Джеймс Паттерсон - Ambush

“How does a guy like that end up in the Catholic Church?”

“He was engaged. They were the power couple of the Bogotá social scene. Then she dumped him. She dumped him for a bigwig in the Medellín cartel.

“The agent in Bogotá said it shattered Alonzo. He sort of disappeared, then a year later turned up as a priest. Apparently the Catholic Church was worried about someone taking revenge on him, so they transferred him out of the country.”

“So he really was trained in self-defense and tactics.”

Marion looked at me and said, “He is a certified badass.”

I chuckled. “And he saved my ass.”

“From what I hear, it’s not the first time he’s saved someone’s ass.”

“Thanks. I owe you big-time.”

Marion reached across and held my hand as she shook her head. “No. We’ll never be even. I owe you my whole life. And this didn’t even violate policy.”

I felt my face flush as she leaned across the table and kissed me on the cheek.

I stopped by the administrative office at Holy Name. For the first time ever, I wasn’t there to talk to my grandfather. I wasn’t even there to check on my kids. I was there to speak with Alonzo Garcia, former captain in the Colombian national police, recipient of countless commendations for bravery and hard work.

I led Alonzo out into the courtyard between the church and the school, knowing we would get some privacy there. He wore his clerical collar with a whistle dangling from his neck.

Once we sat on the hard cement bench, I said, “I did some checking and know your history and what you did before the priesthood.”

Alonzo said, “I wasn’t trying to hide anything. I’m just trying to move on with my life. I’m glad I was in a position to help when it mattered.”

“It mattered, and you helped. And I appreciate it. All I’m looking for now is some insight into who I’m dealing with. How can I stop these killings?”

“I wish I could help you, Michael. It’s not that I’m purposely trying to ignore the issue. But I’ve seen this so many times before. I know that the killings will stop whenever the contracts are fulfilled. I may even know who the killer is. If they came from Bogotá and they were active when I was working, I might know who they are. But the fact is there are just too many possibilities. The cartels train kids to become killers. They hire contract killers who have a talent. They just have too many people willing to kill for money.”

I let out a heavy sigh. I was hoping he might have some detail that could help me.

Alonzo said, “I do know who likely trained this killer.”

“How?”

“Many of the sophisticated killers, the ones who went to college and were bored with their former profession or just liked the challenge and the money, trained with a martial-arts instructor in the Chapinero section of Bogotá. He was a legitimate, hardworking karate instructor, and everyone who wanted to make a career as an assassin trained with him. He was known simply as Sensei Don.

“He taught the use of the blade. He advocated only two strikes. One to the brain and one to the heart. I’ve seen it over and over.

“I never trained with him, but other police have. This killer you face today has trained with him.”

“If we went to this karate instructor, do you think he’d talk to us?”

“He died some years ago. But there are many of his students still working today.”

I thought about it and said, “That still doesn’t explain the ambush and the three men who tried to shoot us on the street. That wasn’t a single assassin. They weren’t using some kind of stiletto.”

“But that falls in line with their profession. Many of the hit men from Colombia use local thugs on some of their hits. It makes sense. They’re just subcontracting out the job for a fraction of their pay.”

“So now I have an idea of what I’m up against. I just don’t know who it is, how they’ll try again, or how to stop them.”

Alonzo chuckled. “Just like police work everywhere in the world.”

I knew it was time to take this investigation to a new level. Harry Grissom listened as I explained everything, and considering that someone tried to shoot me in front of Holy Name, he agreed that I wasn’t being dramatic. There was a conspiracy. But I had my own gang to help me stop it.

It didn’t take long for me to put together a task force of detectives and NYPD forensics people who were familiar with the case. I just needed some input for now.

I made the trip across town to the office of the chief medical examiner on East 26th Street, across from the City University of New York.

I spoke to an assistant medical examiner who had worked on Cassie Max’s double homicide in Madison Square Park. He had worked in the ME’s office for more than a dozen years and had given me insight on homicides I never would’ve gotten anywhere else.

He said, “I’ve made some calculations, and I think whoever delivered the strike stands between five foot seven and five foot ten. They have some understanding of anatomy and are fairly powerful.

“I also looked at the other homicide you showed me, and I would have to say that the alignment of the bullet wound on the body confirms my estimate of the killer’s size. What else do you have?”

I said, “Basically, the killer is someone with enough resources to hire gunmen, enough guts to come after a cop, and enough skill to commit a double homicide in a park right in the middle of the city. The killer appears to be very professional by the way they’ve disabled security video systems and tracked their victims. I need all the help I can get.”

The assistant medical examiner laughed. “If you have Cassie Max working on this with you, I think you’ve got a lot of help. She never seems to wear out. You know what we call her?”

I shook my head.

“The Terminator. Once she has you in her program, she never stops. Plus she’s not too bad to look at.”

“You getting lonely locked away in here with all the dead people?”

“I prefer it to wandering around a city filled with loud, obnoxious people. I went to Johns Hopkins. I could be a pediatrician in Baltimore if I wanted. I prefer the quiet, comfortable stillness of the morgue.”

I looked at him and said, “I can never tell if you’re pulling my leg or just plain crazy.”

“Do they have to be mutually exclusive?”

That made me laugh out loud. “You got any ideas about my case?”

“I told you how tall the killer probably is. That they’re professional because of the precision of their strikes. My guess is that they’re very bright as well. I make that assumption based on their knowledge of anatomy. But I also know that detectives like you and Cassie don’t let this shit slide. I figure you’ll have this asshole in cuffs sometime in the next few days.”

I liked his confidence. I was trying to form a picture in my head of how calm a killer has to stay to use a weapon like that, getting in close to deliver such a precise blow to the victim.

I also hadn’t forgotten that a woman was probably involved in the murder of one of the gunmen who killed Antrole Martens. There was no telling if she was a local killer or perhaps someone who worked for the cartel.

Once I had a puzzle like this in my head, I tended to shut out almost everything else. This time I had to solve the puzzle before the killer figured out the puzzle of how to kill me.

Alex Martinez smiled broadly as she walked along Park Avenue South. She was coming from a lovely dinner with the mounted police officer Tom McLaughlin. He was charming, sweet, and a full eighteen months younger than she was. Not that it made a difference. She wasn’t looking for someone she could raise her daughters with. She also wasn’t interested in telling him where she was staying just yet. It was their first date.