Patterson, James - Alex Cross 14 - Cross Country

Chapter 124

THE NEXT TWELVE hours of the trip passed very slowly, but finally I arrived in Washington. I wasn't able to reach Nana to tell her I was home. So I just grabbed a taxi waiting at Reagan International and headed to Fifth Street.

It was a little past nine and the nighttime traffic was heavy, but I was glad to be in DC again. Sometimes it feels that way when I come home after a long, hard trip, and this time certainly qualified. I couldn't wait to be in my own house, my own bed.

Once I was in the cab, I got lost in a kind of jet-lagged reverie.

No one had any idea about the carnage and suffering until they actually visited parts of Nigeria, Sudan, Sierra Leone-and there were no easy answers or solutions either. I didn't believe that the violence I had seen came from regular people being evil. But those at the top were, at least some of them.

And then there were psychopaths on the loose, like the Tiger and the other killers for hire, the wild boys. The fact that terrible conditions might have made them killers hardly seemed to matter.

The irony that kept jabbing at me was that I'd spent the last dozen years chasing murderers in the States, and it seemed like child's play now, nothing compared with what I'd seen in the past weeks.

I was shaken out of my reverie when the cab slid over to the side of the road. What was wrong now? I was home, and still misfortune followed me? What-aflat tire?

The driver peered back and nervously announced, “Engine trouble. I am sorry. Very sorry.” Then he pulled a gun and yelled, “Traitor! Die!”

Cross Country

Chapter 125

SOMEBODY WAS STUBBORNLY ringing the front-door bell at the Cross house. Ringing it again and again and again.

Nana was in Ali's bedroom, putting him down the way he liked her to, lying in bed next to him until the sweet boy drifted off to sleep as she whispered the words of a favorite story.

Tonight the book was Ralph S. Mouse, and Ali wouldn't stop giggling at every page, often a couple of times on the same page, saying, “Read it again, Nana. Read it again.”

Nana waited patiently for Jannie to get the front door. But it rang again, and then again. Persistent and rude and maddening. Jannie had been making a cake in the kitchen. Where was that girl? Why didn't she answer the door?

“Now who can it be?” Nana mumbled as she pushed herself up and out of Ali's bed. “I'll be right back, Ali--Janelle, you are trying my patience, and that's not a good idea.”

But when she got to the living room, Nana Mama saw that Janelle was already at the door-which was flung wide open.

A strange boy in a red Houston Rockets basketball shirt was still ringing the bell.

“Are you some kind of a crazy person?” Nana called out as she hobbled quickly across the foyer. “Stop that bell ringing this instant! Just stop it now. What do you want here so late? Do I know you, son?”

The boy in the Rockets jersey finally took his hand off the bell. Then he held up a sawed-off shotgun for Nana to see, but she kept coming forward until she protectively held Jannie.

“I will kill dis stupid girl in a second,” he said. “And I will kill you, of woman. I will not hesitate jus' 'cause you de detective's family.”

Cross Country

Chapter 126

IT ALL HAPPENED so fast in the taxi and caught me completely off guard and unprepared, but I saw a chance, and I had to take it.

I didn't think the cab driver was an experienced killer. He'd hesitated instead of just pulling the trigger and shooting me.

So I lurched forward and grabbed the gun and his hand at the same time.

Then I smashed his wrist against the taxi's metal partition. I smashed it again as hard as I could.

The man yelped loudly and he let go of the gun. I pulled it away and swung it toward him.

Suddenly he ducked low and then flung himself out the front door.

I jumped out the back door, but he was already scampering down a grassy hill. Then he disappeared into a thicket of woods off to the side of the highway.

I had a shot with his gun, but I didn't take it. He'd called me “traitor.” Just like the flight attendant.

Did he believe that, or was he doing what he'd been told?

I pictured the man's face, gaunt, a goatee, maybe in his midtwenties. A soldier? A thug? His accented English showed hints of a Nigerian dialect. So Who had sent him after me-the Tiger? Somebody else? Who?

I tried not to speculate on conspiracy theories right now. Not here, not yet.

The keys were still in the ignition, and without much deliberation 1 decided to drive the taxi home. I'd call Metro once I was there.

But what would I tell them-how much of this strange and disturbing story?

And how much would I tell Nana? She wouldn't be happy to see me like this: driving a cab-taken from the driver, who had wanted to kill me.

Cross Country

Chapter 127

IT TOOK ONLY a few minutes for me to get to the house on Fifth Street.

I parked the cab out on the street. Suddenly I was sprinting toward the house. On the way home, I had started to worry about Nana and the kids.

Was everyone all right? Maybe this was just more paranoia on my part. But maybe it wasn't. The Tiger went after families, didn't he? And someone had just tried to kill me. I wasn't making that up.

I was startled by Rosie the cat, who snuck up behind me on the front lawn.

Who had let Rosie out? She was a committed indoor cat. 1 could see she was highly agitated. Why was that? What had happened? What had Rosie seen?

“Nana,” I called as I ran up the front steps. “Nana!”

I turned the knob-and the door wasn't locked.

That wasn't right either. Nobody left their doors unlocked in Southeast, especially Nana.

“Nana!… Kids!” I called as I let myself in and began hurrying though the downstairs part of the house. I didn't want to scare them just because I was frightened out of my skull.

Still?

I stopped in the kitchen because it was a complete disaster area. I'd never seen it like this. It looked like someone had been making a cake and had stopped in the middle of things.

But that wasn't all that had happened here. Chairs had been turned over. Plates and glasses were broken on the floor.

So was a mixing bowl that looked like it had held vanilla frosting. Nana had been making a cake-lucky for me.

I pulled out the gun I'd taken from the taxi driver.

Then I started upstairs, unable to get my breath. I tried not to trample on Rosie as we hurried up there together.

Quietly.

And quickly.

Cross Country

Chapter 128

I CHECKED ALL the bedrooms on the second floor. Then my office in the attic. Finally I went down to the cellar.

There was nothing, no one, anywhere in the house.

Finally, I called Metro and reported the possible kidnapping of my family.

Within minutes, three cruisers pulled up in front. Their roof lights were flashing ominously. I came outside just as Sampson arrived.

I explained to John what I knew so far. He stood with me on the porch, where I was holding Rosie, holding on to her for support, really. Everything felt unreal and I was numb from my head to my feet.

“It's the Tiger, has to be him. Something about what happened in Africa,” I said to John. “I almost got shot on the way from the airport.” I pointed toward the taxi sitting on the street. “Cab driver pulled a gun on me.”

“They're alive, Alex,” Sampson said and put an arm around me. “They have to be.”

“I hope you're right. Otherwise, they would have killed them here, like Ellie and her family”

“They must think you know something. Do you, Alex?”