James Patterson - Cat & Mouse

The pupils of his eyes were the tiniest, darkest points. He was taking this as badly as I’d seen him react to anything since I’d known him. He was being very emotional for Kyle. I understood how close he and Cross had been.

I sighed and shut my eyes. I wondered if I should tell him what I really thought. Finally, I opened them. I said, “It might be better if he doesn’t make it, Kyle.”

“C’MON WITH me,” he said, pulling me along. “I want you to meet someone. C’mon.”

I followed Kyle down one floor to a room on three. The patient in the room was an elderly black woman.

Her head was swathed in Webril, a stretchy woven bandage. The head bandage resembled a turban. A few wisps of gray hair hung loose from the dressing. Telfa bandages covered the abrasions on her face.

There were two IV lines, “cut downs,” one for blood and one for fluids and antibiotics. She was hooked to a cardiac monitor.

She looked up at us as if we were intruders, but then she recognized Kyle.

“How is Alex? Tell me the truth,” She said in a hoarse, nearly whispering voice that still managed to be firm. “No one here will tell me the truth. Will you, Kyle?”

“He’s in surgery now, Nana. We won’t know anything until he comes out,’ Kyle said, “and maybe not even then.”

The elderly woman’s eyes narrowed. She shook her head sadly.

“I asked you for the truth. I deserve at least that much. Now, how is Alex? Kyle, is Alex still alive?”

Kyle sighed loudly. It was weary sound, and a sad one. He and Alex Cross had been working together for years.

“Alex’s condition is extremely grave,” I said, as gently as I could. “That means-”

“I know what grave means.” she said. “I taught school for forty-seven years. English, History, Boolean algebra.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, “I didn’t mean to sound over-bearing.” I paused for a second or two, then continued to answer her question.

“The internal injuries involve a kind of ‘ripping,’ probably with a high degree of contamination to the wounds. The most serious wound is to his abdomen. The shot passed through the liver and apparently nicked the common hepatic artery. That’s what I was told. The bullet lodged in the rear of the stomach, where it’s now pressing onto the spinal column.”

She winced, but she was listening intently, waiting for me to finish. I was thinking that if Alex Cross was anything near as strong as this woman, as willful, then he must be something special as a detective.

I went on.

“Because of the nick to the artery there was considerable blood loss. The contents of the stomach itself and the small bowel can be sources of E. coli infection. There’s danger of inflammation of the abdominal cavity-peritonitis, and possibly pancreatitis, all of which can be fatal. The gunshot wound is the injury, the injection is the complication. The second shot went through his left wrist, without shattering bone, but missed the radial artery. That’s what we know so far. That’s the truth.”

I stopped at that point. My eyes never left those of the elderly woman, and hers never left mine.

“Thank you,” she said in a resigned whisper. “I appreciate that you didn’t condescend to me. Are you a doctor here at the hospital? You speak as if you were.”

I shook my head. “No, I’m not. I’m with the FBI. I studied to be a doctor.”

Her eyes widened and seemed even more alert than when we had come in. I sensed that she had tremendous reserves of strength. “Alex is a doctor and a detective.”

“I’m a detective, too,” I said.

“I’m Nana Mama. I’m Alex’s grandmother. What’s your name?”

“Thomas,” I told her. “My name is Thomas Pierce.”

“Well, thank you for speaking the truth.”

Paris, France

THE POLICE would never admit it, but Mr. Smith had control of Paris now. He had taken the city by storm and only he knew why. The news of his fearsome presence spread along boulevard Saint-Michel, and then rue de Vaugirard. This sort of thing wasn’t supposed to happen in the “très luxe” sixth arrondissement.

The seductively chic shops along boulevard Saint-Michel lured tourists and Parisians alike. The panthéon and beautiful Jardins du Luxembourg were nearby. Lurid murders weren’t supposed to happen here.

Clerks from the expensive shops were the first to leave their posts and hurriedly walk or run toward No. 11 rue de Vaugirard. They wanted to see Smith, or at least his handiwork. They wanted to see the so-called Alien with their own eyes.

Shoppers and even owners left the fashionable clothing shops and cafis. If they didn’t walk up rue de Vaugirard, they at least looked down to where several police black-and-whites and also an army bus were parked. High above the eerie scene, pigeons fluttered and squawked. They seemed to want to see the famous criminal as well.

Across Saint-Michel stood the Sorbonne, with its foreboding chapel, its huge clock, its open cobblestone terrace. A second bus filled with soldiers was parked in the plaza. Students tentatively wandered up rue Champollion to have a look-see. The tiny street had been named after Jean-Francois Champollion, the French Egyptologist who had discovered the key to Egyptian hieroglyphics while deciphering the Rosetta stone.

A police inspector named Rene Faulks shook his head as he pulled onto rue Champollion and saw the crowd. Faulks understood the common man’s sick fascination with “Mr. Smith.” It was the fear of the unknown, especially fear of sudden, horrible death, that drew people’s interest to these bizarre murders. Mr. Smith had gained a reputation because his actions were so completely incomprehensible. He actually did seem to be an “alien.” Few people could conceive of another human acting as Smith routinely did.

The inspector let his eyes wander. He took in the electronic sign hanging at the Lycée St. Louis corner. Today it advertised “Tour de France Femina” and also something called “Formation d’artistes.” More madness, he thought. He coughed out a cynical laugh.

He noticed a sidewalk artist contemplating his sidewalk chalk masterpiece. The man was oblivious to the police emergency. The same could be said of a homeless woman blithely washing her breakfast dishes in the public fountain.

Good for both of them. They passed Faulks’s test for sanity in the modern age.

As he climbed the gray stone stairway leading to a blue painted door, he was tempted to turn toward the crowd of onlookers massed on rue de Vaugirard, and to scream, “Go back to your little chores and your even smaller lives. Go see an art movie at Cinéma Champollion. This has nothing whatsoever to do with you. Smith takes only interesting and deserving specimens-so you people have absolutely nothing to worry about.”

That morning, one of the finest young surgeons at L’Ecole Pratique de Médecine had been reported missing. If Mr. Smith’s pattern held, within a couple of days, the surgeon would be found dead and mutilated. That was the way it had been with all the other victims. It was the only strand that represented anything like a repeating pattern. Death by mutilation.

Faulks nodded and said hello to two flics and another low-ranking inspector inside the surgeon’s expensively furnished apartment. The place was magnificent, filled with antique furniture, expensive art, with a view of the Sorbonne.

Well, the golden boy of L’Ecole Pratique de Médecine had finally gotten a bad break. Yes, things had suddenly gotten very bleak for Dr. Abel Sante.

“Nothing, no sign of a struggle?” Faulks asked the closest flic as he entered the apartment.

“Not a trace, just like the others. The poor rich bastard is gone, though. He’s disappeared, and Mr. Smith has him.”