Джеймс Паттерсон - Target - Alex Cross

The logger thought about that, smiled, and pulled the butt end of the saw tight to his pelvis so the blade stuck out in front of him like some motorized sword. The logger charged at Franks, feinting this way and that with the spinning head of the saw.

At each feint, Franks stepped back, one foot, then the other, and then again, staying just inches from the whirling teeth and seeing his enemy grow more and more frustrated at not being able to cut him to pieces.

The logger took his finger off the gas. His shoulders and chest were heaving from the exertion of flinging the heavy saw around.

Franks stood his ground, watching everything about the man, trying to see him as a whole enemy rather than just eyes or legs or arms, and definitely not as just that saw.

“What the hell are you doing this for?” the logger yelled.

“Practice,” Franks yelled back.

“Practice? You insane?”

“Just hungry.”

“Hungry? Hungry?”

The logger’s expression turned murderous. He exploded then and charged forward, wielding the saw like a bayonet that he intended to drive straight through Franks.

Franks stood his ground. At the last second, he flung his body sideways and sprang at the logger. The chain saw’s teeth passed inches from his belly before he drove the Buck knife up under the visor and deep into the logger’s neck.

The logger dropped the chain saw, which bit into the mud and flipped away from them, sputtering, coughing, and then dying.

Franks was barely aware of the sounds. He was watching and feeling the logger’s quivers and shakes as more of his blood spurted against the inside of the visor. He grabbed the knife handle with his other hand just before the logger died and sagged against the blade and hilt.

Franks used all of his strength to heft the dead man’s weight, then pushed hard against it and yanked back on the knife handle. The blade came free. The logger fell in the mud beside his saw.

Franks stood there for several long moments, gasping for air, feeling exhilarated beyond words, soaking up the whole scene, until a snowflake hit his face. He looked up into a sky heading toward dusk, seeing more and more flakes coming at him, thick ones, swirling down.

He felt giddy. A part of him wanted to stay and relive the last few amazing minutes. But his wiser self knew when to walk away.

Franks never wavered as he hustled through the pine break into the old farmyard. The snow showers had turned into a squall by the time he reached the Chevy.

When he drove past the logger’s work lot, Franks could make out the small hill of firewood through the falling snow but not the log splitter or the man he’d killed in mortal combat. He felt neither pity toward nor interest in the logger beyond the memory of their encounter. The logger had been a thrill, a challenge, training against a worthy opponent, and nothing more.

He started to whistle, and then to sing. “Carry on, my wayward son, there’ll be peace when you are done.”

As he sang on, the wind picked up. So did the snow. It was a full-on blizzard by the time he reached I-79 and turned east again toward Washington.

Chief Michaels gave Bree a withering glare as he worried a pen in his hand.

“You told me we had him!” Michaels said. “Self-confessed, you said! I told the mayor. I told the congressmen. I... shit.”

He plopped in his chair and tossed the pen on the desk in disgust.

Bree took a deep breath before saying as calmly as she could: “Chief, at the time, I believed I had Senator Walker’s killer. Romero had threatened the senator recently. He referenced Senator Walker’s murder as evidence he would not hesitate to kill Mrs. Sheridan or her daughters. His accomplice says he came three thousand miles to, quote, ‘set some things straight and make a pile of Benjamins.’ He was a prime suspect even before he started shooting.”

“But Romero’s on this motel security tape in Roanoke?”

“I haven’t seen it,” she said, deflated. “But evidently Romero, Lupe Morales, and this Chewy character are all on motel video checking in and out. With the snowstorm, there definitely was not enough time for them to get from Roanoke and back.”

“So the senator’s killer remains at large,” Michaels said. “There’s still an asshole out there we don’t know about.”

“Or a dead one we do know about.”

Michaels cocked his head. “I’m not following.”

Bree opened the manila file in her lap. She handed over photographs taken at the strangulation scene in Georgetown.

“This man, carrying the ID of one Carl Thomas of Pittsburgh, was throttled five blocks from the senator’s crime scene about seventeen hours after Walker was shot.”

“Loose proximity,” the chief said dismissively. “Where’s the hard connection?”

“The victim was able to get two shots off at his killer with a gun recovered at the scene,” she said, and then she pushed a paper across the desk. “The rush report says there’s gunpowder residue on the victim’s right hand and wrist that matches the pistol.”

“Okay?”

Bree handed him a second document. “Results for gunpowder on his clothes.”

Michaels studied the lab results, which had come in moments before Bree was set to speak with the chief.

He glanced at the first report. “Different gunpowders?”

Bree nodded. “It’s all being sent to Quantico for confirmation, but it will be interesting to see if the blast powder on his clothes matches the residues found in that apartment Senator Walker’s assassin used.”

“That’s a pretty big leap, isn’t it?”

“I don’t think so, Chief, even without the lab results,” she said. “I had Thomas’s prints run. We got no hits in the FBI databases, but we did in Scotland Yard’s files.”

Michaels sat forward. “Scotland Yard? I thought the victim was from Pittsburgh.”

“I said his driver’s license said he was from Pittsburgh.”

“And Scotland Yard says different?”

“Not in so many words.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It means that when we ran the prints, we definitely got a hit in Scotland Yard,” she said. “There’s a file there somewhere, but we were denied access to it.”

Michaels shook his head. “So let me get this straight. A man with a Pittsburgh ID dies violently five blocks from Senator Walker’s murder scene, and Scotland Yard won’t tell us who he really is?”

“That’s correct.”

The chief thought about that. “So he’s a spook or something? Someone protected, anyway. Or someone Scotland Yard doesn’t want us to know about?”

“Any or all three, sir,” Bree said.

“What if he was working with the Brits? What if he shot Betsy Walker on orders from the Brits?”

Bree had not considered that last idea, and the implications shocked her.

“It would be a political assassination ordered by a foreign power,” she said. “An act of war. By an ally.”

My son Ali hustled ahead of me toward the front door of Fong and Company, the best Asian market in the District of Columbia.

“I think this will be fun,” Ali said, looking at me over his shoulder. “You know, kind of like that show I like. Weird Foods ? I love that guy. He’s always eating the grossest things and makes it sound like he’s in heaven doing it.”

“Okay, what’s weird in this recipe?”

“Nothing. I don’t think. But there’s bound to be weird food in the store, right?”

He sounded so desperately hopeful that I laughed. “I’m sure we can find something weird if we look hard enough.”

Ali brightened and pushed into Fong’s, a sprawling, happy warren with narrow aisles and shelves stacked high with mysterious boxes that threw sweet and spicy smells into the air.