James Patterson - Kill Alex Cross

“Ali, pick that thing up! Don’t scratch up my stairs!” I called out. “Please and thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he called back and kept thunk-thunking anyway.

My oldest, Damon, was away at boarding school — and I still hadn’t gotten used to having him gone. These mornings always felt just a little bit empty without all of our family.

“Talk about what? ” Jannie asked again. She gave me a kiss good morning and pointed at a news photo of Ethan and Zoe. “That kidnapping?”

“Excuse me, but which part of ‘I don’t want to talk about it’ didn’t you understand?” I said. “And by the way, let’s make this a quick breakfast. The Alex bus leaves in fifteen minutes — sharp.”

Jannie made a face she probably thought I didn’t catch, then went to pour some juice for herself. I retreated back into my paper while Nana dished up cheddar eggs with whole wheat toast and cocoa for the kids.

For a minute or two, it was conspicuously quiet in the kitchen. I could feel them all staring at me through the paper, though.

Then Jannie piped up again. “Hey, Dad?”

“Yes?” I said, trying my best to be calm.

“The Seven Dwarfs called. They want their Grumpy back.”

What could I say? Ali roared with laughter and high-fived his sister across the table. I heard Nana snickering over by the sink. The FBI obviously had no respect for me, and now neither did my family. Damn it, though, I had a right to be out of sorts.

“Lord, let this man catch a bad guy today,” Nana said. “We could all use it.”

“No comment,” I said, and gave a little growl for good measure.

Then just as the mood was lightening up a little, Bree came charging down the stairs. Mussed hair, rumpled T, bare feet. Something was wrong.

“Alex! Turn on the news! Turn on the news right now!”

She never moves that fast before her first cup of coffee, so I knew this couldn’t be good. I hustled out to the living room, where she was standing in front of the TV. Channel 4 had a live report going.

“What is it?” I said.

“I don’t know,” Bree said. “Something bad happened at the McMillan Reservoir. There’s some kind of problem with the water supply.”

District officials closed the DC schools. Bree stayed home with Ali and Jannie while I rushed to work. All the info I got from making a few phone calls on the way was that hospitals were overwhelmed with emergency admissions. Hundreds of people had been showing up with bouts of vomiting, blurred vision, trouble breathing, loss of consciousness, even a few heart attacks.

It wasn’t hard to go right to the worst-case scenario. Washington was under attack. But who was behind it?

Did it have anything to do with the Coyle kidnapping? Was that nightmare a real possibility?

It sure looked like it at MPD headquarters, the Daly Building. Police trucks and buses were double-parked out front, ready to go; cruisers were leaving the garage in a solid stream. I felt like I was going the wrong way down a one-way street.

Inside, officers and detectives were literally running up and down the halls. It was as close to an all-out mobilization as I’d ever seen.

I went straight to the Joint Operations Conference Center. More chaos on a very large scale. Phones ringing everywhere, briefings happening on a rolling basis. I found two guys from my squad, Jerry Winthrop and Aaron Goetz, standing off to the side, waiting for orders.

“Fatalities?” I said to Jerry. “You heard?”

He shook his head. “Don’t know, Alex. Everything’s nuts. As you can see. We’re waiting to hear where to go. Fucking water supply.”

At the front of the large room, Ramon Davies, the superintendent of detectives, was on his phone. Standing next to him were Jocelyn Kilbourn from MPD’s internal Homeland Security branch and Hector Nunez from Special Operations, plus a few other unfamiliar faces.

“Who are the suits up front?” I said.

“EPA on the left,” Jerry said. “Interior by the door. And don’t ask who’s in charge, because I don’t think anybody knows yet.”

As soon as Davies was off the phone, he waved his arms to get the room’s attention. “Listen up. We just got word from the Bryant Street Pumping Station over by McMillan Reservoir. They’ve found signs of tampering on one of their lines. Whatever happened over there, it was no accident!”

“What kind of tampering?” someone called out. It was the question I had.

Davies took a breath, then answered. “This does not leave this room. Handmade dispersal devices, presumably to leech whatever poison this was into the system. It seems to be contained in the second high-water district. That’s between Eastern Avenue and Rock Creek. The other districts are clear so far. We’ve got emergency testing going everywhere. Expanded security at all processing facilities.”

Davies handed it over to Assistant Chief Kilbourn. She pulled up a quick PowerPoint and ran everybody through a list of contingencies. Some were immediate and practical. Others were theoretical — from citywide water shutdowns to looting and riot control, even municipal evacuation plans and declarations of martial law. This sure looked like the “big one” that everybody was always worried about.

“No one’s saying any of these emergency protocols are going to become necessary,” Kilbourn told us. “We don’t even know if this is terror-related. But it’s essential that everyone knows what to do if, or when, things go south.”

In other words, we were on the verge of uncharted territory. On paper, we were ready for anything. All kinds of emergency preparedness systems had been put into place in the years since 9/11, with every work group, simulation, and special training the department could throw at it. But the thing no one ever wanted to talk about was that there were some emergency situations you couldn’t possibly prepare for.

Because you just couldn’t imagine them happening.

I left the room feeling like I was still basically unassigned — and also at a real crossroads on the Coyle case. I needed to know if I could accomplish something — and also, whether the kidnapping of the president’s kids could possibly be connected to the water supply emergency. The possibility had been raised by the FBI and the CIA. It was one of the first things I’d thought of when I heard about the reservoir problem.

I walked out to a stairwell for some quiet. Then I dialed Ned Mahoney’s number. When he didn’t pick up, I kept going down to the parking garage.

I got in my car and drove to Ned’s little Cape house in Falls Church, Virginia. If he was going to play hard to get, I was going to have to become more irresistible.

I’d been out to Ned’s for the occasional barbeque, but when Amy Mahoney saw me standing on her front porch, her eyes opened wide.

“Alex? What’s going on?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” I said right away, which wasn’t exactly the truth. “I’m just trying to track Ned down. I need to talk with him, Amy.”

She looked relieved. Ned heads up the Hostage Rescue Team out of Quantico, and it’s not just him who lives with the stress of that job.

“Come on in,” Amy said. She pecked me on the cheek as I stepped past the screen door. “I’ll call him right now.”

I stood in their foyer, feeling a little awkward, a little embarrassed. This wasn’t exactly an aboveboard maneuver, but it had to be done. A minute later, Amy had Ned on the phone.

“Hey, hon, it’s me. I’ve got Alex Cross here. He’s looking for you. You have a second?”

I’m not sure what Ned said next, but I could hear the tone of it. It was Amy who looked embarrassed now. I held out my hand for the phone, and Ned was still railing when I took it.