Cross down, p.13
Cross Down, page 13
“At length.”
“Care to share?”
Justin smiles. “You’ve been straight with me since becoming chair, General. I’ll tell you this. She thinks you and others are overreacting, that you’re taking a cannon to go after a mosquito. She thinks the terrorist attacks are being conducted by loosely linked militia groups across the country and that a large, unwieldy organization like the committee you’re heading is too clumsy to respond quickly. She also thinks it’s setting a terrible precedent and will turn this nation into a security state.”
“That’s quite an opinion,” Grissom says.
“And what’s your opinion?”
Grissom feels anger rising up inside of him, and he knows what he’s about to say would probably be a career-ender in a normal world.
But the world hasn’t been normal for months. He’s been given a job to do by the president, and by God, he’s going to do it.
The general says, “With all due respect to Secretary Landsdale, she has no idea what she’s talking about. She has no tactical or strategic vision of how to deal with these terrorist attacks, and her theory is dead wrong.”
Justin’s hand moves quickly as he writes this down, then he looks up. “Uh, General, just to make sure I know the rules—this is still all on background, correct?”
Grissom makes another decision. “No. That last part is all on the record. Print it.”
Chapter
62
Bree watches Alex’s face as the doctors and nurses crowd around him, trying to keep him from slipping away.
A nurse looks up at the monitors and says, “Doctor, BP is still dropping, heart rate still increasing.”
The doctor says, “Quiet, everyone.”
Through the crowd standing around her Alex, Bree sees the doctor put a stethoscope on his chest. He shakes his head, removes the earpieces from his ears. “I’m not hearing any breath sounds in his left lung, and his trachea is deviated to the right. Is the chest tube clogged? He’s got another tension pneumo.”
The doctor looks at the monitors, shakes his head again. “We’ll do a needle decompression.”
More quick yet steady movement from the personnel around Alex, and Bree is bumped into a few times, but that doesn’t matter. She’s staying near Alex, where she belongs.
“Okay,” the doctor says when the nurse hands him a large needle. “Here we go.”
Bree watches, frozen, as the doctor swabs the skin below Alex’s left clavicle with an antiseptic solution and then inserts a needle straight into his chest.
There’s a hiss of air, and as one, the small group of medical personnel look up at the monitors.
A nurse says, “BP is increasing, heart rate is dropping, and pulse ox is up to ninety.”
“A close call, eh?” the physician says. “Now let’s get a new chest tube in place.” The nurses assemble the needed apparatus to do the job.
Bree closes her eyes and whispers a prayer, then takes Alex’s hand and squeezes it. She wants to believe that Alex squeezes her hand back, however slightly.
About fifteen minutes later, Bree is in the waiting room with Nana Mama and Ali. One of the ICU physicians, Dr. Tom Smith, comes in. He’s tired but looks pleased.
Bree, Nana Mama, and Ali are sitting in a row holding hands, and Dr. Smith sits in front of them. “What happened is this,” he says. “As we were weaning Alex off sedation to see if we could take him off the ventilator, his heart rate went up and his blood pressure began dropping.”
Nana Mama asks, “What does that mean?”
Dr. Smith says, “In this case, it meant that air was going into his chest cavity, not his lungs, and there was no way for that air to get out, so the pressure built up around his heart and prevented it from pumping. I did what the paramedics did—I inserted a needle to release that air, and once the pressure on his heart was relieved, it was able to pump normally. He’s in stable condition at the moment.”
Bree holds Ali’s and Nana Mama’s hands tight. “Sounds like a setback.”
A small nod. “I won’t lie to you,” he says, “it’s a setback, of course. We can’t take him off the ventilator at this point. In a day or two, we’ll try again. But I have to warn you, if we still have a problem then, we’ll have to take him back to the OR to figure out what the issue is.”
Bree says in a whisper, “Is he strong enough to go through surgery again?”
The doctor hesitates slightly, which tells Bree volumes. “We’ll have to see,” he says. “Any other questions?”
Bree looks to Ali and Nana Mama. “I think we’re all set for now,” Bree says.
“Good,” Dr. Smith says, standing up. “Alex is getting the best care in the world, I promise you that. Most likely, this is just a small bump in the road. If other questions come up, just ask one of the nurses to find me.”
He gives them a reassuring smile and leaves the room, and Nana Mama lets out a big sigh. “Ali, I have a hankering for a cool treat. Do you think you can show me the way to the cafeteria here so I can see if there’s ice cream?”
