James Patterson: Kill Alex Cross

Everything intensified as our focus narrowed. Nobody said much while the crew cleared material out of that hole faster than ever. A bucket brigade went up, passing the dirt out of the barn, hand to hand.

Several times, the digging stopped and the soldiers pounded on the door with a shovel.

“Anyone there? Ethan? Zoe?”

So far, there was no answer.

As soon as they’d cleared enough space to cut a hole, two of the crew scrambled out and another soldier climbed down with a reciprocating saw.

A couple of seconds later, the barn filled up with a grinding, squealing sound as he drilled straight in. Then he changed direction and started slicing right through the steel.

It didn’t take long. Once most of the panel was cut, the soldiers used a pry bar to pull it back into the hole, rather than letting it fall through.

Then they cleared out and two EMTs took their place. I was less than six feet away from the digging. Several more medical staff waited nearby with a crash cart and two gurneys. There were also three ambulances in the yard, and two Sikorsky helicopters with aeromedical teams waiting out on the road.

One EMT got down on his belly and crawled straight back into the dark. The other handed through a medical field kit and then followed behind.

Everyone else seemed to hold their breath at the same time. In the silence, I said a prayer.

God, let them be there. Please. Let them be okay .

Then almost right away, one of the EMTs called up to us. His voice was hoarse — and excited. “Someone’s in here,” he said.

We waited. Everything was silent now. Everyone hopeful... yet afraid.

“We’ve got ’em. They’re both here.”

The rescuer kept his voice low, maybe for the kids’ sake, but I don’t think anything could have stopped the cheer that went up in that barn.

There were handshakes, and hugs, and tears on more than a few faces. The feeling of relief was indescribable. Mahoney gave me a hug. Then so did Sampson. Then even Peter Lindley did.

Agents Wardrip and Daya took over from there. They had the work lights turned way down, and they excused the military crew. Then they climbed into the hole to help bring Ethan and Zoe up themselves. A few minutes later, word came that the kids were ready to be brought out.

Zoe came first. It was a moment of true joy mixed with heartbreak to see the young girl, trembling all over and clinging to Wardrip as he carried her up the ladder.

Her clothes were just filthy rags, and her eyes were wide and glassy. But they weren’t vacant. She knew where she was.

They got Zoe onto a gurney and started oxygen and a saline drip right away. Then they covered her with a heavy blanket all the way up to the shoulders, until you could barely even see her anymore.

Wardrip stayed right there, speaking softly to her while they brought Ethan out.

He looked about the same as his sister, but smaller, more vulnerable if that was possible. As he came up from that prison where they’d spent the last two weeks, he was mumbling something against Daya’s shoulder, over and over.

I could see his dry, cracked lips moving, but I couldn’t hear him.

The second he was on his own gurney, Zoe reached out from under her blanket and took Ethan’s hand. Nobody tried to stop them or separate them.

They stared at each other like no one else was there, and her mouth started moving with his.

It was only as they were wheeled out past me, still holding hands, that I heard what they were saying.

“ Thank you, thank you, thank you. Oh, thank you .”

The words couldn’t have been simpler, or more eloquent.

I wasn’t thinking about anything but Ethan and Zoe when I came out of that barn. I wasn’t even thinking about Rodney Glass until I realized they’d already taken him away.

The car where he’d been held was gone, and somewhere in the confusion, I’d lost track of Mahoney and Sampson, too.

Then I saw Ron Burns. Or more specifically, he saw me. “Cross!” he yelled, and wagged a finger.

As I came toward him, he turned and walked farther off, away from the hustle and bustle in the yard. The rescue mission was winding down while the investigative crews were just kicking into gear.

Evidence Response Teams had already started unpacking their vans, photographers were snapping everywhere, and a couple of total-station techs were setting up their equipment — the little black shoebox, I call it — to start a 3-D rendering of the entire farm.

I caught up to Burns at the foot of the porch stairs at the old ruined house. I could see he was already steaming.

“Rodney Glass tells us he has no idea how he got out here,” the FBI director started right in. “He also maintains he knows absolutely nothing about the kidnapping.”

I wasn’t sure where to start. Burns and I have some history together, not all of it good. But all in all I’d always trusted him.

“Ron, I—”

“Not a word,” he said. “The less you say right now, the better off we’ll both be.” He pushed the tail of his jacket back with both fists. I was a little surprised to see he was armed.

“Whatever it was you got from Rodney Glass, and however you and your little A-team got it, none of it’s going to be admissible. You do understand that, right?”

I knew better than to answer.

“As it stands right now, we’ve got nothing substantive to hold Glass on. We’ll be able to detain him for twenty-four, maybe thirty-six hours, but unless something new turns up here, he’s going to be out by tomorrow night.”

I couldn’t hold back anymore. “Ron, I’m not done with Glass,” I said. “We’ll get him. I’ve already got a surveillance crew up and running. We can put a GPS on his car—”

Burns put a hand up. “Seriously, Alex. Does anyone ever tell you that you talk too damn much?”

He took a deep breath then. It seemed to let a little of the air out of his tires, and his tone came down as he went on.

“No one’s pretending this is just cut-and-dried,” he said. “It’s likely those kids wouldn’t have survived if it weren’t for you, and you’re going to have the gratitude of some very powerful people. Obviously. So I’m not too inclined to start turning over any rocks that don’t need turning over, understand? As long as Glass doesn’t file a complaint — and he’d be a goddamn idiot if he did — I’d say this was your chance to shut up and walk away.”

He pointed over to where someone had moved my car. I saw Sampson was there, too, leaning against the fender and watching us.

“I don’t want to walk away,” I told Burns.

He just shook his head like he felt sorry for me and started back toward the barn. “Yeah, I know,” he said over his shoulder.

As the sun slowly rose over the horizon, Hala could see that they had arrived at the ocean, the powerful, very gray Atlantic. They were in Massachusetts, maybe. Or this could be Connecticut. Once they’d gotten off the highway, it had been much harder to track the road signs.

A row of shuttered cedar cabanas sat along the beach. Beyond that, waves broke onto an empty shore in the early morning light.

Actually, the beach wasn’t quite empty, Hala realized. A man was there, bent toward the water — toward Mecca — in prayer. She could see only the figure of him, no distinguishing characteristics. Presumably, it was his silver Mercedes parked next to their 4Runner. The rest of the dusty lot was deserted.

Tariq raised his head from her shoulder. His hand was still badly swollen, but he was at least hydrated, with a fresh bandage and the first course of antibiotics in his system.