James PATTERSON - Cross Fire

Likewise, this run-down neighborhood was not a place he’d choose to spend a lovely spring afternoon. It was the kind of locale that kept white liberal guilt alive and well in America, just never enough that anyone actually did something about it.

All of which was neither Kyle’s problem nor his concern right now.

He ambled up the street slowly, making a point of arriving outside the Southeast Community Center just before four thirty. Word was that they were giving out Wizards tickets today, along with the latest “Just Say No” inculcation for the kiddies. Even some of the roughest boys had shown up, and a stream of them came running out through the double glass doors just as Kyle approached the squat redbrick building.

One boy in particular caught his eye. He bypassed the front steps and jumped off a low wall, then stopped to drop the wrapper off a 3 Musketeers bar before continuing up the street.

Kyle followed, close enough to register on the boy’s radar but far enough back that they’d be well out of earshot before anything happened.

A block and a half later, the boy stopped short and turned around quickly. He was still chewing the candy bar, and he spoke around it.

“Man, whatha fuck you comin’ up on me like that?”

He was child-young, but there was nothing resembling fear in those brown doe eyes of his. The sneer on his face was a carbon copy of every other wannabe gangster who trawled these miserable streets for a living.

The boy lifted the hem on his too-long white undershirt and showed a black leather-wrapped hilt of a knife that probably went halfway down his skinny leg. “You got somethin’ to say, punk?” he asked.

Kyle smiled approvingly. “It’s Bronson, right? Or do you prefer Pop-Pop?”

“Who wants to know?” His instincts were good – and he was just stupid enough. Bronson pulled the knife out a little farther, to show off some steel.

Kyle angled himself away from the street and opened his own jacket. Inside was a compact Beretta pistol, holstered at his side. He took it out and held it by the barrel, with the grip toward the boy.

Little Bronson’s pupils dilated – not with fear but with sudden interest.

“I’ve got a nice job for you, little man, if you’re up to it. You want to earn five hundred dollars?”

BALLISTICS WERE IN. This was the report everyone had been waiting for, and I scheduled it to coincide with that day’s Field Intelligence Group conference call. On the line, we had the whole team from MPD, as well as people from FBI, ATF, Capitol Police – just about everyone was dialed into this case by now.

Reporting in, we had Cailin Jerger, from the Forensic Analysis Branch at the FBI lab in Quantico, and Alison Steedman, who was with their Firearms-Toolmarks Unit.

After a few quick introductions, I handed the call over to them.

“Based on fragments in all three victims’ skulls, I can tell you conclusively that the same weapon was used every time,” Jerger told the group. I’d gotten most of this in the morning, but it was news to almost everyone else on the call. “A 7.62 caliber can trace back to dozens of weapons, but given the nature and distance of these shots, we believe we’re looking at a high-grade sniper system. That brings it down to seven possibilities.”

“And it gets better from there,” Agent Steedman joined in. “Four of those seven are bolt-action rifles. By all accounts, the first two victims, Vinton and Pilkey, went down within two seconds of each other. That’s too fast for bolt-action, which leaves three semiautomatic possibilities – the M21, the M25, and the newer M110, which is state of the art. We can’t rule any of those out, but these shots were all taken at night into variable lighting conditions, and the M110 comes with a thermal optical site, standard.”

“All of which is to say that your shooter is likely to be very well equipped,” Jerger said.

“How hard is it to put your hands on an M110?” I recognized Jim Heekin’s voice from the Directorate of Intelligence.

“They’re made in only one place,” Steedman told us. “Knight’s Armament Company in Titusville, Florida.”

I’d already been tracking this, so I spoke up here.

“So far, all of Knight’s stock is accounted for,” I said. “But once these systems hit the field, mostly in Iraq and Afghanistan, they can and do go missing. Souvenirs from the war, that kind of thing. So they’re pretty much impossible to trace.”

“Detective Cross, this is Captain Oliverez at Capitol Police. Didn’t your report say the fingerprints you found on Eighteenth Street were nonmilitary?”

“Yes,” I said. “But we’re not ready to rule out a military connection, in terms of how the weapon might have been procured and how it’s been used. In fact, that brings up another point.” I’d been sitting on this one for half a day, but really it made no sense not to share it with the group now.

“Let me stress something here,” I said. “I want to keep this out of the press until we have some kind of proof either way. I know it’s like herding cats – there’s a lot of us on this call – but I’m counting on your discretion across the board here.”

“Whatever happens in Vegas…,” someone joked, and there were a few soft laughs.

“The point is this,” I said. “All of these systems we’re talking about are crew-served weapons. The military model is one shooter and one spotter in the field.” I could hear people on the line mumbling to one another in their various conference rooms. “So you can see where I’m going here. It could be shades of two thousand two all over again. We’re probably not looking for a single shooter anymore. Most likely, we’re looking for a two-man team.”

AS SAMPSON AND I came out of the conference room, we found Joyce Catalone from our Communications Office standing outside the door.

“I was just going to pull you out,” she said. “I’m glad I didn’t have to.”

I looked at my watch – four forty-five. That meant at least three dozen reporters were downstairs, waiting to grill me for their five and six o’clock news cycles. Damn it – it was time to feed the beast.

Joyce and Sampson walked down with me. We took the stairs so she could run through a few things for me to consider on the way.

“Keisha Samuels from the Post wants to do a profile for the Sunday magazine.”

“No,” I told her. “I like Keisha, she’s smart and she’s fair, but it’s too early for that kind of in-depth piece.”

“And I’ve got CNN and MSNBC both ready to give this thing thirty minutes in prime time, if you’re ready to sit down.”

“Joyce, I’m not doing any special coverage until we have something we want to get out there. I wish to hell that we did.”

“No prob,” she said, “but don’t come crying to me when you want some coverage and they’ve moved on to something else.” Joyce was an old hand in the department and the unofficial mother hen of Investigative Services.

“I never cry,” I said.

“Except when I get you on the ropes,” Sampson said, and threw a punch my way.

“That’s your breath – not your punches,” I told him.

We’d reached the ground floor, and Joyce stopped with her hand on the door. “Excuse me, Beavis? Butt-Head? We ready to focus, here?” She was also excellent at her job and great to have as backup at these daily press briefings, which could get kind of hectic.

Did I say “kind of”? A buzzing swarm of reporters came at us the second we hit the front steps of the Daly Building.

“Alex! What can you tell us about Woodley Park?”