Ali’s face brightens. “Sure, Nana Mama. I know the way.”
He gets out of his chair and Nana Mama holds Bree’s hand a moment longer. “Can we bring anything back for you?” she asks.
Bree shakes her head. “Thanks, Nana Mama, but right now I can’t think of a thing.”
Alone now in the waiting room, she allows herself to sob for a few minutes, head in her hands, and then she stops, wipes her eyes with a tissue, and takes a deep breath.
So close. So very, very close.
Alex had been in danger before—he’d been shot at, threatened, nearly killed on a few occasions—but never anything as bad as this. Alex always joked that he was golden, a god (“Not the God, but a god”), and that none of the enemies he’d collected over the years could hurt him, but Bree knows better.
Gamble again and again, and eventually the house—Death—will win.
Bree whispers, “You come back to me, Alex Cross. I’ll take you even if you are a mere mortal.”
The door opens, and a man wearing a dark blue business suit, a white shirt, and a light yellow tie comes in. “Ms. Stone? A moment?”
She’s confused but then recognizes the man: Jacob Springer, the hospital’s director of security. A number of hours ago, the two of them had had a heated but eventually reasonable discussion about how Bree had come to be carrying a weapon on hospital property and why she’d shot the fake nurse who called herself Mary Mullen. Springer knows Alex and is a former DC Metro Police detective himself, which helped defuse the situation.
So far, Bree’s security firm hasn’t come up with the woman’s real identity, even with the clue of the Big Red One tattoo on her upper arm.
“Sure, Mr. Springer,” Bree says.
“It’s about the woman claiming to be Mary Mullen,” he says.
“Right,” Bree says. “She should be out of the OR by now. Can I talk to her?”
He shakes his head. “I’m afraid you can’t, Ms. Stone.”
“Why not?”
“Because she died in surgery.”
Chapter
63
In Atlanta’s West End, most of the streetlights are burned out. Waiting in a stolen black Pontiac G6 sedan are Humphrey, a former Atlanta cop who was let go after too many civilian complaints of excessive force, and George, a former Atlanta firefighter who lost his job after stripping the clothes off a rookie and tossing him into a firehouse shower as part of a hazing routine. (The fact that the aforementioned rookie was the nephew of a city councillor didn’t help George’s case.)
Each has an illegal sawed-off twelve-gauge shotgun in his lap. Inside the row house a few yards from them is a meeting of the local chapter of Black Lives Matter. The two of them plan to break up the meeting, and shotguns are the best weapons to use in close quarters. Pistols and submachine guns, while impressive as hell, can miss, even in a crowded room.
It’s not their plan; an anonymous person who seems to know and support their cause provided the money, the weapons, and the strategy.
The radio inside the Pontiac is on, and the president is speaking:
“My fellow citizens, I come to you tonight from this historic Oval Office, where so many of my predecessors have spoken to the American people about important issues facing this great nation…”
Humphrey says, “All right, enough of this fool. Let’s get the job done.”
“Works for me.”
“Since last April, our homeland has been under constant and deadly attack by terrorists unknown, funded by parties unknown, only united in their desire to kill our fellow citizens and wreak havoc in our daily lives…”
It’s night at a remote ranch near Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, when three men—Renaldo, Jesus, and Pharrell—take a break after carefully going through the forests surrounding the main farmhouse. All three men are in NVGs and heavily armed with automatic rifles that have flash and sound suppressors.
The building houses the largest neo-Nazi militia group in this part of the state, and these three men—who previously resided in Los Angeles, where many of their friends and family members were killed or wounded by this neo-Nazi militia—are getting ready to seriously cut down the group’s size.
It’s not their plan; an anonymous person who seems to know and support their cause provided the money, the weapons, and the strategy.
“How much more time, Renaldo?”
“Sixty seconds, jefe.”
“You sure you did a good job?”
Renaldo says, “Positive, jefe.”
The seconds slide by. For the past few weeks, Renaldo has frequently gone to this house, posing as a carpenter and gardener. He endured the taunts and insults from the tattooed residents as he prepped the place for what’s about to happen.
Pharrell sees blossoms of lights appear in the house. “Boom,” he whispers.
Preset explosive and incendiary devices go off, and those who are desperately trying to escape are learning the windows won’t open, and two of the home’s three doors are jammed shut.
