James Patterson: Kill Alex Cross

The van driver was out on a gurney now, hooked up to a nasogastric tube and IV. As they wheeled him to the back of the ambulance and loaded him up, Findlay and I fell in behind the procession.

My badge was out again. So were his creds.

“Hey!” one of the medics yelled at us as we climbed in. “You can’t—”

“We’re coming with him,” I said, and closed the ambulance doors. No further discussion. “Let’s go.”

My mind was working even faster now, probably too fast. So was my pulse. And I couldn’t catch my breath either.

The president’s kids .

George Washington University Hospital was only a few blocks from the crash site so this was going to have to be quick. While the EMTs worked over our suspect and radioed in his vitals, I leaned in as close as I could to get his attention.

“What’s your name?” I said.

I had to ask a couple of times before he finally responded.

“Ray?” He said it like a question.

“Okay, Ray. I’m Alex. You with me here?”

He was flat on his back and staring at the ceiling. I ran a finger back and forth in front of his eyes to get him to look at me.

“What are you on, Ray? You know what you took?”

His expression was as distant as ever. “Just a drink of water,” he said finally.

“Don’t give him anything!” one of the medics barked at me.

“ I’m not ,” I said. “‘Drink of water’ is PCP. That’s what he thinks he took.”

“Thinks?” Agent Findlay asked.

“Something heavily anesthetic, anyway. Probably some kind of nose cocktail.” And I was guessing he didn’t mix it himself.

“Who got you the van, Ray?” I said. “Who put you up to this? There’s somebody else, right?”

“Anyone, anyone,” he said. “Five hundred bucks and a little drink of water.”

“ Five hundred bucks? ” Findlay looked like he was ready to tear the guy’s face off. “Do you have any idea what kind of shit storm you just landed in — for five hundred dollars?”

Ray wasn’t listening to the Secret Service agent, though. He was looking around now, like he’d just figured out where he was. When he got down to his own midsection, and the blood soaking through the heavy gauze dressing, he just grinned. “This is some good shit,” he said.

“Ray?” I tried again. “Ray? You said something about ‘anyone.’ What did you mean by that?”

“No,” he said, twitching away. “Anyone, anyone.” The fingers on his left hand started moving rapidly; it looked like he was playing scales on a piano.

Findlay and I looked at each other. Whoever had put Ray up to this knew what they were doing. Now, while the trail to the kids was warmest, the one person we had in custody was virtually useless. We were wasting precious time on this guy. That was exactly what the kidnapper wanted, wasn’t it?

“We’re here!” the ambulance driver yelled back. “Interview’s over.” The other two stood up and started getting Ray ready to go.

“Who’s anyone?” I tried one more time. “What do you mean by that, Ray?”

“An-y-one. An-y-one,” he said again, tapping a different finger on each syllable — and I realized it wasn’t like he was playing a piano. It was like he was hitting keys on a keyboard. Then I had another idea.

N-E-1-N-E-1 .

“Is that a screen name?” I asked. “Did somebody find you online, Ray?”

“Watch out, guys!”

The back of the ambulance opened from the outside. Findlay and I had to jump out first to get out of the way.

An emergency medical team was already waiting, along with an incongruous crowd of gray suits off to one side.

It wasn’t just any crowd, either. Findlay stopped short on the pavement, and I almost knocked into him.

“Sir?” he said to one of the suits.

Right there in front of us was the secretary of Homeland Security himself, Phil Ribillini.

“Detective Cross,” Ribillini said with a curt nod. We’d met once before, back when I was with the FBI and he was with Defense. There were no pleasantries today. “We’ll need a statement from you right away,” he said. “But my people will take it from there. Has to be that way.”

In other words, I wasn’t going any farther with the prisoner. All I could do was watch as they wheeled Ray inside through the automatic sliders and out of sight.

But that wasn’t the bad part. The clock kept ticking on those two missing kids.

Dr. Hala Al Dossari was twenty-nine years old, slender and attractive, humorous when it was useful, very bright, with a photographic memory. Her husband, Tariq, was thirty-nine, pudgy everywhere, and hopelessly in love with his wife. They looked like they had everything to live for, but in reality, the Al Dossaris were prepared to die at any time. Probably sooner rather than later. That was their mission.

Hala snuck a sideways glance at her watch. They had been warned repeatedly about the dangers of Dulles Airport. The International Arrivals area was one of the most scrutinized in the world. Besides the armed security and usual customs agents, the terminal was staffed with a well-trained team of behavior detection officers — BDOs. The purpose of these police devils was to scan the incoming crowds for anything considered beyond the norm.

Too much sweat on the brow could get you pulled out of line here.

So could rapid eye movement.

Or a nervous gait.

Or a cranky BDO.

“Almost through,” Hala said, giving her husband’s hand a reassuring squeeze. “Not much longer. Give me a smile. Americans love a nice smile.”

“ Inshallah ,” he answered.

“Tariq, please — a smile . Just show your teeth for the surveillance cameras.”

Finally, he did as he was told. It was a stiff-jawed attempt — but a smile, anyway. So far, so good. Another minute or so and they would be perfectly safe.

Passport control had gone by without incident. Baggage claim, other than feeling like a cattle yard, had been fine. Now they were down to luggage screening, one final queue to wait in before they could truly say they’d arrived safely in Washington.

But everything had suddenly slowed to a crawl. This was a nightmare.

In fact, Hala realized, the line had completely stopped .

A couple of uniformed TSA agents were unhooking the stanchion belt up ahead, motioning for two people to step out of line. It was another couple — also Saudi, also in Western dress.

“Sir? Ma’am? Could you come with us, please?”

“What for?” the other man asked, immediately on the defensive. “We haven’t done anything wrong. Why should we lose our rightful place in the queue?”

His accent was Najdi, Hala noticed. The same as theirs.

But who were these people? Could this just be a coincidence? One look at Tariq’s worried face and she knew he was wrestling with the same questions. Was their American mission about to be compromised before it had even begun?

More American security personnel hurried over now. A husky black female officer took the Saudi woman firmly by the arm.

“ Farouk! ” the woman screamed for her husband. Then she yelled at the security police. “Leave us alone! Take your dirty hands off me!”

As Hala watched the husband, her heart skipped. He was reaching for something in his pocket . One of the guards tried to pull his arm away. But the man pushed back hard. The guard went down on his ass.

Two more officers rushed forward. There was a violent scuffle. The police threw the Saudi man to the floor. Jumped on his back. But he fought and got one hand free. The next moment, he’d stuffed something into his mouth.