Patterson, James - Alex Cross 5 - Pop Goes the Weasel

John and I finally climbed upstairs into the apartment above the garage. It was dusty, grimy, without much furniture. Eerie and unpleasant on the eyes. It didn't look as if anyone lived there, but if someone did, they were really weird. The landlady had said as much.

The kitchen was mostly empty. An expensive juicer was the only personal indulgence. Not a low-end model -expensive. I took out my handkerchief and opened the refrigerator. There was nothing in it but bottled water and some aging fruit. The fruit was rotting and I hated to think of what else we might find here in the apartment.

'Health nut,' Sampson offered.

'Nut anyway.' I said. 'There's a sense of animal fear in here. He gets very tense, excited, when he comes to this place.'

'Yeah.' Sampson said, 'I know the feeling.'

We entered the bedroom, which had a small cot, a couple of stuffed chairs, nothing else. The sense of fear was here, too.

I opened the closet door and what I saw stopped me dead. There was a pair of khaki pants, a blue chambray shirt, a blue blazer - and something else.

'John, come here.' I called. 'John!'

'Oh, shit. Do I have to? Not more bodies.'

'Just come here. It's him. This is the Weasel's place. I'm sure of it. It's worse than a body.'

I opened the closet door wider and let Sampson see what I'd found there.

'Shit.' he groaned. 'Goddamn it, Alex.'

Someone had put up pictures. Half-a-dozen black-and-white photographs were taped to the wall of the closet. It wasn't a killer's shrine. It was meant to be found.

There were pictures of Nana, Damon, Jannie, me, and Christine. Christine almost seemed to be smiling at the camera, that incredible smile of hers, those big welcoming eyes.

The pictures had been taken in Bermuda. Whoever had rented this apartment had taken them. Finally, I had something to link Christine's abduction to the murders in Washington. I knew who had taken her.

Back off.

Before you lose everything.

I sensed fear again. It was my own.

Alex Cross 5 - Pop Goes the Weasel

CHAPTER Sixty-Four

Patsy Hampton had decided that she wasn't ready to confide in Chief George Pittman just yet. She didn't want the Jefe interfering or crowding her. Also, she flat out didn't trust or like the bastard.

She still hadn't made up her mind what to do about Alex Cross. Cross was a complication. The more she checked him out, the better he looked. He seemed to be a very good, dedicated detective and she felt bad about keeping Chuck Hufstedler's information away from him. Chuck had been Cross's source first, but she'd used the techie's crush on her to gain an advantage. She didn't like herself for doing that.

She drove her Jeep to the British Embassy late that afternoon. She had Geoffrey Shafer under limited surveillance - hers. She could get more teams, but that would mean going to Pittman now, and she didn't want anyone to know what she had. She didn't want to be crowded.

She had done preliminary homework on Shafer. He was in the Security Service, which meant he was British Intelligence, operating outside England. Most likely he was a spy working out of the embassy on Massachusetts Avenue. His reputation was okay, good, actually. His current assignment supposedly had to do with the British Government's human-rights program, which meant the assignment was bullshit. He lived in Kalorama, and that was a high-rent district he shouldn't be able to afford on his salary. So, who the hell was this Shafer chap?

Hampton sat parked in her vehicle outside the embassy on California Street. She smoked a Marlboro Light and started to think things through. She really ought to talk to Cross about where he was with his investigation. Did he know anything that could help? Maybe he was onto Shafer? It was almost criminal for her not to contact Cross and share what she'd gotten from Chucky Cheese.

Pittman's dislike for Cross was well-known; he considered him competition. She didn't know Cross that well, but he got too many headlines. Still, she wished she knew what Cross had in his files, and especially if Geoffrey Shafer might have appeared on Cross's radar.

There was too much fricking noise on the fricking street near the British Embassy. Workers were doing construction on the Turkish Chancery across California Street. Hampton already had a headache - her life was one big headache - and she wished they would stop pounding and hammering and battering and sawing. For some reason or other, there was a crowd of people swarming all over the National Mosque today.

At a few minutes past five Shafer got into his Jaguar in a parking lot outside the glass-walled Rotunda.

She'd seen him twice before and he was in very good shape. Attractive, too, though not a physical type she herself responded to. Shafer sure didn't hang around long after the workday ended. Hampton figured he either had some place to go or he really hated his day job. Possibly both.

She stayed a safe distance behind the black Jag, following it along crowded Massachusetts Avenue. Shafer didn't seem to be heading home, and he wasn't going to Southeast either.

Where are we going tonight? She wondered as she tailed him. And what does it have to do with The Four Horsemen? What game are you really playing? What are your fantasies?

Are you a bad man, a murderer, Geoffrey? You don't look like it, Blondie. Such a nice spiffy car for a scumbag killer.

Alex Cross 5 - Pop Goes the Weasel

CHAPTER Sixty-Five

After work, Geoffrey Shafer joined the clogged artery of rush-hour traffic inching along Massachusetts. Turning out of the embassy he had spotted the black Jeep behind him.

The tail was still there as he drove down Massachusetts Avenue.

Who was in the Jeep? One of the other players? DC police? Detective Alex Cross? They had found the garage in Eckington. Now they'd found him. It had to be the bloody police.

He watched the black Jeep as it trailed four cars behind him. There was only one person inside and it looked like a woman. Could it possibly be Lucy? Had she discovered the truth about him? God, had she finally figured out who and what he was?

He picked up his mobile phone and made a call home. Lucy picked up after a couple of rings.

'Darling, I'm coming home, after all. There's a bit of a lull at the office. We can order in or something - unless you and the children already have plans.'

She blathered on in the usual maddening way. She and the twins had been going to see a movie, Ante, but they'd rather stay at home with him. They could order from Pizza Hut. It would be fun for a change.

'Yes, what fun,' Shafer said, and cringed at the thought. Pizza Hut served indigestible cardboard drenched with very bad tomato soup. He hung up, then took a couple of Vicodin and a Xanax. He thought he could feel cracks slowly opening up in his skull.

He made a dangerous U-turn on Massachusetts Avenue and headed toward home. He passed the Jeep going in the opposite direction and was tempted to wave. A woman driver. Now, who was she?

The pizza got to the house at around seven and Shafer opened an expensive bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon. He washed down another Xanax with the wine in the downstairs bathroom. Felt a little confused, fuzzy around the edges. That was all right, he supposed.

Jesus Christ, he couldn't stand being with his family, though; he felt as if he were going to crawl out of his skin. Ever since he'd been a boy in England he'd had a repetitive fantasy that he was actually a reptile and could shed his own skin. He'd had the dream long before he'd read any Kafka; he still had the disturbing dream.

He rolled three dice in his hand as he sipped his wine, played the game at the dinner table. If the number seventeen came up, he would murder them all tonight.