Only the front door can be opened, and the figures tumbling out of it and running for safety are quickly cut down by the three men firing their automatic weapons.
“This nation has faced great challenges before, but this is the first time that we have suffered constant and nearly daily attacks across our homeland. Many of our fellow citizens have been brutally murdered, and many more grievously injured…”
In Boston, Massachusetts, a clinic offering reproductive services to poor women is blown up. In Lansing, Michigan, two leaders of a prominent anti-abortion organization who are sitting in their BMW at a traffic light are shot to death.
“I pledge to you tonight that your government will continue working diligently to prevent these attacks and to track down those responsible. The terrorists who are in our streets should know that they will face the full wrath and fury of the American people once they are identified…”
Random sniper fire breaks out in Seattle, Detroit, Austin, and El Paso. By the time dawn breaks in the continental United States, scores of American citizens are dead and nearly a hundred are wounded.
“Members of law enforcement, the military, and cybersecurity agencies have been working as one across the nation to meet this terrible challenge. Support them where you can, and report anything—anything at all—that seems suspicious…”
Justin Foote, national affairs reporter for the Washington Post, is in his small and overpriced condo in Georgetown, half listening to CNN’s broadcast of the president’s speech while working on a story that will appear in tomorrow’s paper and will blow this town and the nation apart.
His doorbell rings. He checks the time. His source—he hasn’t given her a funny name, like Deep Throat—is right on schedule. He gets up from his desk in the small second bedroom he’s converted into a home office, goes to the door, quickly looks through the peephole.
Yep, here she is, and apologies to General Wayne Grissom, but this source has been more forthcoming about what’s really going on in the shadows, and her leaks are the foundation of tomorrow’s story. “Come on in,” he says, and she nods and follows him back to his office, keeping her coat on. Justin says, “If you’ve got a moment, I’d like you to read the two paragraphs about how the funds for these attacks are obtained and laundered.”
“Certainly,” she says.
He sits down and says, “Here. Start on this paragraph.”
His source leans over his shoulder, and after a minute she says, “Justin, this is incredible. A grand story. Talk about a blockbuster.”
He can’t help himself; he smiles with pleasure at his source signing off on what he’s written. His laptop has a large screen, and the pages are sharp and clear.
Then he feels cold metal on the base of his neck, and the last words he hears are “Too bad nobody’s going to read it.”
There’s blood and brain spatter all over Foote’s laptop. She turns it off and shuts it. She sees he’s made her job easier by piling up his notebooks in one place, and she quickly packs them away.
Job done.
Time to leave.
The TV is still on.
“But tonight I ask you, the American people, to remain calm and keep trusting your friends and neighbors. The goal of terrorism is terror—to make us retreat from our lives, to make us suspicious and fearful of our countrymen. We are better than that. You are better than that. And I trust in the inherent goodness of the American people.”
Part Three
Chapter
64
After nearly ten hours of very fast driving—breaking only for two short naps and a quick phone call to FBI agent Ned Mahoney—I’m finally in Slocum, Vermont, where Elizabeth Deacon, our CIA tour guide, supposedly lives. I pull over and rub my eyes. I’ve had plenty to think about these past several hours, but one scene has been playing over and over in my mind.
Later, John.
My call to Ned went to his voice mail, so I left him a message: “Ned, check into the background of Harry Maynard, a Treasury enforcement agent, former Special Forces, former NYPD, contract worker with the NSA. He and three others ambushed me and Mel Carr a few hours ago. Mel got killed.”
I turn on a small flashlight—it’s still dark—and cup the beam in my hand so it doesn’t flare out and expose me. I scan the detailed map of Vermont I picked up at an all-night gas station just over the border from Massachusetts. It gives me a fair overview of the town of Slocum. A small squiggly line denotes Mast Road, where Deacon lives.
If the information I got from Bree is accurate. If someone from the CIA didn’t spoof Bree. If Deacon didn’t bail after seeing Ruiz’s bloody head displayed on our Zoom call.
Too many ifs.
I check the clock. Close to dawn.
I’m tempted to send her a text saying I’m coming, but I want to surprise her so she won’t decide to skip town before I arrive.
I remember Deacon was a light sleeper.
Time to see if that’s still true.
Mast Road is one lane, twisty and turning, flanked by two farms and a few houses and not much in the way of street numbers. No sidewalks, just stone walls topped by barbed wire or fences holding in cows or horses.
