James PATTERSON - Cross Fire

“Seriously?” he said.

“Seriously.”

“I don’t know if I believe you.”

I shrugged. “What do you want me to say?”

“That you’re a human being. Come on, Alex. You can’t get by in this business without at least a little walk on the dark side.”

“Absolutely,” I said. “Been there, done that. I’m just saying, I wouldn’t pull the trigger.” Whether or not it was true, I really wasn’t sure. I just didn’t want to go there with Siegel.

“Interesting,” he said, and turned back to face the front door of the Midlands. “Very interesting.”

ALEX WAS LYING through his teeth. He was a good liar, but he was lying. If he had any idea he was sitting across from Kyle Craig right now, that Glock would be out in a heartbeat, and one round shy a second later.

But that was the whole point, wasn’t it? Cross didn’t have a clue. Any doubts about that were well behind them. This couldn’t possibly be more delicious, could it? No, it could not.

Kyle sipped his coffee and went on. “That’s what this is all about, isn’t it?” he said offhandedly. Interesting – Siegel’s speech and inflection were now more natural to him than his own.

“What do you mean?” Cross asked.

“The whole ‘foxes in the henhouse’ thing. The good guys and the bad guys, all mixed in together. The line between good and evil isn’t so clear anymore.”

“That’s true,” Cross said. “More for the Bureau than the PD, though.”

“I mean everywhere,” Kyle said. “The crooked congressman. The greedy son of a bitch CEO who just can’t get by on that first ten million. Hell, embedded terror cells. What’s the difference? They’re all out there, right under our noses, living next door. It’s as if the world used to be black and white, and now it’s all just gray, if you squint a little.”

Alex was staring now. Right into his eyes. Was he finally tuning in?

“Max, are you talking about Steven Hennessey here? Or yourself?”

“Huh-oh,” Kyle-Max answered, and shook a finger at him. “I didn’t even see you switch hats. Very slick, Dr. Cross.”

And Alex just laughed. It was amazing, really. Kyle had managed to make Cross hate Max Siegel, and now, with the turn of a few screws, Kyle was well on his way to making Alex into a true-blue fan of the smart but obnoxious agent.

Who knows – Siegel might have gotten all the way to an invitation for family dinner or some such thing, at the rate this was going. But then something happened that even Kyle hadn’t expected.

A bullet came through the windshield.

SIEGEL AND I were both out on the pavement and behind our doors at the same time. I heard another shot hit the grille, and then a sickening thud as one hit Siegel’s side of the car.

“Max?”

“I’m okay. Not hit.”

“Where’s it coming from?”

My Glock was out, but I didn’t even know where to point it. My other hand was dialing 911 while my eyes scanned the buildings around me.

“One of those two,” Max said, pointing at the Midlands and the place just north of it.

I looked up at Hennessey’s apartment again – still dark, with the windows closed. Rooftops were his thing anyway. Wasn’t that true?

“Hello? Are you there?” said someone on my phone. “This is Nine-One-One Emergency. Can you hear me?”

“This is Detective Cross, MPD. We have an active shooter at Twelve Twenty-one Twelfth Street Northwest. I need immediate assistance, all available units!”

Another shot exploded a planter and a second-floor window directly behind me, one after the other. I heard a scream come from inside an apartment.

“Police!” I shouted for anyone who could hear. “Stay down!” At least half a dozen people were still out on the sidewalk, scrambling for cover, and there was no way to keep more from coming along the walkway on the road.

“We’ve got to do something. We can’t just stay here. Someone’s going to get shot,” said Max.

I looked at him across the driver’s seat. “If he’s using a scope, and we move fast, he might not be able to keep up.”

“Not with both of us anyway,” he said grimly. “Take the Midlands. I’ll get the next one up.”

This was completely outside of protocol. We should have waited for backup, but with the potential for so much collateral damage, we weren’t willing to delay any further.

Without another word, Siegel came out of his crouch and sprinted across the street. I wouldn’t have thought he had it in him.

I counted to three to put some space between us, then started running with my head down. Another window shattered somewhere behind me. I barely noticed. My only focus right now was on getting to the other side of that apartment building’s front door – and then getting inside after Hennessey.

ONCE INSIDE, I took the stairs. It was ten flights to the roof, but I’m in pretty good shape. Adrenaline did its job, too.

A few minutes later, I was coming out on top of the Midlands. It was a strange deja vu – a lot like the other night at the museum.

I swept my Glock left and right – nothing. No one behind the door either.

I’d come out through a utility room, and the walls were blocking my view of the Twelfth Street side of the building. That’s where Hennessey would have been shooting from if he was here.

Sirens were wailing in the distance; with any luck, they were headed my way.

I pressed my back against the wall and moved slowly to the corner, weapon first.

The street side of the roof, though dimly lit, looked deserted to me. There were a couple of folding lawn chairs and a steel barrel lying on its side.

No sign of Hennessey, though.

I came to the edge and looked out. Twelfth Street was quiet down below. Other than the Bureau car with its doors open and a patch of broken glass on the ground, there wasn’t any indication of what had just happened.

A few people were even walking by, oblivious to the damage.

Then, as I leaned out for a better look, my foot hit something that made a small, metallic clinking sound. I took out my Maglite and pointed it at the ground to see what it was.

Shell casings. Several of them.

My pulse spiked, and I turned around – right into the barrel of a Walther nine millimeter.

The man with his finger on the trigger, presumably Steven Hennessey, held the pistol up about an inch from my forehead.

“Don’t move,” he said. “Not a goddamn muscle. I won’t miss from this distance.”

HE’D DONE A pretty good job of changing his appearance – glasses, dark hair, clean-shaven. Enough to let him move around the city anyway.

And probably enough to walk away from here unrecognized, too, I realized. It was all starting to fall into place.

“Hennessey?”

“Depends who you ask,” he answered.

“You left that anonymous tip at the Bureau yourself, didn’t you?” I said. This whole thing was a setup, I felt sure, and we’d given him exactly what he wanted – a quiet surveillance detail by the people who knew the most about him. Whether he’d been trying to kill us in the car or draw us closer, I still didn’t know.

“And look what I caught,” he said. “Now, I want you to reach back slowly and drop that Glock right off the roof.”

I shook my head. “I’ll throw it over there. I can’t put this thing in the street.”

“Sure you can,” he said. The tip of his Walther was cool when he pressed it into my forehead. Presumably he’d been using something bigger a few minutes ago.

I reached back and let the Glock fall. When it smacked onto the concrete below, my stomach clenched.