few minutes later, as Cameron is back driving on I-95, Maynard holds out his hand for everyone’s orange foam earplugs. Once he has them all, he lowers his window and scatters them to the breeze that clears out the smell of the burned gunpowder.
He rolls up the window and says, “Cameron, take the next exit, let’s find a car wash.”
“I don’t think there’s any blood or brains on us,” he says.
“Don’t care,” Maynard says. “I care about the handprint that cop put on the back of our vehicle. Need to get that cleaned off. And since you’re responsible for this little dustup, you’re going to find new plates to replace the Virginia ones. Got it?”
Cameron’s face flushes but he instantly says, “Yes, sir.”
“And another thing,” Maynard says. “When I say to stick to the speed limit, stick to the fucking speed limit. You got that?”
Cameron says nothing but the two men in the rear laugh.
Chapter
48
We decide to stop at a fishing camp belonging to a friend of Mel’s. It’s a fifteen-minute drive from the interstate to a bumpy dirt access road for a few houses and cottages on an isolated lake.
It’s starting to get dark, and I keep the Cherokee’s headlights on as Mel goes up a set of worn wooden steps, picks up a corner board, and retrieves a key. Once he opens the door of the house, I drive the Cherokee down the dirt road a bit, find a vehicle-size opening in the trees, and back it in. Crickets chirp and a nearly full moon is rising in the east as I walk back to the cottage.
We store our gear and I check the place out. Single story, combination kitchen/living area, two large bedrooms, a bathroom, and an enclosed porch looking out onto the placid lake.
Each of us takes a brisk shower; I’m pleasantly surprised to find clean and fluffy towels, and when I mention that, Mel says, “What, you think we’re barbarians out here?” I see Bree has texted me the information about Elizabeth Deacon, our CIA escort when we crossed into Afghanistan two years ago.
I call Deacon, and her initial response is “How in the hell did you get this number?” But eventually I convince her to have a Zoom meeting with us and another member of the Afghanistan team.
Mel and I sit at the kitchen table on metal and plastic chairs likely bought at a yard sale about half a century ago. In front of us is Mel’s laptop, which a nephew set up with multiple VPNs and other goodies so it’s untraceable.
Our heads share one screen, Elizabeth Deacon joins us from Vermont on another screen, and a former Eighty-Second Airborne sergeant, Paco Ruiz, joins us from rural Pennsylvania on a third screen. Ruiz has a black goatee now and looks to have put on a few pounds since I last saw him. Deacon wears her blond hair in the same short style, and she stares out at us with cold blue eyes that tell you nothing other than that they’ve seen a lot of bad things.
Deacon wastes no time taking charge. “Just to remind you all, this call is not encrypted, so be careful what you say. And make it quick. I’ve got an appointment I can’t miss.”
Ruiz smiles. “Zoom call with the CIA director?”
“No,” she says, not smiling. “A town meeting. I chair the budget committee. John, you’ve called us together, now make your case.”
I review the basics, from the months of terrorist attacks that have plagued the country to Mel receiving the odd indication from one of his fellow soldiers that these attacks had something to do with our little trip two years back. Supposedly we witnessed something there that has to do with the current troubles.
Ruiz rubs his goatee and says, “That was a while ago. How about Ortiz and Powell? Have you talked to them?”
Mel says, “Both are dead. Officially suicides, but I’ve got a good CID source that says they were murdered and for some reason it’s being broomed. That leaves us and Bastinelli.”
Ruiz looks stunned. Then he says, “Where the hell is Bastinelli?”
There’s a pause before Deacon says, “He’s turned prepper and lives in New Hampshire, off the grid.”
Mel says, “Anybody remember anything we did or saw that might be relevant?”
Two years. Lot of water under the proverbial bridge. Back then I was a married man, and now I’m a widower.
Some of my memories about that classified trip remain a bit fuzzy. But a scene crystallizes in my mind: Canvas tents, men and women in medical garb working hard to save some wounded civilians.
Ruiz says, “I remember hearing a couple of rumors about a village from our local guides, but it had nothing to do with our mission so I didn’t pay much attention.”
I ask, “What did they say?”
Ruiz says, “That a village had been destroyed a few klicks from near where we crossed the border.”