Deacon’s address is 9 Mast Road, but through stopping and starting and using my flashlight, I find just two mailboxes: 1 Mast Road and 11 Mast Road. I spend a few minutes puzzling over this and decide a small two-story home built in the Federal style must be hers.
I pull over about a hundred yards down the dirt road and get out of the stolen Lexus, again apologizing to the sweet young lady who’s the real owner. I grab my duffel bag in one hand and hold my Glock in the other and start walking.
It’s a long heavy walk. I’m thinking of Alex, of Willow, of Bree and the entire Cross family, and of the attacks, bombings, and snipers out there that are tearing this country apart.
I plan to get to the end of her driveway and send her a text saying Surprise, I’m here! Let’s talk. There’s a lightening of the sky to the east that promises the start of a new day and whatever bad news and horror it will bring.
Like what I see now.
About twenty yards from the driveway, I see a narrow line of bright red light come from near the mailbox. It ends with a red dot in the middle of my chest.
I stop. I call out, “Elizabeth, I certainly hope it’s you. John Sampson here.”
The dot doesn’t move.
Chapter
65
I’m relieved when I finally hear her familiar voice: “You alone?”
“I am.”
“Where’s Mel Carr?”
“Dead,” I say. “Back in North Carolina. You want to move your targeting laser, Elizabeth? It’s making me nervous.”
“What happened in North Carolina?”
“We were followed,” I say. “During that Zoom meeting, after Ruiz was killed, the fishing cabin we were in was attacked. Mel got shot.”
The little red dot remains centered on my chest.
Then moves away.
“You kill any of them?” she asks.
“Don’t think so,” I say. “We were pretty much outgunned.”
“Too bad. Come on up, we’ll grab some coffee and get the hell out of here.”
She emerges from a shelter of tree branches and camouflage fabric by the driveway. I join her on a walk to a breezeway connecting her garage to the house, and in the dawn light, I see she’s wearing a black jumpsuit, boots, kneepads and elbow pads, a bullet-resistant vest, and a ballistic helmet, and she’s carrying a cut-down M4 automatic equipped with night vision and a laser scope and a black duffel bag.
“Care to share?”
Justin smiles. “You’ve been straight with me since becoming chair, General. I’ll tell you this. She thinks you and others are overreacting, that you’re taking a cannon to go after a mosquito. She thinks the terrorist attacks are being conducted by loosely linked militia groups across the country and that a large, unwieldy organization like the committee you’re heading is too clumsy to respond quickly. She also thinks it’s setting a terrible precedent and will turn this nation into a security state.”
“That’s quite an opinion,” Grissom says.
“And what’s your opinion?”
Grissom feels anger rising up inside of him, and he knows what he’s about to say would probably be a career-ender in a normal world.
But the world hasn’t been normal for months. He’s been given a job to do by the president, and by God, he’s going to do it.
The general says, “With all due respect to Secretary Landsdale, she has no idea what she’s talking about. She has no tactical or strategic vision of how to deal with these terrorist attacks, and her theory is dead wrong.”
Justin’s hand moves quickly as he writes this down, then he looks up. “Uh, General, just to make sure I know the rules—this is still all on background, correct?”
Grissom makes another decision. “No. That last part is all on the record. Print it.”
Chapter
62
Bree watches Alex’s face as the doctors and nurses crowd around him, trying to keep him from slipping away.
A nurse looks up at the monitors and says, “Doctor, BP is still dropping, heart rate still increasing.”
The doctor says, “Quiet, everyone.”
Through the crowd standing around her Alex, Bree sees the doctor put a stethoscope on his chest. He shakes his head, removes the earpieces from his ears. “I’m not hearing any breath sounds in his left lung, and his trachea is deviated to the right. Is the chest tube clogged? He’s got another tension pneumo.”
The doctor looks at the monitors, shakes his head again. “We’ll do a needle decompression.”
More quick yet steady movement from the personnel around Alex, and Bree is bumped into a few times, but that doesn’t matter. She’s staying near Alex, where she belongs.
“Okay,” the doctor says when the nurse hands him a large needle. “Here we go.”
Bree watches, frozen, as the doctor swabs the skin below Alex’s left clavicle with an antiseptic solution and then inserts a needle straight into his chest.
