Джеймс Паттерсон - Criss Cross

The dispatcher answered, and I described the situation. “Keep your son awake,” she told me after I said there was a possible head injury.

I shook Ali lightly, and he opened his eyes a little.

“Stay with me, pal.”

He smiled lazily. “Dad?”

“Right here,” I said, and I held his hand.

“Ambulance ETA two minutes, Dr. Cross,” the dispatcher said.

“Is this a dream, Dad?”

Though I knew I had to be calm and collected for his sake, that question broke me in a way I’d never expected, and I choked out, “No. No, Ali. This is no dream. You’re here, and I’m here.”

Tears rolled down his cheeks as his grin broadened.

“I knew we’d make it,” he said. “Right, Mrs. J.?”

“You never doubted it,” the woman said. “Even when I did.”

Sirens wailed down our street.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” I said. “Who are you?”

“Diane Jenkins,” she said. “I live in Ohio.”

My jaw sagged a moment before I smiled in disbelief and said, “Of course. We’ve been looking for you.”

“Can I call my husband?”

“Right after we get you some medical help.”

“Dad?” Ali said as two ambulances wailed and sped down our street toward us.

“Right here,” I said, squeezing his hand.

“Mrs. J. is really good with a blowtorch.”

“It was his idea,” she said.

Ali’s eyes started to wobble closed.

“C’mon, stay awake, pal,” I said, shaking him again.

“I really wanna sleep, Dad. I’m tired. We’ve been up all night.”

“I know you do,” I said, stroking his cheek. “But I need you to stay awake a little longer.”

“Do I get to ride in an ambulance?” he said as the sirens whooped up beside the camper and stopped.

“You do,” I said, feeling more love for him than I’d thought possible.

“You should see your face, Dad,” he said, smiling and licking his lips as the EMTs came to the door behind me.

“I know,” I said, tearing up again. “The happiest father alive.” “We’re coming in,” the medic said.

I let go of my son’s hand.

His eyes widened. “Don’t leave.”

“Don’t worry, pal,” I said. “Dad will be with you every step of the way.”

CHAPTER 107

TWO DAYS LATER, on the third floor of the neurology unit at Georgetown University Medical Center, an orderly wheeled Diane Jenkins on a gurney toward me. Her right arm was in a cast; her leg was heavily bandaged.

Her husband, Melvin, walked at her side. He came straight to me and shook my hand. “I’m sorry for the things I said to you, Dr. Cross.”

“Water under the bridge,” I said, then I looked at his wife. “You gave us quite a scare with that leg.”

She shook her head. “I’d never heard of compartment syndrome, but the surgeon said I’m lucky I didn’t lose it below the knee. How is Ali?”

I smiled. “Concussion, but no skull fracture. The gash is what caused all the blood and made it look so bad. And he was exhausted. Do you want to see him?”

“How could I not?”

I looked over at Bree, Ned Mahoney, and John Sampson, who were waiting down the hall outside a hospital room. The orderly pushed Mrs. Jenkins toward them.

Melvin Jenkins gazed at me, apparently uncomfortable. “Look, Dr. Cross, I’m deeply, deeply grateful Diane’s alive. And, well, I’m wondering if we have any idea where he put the five million dollars I borrowed?”

I put my hand on his arm. “We do. And I’m sure the person who has it will return it to you once she understands that the money went to her to throw us off M’s trail and implicate her in his crimes.”

Jenkins’s shoulders relaxed, and he hugged me. “Thank you. Shall we go in?”

I patted him on the back. “Melvin, I’d appreciate it if you’d watch on the feed. I need to do this alone.”

You could tell he didn’t want to leave his wife, but he nodded. “Right next door?”

“Right next door.”

He went to join the others inside an adjoining room set up with monitors so they didn’t miss a thing. The orderly pushed Mrs. Jenkins through the next door down. Before I entered Ali’s room, I paused outside, bowed my head, and for the thousandth time thanked God for the miracle of his survival.

They’d been giving my son fewer and fewer drugs the past day, bringing him slowly up out of a tranquilized state the doctors wanted him in while they assessed the extent of his injuries. He was semi-upright in his bed, and as alert as I’d seen him.

“Mrs. J.!” he said when he saw Diane Jenkins. “Why’s your leg like that?”

“I bashed it good enough to pinch the blood supply, and it got all swollen, so they cut it open to fix it and drain it,” she said. “It’s still draining.”

He gave her a slightly disgusted look that made her laugh.

“We’re alive,” she said. “Thanks to you, young man.”

Ali looked at me. “Mrs. J. did as much as I did.”

I held up both hands. “That’s why you’re both here. I want to hear everything. From the beginning.”

CHAPTER 108

DIANE JENKINS SAID THAT ONthe day she disappeared, there had been a man hidden in the back of her car. He clamped a gloved hand across her mouth, and the last thing she remembered clearly was being terrified and getting jabbed in the neck with a needle.

She remembered being in multiple places before the anthill but had trouble recalling much about any of them or saying how much time had passed, though she did have recollections of a vehicle he used to transport her from one place to the next.

Mrs. Jenkins woke up for good in the workroom in Rivers’s bunker, her hands zip-tied in front of her, and the doors locked from the outside. There was water, food, and no way out. Her wedding and engagement rings were missing.

She said she’d screamed for a while, but no one came. Sometime later, a day, maybe two, but well after the effects of whatever she’d been knocked out with had finally worn off, she awoke to find M bringing in Ali, who was drugged, bound, and unconscious. She’d begged M to let them go, but he’d ignored her and locked them both inside.

“I didn’t know what to do,” she said. “But Ali did.”

Ali said that he thought he was meeting Captain Abrahamsen after school, but M had pulled up in a Suburban. He was wearing U.S. Armed Forces biking gear and said he rode for the team with Abrahamsen and that the captain had had an emergency meeting and sent him.

“I know it was stupid, but he was wearing the same uniform as Captain Abrahamsen, so I got in. I was looking out the window for my friends, and he stuck a needle in my leg. That’s the last thing I remember until that room he kept us in.”

Ali said he was initially frightened and then confused and angry when he realized he’d been duped by the texts. “But after that, I was only thinking of a way to escape.”

“It’s true,” Mrs. Jenkins said. “He became … obsessed.” “Sounds familiar,” I said, and I winked at Ali, who went on. Even with his wrists bound, Ali had managed to go through every cabinet and drawer in the workshop, and he found all sorts of things, including a hammer, a chisel, a portable drill with bits, three headlamps and two extra batteries, a hacksaw with two replacement blades, an old watch that was still running, and a new acetylene torch still in its box, along with a small tank of the gas.

Ali had wanted to use the torch immediately to cut their way out. The instructions were in the box. How hard could it be? But Mrs. Jenkins had pointed out how small the gas tank was and wondered whether it would be enough to take down the steel door.

They decided instead to first weaken the hinges and the handle mechanism with the other tools and then finish the job with the torch. Using the watch, Ali kept track of M’s comings and goings and found their captor was checking on them roughly every twenty-four hours or so, consistently between two and three thirty a.m.