Джеймс Паттерсон - Target - Alex Cross

In the skybox, Bronson took his attention off his computer, looked toward the big cowboy, and nodded.

The cowboy walked away from the window and straight across the room to Bronson, then paused, his back to me. Bronson handed the cowboy his computer, and the cowboy left the skybox.

But if I hadn’t been standing in that exact spot, I might have missed the latex mask the guy dressed as Gabriel wore, the way his left arm dangled oddly, and what looked like a pistol in his right hand. The veterinarian and Jared Goldberg both said that the president’s killer had been wounded in the left elbow.

I fiddled with the focus, trying to make sure. But then the woman dressed as Celes Chere turned to peer out the window and down on the building audience.

I lowered the glasses and triggered my mike, trying to remain calm.

“This is Cross. I’ve got Bronson, Crowley, and Stapleton in the middle skybox, south side of the auditorium. If I’m right, there are three assassins in there with them, including Kristina Varjan and possibly the president’s killer.”

Before Mahoney or Carstensen could reply, I raised my binoculars again and found Varjan, hand to her brow to cut the spotlight glare, staring right back at me.

My earbud crackled.

Mahoney said, “Alex, repeat the location, you’re garbled.”

Varjan had seen enough. She spun around and headed away from the window fast. Before following her, Gabriel clubbed Bronson across the back of his head with the butt of his pistol, sending him sprawling.

“Cross?” Carstensen said. “Repeat?”

I jammed the binoculars in my coat pocket, pivoted, and headed for the exit. When I hit the hallway, I hesitated, knowing the skyboxes would be closer if I went left. Instead, I went right and broke into a dodging run through the growing crowd of fans, triggering my mike as I did.

“This is Cross,” I said. “Repeat, we’ve got two, probably three of the assassins right here in the building. The president’s killer and Varjan. She just made me. They’re fleeing the sky-boxes. Look for a glam girl, a cowboy in a black hat and a long brown duster, and an angel in white robes and a latex mask. The angel has a clipped left wing, like the president’s assassin, and he is armed. Assume others are as well.”

“Copy,” Mahoney said. “I’m heading toward the closest exit to the skyboxes.”

Carstensen said, “I’m calling in SWAT, sealing the entire venue.”

I spotted a stairway finally and wanted to bound down it, but there were too many people coming up. I had to squeeze hard right against the flow, which cost me more time.

When I made it to the skybox level, I decided to keep going down. There was no doubt in my mind they were trying to get the hell out of the venue.

Varjan saw me just now. She saw me at the motel, and again the first day of the e-sports championships. She knows I’m FBI. They’ll all be on high alert.

I reached the hall’s lowest level and almost went toward the west entrance where Mahoney had gone in anticipation of the shortest line of flight from the skyboxes. But something told me to do the opposite, to double back and go east.

Moving as fast as the crowd would let me, I kept one hand ready to draw my service weapon and swiveled my head as I ran, scanning the faces and costumes.

I got a look at several girls dressed as Celes Chere and two cowboys in black hats. But they weren’t wearing the horseman dusters, and—

An alarm began to whoop.

Diversion, I thought. Just like the last time .

Fans froze in place, not knowing what to do. Several panicked and I heard people saying, “Fire?” Then I heard screaming ahead of me.

I yanked out my badge and gun and yelled, “FBI! Get down!”

People started running away instead of getting down, but it opened up a path through the crowd that allowed me to quickly round a curve in the passage and to see a red light flashing below an emergency exit sign. A security guard was lying in a pool of blood below the flashing light in front of an emergency door that was ajar.

“Help’s on the way,” I shouted at the wounded man as I vaulted over him, seeing that his pistol was missing from his holster before I threw my shoulder into the door.

It flew open, revealing a steel staircase landing and a short flight of stairs leading down to an empty ambulance parked in a bay.

Behind the ambulance, the overhead door was up. I ran toward it. Two EMTs carrying cups of coffee appeared.

“FBI!” I shouted. “Did you see people come out this door?”

“Two of them, a guy dressed as an angel and a glitter girl,” one of them said. He gestured with the coffee cup. “They ran like hell toward the boardwalk.”

I sprinted along the north side of Boardwalk Hall and triggered my mike.

“This is Cross again,” I said, gasping. “Two of them have escaped the venue. Repeat, escaped the venue. Get that helicopter in the air. They’re on the boardwalk somewhere ahead of me. Male in angel costume. Female dressed glam.”

“Copy,” Carstensen said.

I reached the boardwalk with a stitch in my side but managed to calm down enough to look through the binoculars south toward the Tropicana.

Despite the raw conditions, there were knots of people along the boardwalk, some coming at me, some walking away. No angel. No glam girl. No cowboy either, for that matter.

I swung around to look north along the boardwalk and saw similar small groups of pedestrians braving the—

“I got a visual!” I barked into the mike as I took off again. “Heading north on the boardwalk, two blocks north of the hall, near the pier!”

I’d caught a solid look at the back of a man dressed in white robes far ahead of me, and I’d gotten a glimpse of a woman at his side. There was no chance they were getting away again, I told myself, and I picked up the pace.

For the better part of a block, I couldn’t locate either of them ahead of me, and I was starting to doubt what I’d seen. But then I spotted the angel again, still with his back to me, still heading north, going past Bally’s Beach Bar.

He was alone now and no longer running. His left arm looked useless. Sirens began to wail to my west, north, south.

My earbud crackled with static. I could tell it was Carstensen, but I could not tell what she was saying.

I hit the mike, said, “Suspect dressed as angel heading north on boardwalk north of Michigan Avenue toward Brighton Park. Suspect is alone now.”

I could barely make out Mahoney saying, “Copy.”

I ran on, trying to keep the few people on the boardwalk in front of me so the assassin wouldn’t see me gaining ground if he happened to look back.

I was less than half a block away from him when the tragedy happened.

A young Atlantic City uniformed police officer came out of the park in front of the killer. The patrol cop was moving quickly, and when he saw the angel, he started to skid down into a combat shooting position, his hands and pistol already rising.

The assassin was quicker; he threw up his gun and fired, hitting the officer square in his bulletproof vest. As the cop staggered backward, he pulled the trigger on his pistol. The bullet went wide, hit the boardwalk, and ricocheted out to sea.

The angel’s second shot caught the young policeman through the throat and dropped him in his tracks.

I was closing fast on him then. Two hysterical young women in raincoats were fleeing toward me.

“FBI!” I yelled to the angel. “Drop your gun! Put your hands up!”

The two girls dived to either side of me. The president’s assassin had already looked over his shoulder and started to spin in his tracks, his gun up.