The People vs. Alex Cross: (Alex Cross 25) Read online

  “Stop,” Wills said.

  The screen froze on Gary Soneji’s widow with her palms almost turned up.

  “No gun,” Wills said.

  The videos started again.

  Mrs. Winslow opened her mouth and raised her hand. I shot her. She fell and Binx screamed.

  It went on like that for several more minutes, with Wills stopping the videos to show Watkins dressed as Soneji and me shooting him, then taking cover behind two old oil drums. The prosecutor froze the video one last time to show Leonard Diggs unarmed and up on the roof above the north alcove just before I shot him. Before the videos mercifully ended, you could hear Binx sobbing.

  I blew out some air and looked over at the jury. Juror five had recoiled in his chair and was studying me like I was a war criminal. Juror eleven covered her mouth with a well-manicured hand and shook her head in horror.

  CHAPTER

  57

  THE NEXT AFTERNOON, I could see outright suspicion on the normally guarded face of Gayle King, co-anchor of the CBS morning news.

  As a sound tech hitched me up to a microphone in our house, King came over and said, “Five minutes, Dr. Cross?”

  “I look forward to it, Ms. King.”

  “Call me Gayle. And we’re agreed? No ground rules?”

  “Ask away,” I said. “I’ve got nothing to hide.”

  “Your grandmother?” King said. “She’s something.”

  “She is that.”

  She smiled, but I saw some pity in it. She walked away.

  Bree came over and handed me water. “You’re sure about this?”

  “Anita and Naomi seem to think it will humanize me. And there’s nothing else we can do until Anita’s experts have a go at those videos.”

  At the close of court proceedings, Judge Larch had granted Anita’s motion to adjourn through the following Monday morning to do just that.

  “Your FBI friends?” Bree asked, adjusting my tie.

  “Mum,” I said. “Not surprising. I would think the U.S. Attorney’s Office got Rawlins analyzing the videos for the prosecution.”

  “Well, that would be good, right? He’ll find the flaws.”

  Before I could answer, King said, “Dr. Cross?”

  “Good luck,” Bree said and kissed me on the cheek.

  The journalist gestured to a chair across from her. I mirrored her posture, sitting on the first third of the chair, back straight, chin up, and facing her with my hands relaxed, open, and resting on my thighs. Two small spotlights lit us. King put on reading glasses.

  “You’re on,” one of the camera operators said.

  The morning news anchor got right to it and pulled no punches, noting that the introduction of the video in court the day before had to have been a devastating blow.

  “Understandably, we weren’t happy about it, Gayle,” I said. “But we’re confident the video’s been doctored and we intend to prove it.”

  “How many times have you drawn and fired your service pistol in the course of your career, Dr. Cross?”

  “Norman Nixon says at least thirty-four times, counting this case,” I said.

  “And killed eleven now in the line of duty?”

  “In all those cases, I acted in accord with proper police protocol. Until the shootings I’m on trial for, I had never pulled the trigger first. But I was at close quarters in that situation. When I saw the guns, I gave them one chance to drop them and then fired to save my own life.”

  “You still maintain the three victims were armed?”

  “I do.”

  King said, “The prosecution paints you as an ‘out-of-control’ cop.”

  I controlled my temper, said, “Every time an officer fires his weapon in the course of duty, there’s a diligent investigation. I’ve gone through the process more than most officers, but in every instance I have been cleared.”

  “What do you say to those who characterize those earlier cleared cases as having been whitewashed?”

  CHAPTER

  58

  I LOOKED DIRECTLY in the camera with the red light glowing and said, “Read the investigative documents yourself, Gayle. I’ll give them to you, and you can post them on the CBS website where anyone can read them. I’m confident that you’ll agree with the shooting boards’ assessments.”

  “I like that,” King said, and she paused. “Are you above the law, Dr. Cross?”

  I had to fight not to let my hands curl into fists and said, “No, Gayle, I am not above the law, and I’m frankly insulted at the characterization. I have spent my life in service to the law as a homicide cop and an FBI agent. I have more than twenty meritorious citations for my actions with both agencies and not one reprimand for excessive violence or any other disciplinary action. Not one.”

  King’s eyes locked on mine. She said, “Did Gary Soneji deserve to die ten years ago?”

  I thought about that and said, “Personal opinion?”

  “Is there any other kind?”

  “Then my opinion is yes.”

  King’s eyes went wide. “Yes?”

  “Soneji bombed people with impunity. He kidnapped and tortured others. He used a baby as a human shield while trying to bomb Times Square. I chased him into the New York subway system when he was wearing an explosives vest. He tried to kill me. I did everything I could to make sure the vest did not go off, including killing him. So, yes, if I’ve ever met someone who deserved to die, it was Gary Soneji.”

  “Are you obsessed with him?”

