Джеймс Паттерсон - Detective Cross

“Where the Christ is that mother?” he heard a voice shout.

“Upper south hillside, two o’clock,” another voice called back. “Three hundred vertical meters below the ridge.”

“Can’t find him,” a gruffer voice yelled. “Gimme range!”

A third man yelled, “Sixteen hundred ninety-two meters.”

“That ledge with the two bushes on the right?”

“Affirmative!”

“I got it. Just has to show himself.”

A fourth voice shouted, “Smoke him, Hawkes! Turn the sumbitch inside out!”

The mortar attack had slowed to a stop. Mickey got up, the debris falling off his uniform as he spat out dust and poked his head out of his foxhole.

To his right about twenty yards, Hawkes was settled in behind the high-power scope of a .50-caliber Barrett sniper rifle. Muscular and bare-chested under his body armor, Hawkes had the stub of a cheap unlit cigar dangling from the corner of his lips.

“Take him out, Hawkes,” Mickey yelled. “We got better places to be.”

“We do not move until that good son of Allah shows his head,” Hawkes shouted back, his head never leaving the scope.

“I wanna go home,” Mickey said. “I want you to go home, too.”

“We all wanna go home, kid,” Hawkes said.

“I’m going surfing someday, Hawkes,” Mickey said. “Learn to ride big waves.”

“North Shore, baby,” Hawkes said as if it were a daydream of his, too. “Banzai Pipeline. Sunset Beach and... Hey, there you are, Mr. Haji. Couldn’t stand the suspense, could you? Had to see just how close you came with those last three mortars to blowing the infidels past paradise.”

Hawkes flipped off the safety on the Barrett, and said, “Sending, boys.”

Before anyone could reply, the .50-caliber rifle boomed and belched fire out the ported muzzle. In the shimmering heat Mickey swore he could see the contrail left by the bullet, ripping across space, sixteen hundred and ninety-two meters up the face of the mountain before it struck with deadly impact.

The other men started cheering. Hawkes came off the rifle finally, and looked over at Mickey with a big, shit-eating grin. “Now we can go home, kid.”

Mickey felt someone shaking him, and he startled awake.

“Union Station,” the bus driver said. “End of the line.”

Mickey yawned, said, “Sorry, sir. Long day.”

The driver said, “For all of us. You got somewhere to be?”

Mickey felt embarrassed to answer, but said, “My mom’s. It’s not far.”

The driver stood aside for Mickey to go out the door. He went inside the bus terminal, following the signage toward the passenger trains and the Metro. Most of the shops inside Union Station were closed and dark, though there were still a fair number of passengers waiting for Amtrak rides.

Mickey acted cold, pulled his hoodie up to cover his face from the security cameras, and went to short-term lockers, where he used a key to retrieve a small book bag. He reached into the book bag to retrieve a greasy box of cold fried chicken from Popeye’s. The last drumstick and wing tasted nice and spicy.

Mickey dropped the bones back in the box just as an overhead speaker blared: “Amtrak announces the Northeast Corridor Train to Boston, departing 10:10 on Track Four. All aboard!”

With the cardboard box in his hand, he fished in his pocket for the ticket, fell in with the crowd and moved toward the door to Track 4. He showed his ticket to the conductor, who scanned it with disinterest, waved him through, and reached for the ticket of the passenger behind him.

Going with the knot of passengers, Mickey walked through a short tunnel that led out onto the platform. He passed the dining car and several others before spotting a trash can affixed to a post two cars back from the engines.

He walked past it, never slowing as he dumped the greasy, fried chicken take-out box that held the bomb.

Then Mickey boarded the train and settled into a seat. His ticket said Baltimore, but he would get out at the first stop — New Carrollton — and catch the Metro back into the city, where he’d try to get a little sleep before making a call to Chief Stone.

Bree’s phone jangled at five minutes to three in the morning.

I groaned and turned over, seeing her silhouette sitting up in bed.

“Bree Stone,” she answered groggily.

Then she stiffened. Her free hand reached out and tapped me as she put the call on speaker.

“A city on edge,” the voice purred. “A third bomb found. Fears of more to come.”

The diction and tone of the bomber’s voice was as Bree had described it. I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman talking.

“Are there more to come?”

“Every day until people start to feel it in their bones,” the bomber said. “Until there’s a shift in their mind-set, so they understand what it feels like.”

“What kind of shift? Feel like what?”

“Still don’t get it, do you? Look in Union Station, Chief Stone. In a few hours it will be packed with commuters.”

The connection died.

“Shit,” Bree said. She threw back the covers and jumped out of bed, already making calls as she moved toward the closet.

I was up and tugging on clothes when central dispatch answered her call, and she started barking orders as she dressed.

“We have a credible bomb threat in Union Station,” Bree said. “Call Metro Transit Police. Clear Union Station and set up a perimeter outside. Get dogs and bomb squads there ASAP. Alert Chief Michaels. Alert FBI SAC Mahoney. Alert Capitol Police. Alert the mayor, and Homeland Security. I’ll be there in nine minutes, tops.”

She stabbed the button to end the call and tugged on a blue sweatshirt emblazoned with METRO POLICE on the back. I was tying my shoes when she came out of the closet.

“What are you doing?”

“Going with you,” I said. “Mahoney will be there soon enough.”

Bree hesitated, but then nodded. “You can drive.”

Eight minutes later I slammed on the brakes and parked in front of the flashing blue lights of two Capitol Hill Police cruisers blocking Massachusetts Avenue and 2nd Street in Northeast.

Bree jumped out, her badge up. “I’m Metro Chief Stone.”

“FBI bomb squad and a Metro’s K-9 unit just crossed North Capitol Street, heading toward the station, Chief,” one officer said.

“The station clear?”

“Affirmative,” another officer said. “The last of the cleaning crew just left.”

Bree glanced at me, said, “Dr. Cross is an FBI consultant on these bombings. He’ll be coming in with me.”

The officers stood aside. We hurried along deserted Mass Avenue toward the now familiar vehicles of the FBI bomb squad, and two Metro K-9 teams parked out in front of the station. Three men walked toward us wearing workmen’s coveralls.

“You with the cleaning crew?” I asked, stopping.

The men nodded. Bree said, “Catch up.”

I asked them a few questions and found Bree at the back of the FBI’s Bomb Squad vehicle, where Peggy Denton was suiting up.

“Do we have a deadline?” Denton asked.

“It wasn’t put that way,” Bree said. “Just a suggestion to look in Union Station because at six a.m. the station will be packed with commuters.”

“Awful big place to sweep in two hours and twenty minutes,” Denton said, checking her watch.

“You can narrow it down,” I said.

“How’s that?” Bree asked.

“Your bomber likes trash cans. Three of the four IEDs were in them. The cleaners I just spoke to said they were working from the front entrance north. They swept, vacuumed, and picked up trash bags in the main hall and on the first level of shops. Those garbage bags are in cleaning carts. Two are in the shopping hall and food court. One in the main hall. I’d take the dogs to those carts first, and then sweep the second floor of shops and the Amtrak ticketing and the train platforms. Metro station after that.”