Cross Fire ак-17

by James Patterson

  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 accom
plished. 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.