Patterson, James - Alex Cross 14 - Cross Country

“Yes,” said the Tiger, without moving. "Truly. You have.

You know a reporter-a woman? Adanne Tansi?" He reached with one finger and tipped open his collar an inch. He spoke into a microphone.

“Rock da house! Now, Rocket. Spare no one. Make an example of them.”

Cross Country

Chapter 77

A FEW SECONDS later, the entire greenhouse reverberated with a half dozen or more gun blasts coming from outside. And then bursts of machine-gun clatter.

Mohammed Shol tried to get up, but the Tiger was fast and agile and already had his hands around the man's throat and was choking him. He slammed Shol into the far wall and a spider web pattern blossomed in the glass.

“Do you hear that?” the Tiger shouted at the top of his voice. “You hear it? All your fault!”

There was more gunfire. Then screams-women first, followed quickly by boys, their voices high and pitiful.

“That,” the Tiger told him, “is the sound of your mistakes, your greed, your stupidity.”

Shol grappled with both hands at the Tiger's huge and unmovable wrists. His eyes reddened and veins appeared ready to burst at his temples. The Tiger watched, fascinated.

It was possible, he'd learned, to bring a man to the edge of death, and then keep him there for as long as he liked. He liked this because he despised Shol and his kind.

The greenhouse door shattered as two bodyguards arrived to rescue their employer. “Come in!” shouted the Tiger. In one motion, he spun Mohammed Shol around and pulled a pistol from the paddle holster at his ankle. He charged forward, Shol in front as a shield, firing as he came!

One bodyguard went down with a nine-millimeter hole in the throat. The other sent a bullet through his employer's outstretched hand, then into his shoulder.

Shol screamed, even as the Tiger launched him the last several feet across the floor, where he crashed into the guard. Both men went down. Then the Tiger shot the second bodyguard in the face.

“Oga!” Rocket said as he appeared in the empty doorway. Oga meant “chief” in Lagos street parlance. The Tiger liked the designation, and it came naturally to his young soldiers.

The screaming had all but stopped in the house, but there were still sounds of breakage and gunfire as his boys let off the last of their venom and steam.

“There was a tutor. Children being taught.”

“Taken care of,” said Rocket.

“Good.” The Tiger watched as Shol struggled to stand. He fired once into his leg. “You'll need a tourniquet or you'll die,” he said to the businessman.

Then he turned to Rocket. “Tie Mr. Shol up. Then put this in his mouth. Or up his ass, if you like.”

“This” was an M67-a grenade.

“Pull the pin before you leave.”

Cross Country

Chapter 78

EVERYTHING CONTINUED TO feel unreal and fantasylike to me.

All the doors at the church shelter for men were locked after nine o'clock. No one could get in or out. With traffic being what it is in Lagos, I barely made it back there in time.

My cot was at the far end of one of three lodges, long high-ceilinged dorms off the main corridor where breakfast would be served in the morning.

Alex Cross, I thought. What have you come to? What have you done this time?

The guy in the next bed was the same guy as the night before, a Jamaican man by the name of Oscar. He didn't talk much, but the strained look in his eyes and half-healed track marks told his story.

He lay on his side and watched me while I rooted around for a toothbrush.

“Hey, mon,” he said in a whisper. “Dey is some shorty man o' God lookin' your way. He dere now.”

Father Bombata was standing at the door. When I saw him, he beckoned with a finger, then walked back out of the dormitory.

I followed him outside and into a hall packed with last-minute arrivals. I pushed upstream toward the front doors, until 1 caught up with the priest.

“Father?”

I saw then that he was dialing a cell phone and wondered who he was calling. Was it good news or bad that I was supposed to hear?

“Ms. Tansi wishes to speak with you,” he said and handed over the phone to me.

Adanne had news! An assassination in South Darfur had occurred that day. One of the representatives to the Sudanese Council of States was dead-and his family had been slaughtered.

“Any connection to Basel Abboud in DC?” I asked her.

“I don't know yet, but I can tell you that the Tiger does frequent business in Sudan.”

“Weapons? Heroin?” I asked her. “What kind of business, Adanne?”

“Boys. His loyal soldiers. He recruits at the Darfur refugee camps.”

I took a breath. “You might have told me about this earlier.”

“I'll make it up to you. I can have us on an air freighter to Nyala first thing in the morning.”

I blinked.

“You said 'us'?”

“I did. Or you can fly commercial to Al Fasher and see about ground transport from there. I leave it to you.”

Any other time I never would have considered it. But then, I'd never been five thousand miles from home without a lead and sleeping in a men's homeless shelter before.

I put my hand over the phone. “Father, can I trust this woman?” With my life?

“Yes, she is a good person,” he said without hesitation. And I told you, she is my cousin. Tall and beautiful, just like me. You can trust her, Detective."

I was back on the line. “Nothing goes into print until we both say so? Do we have a deal on that?”

“Agreed. I'll meet you at the Ikeja Cantonment, at the main entrance by five. And Alex, you should prepare your-self emotionally. Darfur is truly a horrible place.”

“I've seen a few horrors,” I said. “More than a few.”

“Perhaps you have, but not like this. Nothing like this, believe me, Alex.”

Cross Country

Part Three CAMP

Cross Country

Chapter 79

SO FAR, ADANNE'S connections were very good, and I was impressed by how quickly and efficiently she got things done.

It took her only one brief conversation on the tarmac, and then one radio call, before the African Union sergeant in charge allowed us to board the C-130 freighter the following morning.

We were in the air by six, the only civilian passengers on a plane carrying millet, sorghum, and cooking oil to Darfur.

The murder investigation continued, and now it was airborne and seemed to have more purpose than ever.

I borrowed a situation map from one of the flight crew and saw that Darfur was about the size of Texas. If I was going to get anywhere, I had to run with a few assumptions-one, that the Tiger had been in Nyala at the time of the massacre of the Shol family, and two, that Adanne's information was correct, and he might still be culling boys from camps for displaced persons in the area.

Given all of that, how far would he have gotten in the past eighteen hours? That was the next question that had to be answered.

During the flight, Adanne patiently told me much about Darfur and Sudan, and though she spoke in a low-key manner, there was no disguising the horrors-especially against women and children, thousands of whom were raped, then branded to increase their humiliation.

"Rape has become such a cruel weapon in this civil war. Americans have no idea, Alex. They couldn't possibly.

“Sometimes the Janjaweed will break a woman's legs first so she can't possibly escape and will be an invalid for the rest of her life. They like to flog victims; to break fingers one by one; to pull out fingernails,” Adanne said in a voice that barely got above a whisper.

“Even some of the 'peacekeepers' are guilty of rape, and of using the refugees as prostitutes. What's worse, the government of Sudan is behind much of it. You won't believe what you will see here, Alex.”