Patterson, James - Alex Cross 14 - Cross Country

“You have someone-back in America?” she asked.

“I do. Her name is Bree. She's a detective too.”

“She's your wife?”

“No, we're not married. I was-once. My first wife was killed. It was a long time ago, Adanne.”

“I'm sorry to ask so many questions, Alex. We should sleep now.”

Yes, we should sleep.

We held hands until we drifted off. Only that- hand-holding.

Cross Country

Chapter 90

THE FOLLOWING DAY, we left the camp at Kalma. Nine refugees had died during the nighttime attack; another four were still missing. If this had happened in Washington, the entire city would be in an uproar now.

Emmanuel was one of the dead, and they had cut off his head, probably because of his participation when we'd fought back earlier.

A mutual hunch took Adanne and me to the Abu Shouk camp, the next-largest settlement in the region. The reception there was more ambivalent than we'd gotten at Kalma.

A big fire the night before had made personnel scarce, and we were told to wait at the main administrative tent until we could be processed.

“Let's go,” I said to Adanne after we'd waited nearly an hour and a half.

She had to run to catch up with me. I was already headed up a row of what looked like shelters. Abu Shouk was much more uniform and dismal than Kalma. Nearly all of the buildings were of the same mud-brick construction.

“Go where?” Adanne said when she came up even with me.

“Where the people are.”

“All right, Alex. I'll be a detective with you today.”

Three hours later, Adanne and I had managed half a dozen almost completely unproductive conversations, with Adanne attempting to serve as translator. The residents were at first as friendly as those in Kalma, but as soon as I mentioned the Tiger, they shut down or just walked away from us. He had been here before, but that was all the people would tell us.

We finally came to an edge of the camp, where the sand plain continued on toward a range of low tan mountains in the distance, and probably bands of Janjaweed.

“Alex, we need to go back,” Adanne said. She had the tone of a person putting her foot down. “Unfortunately, this has been unproductive, don't you think? We're nearly dehydrated, and we don't even know where we're sleeping tonight. We'll be lucky to get a ride into town”-she stopped and looked around-“if we can even find our way back to the admin tent before dark.”

The place was like an impossible maze, with rows of identical huts wherever we looked. And so many displaced people, thousands and thousands, many of them sick and dying.

I took a deep breath, fighting off the day's frustration. “All right. Let's go. You're right.”

We started picking our way back and had just come around a corner, when I stopped again. I put a hand out to keep Adanne from taking another step. “Hold up. Don't move,” 1 said quietly.

I had spotted a large man ducking out of one of the shelters. He was wearing what I'd call street clothes anywhere else. Here, they marked him as an outsider.

He was huge, both tall and broad, with dark trousers, a long white dashiki, and sunglasses under a heavy brow and shaved head.

I took a step back, just out of sight.

It was him. I was sure it was the same bastard I'd seen at Chantilly. The Tiger-the one I was chasing.

“Alex-”

“Shh. That's him, Adanne.”

“Oh, my God, you're right!”

The man gestured to someone out of sight, and then two young boys walked out of the shelter behind him. One was nobody to me. The other wore a red-and-white Houston Rockets jersey. I recognized him instantly from Sierra Leone.

Adanne gripped my arm tightly and she whispered,

“What are you going to do?”

They were walking away but were still in plain sight.

“I want you to wait five minutes and then find your way back. I'll meet you.”

“Alex!” She opened her mouth to say more but stopped.

It was probably my eyes that told her how serious I was. Because I had realized that everything I'd been told was true. The rules I knew just didn't apply here.

There was no taking him in-no transporting him back to Washington.

I was going to have to kill the Tiger, possibly right here in the Abu Shouk camp.

I had few qualms about it either. The Tiger was a murderer.

And I had finally caught up with him.

Cross Country

Chapter 91

I HUNG BACK, following the killer at a distance. It sure wasn't hard to keep him in sight. I had no specific plan. Not yet.

Then I saw a shovel sitting unattended outside somebody's hut. I took it and kept moving.

It was just past sunset, a time when everything looked tinted with blue, and sound carried. Maybe he heard me, because he turned around. I ducked out of sight, or at least I hoped so.

The huts along the footpath were packed in tightly. I wedged myself into a foot-wide gap between two of them. The walls on either side were crude mud-brick. They grated on my arms as I tried to push my way through and get the Tiger back in sight.

I had made it about halfway, when one of his young thugs stepped out into the alley.

He didn't move. He just shouted something in Yoruban.

When I looked over my shoulder, Houston Rockets was at the other end of the alley. I could see the white of his grin but not his eyes in the dim half-light.

“It's him,” he called out in a high-pitched voice, almost a giggle. “The American cop!”

Something slammed hard into the wall inside the hut. The entire hut buckled, and large chunks of dried mud fell into the alley.

“Again!” Houston Rockets yelled.

I realized what was happening-they meant to crush me in the narrow passageway.

The whole wall exploded then. Bricks and debris and dirt poured down on my head and shoulders.

I waded forward, took a hard swing, and struck the nearest punk with my shovel.

And then-I found myself face-to-face with the Tiger.

Cross Country

Chapter 92

“NOW YOU WILL die,” he said to me matter-of-factly, as if the deed were a foregone conclusion.

I didn't doubt that he was telling the truth.

He looked incredibly calm, his eyes barely registering emotion as he reached forward and grabbed me by the arm and throat. My only thought was to hold on to the shovel, and to swing it if I got the chance.

He threw me back down the alley as easily as if I were a child. No, a child's doll. I landed hard on splintering wood and plaster. Something sharp sliced into my back.

I registered Houston Rockets blocking the other escape route. There was nowhere for me to run.

The Tiger came charging at me. So I swung the shovel as hard as I could, going for the bastard's knees.

The shovel head connected-not a home run, but maybe a double. The Tiger buckled, but he didn't go down. Unbelievable. I'd hit him in the kneecaps and there he stood, glowering at me.

“That's all you have?” he said.

It was as though he didn't feel anything at all. So I raised the shovel again and struck his left arm. He must have been hurt, but he didn't show it, his face revealing no more emotion than a wall of slate.

“Now-my turn,” he said. “Can you take a punch?”

Suddenly a floodlight hit my eyes. There were voices behind it. Who was there?

“Ne bouge pas!”

I heard footsteps scuffing on the dirt and the metallic rustle of guns. Suddenly, green-helmeted AU soldiers were in the alley with us, three of them.

“Laisse la tomber!” one of the soldiers yelled.

It took a second to realize I was just as much a suspect here as the Tiger. Or, worse - maybe I was the only suspect.

I dropped the shovel and didn't wait for any more questions. “This man is wanted in the United States and Nigeria for murder. I'm a policeman.”