James PATTERSON - Cross Fire

He took a step back then, out of arm’s reach.

“To tell you the truth, I just wanted you dead and out of the way. But now that you’re here, I’m giving you thirty seconds to tell me what you’ve got on me,” he said. “And I’m not talking about what’s already in the papers.”

“No, I don’t imagine you are,” I said. “You want to know how deep you need to go before you can disappear again.”

“Twenty seconds,” he said. “I might even let you live. Talk to me.”

“You’re Steven Hennessey, aka Frances Moulton, aka Denny Humboldt,” I said. “You were with U.S. Army Special Forces until two thousand two, most recently in Afghanistan. There’s a grave in Kentucky with your name on it, and I’m assuming you’ve been running freelance off the radar since then.”

“What about the Bureau?” he said. “Where else are they looking for me?”

“Everywhere,” I said.

He adjusted his grip and locked his elbows. “I know who you are, too, Cross. You live on Fifth Street. No reason I can’t make a stop there tonight, too. Understand?”

I felt a rush of anger. “I’m not messing with you. We’ve been grasping at straws. Why do you think we don’t have a whole team here?”

“Not yet you don’t,” he said. The sirens were definitely getting closer, though. “What else? You’re still alive. Keep talking.”

“You killed your partner, Mitch.”

“Not what I’m asking about. Give me something I can use,” he said. “Last chance, or you won’t be the only Cross to die tonight.”

“For God’s sake, if I had something, I’d tell you!”

The first police cruiser came screaming up the block down below.

“Looks like your time’s up,” he said.

A gun fired – and I flinched before I realized it wasn’t Hennessey’s. His eyes opened wide. A line of blood rolled onto his upper lip, and he collapsed straight down in front of me, as if someone had just dropped his strings.

“Alex?”

I looked to the right. Max Siegel was standing on the roof of the next building, lit from behind by a small shaft of light from the stairwell. His Beretta was still up and pointed my way, but he lowered it when I turned to him.

“You okay?” he called.

I stepped on Hennessey’s wrist and took the Walther out of his hand. There was no pulse at the neck, and his eyes were like blank saucers. He was gone. Max Siegel had taken him out and saved my life.

By the time I stood up again, the street was filling fast. Besides the sirens, I could hear doors slamming and the squawk of police radios. The block was locked down, but I still needed to go and find my Glock.

Siegel appeared to stare after me as I headed for the door. I owed him a thank-you, to say the least, but the street noise would’ve swallowed my words, so I just flashed a thumbs-up for now.

All good.

IT RAINED THE NEXT MORNING. We had planned to do our big press briefing outside but ended up moving it to the Daly Building lineup room instead. A hundred reporters, maybe more, had shown up for this thing, and we put a live audio feed in the lobby for the spillover and also for any latecomers.

Max and I sat at a table at the front with Chief Perkins and Jim Heekin from the Directorate. The sound of camera shutters was everywhere, most of them pointed at Max and me. We were most definitely the odd couple.

This was one of my famous moments. I’d had a few before. There would be a couple of weeks of constant interview requests, maybe a book offer or two, and definitely some number of reporters waiting outside my house when I got home that night.

The briefing started with a statement from the mayor, who took about ten minutes to explain why all of this meant we should vote for him in the next election. Then the chief gave a rundown of the basics of the case before we opened up the floor to questions.

“Detective Cross,” a Fox reporter asked right out of the gate, “can you walk us through the events of what happened on that roof last night? A real blow-by-blow? Only you can tell that story.”

This was the “sexy” part of the case – the stuff that sells papers and ad space as well. I gave an answer that was short enough to keep things moving along but detailed enough to keep them from spending the next hour hounding me about how it feels to come face-to-face with a cold-blooded killer.

“So, would you say that Agent Siegel saved your life?” someone followed up.

Siegel leaned into his mike. “That’s right,” he said. “Nobody takes this guy out but me.” They gave him a good laugh for that one.

“Seriously, though,” he went on, “we may have had our bumps in the road, but this investigation is a perfect example of how federal and local authorities can work together in the face of a major threat. I’m proud of what Detective Cross and I accomplished here, and I hope the city’s proud of us, too.”

Apparently even Siegel’s good side had a huge ego. But I was in no mood to be picky or small. If he wanted the face time, he could have it.

I held back for the next several questions, until inevitably someone asked, “What about motive? Can you tell us definitively at this point that Talley and Hennessey were operating on their own? And for what reason?”

“We’re looking into all possibilities,” I said right away. “What I can tell you is that the two gunmen responsible for the Patriot sniper killings are now deceased. The city should go back to normal. As to any open aspects of the investigation, we have no comment at this time.”

Siegel looked at me but kept his mouth shut, and we moved right along with our dog and pony show.

The full truth, which we would never share with the press, was that we had plenty of reasons to believe Talley and Hennessey had been following someone else’s game plan. Maybe we’d find out whose, and maybe we wouldn’t. If I’d had to guess that morning, I would have said this case was as closed as it was going to get.

It happens. A lot of police work is about skimming the bottom layers off things without ever getting to the top. In fact, that’s exactly what the people at the top count on. The ones who work for them – the guns for hire, the thugs, the street criminals – those are the ones who absorb most of the risk, and all too often they’re the only ones who take the fall.

Something about “foxes in the henhouse” comes to mind.

AFTER TWO MORE DAYS of boring and exhausting paperwork, I took a long weekend and spent some time playing what the kids like to call Ketchup. Mostly it’s just me turning off my cell and hanging out with them as much as possible, although Bree and I did sneak away for a few blessed hours on Sunday afternoon.

We drove up to a place called Tregaron, in Cleveland Heights. It’s a huge neo-Georgian mansion on the Washington International School campus, available for rentals in the summer months. We got a tour from their tightly wound community relations director, Mimi Bento.

“And this is the Terrace Room,” she said, walking us in from the grand foyer.

It was a parquet-floored hall with brass chandeliers, open to a canopied patio at the back. Beyond that were the pristine gardens and a view of the Klingle Valley. Not too shabby. Beautiful, actually. And classy.

Ms. Bento checked her leather folio. “It’s available August eleventh, twenty-fifth, or… next year, of course. How many guests were you thinking?”

Bree and I looked at each other. It seemed weird that we hadn’t thought about this in much detail, but we hadn’t. We wanted to keep it somewhat small, I guess. It was all kind of new for us.

“We’re not sure yet,” Bree said, and the corners of the woman’s mouth turned down almost imperceptibly. “But we definitely want the ceremony and reception in the same place. We’d like to keep everything relatively simple.”