James Patterson - Double Cross

Not a word of it on paper, though-everything in his head.

“My God, just look at that sun!” he exclaimed.

I WAS HOME on Fifth Street and had just finished eating a late dinner with Nana and the kids when the phone started to ring off the hook. Most of us were in the kitchen doing a family cleanup. Damon, Jannie, and I were taking care of everything; Ali was supervising; and Nana was reading the papers in the living room-the Washington Post and USA Today , her favorites.

Her TV show was on tonight too, Grey’s Anatomy . Nana loved the series because she felt there were three very bright and true-enough-to-life black characters in the ensemble cast, which she believed was a first for TV. Grey’s Anatomy was one thing that she and I agreed on. We were both addicts of the medical drama, and we were rarely disappointed for our devotion and attention.

Jannie frowned when she answered the phone and discovered, to her amazement, that it wasn’t for her. “It’s for you, Daddy.”

“What a surprise,” I said. “ Major upset.”

“It’s not a girl,” Jannie came right back, “so you can forget about that. It’s not Bree.”

I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t what I heard during the next few confounding seconds on the telephone.

“Alex, this is Hal Brady.” Brady was the chief of detectives these days at the MPD, an old friend, the boss of Thor Richter and all the rest of us.

“Hi, Chief.” I managed a few words, but mostly I was in an intent listening mode. The fact that Brady was calling me at home wasn’t a good sign.

“This isn’t about Bree, is it?” I suddenly had a premonition.

“No, no. Bree is fine. In fact, she’s in the office with me now. I’ll let you talk with her in a minute,” Brady said, then continued. “Alex, the reason I’m calling is that Kyle Craig escaped from ADX Florence sometime today. They’re still working out the details of how he did it, but this can’t be good. Not for you, not for any of us. He’s on the loose. They have no idea where he went.”

I didn’t hesitate for a second. “I need a favor,” I told the chief. “A big favor.”

I’D BEEN OUT to the supermaximum-security prison in Florence a couple of times since Kyle Craig had been incarcerated there. On the flight, I made a few notes about him from the papers I’d collected over the years. Even as I scribbled the notes, I was recalling certain incidents between us. At one time, Kyle had been a friend, at least I’d thought so. He’d fooled a lot of people along the way, and I have always been a terrible sucker for those who seem to lead a good life.

I wrote in my notepad:

Expects to be recognized as superior; has a grandiose sense of his own self-importance; narcissistic to an extreme.

Interpersonally exploitive; complex thinker.

Superficial charm. Can turn it on and off at will.

Sibling rivalry (probably killed one brother).

Severely abused, physically and emotionally, by his father. Or so he claims.

Duke University undergraduate and law school. Top of his class. Made it look easy.

IQ: 145-155 range.

No conscience.

Father, William Hyland Craig, former army general, chairman of two Fortune 500 companies, now deceased.

Mother, Miriam, still living in Charlotte.

Former FBI DIC, trained at Quantico, where he also taught new agents.

Highly competitive, especially with me.

I arrived in Florence, Colorado, around noon the day after Kyle’s escape, and very little seemed to have changed about the supermaximum-security prison. I spent the first hour talking with two of the guards who knew Kyle Craig particularly well; then I interviewed Warden Richard Krock. The warden seemed more shocked than any of us that Kyle, or anybody else, could have escaped from Florence. No one ever had before; no one had even come close.

“As you now know,” Krock told me, “the lawyer went back to Craig’s cell, wearing a prosthetic mask, and then hung himself there. What you don’t know is that we videotaped some of his early visits with Craig. Would you like to see them?”

I sure would.

FOR THE NEXT FEW HOURS, I sat and studied tapes of some of the early meetings between Kyle and Mason Wainwright. The lawyer hadn’t invoked his lawyer-client privilege until the third week he’d spent with his client. Why was that? Because Kyle wanted us to see something? Or maybe because the lawyer did.

What, though? The first visit was virtually the same as the others that were taped.

Wainwright entered the meeting room wearing a very memorable outfit, which no doubt helped with the eventual escape: cowboy hat and boots, buckskin jacket, horn-rimmed eyeglasses that clashed with everything else he had on.

He and Kyle hugged as soon as they met. Kyle said something that wasn’t caught on tape.

Then came a series of eight questions-always the same ones, or very close.

Some kind of code? Or was Kyle playing games? Or simply crazy-he and the lawyer? I couldn’t tell at this point. About anything, really. Except that Kyle Craig was the first prisoner ever to escape from ADX Florence. The Mastermind had done the impossible.

Finally Kyle and the lawyer hugged each other again. Wainwright said something to Kyle that wasn’t picked up on tape. Was this how they exchanged information-whether they were taped or not ?

I expected that it was. We would certainly try to find out.

Next, I went to Kyle’s cell, but there wasn’t much to see in there. Prisoners weren’t allowed many personal possessions at ADX. The small room was neat and orderly, as Kyle was himself.

Then I saw the message he’d left.

A greeting card was propped on the table that was bolted down next to his bed.

It was a Hallmark-unsigned-just like the ones at Tess Olsen’s penthouse.

Minutes later, I was back at Warden Krock’s office. I needed some answers to questions that had developed in the past few hours.

“Visitors?” I asked. “We know about the lawyer, though we have no idea what his real relationship to Craig was. Were there other visitors? Anyone who came around more than once?”

Krock didn’t have to consult his files to answer. “In the first year, there was a persistent reporter from the Los Angeles Times named Joseph Wizan, whom Craig refused to see. Repeatedly. Several others contacted Craig through my office but didn’t bother to come out here because he wouldn’t see them either.

“The only one who did visit, and this was just a few months ago, was the author Tess Olsen. You know, the woman who was killed in Washington recently? Kyle surprised us. He agreed to meet with her. She came here three times. She planned to do a book on Craig, another In Cold Blood , if you listened to her talk about it.”

“You spoke with her, then?” I asked.

“I did. On all three of her visits. Half an hour or so the first time.”

“How did she seem to you? What was your impression?”

Warden Krock moved his head back and forth as if he were weighing his answer. Finally he spoke. “She seemed like a fan. Honestly, I wondered if she and Craig had something going before he was caught.”

I RETURNED TO WASHINGTON early the following morning, having already passed along the news about Tess Olsen, the Hallmark card in Craig’s cell, and the possibility that Kyle may have had a relationship with Olsen, or even with the killer in DC. But more than anything else, I wondered what Kyle was planning.