Patterson, James - Alex Cross 3 - Jack and Jill

I had my Glock out and the window rolled down. I wasn't going to fire unless he did. Kevin Hawkins wasn't wanted for any specific crime yet. No warrants had been served. Why was he running? He sure was acting guilty about something.

Hawkins leaned the Harley into a steep curve as he downshifted into fourth. I remembered another life and time spent on a fast motorcycle. I recalled its amazing maneuverability.

The rawness of the speed. The feeling when your skin begins to tighten against your skull. I rememberedJezzie Flanagan, and her motorcycle.

Hawkins's bike made a deep, guttural roar as it climbed the hilly road like a ground rocket.

I tried to keep up, and was doing a pretty decent job. Amazingly, so was the Volvo wagon and the sedan. The chase scene was complete madness, though -- suburbia suddenly racing out of control.

Was Jack up ahead?

Was Hawkins Jack?

I watched Kevin Hawkins stretch himself flat over the handlebars of the bike. He knew how to ride. What else did the trained killer know how to do?

He was accelerating into fifth, approaching ninety or so on a narrow suburban road repeatedly marked for thirty-five.

Then up ahead -- traffic!

The bane of our existence was suddenly the most glorious and welcome sight in the world to me.

A traffic jam!

Several cars and vans were already backed up in the direction we were coming from.

A bright orange mini-school bus was stopped in the opposite lane. It was discharging a thin line of children, as it did probably every day about this time.

Hawkins hadn't slowed the cycle much, though. Suddenly, he was riding the double line in the road. He hadn't slowed the cycle at all.

I realized what he was going to do.

He was going to split the stopped traffic, and keep on going.

I started to brake and cursed loudly. I knew what I had to do.

I swerved off the road again, traveling cross-country over more lawns. A woman in a black pea jacket and jeans screamed at me from her porch and waved a snow shovel.

I headed toward where the main road looped down ahead to meet the lane I had been stuck in traffic in only a few seconds ago.

Jeanne Sterling followed in her station wagon. So did the Lincoln sedan. Madness and chaos helter-skelter in Silver Spring.

Was this Jack up ahead? Were we about to nab the celebrity stalker and killer?

I had high hopes. We were so close to him. Less than a hundred yards.

I kept my eyes pinned on the bouncing, speeding motorcycle.

Suddenly, it went down!

The bike slid on one side, sending up a sheet of bright orange and white sparks against the roadway black. A few kids were still walking in a line between the bus and the stopped traffic.

Then Hawkins went down!

He had gone down to avoid hitting the children.

He had swerved to avoid hitting the kids!

Hawkins was down on the road.

Could this be Jack up ahead?

If not, who in the name of God was he?

I was out of the car, holding my Glock, racing like a madman toward the bizarre accident scene. I was slip-sliding on the ice and snow, but I wouldn't let it slow me down.

Jeanne Sterling and her two agents were out of their cars as well, but they weren't doing as well in the slush. I was losing my cover.

Kevin Hawkins managed to pull himself up from the sprawling heap. He looked back. He saw us coming. Guns everywhere.

He had a gun out, but he didn't fire. He was only a few feet away from the school bus and the children.

He left the kids alone, though. Instead, he ran to a black Camaro convertible at the head of the line of stopped cars.

What the hell was he up to now?

I could see him yelling into the driver-side window of the stopped sports car. Then blam, he fired directly into the open window.

Hawkins yanked open the car door, and a body fell out.

Jesus Christ, he'd shot the driver dead! Just like that.

I had seen it, but I couldn't believe it.

The contract killer took off in the Camaro. He'd killed someone for his car. But he'd nearly killed himself to avoid hitting a row of innocent children.

No rules... or rather, make up your own.

I stopped running and stood helplessly in the middle of the street in Silver Spring. Had we just been that close to catching Jack ?

Had it almost been over?

NANA MAMA was still up when I got home about eleven-thirty that night. Sampson was with her.

Adrenaline fired through my body the moment I saw them waiting for me. The two of them looked even worse than I felt after a long bear of a day.

Something was wrong. Something was very wrong at our house. I could tell it for sure. Sampson and Nana didn't have casual visits after eleven o'clock at night.

“What's going on? What happened?” I asked as I came in through the kitchen door. My stomach was dropping, plunging.

Nana and Sampson sat at the small dining table. They were talking, conspiring over something.

“What is it?” I asked again. “What the hell is going on?”

“Someone's been calling on the telephone all night tonight, Alex. Then they just hang up when I answer the phone,” my grandmother told me as I sat at the kitchen table beside her and Sampson.

“Why didn't you call me right away?” I asked, firmly but gently “You have my beeper number. That's what it's for, Nana.”

“I called John,” Nana answered the question. “I knew you were busy protecting the President and his family.”

I ignored her usual rancor. This wasn't the time for that, or for a tiff. “Did the caller ever say anything?” I asked. “Did you actually speak to anyone?”

“No. There were twelve calls between eight-thirty and ten or so. None since then. I could hear someone breathing on the line, Alex. I almost blew my whistle on them.” Nana keeps a silver referee's whistle near the phone. It's her own solution to obscene calls. This time I almost wished she had blown the damn whistle.

“I'm going to bed now,” she said and sighed softly, almost inaudibly.

For once, she actually looked her age. “Now that you're both here.”

She strained as she pushed herself up out of the creaking kitchen chair. She went over to Sampson first. She bent just a little and kissed him on the cheek.

“'Night, Nana,” he whispered. “There's nothing to worry about. We'll take care of everything, bad as it seems right now.”

“John, John,” she gently scolded him. “There's a great deal of worry about, and we both know it. Don't we, now?”

She came and kissed me. “Goodnight, Alex. I'm glad you're home now. This murderer stalking our neighborhood worries me so. It's very bad. Very bad. Please trust my feelings on this one.”

I held her frail body for a few seconds, and I could feel the anger building inside. I held her tightly and thought about how terrible this was, what she was intimating, this evil incarnate following me home. No one in his right mind goes after a cop's family I didn't believe the killer was in his right mind, though.

“Goodnight, Nana. Thank you for being here for us,” I whispered against her cheek, smelled her lilac talc. “I hear what you're saying. I agree with you.”

When she had left the room, Sampson shook his head. Then he finally smiled. “Tough as ever, man. She's really something else. I love her, though. I love your grandma.”

“I do, too. Most of the time.”

I was staring up at the ceiling light, trying to focus on something that I could comprehend -- like electricity, lamps, moldings.

No one can really understand a homicidal madman. They are like visitors from other planets -- literally I was almost speechless, for once in my life. I felt violated, incredibly angry, and also afraid for my family Maybe these phone calls were nothing, but I didn't know that for sure.