James Patterson - Merry Christmas, Alex Cross

“Hmm,” she said, a bit skeptically. “Unless you’re a superman, I don’t think you’ll be ready or able to unwrap something like that tonight.”

“There’s always tomorrow.”

“We’re celebrating Boxing Day now?”

“That too. Christmas has twelve days, you know.”

She laughed, said, “I love you.”

“I love you too. Before you know it, I’ll be snoring in bed next to you.”

“Perfect,” she said, and she hung up.

Eventually, the EMTs finished cleaning and bandaging my cuts. They said I needed to go to a hospital to have the wounds checked by a doctor. Instead, I headed to Captain Johnson’s office. Hala was probably still there, but soon the roads would be good enough for her to be transferred; she’d be taken to the Alexandria detention center, where she’d be held until her arraignment in federal court.

The office door opened before I got to the FBI agent guarding it. Mahoney came out of the room, his face flushed. “She won’t say a damn thing in English, Alex, and seems to find the entire situation laughable. That’s not right. Someone like that’s just not right in the head.”

“I think there’s not a doubt about that,” I said.

“Yeah?” Mahoney said. “Well, I’ve got an idea that just might get her thinking right. I’ve got to go wake up some important people.”

“Mind if I try talking to her in the meantime?”

“They’re starting the transfer in five minutes,” Mahoney said, distracted. “But sure, go ahead, knock yourself out, Alex.”

“Northbound CSX freight, we need to get that tunnel cleared, so you’ll be first out,” said the Union Station radio dispatcher, his voice coming over the speaker built into the dash of the locomotive. “You’re good to go in five.”

Aman pressed the muzzle of his pistol to Pete the engineer’s temple. With a shaky hand, Pete triggered the hand mike, said, “Appreciate it. Everyone safe up there?”

“They set the dogs on her; got the bitch.”

“Thank God,” Pete said.

Omar Nazad wanted to pour scalding coffee into Pete’s eye too, but he restrained himself. There was nothing he could do for Hala now but execute the plan, make the great blow himself.

“I leave, then,” he said, clapping Aman on the back. “Go with God, brother.”

“And you, brother,” Aman said.

The Tunisian never bothered to turn his weeping eye toward the other engineer, who sat in the corner moaning with pain.

The cold wind coming up the tunnel was like new fire against the burns on Nazad’s cheek, but the bandage blocked it from hitting his eye. Nazad climbed down from the cab as the diesel engines coughed up black smoke through the exhaust stacks. The locomotive began to rumble.

Nazad reached the ground, ate another pain pill, flipped on the Maglite. As the freight train groaned and began to move, the Tunisian started to jog in the opposite direction, toward the tunnel mouth, thinking pleasantly about the present he and his men would soon give to all Americans on Hala Al Dossari’s behalf.

I went into Captain Johnson’s office, saw two FBI agents I didn’t recognize standing on either side of Dr. Al Dossari’s stretcher, near a window that overlooked the terminal and the tracks. Hala gazed at me, seeming to feel a mixture of contempt and interest. Facing this woman who lived beyond the pale, whose beliefs and actions were virtually incomprehensible to me, I felt pretty much the same way about her.

“I need a doctor, Cross,” she said.

“You are a doctor,” I replied.

“Have you not heard? One cannot heal oneself.”

“I have heard that. What I don’t get is how a doctor becomes a terrorist.”

“But you would understand how a doctor becomes a soldier?”

Before I could figure out how to respond to that, I heard the now familiar sound of train wheels on tracks and watched a freight train emerge from a tunnel at the station’s east end and chug toward the Ivy City Yard and points north. Despite the fact that I was talking to a ruthless terrorist, I couldn’t help thinking that some degree of normalcy had returned to Union Station.

“What was this all about?” I asked, gesturing out the window. “I mean, was it a spur-of-the-moment thing? Or part of something bigger?”

She studied me, and I noticed her eyes were glassy and her pupils pinpoint. She said, “Spur-of-the-moment. I was in the area, bored on a holiday I don’t believe in, and decided to go out and play in the snow.”

One of the agents pressed his earbud and then said, “Let them in.”

Four U.S. Marshals came into the office, signed the necessary paperwork, and took Hala into their custody.

“Good-bye, Cross,” she said as they wheeled her out. “I hope to meet you again.”

“Probably sooner than later,” I said, and watched her go.

I heard diesel engines starting, looked out the window, and saw the Crescent light up.

“Dr. Cross?”

I turned to find Captain Johnson, who’d stepped up to the window beside me. “I wanted to thank you. Without your bravery-”

“Without a lot of people’s bravery, including yours.”

“Yeah, I suppose,” he said, his eyes watering as he gestured out at the terminal and the trains. “But what if she’d managed to get something big in here? What if it had gone off?”

“We can only guess at that kind of thing, Captain,” I said as the last car in the freight train disappeared from sight. “But for now, Christmas goes on.”

If I’d moved quicker, followed Hala Al Dossari and her armed guards out of Union Station, found a taxi or a patrol car to take me back to my family, I might have made it home before midnight.

But Mahoney caught me crossing the main hall. “I need you, Alex.”

“No,” I said. “I’ve got to sleep, Ned. I’m a zombie, no help to anyone.”

“I’ll get you a B-twelve shot,” Mahoney said. “Maybe with a kicker of caffeine and sodium benzoate.”

“What?”

“You never took a pick-me-up when you were with the Bureau?”

“No. Never did.”

“Works like a charm,” Mahoney said, sounding like he’d just gotten ten hours of sleep. “We’ll take care of you. We’ll go to Alexandria, have another chat with Hala Al Dossari.”

“I don’t think she’ll be talking at any point soon. Time in the cell will loosen her up. More than enough time for me to rest and join you tomorrow afternoon, say.”

“No say, Alex,” Mahoney complained. “I’ve arranged for a little show, something I think is guaranteed to open her up now.”

“Okay, then go run your show. I don’t need to be there.”

“Actually, you do. You’ll be the one to tell me if we’re going too far.”

Omar Nazad turned off the flashlight and emerged from the mouth of the tunnel to find the storm had eased somewhat; there were just a few random flakes now. He waded into the snow, his eye weeping behind the bandage, his burned skin twitching at each contact with the frozen flakes.

Above him on the elevated freeway, more cars were moving, which meant more streets and lanes had been plowed. It was good. It was a blessed thing. As traffic built, they would blend into the traffic, and-

He heard a soft trilling sound, the call of the desert; he smiled and immediately gave a response back. His last two men, Saamad and Mustapha, were fearless Bedouins from the rugged dry mountains of southern Algeria, warriors for God who would not abandon him no matter what.

Even with the one eye, the Tunisian spotted his brothers in arms standing there on the bank, and he struggled up through the snow to them.