James Patterson - Cat & Mouse

A detective named Rakeem Powell grabbed him by the shoulder, grabbed him hard and shook him. “Damon’s all right, John. Somebody came in here, beat the living hell out of the kids. Looks like he just used fists. Hard punches. Didn’t mean to kill them, though, or maybe the cowardly fuck couldn’t finish the job. Who the hell knows at this point. Damon’s all right. John? Are you all right?”

Sampson pushed Rakeem away, threw him off impatiently. “What about Alex? Nana?”

“Nana was beaten bad. Bus driver found her on the street, took her to St. Tony’s. She’s conscious, but she’s an old woman. Skin rips when they’re old. Alex got shot in his bedroom, John. They’re up there with him.”

“Who’s in there?” Sampson groaned. He was close to tears, and he never cried. He couldn’t help himself now, couldn’t hide his feelings.

“Christ, who isn’t?” Rakeem said and shook his head. “ EMS, us, FBI. Kyle Craig is here.”

Sampson broke away from Rakeem Powell and lunged toward the bedroom. Everybody wasn’t dead inside the house-but Alex had been shot. Somebody came here to get him! Who could it have been?

Sampson tried to go into Alex’s bedroom, but he was held back by men he didn’t know-probably FBI from the look of them.

Kyle Craig was in the room. He knew that much. The FBI was here already. “Tell Kyle I’m here,” he told the men at the door. “Tell Kyle Craig it’s Sampson.”

One of the FBI agents ducked inside. Kyle came out immediately, pushed his way into the hall to Sampson.

“Kyle, what the hell?” Sampson tried to talk. “Kyle, what happened?”

“He’s been shot twice. Shot and beaten,” Kyle said. “I need to talk to you, John. Listen to me, just listen to me, will you.”

SAMPSON TRIED to hold back his fears, his true feelings, tried to control the chaos in his mind. Detectives and police personnel were clustered at the bedroom door in the narrow hallway. A couple of them were crying. Others were trying not to.

None of this could be happening!

Sampson turned away from the bedroom. He was afraid he was going to lose it, something he never did. Kyle hadn’t stopped talking, but he couldn’t really follow what Kyle was saying. He couldn’t concentrate on the FBI man’s words.

He inhaled deeply trying to fight off the reverberations of shock. It was shock, wasn’t it? Then not tears started to stream down his cheeks. He didn’t care if Kyle saw. The pain in his heart cut so deep, cut right to the bone. His nerve endings were already rubbed raw. Never anything like this before.

“Listen to me, John,” Kyle said, but Sampson wasn’t listening.

Sampson’s body slumped heavily against the wall. He asked Kyle how he’d gotten here so fast. Kyle had an answer, always an answer for everything. Still-nothing was really making sense to Sampson, not a word of it.

He was looking at something over the FBI man’s shoulder. Sampson couldn’t believe it. Through the window, he could see an FBI helicopter. It was landing in the vacant lot just across Fifth Street. Things were getting stranger and stranger.

A figure lurched out of the helicopter, crouched under the rotor blades, then started toward the Cross house. It almost seemed as if he were levitating above the blowing grass in the yard.

The man was tall and slender, with dark sunglasses, the kind with small round lenses. His long blond hair was bound in a ponytail. He didn’t look like FBI.

There was definitely something different about him, something radical for the Bureau. He almost looked angry as he pushed the looky-loss away. He also looked as if he were in charge, at least in charge of himself.

Now…what was this? Sampson thought. What’s going on here?

“Who the hell is that?” he asked Kyle Craig. “Who is that, Kyle? Who is that goddamn ponytailed asshole?”

MY NAME is Thomas Pierce, but the press usually call me “Doc.” I was once a medical student at Harvard. I graduated, but never worked a day in a hospital. Never practiced medicine. Now I’m part of the Behavioral Science Unit of the FBI. I’m thirty-three years old. Truthfully, the only place I might look like a “Doc” is in an episode of the TV show ER.

I was rushed from the training compound at Quantico to Washington early that morning. I had been ordered to help investigate the attack on Dr. Alex Cross and members of his immediate family. To be candid, I didn’t want to be involved in the case for a number of reasons. Most important, I was already part of a difficult investigation, one that had drained nearly all of my energy-the Mr. Smith case.

Instinctively, I knew that some people would be angry with me because of the shooting of Alex Cross and my being at the crime scene so quickly. I knew with absolute certainty I would be seen as opportunistic, when that couldn’t be farther from the truth.

There was nothing I could do about it now. The Bureau wanted me there. So I put it out of my mind. I tried to anyway. I was performing my job. The same as Dr. Cross would have done for me under comparably unfortunate circumstances.

I was certain of one thing, though, from the moment I arrived. I knew I looked as shocked and outraged as anyone else standing sentinel in the crowd gathered at the house of Fifth street. I probably looked angry to some of them. I was angry. My mind was full of chaos, fear of the unknown, fear of failure, too. I was close to the state of mind described as “toast.” Too many days, weeks, months in a row with Mr. Smith. Now this new bit of blasphemy.

I had listened to Alex Cross speak once at a profiler seminar at the University of Chicago. He had made an impression. I hoped that he would live, but the reports were all bad. Nothing I’d heard so far left room for hope.

I figured that was why they’d brought me in on the case right away. The vicious attack on Cross would mean major headings, and put intense pressure on both the Washington police and the Bureau. I was there on Fifth Street for the simplest of reasons-to relieve the pressure.

I felt an unpleasant aura, residue from the recent violence, as I approached the tidy, white-shingled Cross house. Some policemen I passed were red-eyed and a few seemed almost to be in shock. It was all very strange and disquieting.

I wondered if Alex Cross had died since I had left Quantico. I already had a sixth sense for the terrible and unexpected violence that had taken place inside the modest, peaceful-looking house. I wished that none of the others were at the crime scene, So I could absorb everything without all these distractions.

That was what I had been brought here to do. Observe the scene of unbelievable mayhem. Get a gut feeling for what might have happened in the early hours of the morning. Figure everything out quickly and efficiently.

Out of the corner of my eye, I say Kyle Craig coming out of the house. He was in a hurry, as he always is. I sighed. Now it begins, now it begins

Kyle crossed Fifth Street in a quick job. He came up to me and we shook hands. I was glad to see him. Kyle is smart and very organized, and also supportive of those he works with. He’s famous for getting things done.

“They just moved Alex,” he said, “He’s hanging on.”

“What’s the prognosis? Tell me, Kyle.” I needed to know everything. I was there to collect facts. This was the start of it.

Kyle averted his eyes. “Not good. They say he won’t live. They’re sure he won’t live.”

THE PRESS CORPS intercepted Kyle and me as we headed toward the Cross house. There were already a couple dozen reporters and cameramen at the scene. The vultures effectively blocked our way, wouldn’t let us pass. They knew who Kyle was and possibly they knew about me, too.