Patterson, James - Alex Cross 3 - Jack and Jill

It was pretty as hell, actually. Close to glorious. Not the way he usually thought of New York City. It was just a facade, though.

Like Jack and Jill, he was thinking.

As he ran alongside a blue city bus chargang down Fifth Avenue, he wondered if he might die in the next few hours. He had to be ready for that, to be prepared for anything.

Kamikaze, he thought. The final plan was deadly, and it was as surefire as these things could be. He didn't believe that the target could possibly survive this attack. No one could. There would be other deaths as well. This was a war, after all, and people died in war.

Jack finally emerged from the park at Fifth Avenue and Fifty-ninth.

He continued to run south, picking up his pace.

A few moments later, he entered the formal and attractive lobby of the Peninsula Hotel in the West Fifties. It was ten past six in the morning. The Peninsula was a little more than twenty blocks from Madison Square Garden, where President Byrnes was scheduled to appear at twenty-five past eleven. The New York Times was just being delivered into the hotel lobby He caught the headline: JACK AND JILL KILLERS FEARED IN NEW YORK AS PRESIDENT VISITS.

He was impressed. Even the Times was on top of things.

Then Jack saw Jill. Jill was right on time in the lobby. Always on time. She was at the Peninsula according to plan. Always according to plan.

She had on a silver-and-blue jogging suit, but she didn't look as if she'd raised a sweat coming up from the Waldorf. He wondered if she had run or walked. Or maybe even caught a Yellow Cab.

He didn't acknowledge her in any way He stepped into a waiting elevator and took it to his floor. Sara would take the next elevator.

He let himself into his room and waited for her. A single knock on the door. She was on schedule. Less than sixty seconds behind him.

“I look terrible,” she said. Sara's first words. It was so typical of her self-effacing tone, her view of herself, her vulnerability Sara the poor gimp.

“No, you don't,” he reassured her. “You look beautiful, because you are beautiful.” She didn't look her best, though. She was showing the terrible strain of these last hours. Her face was a mask of worry and doubt, too much makeup and mascara and bright red lipstick. D day. She'd sprayed her blond hair, and it looked brittle.

“The Waldorf is hopping already,” she reported to him. “They think an assassination attempt definitely will be made today They're ready for it, at least they think they are. Five thousand regular New York police, plus the Secret Service, the FBI. They have an army on hand.”

“Let them think they're ready,” Jack said. “We'll see soon enough, won't we? Now come here, you,” he smiled. “You don't look terrible at all. Never happen. You look ravishing, Sara. May I ravage you?”

“Now?” Sara weakly protested. It was a whisper. So tiny and vulnerable and unsure. But she couldn't resist his strong, reassuring embrace. She never had been able to, and that was part of the plan as well. Everything had been anticipated, which was why they couldn't fail.

He slid out of his running shirt, exposing a glistening-wet chest. All the tufts of his hair were damp with sweat. He pressed up against Sara. She arched her body hard against him. Their pulses were racing. Jack and Jill. In New York. So close to the end.

He could feel her heartbeat quickening, like a small hunted animal's. She couldn't help it. She was so scared now, legitimately so.

"Please tell me that we'll see each other again, even if we won't.

Tell me it isn't over after today, Sam."

"It won't be over, Monkey Face. I'm as frightened as you are right now. To feel this way is normal, and sane. You're very sane.

We both are."

“In a few hours we'll be on our way out of New York. All of this Jack and Jill will be behind us,” she whispered. “Oh, I do love you, Sam. I love you so much that it's scary.”

It was scary. More than Sara could possibly know. More than anybody ought to know, or ever would. History wasn't for the general public -- it never had been.

Slowly and carefully, he slid a Ruger from the rear waistband of his sweatpants. His hands were sweaty He was holding his breath now. He placed the gun against Sara's head and fired at a slightly downward angle into her temple. Just one shot.

A professional execution.

Without passion.

Almost without passion.

The Ruger was silenced. The noise in the hotel room was no more than a tiny, insignificant spit. The harsh impact of the 9mm bullet took her out of his arms. He shivered involuntarily as he looked down on the lifeless body on the hotel rug.

“Now it's over,” he said. “The pain of your life is over, all the bitterness and hurt. I'm sorry, Monkey Face.”

He put the final note in Jill's right hand. Then he squeezed her fist so that the note crumpled naturally. He held Sara's hand for the last time.

And Jill came tumbling after. He thought of the words in the children's rhyme.

But Jack would not fall down.

The day of ultimate madness had begun.

Jack and Jill had finally begun.

Alex Cross 3 - Jack and Jill

PART 6

NOBODY IS SAFE ANYMORE-NOBODY

THE THICK DOCUMENT in my hands was entitled Visit of the President of the United States. New York City, December 16 and 17. It ran to eighty-nine pages and included virtually every moment from when the President would step off Air Force One at La Guardia until he reboarded at approximately two in the afternoon and traveled back to Washington.

Included among the pages were sketches, literally of everywhere the President would be: La Guardia Airport, the Waldorf, the Felt Forum inside Madison Square Garden, the motorcade routes, alternate routes.

The Secret Service document stated:

10:55 A.t The President and Mrs. Byrnes board motorcade Note: The President and Mrs. Byrnes proceed through a cordon of NYPD officers at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel

11:00 A.M. Motorcade departs Waldorf via route (code C) to Madison Square Garden, the Felt Forum Closed arrival.

No press pool coverage.

I occupied my mind with the puzzle of Jack and Jill as the time approached for the President to leave the Waldorf and then travel downtown with the motorcade of limousines, police radio cars, and motorcycles. For the past three days, the FBI, Secret Service, and New York police had been cooperating on a massive plan to try and capture Jack and Jill if they actually came to Madison Square Garden. Nearly a thousand plainclothes agents and detectives would be inside for the President's speech. We all had doubts that it would be enough protection.

A disturbing mania had been running through my head all morning: No one ever stops an assassin bullet. No one stops a bullet except the victim.

What would Jack and Jill do? How would it go down? I believed they would be at Madison Square Garden. I suspected that they planned to do the job up close. And somehow, they planned to escape.

The President and Mrs. Byrnes were escorted to their car at precisely five minutes to eleven. A phalanx of a dozen Secret Service agents shadowed them from the tower suite to an armor-plated limousine waiting in the hotel's underground garage.

I walked closely behind the main escort group. My role here wasn't to physically protect the President. I had already told Jay Grayer how I believed the attempt would be made. It would be close in. It would be showy. But they would have a plan to escape.

There had already been a change in plans that morning. No cordon of high-ranking policemen at the hotel rear entrance. No photo opportunities. The President had been convinced not to go through the open Waldorf lobby a second time.

I watched as Mrs. Byrnes and the President walked into the limousine for the two-mile ride. The two of them held hands. It was a touching moment to witness. It fit with everything I knew about Thomas and Sally Byrnes.