Patterson, James - Alex Cross 3 - Jack and Jill

Jeanne Sterling had shot him point-blank. She had a gun hidden in her robe. She'd fired right- through the pocket. Maybe she had seen us approaching the house. Or maybe she always had a gun nearby. She was Jill, after all.

Jeanne shifted her feet and turned the gun on me. I was already diving down behind the kitchen counter.

She fired the semiautomatic anyway.

Another deafening blast in the kitchen. A flash of light. Then another shot.

She kept firing as she backed from the kitchen. Then she ran.

Her robe flew behind her like a cape.

I quickly moved to where Jay Grayer had gone down. He was wounded high in the chest, near the collarbone. His face was drained of color. Jay was conscious, though. "Just get her, Alex.

Get her alive,“ he gasped. ”Get them. They know everything."

I moved carefully but quickly inside the Sterling house. Don't kill her. She knows the truth. We need to hear it from her just this once. She knows why the President was killed, and who ordered it.

She knows!

Suddenly, a Secret Service agent came rushing inside the front door. Another agent was close behind him.

Two more agents appeared from the direction of the kitchen.

All of them had their guns drawn. Looks of shocked concern were on their faces.

“What the hell happened in here?” one of the agents shouted.

“Jeanne Sterling has a gun. We take her alive, anyway We have to take her alive!”

I heard a noise in the direction of the front hallway Actually, two noises. I understood what was happening, and my heart sank.

A car engine was being started.

An electric garage door was being raised.

Jill was getting away.

MY CHEST was thundering, ready to explode, but my heart had gone icy cold.

Take her alive, no matter what! She's even more important than Jack.

The door to the garage was down a narrow hallway that led past a large sun room. The sun room was awash in blinding morning light. I sucked in a breath. Then I opened the garage door carefully, as if it might explode. It just might, I knew. Anything could happen now. This was the house of dirty tricks.

There was a dark, narrow corridor between the house and the garage. The passageway was about four feet long. I moved down it in a low crouch.

Another closed door was at the end.

Take her alive. That the one imperative.

I yanled open the second door and jumped out into what I figured had to be the garage. It was.

Instantly, I heard three loud pops. I hit the concrete floor hard.

Gunshots!

Thunderous, scary noise in the confined space. No thud of a bullet to my chest or head, thank God.

I saw Jeanne Sterling leaning out of the window of her station wagon. She had a semiautomatic clutched in one hand. I pushed myself up again.

Take her alive! my brain screamed as I ducked out of sight.

I had seen something else in the car. She had her youngest daughter with her. Her three-year-old, Karon. She was using Karon as a shield. She knew we wouldn't shoot with the girl in the way The little girl was screaming loudly. She was terrified.

How could Jeanne Sterling do this to a child?

I crouched behind the oil tank in the darkened, cramped space.

I was trying to think straight.

I shut my eyes for a beat. Half a second at most.

I drank in a huge breath of cold air and gasoline fumes. Tried to think in absolutely straight lines. I made a decision and hoped it was the right one.

When I came up again, I fired. I carefully aimed away from the little girl. But I fired.

I went down in the crouch again, hidden behind the dark tank.

I knew I hadn't hit anybody My shot had only been a warning, a final one. Andrew Klauk had been right when we'd talked in the Sterlings' backyard. The CIA “ghost” was the one who told me all I needed to know right now -- the game is played with no rules.

“Jeanne, put the goddamn gun down!” I called to her. “Your little girl is in danger.”

No answer came back, just terrifying silence.

Jeanne Sterling would do whatever it took to get away. She had murdered a president, ordered it done, helped plan every step.

Would Jeanne Sterling really sacrifice her own child, though?

For what? For money? A cause she and her husband believed in?

What cause could be worth the life of a president? Of your own child?

Take her alive. Even if she deserves to die here in this garage.

Execution-style.

I popped up again. I fired a second shot into the car windJack and shield -- the driver's side, far right. Glass shattered all over the garage. Glass fragments sprayed against the ceiling, then rained back down again.

The noise was deafening in the closed space. Karon was sobbing and screeching.

I could see Jeanne Sterling through the mosaic of broken windshield glass. There was blood all over one side of her face.

She looked startled and shocked. It's one thing to plan a murder, quite another to be shot at. Io be wounded. To take a hit. Io feel that deadly thud in your own body I took three fast steps toward the Volvo station wagon.

I grabbed the car door and yanked it open. I kept my head down low, close to my chest. My teeth were gritted so hard that they hurt.

I grabbed a full handful of Jeanne Sterling's blond hair. Ihen I hit her. I popped Jeanne with a full, hard shot. Same as her husband got. The right side of her face crunched as it met my fist.

Jeanne Sterling sagged over the steering wheel. She must have had a glassjaw. Jeanne was a killer, but not much of a prizefighter.

She went out with the first good punch. We had her now. I had taken her down alive.

We finally had Jack and Jill.

Her little girl was crying in the front seat, but she wasn't hurt.

Neither was the mother. I couldn't have done it any easier, any other way We had Jack, and now we had Jill. Maybe we would hear the truth. No -- we would hear the truth!

I grabbed the little girl and held her tight against me. I wanted to erase all this for her. I didn't want her to remember it. I kept repeating, “It's all right, it's all right. Everything is all right.”

It wasn't, though. I doubted it ever would be again. Not for the Sterling children, not for my own kids. Not for any of us.

There are no rules anymore.

THE NIGHT of the capture of Jeanne and Brett Sterling, the television networks were filled with the powerful, highly disturbing story. I did a brief interview with CNN, but mostly I declined the attention. I went home and stayed there.

President Edward Mahoney delivered a statement at nine.

Jack and Jill had wanted Edward Mahoney to be president, I couldn't help thinking as I watched him address hundreds of millions of people around the world. Maybe he was involved with the shooting; maybe not. But someone had wanted him to be president instead of Thomas Byrnes, and Byrnes had distrusted Mahoney.

All I knew about Mahoney was that he and two Cuban partners had made a fortune in the cable business. Mahoney had then become a popular governor of Florida. I remembered that there had been a lot of money behind his campaign. Look for the money.

I watched the dramatic three-ring TV circus along with Nana and the kids. Damon andJanelle knew too much to be excluded from the big picture now. From their perspective, their daddy was a hero. I was someone to be proud of, and maybe even listen to and obey every now and again. But probably not.

Jannie and Rosie the cat cuddled with me on the couch as we watched the nonstop parade of news features on the assassination and the subsequent capture of the real Jack and Jill. Every time I appeared in a film sequence, Jannie gave me a kiss on the cheek. “You approve of your pop?” I asked her after one of her best, loudest smackers.