James PATTERSON: Cross Country

“A drive in the country, Alex. This is so romantic,” Bree said as we plunged forward through the muck. She was good at keeping things upbeat, no matter what the circumstances.

“I’m always thinking of new things for us to do.”

“You’ve outdone yourself this time. Trust me on that.”

I finally spotted Sampson talking to the truck’s driver as we got out of the car. Behind the two of them and a ribbon of crime scene tape, I could see yellow sheets covering the six bodies where they had been found.

Two parents and four more kids here. That made four adults and seven children in just the past few days.

Sampson walked over to brief us. “Garbage truck started on the empty streets this morning and made stops all over midtown. Forty-one dumpsters at eighteen locations, some of them as close as a few blocks from the mosque. That’s a shitload of follow-up work for us.”

“Any other good news?” I asked him.

“So far, only the bodies have been found. No word on the heads.” We hadn’t released that so far to the press: all six of the victims had been decapitated.

“I love my job, I love my job,” Bree said quietly. “I can’t wait to get to work in the morning.”

I asked Sampson where the father’s body was, and we started there. When I pulled back the sheet, the sight was horrific, but I didn’t need an ME to tell me that the cutting was much cleaner this time. There were no extraneous wounds: no bullet holes, no slashes, no punctures. Plus, the lower body had been burned badly.

Senseless murders, but probably not random, I was thinking.

But what did the Ahmed killings have to do with Ellie and her family?

“We’ve got some similarities and some real differences here,” Sampson told us. “Two families taken out suddenly. Multiple perps. But one behind closed doors, the other outside a mosque. Heavy cutting in both cases.”

“But different cutting,” Bree said. “And if the heads don’t turn up–”

“Something tells me they won’t,” I said.

“Then, maybe we’re talking about trophies, keepsakes.”

“Or proof of purchase,” I said.

They both looked at me.

“Maybe this one was business, and the other was personal. Also, CNBC just broke a story that Ghedi Ahmed was the brother of Erasto Ahmed, who’s Al Qaeda, operating out of Somalia.”

“Al Qaeda?” Bree whispered and looked momentarily stumped. “Al Qaeda, Alex?”

We stood there, silent for a moment, trying to comprehend something as horrible as these murders. I thought of Ellie again. I couldn’t stop thinking of her the past few days. Did her trip to Africa have something to do with her murder?

“So, what are we looking at?” Sampson finally spoke again. “Two sides of a war?”

“Could be,” I said. “Or maybe two teams.”

Or maybe one very smart killer, trying to keep us guessing.

THERE WAS NO question there was federal interest in these cases. The cases were inflammatory and international in scope, and the CIA probably knew something. Two of their people had shown up at Ellie’s house the night of the murders. The question was, how much could I get them to tell me, if anything at all?

I pulled in a few favors from my days with the bureau and got a meeting set up at Langley. The fact that they not only agreed to meet but also waived the first in what was normally a two-meeting protocol told me this was no back-burner issue for them. Usually, the CIA started you with somebody who couldn’t do anything for you before you even got close to anybody who could.

I was given a whole team: Eric Dana from the National Clandestine Service; two spit-shined analysts in their mid-twenties who never spoke a word the whole time I was there; and one familiar face, Al Tunney, from the Office of Transnational Issues.

Tunney and I had worked together on a Russian mafia case a few years back. I hoped he would advocate for me here, but this was clearly Eric Dana’s meeting, his case. We sat at a gleaming wood table with a view of nothing but green forests and lawns as far as I could see. Peaceful, serene, very misleading.

“Detective Cross, why don’t you tell us what you know so far?” Dana asked. “That would be helpful to get things going.”

I didn’t hold back, saw no reason to. I walked them through all three crime scenes – the Cox house, the street outside Masjid Al-Shura, and, finally, the landfill out in Lorton.

I also passed around a set of photos, keeping them chronological.

Then I covered everything I’d learned or heard about gang leaders in Africa, including what I’d read in Ellie’s book. Only then did I mention the CIA officers who had shown up at the first murder scene.

“We won’t comment on that,” said Dana. “Not at this point.”

“I’m not looking for you to open your files to me,” I said to Dana. “But I’d like to know if you’re tracking a killer stateside. And if you are, do you have any idea where he is?”

Dana listened to what I had to say, then shoved a stack of papers back into a file and stood up.

“Okay. Thank you, Detective Cross. This has been most helpful. We’ll get back to you. Let us do our thing here for a few days.”

It wasn’t the response I wanted. “Hold on, what are you talking about? Get back to me now.”

It was a bad moment. Dana stared at his analysts with a look that said, didn’t anyone brief this guy?

Then he looked back at me, not impolitely. “I think I understand your urgency, Detect–”

“I don’t think you do,” I cut in. I looked over at Al Tunney, who was shifting uncomfortably in his seat. “Al, is this a joint decision?”

Tunney’s eyes played tennis between me and Dana. “No one’s decided anything, Alex. We just can’t turn over information that quickly,” he finally said. “That’s not how we work. You knew that when you came here.”

“You can’t or you won’t?” I asked, looking at Tunney first, then at Dana.

“We won’t,” Dana said. “And it’s my decision, no one else’s. You have no idea what kind of damage this man and his team are responsible for.”

I leaned across the table. “All the more reason to drop any turf wars, don’t you think? We’re here for the same reason,” I said.

Dana stood at the table. “We’ll get back to you.” Then he left the room. How very CIA of him.

BUT I COULDN’T let it go like that, and I didn’t.

In the wide, mostly empty corridor outside the conference room, I called to Al Tunney before he could get away. “Hey, Al! I meant to ask you how Trish and the kids are doing.” I held up a hand to my building escort. “I’ll just be a second.”

Al was giving me a disgusted look as I walked over to him. I knew he had a wife, but unless I was psychic, her name probably wasn’t Trish.

I started right in with him. “You know something, or you wouldn’t be at that meeting. Neither would Dana. Your guys were at the murder scene. Help me out here. Anything, something, Al.”

“Alex, I can’t. This case is even hotter than you think it is. You heard my boss in there. It goes right to the top of our group. Steven Millard is involved. Trust me, there is an investigation going on. We’re taking it very seriously.”

“Eric Dana doesn’t know me, and neither does Steven Millard, but you do. You know what I can get done. I don’t have to prove that to you, do I?” A large department seal loomed over us in the hall. I took a step to the side so Tunney wouldn’t be looking up at it.

“Very funny,” he said.

“Come on, Al. Two families have died already. Doesn’t that mean anything?”

Then Tunney said a really odd thing. “Not as much as you might think. There are other monsters.”