“Destroyed as in bombed?” I ask.
“Destroyed as in flattened from one end to the other, nothing left but broken stone, timber, dust, and the bodies of the villagers and their animals. Our guides heard about it and thought we had done it.”
Mel says, “Bullshit. No strike missions since the pullout, just classified missions like ours.”
Deacon says, “I heard the same rumor from the locals and dismissed it just like you. We would have been briefed if an attack package had been delivered in our vicinity. It couldn’t have been our forces.”
I say, “But suppose that somehow, somewhere, forces under our control mistakenly destroyed that village and killed innocents. Maybe that’s the connection to the terrorist attacks. A revenge mission, some sort of jihad.”
Ruiz says, “Two years later?”
“C’mon,” I say. “Tribes up in those mountains have been bearing grudges and swearing blood oaths since the Brits marched in two centuries ago. What’s two years to avenge an injustice?”
Deacon slowly nods, and I think, She knows something. She knows something.
Outside, I hear the hooting of owls.
Ruiz says, “John, what about you?”
I say, “I remember coming across an aid camp over the border. Anybody else?”
Mel says, “Hold on, yeah, give me a minute.”
Ruiz says, “Don’t waste that minute.”
Chapter
49
Maynard and his armed crew are in position, wearing tactical gear, ballistic helmets, and vests that say in loud yellow letters NCSBI SWAT—NCSBI is for North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation. If Maynard were a grateful sort of guy, he’d thank Sampson for bringing his army pal to a location so remote, there’s only one streetlight in the area.
Maynard raises a fist and gives a quick pump, and they move quietly and deliberately through the darkness and across the dirt road to the cottage where Sampson and his army friend are staying.
Too bad that in about thirty seconds, Sampson won’t be alive to hear any thanks.
Chapter
50
The look on Deacon’s face reminds me of something I saw on the highly classified and remote airfield in Tajikistan where we were stationed in tents on wooden floors. I’d just met Deacon but I’m certain that the expression she wears today is identical to the one she had while talking to a two-star army general not long before we crossed over to Afghanistan.
What was that general’s name? Why was he there? I say, “Elizabeth, anything to add? Any intelligence reports or sources indicate that these domestic attacks might be someone trying to get revenge?”
“No, not a word.” She says it so quickly and confidently that I’m sure she’s lying.
On the Zoom screen, Ruiz’s head starts to slide away, and Mel calls out, “Hey, Paco, secure your camera. Looks like you’re about to pass out and sink to the floor.”
His hand reaches out, and the screen returns to its earlier position. “Considering what we’re talking about, getting drunk and hitting the floor might be a good idea. What next, guys?”
I say, “We all meet with General Grissom and his interagency team.”
At my side, Mel says, “Sounds good. Elizabeth?”
She shrugs. “Can’t hurt, I suppose. When?”
I look at my watch. “Based on what I know about them, they’re probably meeting right now, and they’ll schedule another session for tomorrow morning. Plenty of time for you and Ruiz to haul your asses to DC.” I check out Ruiz but the screen has shifted once more; the camera is pointing at the ceiling.
Mel says, “Jesus, Paco, fix your screen again, will you?”
Something seems off.
Something sounds off.
The owls outside have stopped their hooting.
I hear a creak of a wooden step outside the door.
The screen belonging to Ruiz is shifting again, and his face appears.
His eyes are wide open.
The camera lowers, lowers, until the raw stump of his neck appears, dripping blood in long streams.
Chapter
51
In front of the cottage, Maynard holds up a hand. He’d thought about NVGs, but with the moonlight, it’s bright enough.
He turns and points to Cameron, who hustles up to a window, grabs a flash-bang grenade off his vest, pulls the pin, punches in the window, and tosses the device inside.
“Go!” Maynard says in a sharp whisper, and they move almost as one.
Chapter
52
Things move quickly.
Mel and I take out our weapons; I slam the computer lid shut and heave aside the kitchen table as I hear the sound of glass smashing.
A small cylindrical object hits the floor. “Flash-bang!” I yell.
The explosion rocks the cottage, and even with my eyes covered and my body turned away, the bright flare of the grenade gets through.