There’s a hiss of air, and as one, the small group of medical personnel look up at the monitors.
A nurse says, “BP is increasing, heart rate is dropping, and pulse ox is up to ninety.”
“A close call, eh?” the physician says. “Now let’s get a new chest tube in place.” The nurses assemble the needed apparatus to do the job.
Bree closes her eyes and whispers a prayer, then takes Alex’s hand and squeezes it. She wants to believe that Alex squeezes her hand back, however slightly.
About fifteen minutes later, Bree is in the waiting room with Nana Mama and Ali. One of the ICU physicians, Dr. Tom Smith, comes in. He’s tired but looks pleased.
Bree, Nana Mama, and Ali are sitting in a row holding hands, and Dr. Smith sits in front of them. “What happened is this,” he says. “As we were weaning Alex off sedation to see if we could take him off the ventilator, his heart rate went up and his blood pressure began dropping.”
Nana Mama asks, “What does that mean?”
Dr. Smith says, “In this case, it meant that air was going into his chest cavity, not his lungs, and there was no way for that air to get out, so the pressure built up around his heart and prevented it from pumping. I did what the paramedics did—I inserted a needle to release that air, and once the pressure on his heart was relieved, it was able to pump normally. He’s in stable condition at the moment.”
Bree holds Ali’s and Nana Mama’s hands tight. “Sounds like a setback.”
A small nod. “I won’t lie to you,” he says, “it’s a setback, of course. We can’t take him off the ventilator at this point. In a day or two, we’ll try again. But I have to warn you, if we still have a problem then, we’ll have to take him back to the OR to figure out what the issue is.”
Bree says in a whisper, “Is he strong enough to go through surgery again?”
The doctor hesitates slightly, which tells Bree volumes. “We’ll have to see,” he says. “Any other questions?”
Bree looks to Ali and Nana Mama. “I think we’re all set for now,” Bree says.
“Good,” Dr. Smith says, standing up. “Alex is getting the best care in the world, I promise you that. Most likely, this is just a small bump in the road. If other questions come up, just ask one of the nurses to find me.”
He gives them a reassuring smile and leaves the room, and Nana Mama lets out a big sigh. “Ali, I have a hankering for a cool treat. Do you think you can show me the way to the cafeteria here so I can see if there’s ice cream?”
Ali’s face brightens. “Sure, Nana Mama. I know the way.”
He gets out of his chair and Nana Mama holds Bree’s hand a moment longer. “Can we bring anything back for you?” she asks.
Bree shakes her head. “Thanks, Nana Mama, but right now I can’t think of a thing.”
Alone now in the waiting room, she allows herself to sob for a few minutes, head in her hands, and then she stops, wipes her eyes with a tissue, and takes a deep breath.
So close. So very, very close.
Alex had been in danger before—he’d been shot at, threatened, nearly killed on a few occasions—but never anything as bad as this. Alex always joked that he was golden, a god (“Not the God, but a god”), and that none of the enemies he’d collected over the years could hurt him, but Bree knows better.
Gamble again and again, and eventually the house—Death—will win.
Bree whispers, “You come back to me, Alex Cross. I’ll take you even if you are a mere mortal.”
The door opens, and a man wearing a dark blue business suit, a white shirt, and a light yellow tie comes in. “Ms. Stone? A moment?”
She’s confused but then recognizes the man: Jacob Springer, the hospital’s director of security. A number of hours ago, the two of them had had a heated but eventually reasonable discussion about how Bree had come to be carrying a weapon on hospital property and why she’d shot the fake nurse who called herself Mary Mullen. Springer knows Alex and is a former DC Metro Police detective himself, which helped defuse the situation.
So far, Bree’s security firm hasn’t come up with the woman’s real identity, even with the clue of the Big Red One tattoo on her upper arm.
“Sure, Mr. Springer,” Bree says.
“It’s about the woman claiming to be Mary Mullen,” he says.
“Right,” Bree says. “She should be out of the OR by now. Can I talk to her?”
He shakes his head. “I’m afraid you can’t, Ms. Stone.”
“Why not?”
“Because she died in surgery.”
Chapter
63
In Atlanta’s West End, most of the streetlights are burned out. Waiting in a stolen black Pontiac G6 sedan are Humphrey, a former Atlanta cop who was let go after too many civilian complaints of excessive force, and George, a former Atlanta firefighter who lost his job after stripping the clothes off a rookie and tossing him into a firehouse shower as part of a hazing routine. (The fact that the aforementioned rookie was the nephew of a city councillor didn’t help George’s case.)
Each has an illegal sawed-off twelve-gauge shotgun in his lap. Inside the row house a few yards from them is a meeting of the local chapter of Black Lives Matter. The two of them plan to break up the meeting, and shotguns are the best weapons to use in close quarters. Pistols and submachine guns, while impressive as hell, can miss, even in a crowded room.
It’s not their plan; an anonymous person who seems to know and support their cause provided the money, the weapons, and the strategy.
The radio inside the Pontiac is on, and the president is speaking:
“My fellow citizens, I come to you tonight from this historic Oval Office, where so many of my predecessors have spoken to the American people about important issues facing this great nation…”
Humphrey says, “All right, enough of this fool. Let’s get the job done.”
“Works for me.”
“Since last April, our homeland has been under constant and deadly attack by terrorists unknown, funded by parties unknown, only united in their desire to kill our fellow citizens and wreak havoc in our daily lives…”
It’s night at a remote ranch near Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, when three men—Renaldo, Jesus, and Pharrell—take a break after carefully going through the forests surrounding the main farmhouse. All three men are in NVGs and heavily armed with automatic rifles that have flash and sound suppressors.
The building houses the largest neo-Nazi militia group in this part of the state, and these three men—who previously resided in Los Angeles, where many of their friends and family members were killed or wounded by this neo-Nazi militia—are getting ready to seriously cut down the group’s size.
It’s not their plan; an anonymous person who seems to know and support their cause provided the money, the weapons, and the strategy.
“How much more time, Renaldo?”
“Sixty seconds, jefe.”
“You sure you did a good job?”
Renaldo says, “Positive, jefe.”
The seconds slide by. For the past few weeks, Renaldo has frequently gone to this house, posing as a carpenter and gardener. He endured the taunts and insults from the tattooed residents as he prepped the place for what’s about to happen.
Pharrell sees blossoms of lights appear in the house. “Boom,” he whispers.
Preset explosive and incendiary devices go off, and those who are desperately trying to escape are learning the windows won’t open, and two of the home’s three doors are jammed shut.
Only the front door can be opened, and the figures tumbling out of it and running for safety are quickly cut down by the three men firing their automatic weapons.
“This nation has faced great challenges before, but this is the first time that we have suffered constant and nearly daily attacks across our homeland. Many of our fellow citizens have been brutally murdered, and many more grievously injured…”
In Boston, Massachusetts, a clinic offering reproductive services to poor women is blown up. In Lansing, Michigan, two leaders of a prominent anti-abortion organization who are sitting in their BMW at a traffic light are shot to death.
“I pledge to you tonight that your government will continue working diligently to prevent these attacks and to track down those responsible. The terrorists who are in our streets should know that they will face the full wrath and fury of the American people once they are identified…”
Random sniper fire breaks out in Seattle, Detroit, Austin, and El Paso. By the time dawn breaks in the continental United States, scores of American citizens are dead and nearly a hundred are wounded.
“Members of law enforcement, the military, and cybersecurity agencies have been working as one across the nation to meet this terrible challenge. Support them where you can, and report anything—anything at all—that seems suspicious…”
Justin Foote, national affairs reporter for the Washington Post, is in his small and overpriced condo in Georgetown, half listening to CNN’s broadcast of the president’s speech while working on a story that will appear in tomorrow’s paper and will blow this town and the nation apart.
His doorbell rings. He checks the time. His source—he hasn’t given her a funny name, like Deep Throat—is right on schedule. He gets up from his desk in the small second bedroom he’s converted into a home office, goes to the door, quickly looks through the peephole.
Yep, here she is, and apologies to General Wayne Grissom, but this source has been more forthcoming about what’s really going on in the shadows, and her leaks are the foundation of tomorrow’s story. “Come on in,” he says, and she nods and follows him back to his office, keeping her coat on. Justin says, “If you’ve got a moment, I’d like you to read the two paragraphs about how the funds for these attacks are obtained and laundered.”
“Certainly,” she says.
He sits down and says, “Here. Start on this paragraph.”
His source leans over his shoulder, and after a minute she says, “Justin, this is incredible. A grand story. Talk about a blockbuster.”
He can’t help himself; he smiles with pleasure at his source signing off on what he’s written. His laptop has a large screen, and the pages are sharp and clear.
Then he feels cold metal on the base of his neck, and the last words he hears are “Too bad nobody’s going to read it.”
There’s blood and brain spatter all over Foote’s laptop. She turns it off and shuts it. She sees he’s made her job easier by piling up his notebooks in one place, and she quickly packs them away.
Job done.
Time to leave.
The TV is still on.
“But tonight I ask you, the American people, to remain calm and keep trusting your friends and neighbors. The goal of terrorism is terror—to make us retreat from our lives, to make us suspicious and fearful of our countrymen. We are better than that. You are better than that. And I trust in the inherent goodness of the American people.”
Part Three
Chapter
64
After nearly ten hours of very fast driving—breaking only for two short naps and a quick phone call to FBI agent Ned Mahoney—I’m finally in Slocum, Vermont, where Elizabeth Deacon, our CIA tour guide, supposedly lives. I pull over and rub my eyes. I’ve had plenty to think about these past several hours, but one scene has been playing over and over in my mind.
Later, John.
My call to Ned went to his voice mail, so I left him a message: “Ned, check into the background of Harry Maynard, a Treasury enforcement agent, former Special Forces, former NYPD, contract worker with the NSA. He and three others ambushed me and Mel Carr a few hours ago. Mel got killed.”
I turn on a small flashlight—it’s still dark—and cup the beam in my hand so it doesn’t flare out and expose me. I scan the detailed map of Vermont I picked up at an all-night gas station just over the border from Massachusetts. It gives me a fair overview of the town of Slocum. A small squiggly line denotes Mast Road, where Deacon lives.
If the information I got from Bree is accurate. If someone from the CIA didn’t spoof Bree. If Deacon didn’t bail after seeing Ruiz’s bloody head displayed on our Zoom call.
Too many ifs.
I check the clock. Close to dawn.
I’m tempted to send her a text saying I’m coming, but I want to surprise her so she won’t decide to skip town before I arrive.
I remember Deacon was a light sleeper.
Time to see if that’s still true.
Mast Road is one lane, twisty and turning, flanked by two farms and a few houses and not much in the way of street numbers. No sidewalks, just stone walls topped by barbed wire or fences holding in cows or horses.
Deacon’s address is 9 Mast Road, but through stopping and starting and using my flashlight, I find just two mailboxes: 1 Mast Road and 11 Mast Road. I spend a few minutes puzzling over this and decide a small two-story home built in the Federal style must be hers.
I pull over about a hundred yards down the dirt road and get out of the stolen Lexus, again apologizing to the sweet young lady who’s the real owner. I grab my duffel bag in one hand and hold my Glock in the other and start walking.
It’s a long heavy walk. I’m thinking of Alex, of Willow, of Bree and the entire Cross family, and of the attacks, bombings, and snipers out there that are tearing this country apart.
I plan to get to the end of her driveway and send her a text saying Surprise, I’m here! Let’s talk. There’s a lightening of the sky to the east that promises the start of a new day and whatever bad news and horror it will bring.
Like what I see now.
About twenty yards from the driveway, I see a narrow line of bright red light come from near the mailbox. It ends with a red dot in the middle of my chest.
I stop. I call out, “Elizabeth, I certainly hope it’s you. John Sampson here.”
The dot doesn’t move.
Chapter
65
I’m relieved when I finally hear her familiar voice: “You alone?”
“I am.”
“Where’s Mel Carr?”
“Dead,” I say. “Back in North Carolina. You want to move your targeting laser, Elizabeth? It’s making me nervous.”
“What happened in North Carolina?”
“We were followed,” I say. “During that Zoom meeting, after Ruiz was killed, the fishing cabin we were in was attacked. Mel got shot.”
The little red dot remains centered on my chest.
Then moves away.
“You kill any of them?” she asks.
“Don’t think so,” I say. “We were pretty much outgunned.”
“Too bad. Come on up, we’ll grab some coffee and get the hell out of here.”
She emerges from a shelter of tree branches and camouflage fabric by the driveway. I join her on a walk to a breezeway connecting her garage to the house, and in the dawn light, I see she’s wearing a black jumpsuit, boots, kneepads and elbow pads, a bullet-resistant vest, and a ballistic helmet, and she’s carrying a cut-down M4 automatic equipped with night vision and a laser scope and a black duffel bag.