  “No more than you’ll be obsessed with me when you move on to your next story. Look, being a detective is my job, not a crusade or a vendetta. I do my best. I move on.”

  “‘I do my best. I move on.’ I like that,” she said, and she smiled and took off her glasses. “Virginia Winslow and Leonard Diggs. Did they deserve to die?”

  “No,” I said. “But they made decisions that led me to make decisions as a police officer that ended their lives. I still don’t have a crystal-clear rationale for their actions other than their wanting to frame me.”

  “In the video, none of your victims are seen carrying guns.”

  “In person, they were all holding nickel-plated revolvers,” I said.

  She chewed on one arm of her reading glasses. “And you, what, believe that Claude Watkins’s followers somehow erased the images of them?”

  “Something like that, yes.”

  “If you watch that video, you look like the coldest of killers, Dr. Cross.”

  “Or the biggest of patsies.”

  King put her glasses back on, referred to her notes. “With all the shootings across the country involving white cops killing black kids, isn’t it ironic that there was no real federal involvement in this issue until the U.S. Justice Department put a black cop on trial?”

  I felt my expression harden as I said, “I’ve never really wanted to play that card, but it sure makes you think, doesn’t it?”

  It went on for another twenty minutes before King finished. When the cameras were off, I stood and let the tech remove the microphone while King spoke with her producer.

  She came over afterward, shook my hand a second time, and said, “I apologize for some of the tougher questions. Like you said, it’s the job.”

  “I don’t mind tough questions as long as they’re unbiased.”

  “How’d I do?”

  “I thought you were fair. How’d I do?”

  King held my gaze before saying, “You’re either a pathological liar and a killer or you’re being framed by real smart folks.”

  “That how you’re going to spin it?”

  “No spin, Dr. Cross,” King said. “We’ll lay out both sides as we go and let the viewers decide.”

  CHAPTER

  59

  BREE, ANITA, AND Naomi were convinced I’d done myself a great deal of good with the interview. And Nana Mama was still buzzing with the excitement of meeting Oprah’s best friend forever, which I thought was kind of sweet and funny.

>   But as the hours ticked by I grew more anxious. What if Anita’s analysts weren’t good enough? What if we couldn’t prove the video had been doctored?

  Around nine that evening, I was feeling claustrophobic. Ali found me pacing around in the kitchen.

  “Dad?” he asked. “Can I see those videos everyone’s talking about?”

  “Why would you want to see things like that?”

  He shrugged. “Your attorney Ms. Marley thinks something’s wrong with them. I wanted to see if I could see it.”

  I thought about that for several moments and then said, “I don’t think I’d be the best father if I let a nine-year-old see a recording of people dying needlessly.”

  “Oh,” my son said, sounding taken aback. “I just wanted to help.”

  “I know you did, bud,” I said, and I hugged him.

  Ali left me looking disappointed, which made me feel even more claustrophobic. I went upstairs and got changed into sweatpants, an old FBI hoodie, and running shoes. I found Bree in the front room watching The Voice and said I was going out for a jog.

  “You want company?”

  “Not this time,” I said. “I need to get some things straight or I won’t sleep.”

  Bree gave me an even gaze. “Just for the record, Alex, I think it sucks you’re going through this. It guts me.”

  “It does suck,” I said. “But like Nana Mama said, the truth will out.”

  “I don’t want you spending a day in prison before that happens.”

  “Me neither,” I said.

  “Don’t forget Jannie’s racing in the morning.”

  “I won’t be longer than I have to be,” I said, then kissed her and went out the door. I ran down the block well out of sight before slowing and hailing a cab.

  I got in the back and gave the driver an address. Twenty minutes later I was climbing out into a crowded parking lot in a light industrial area off I-95 not far from Dumfries, Virginia. I’d probably driven by the steel building there several thousand times while I was based at Quantico and never noticed it.

  Then again, ten years before there had been no big glittering sign on the side facing the road that said GODDESS!

  Throbbing electronic music pulsed from the building. For a moment I thought the two shaved-head bouncers weren’t going to let me in because of what I was wearing, but the manager happened by and said, “The FBI is always welcome. More and more of you brave ones every day.”

  I paid the twenty-five-dollar cover fee and went inside the club, an homage to 1970s disco, with black walls, lots of mirrors, and flashing balls spinning and flickering above the dance floor, which was packed with gyrating gay men in all manner of dress, from tuxes to leather bondage outfits.

  As I moved around, I turned down two offers to dance myself before spotting the man I’d come to see. Krazy Kat Rawlins was right in the middle of the mob of sweating dancers, shaking his booty, tossing his red Mohawk around, and waving his tattooed arms overhead as if he were at a revival for some of that old-time religion.

  When the song changed, Rawlins came off the dance floor sweating, gasping, grinning, and flirting with several pals before he spotted me. Suddenly, the FBI’s top digital analyst wasn’t so exhilarated anymore.

  “Unless you drive on my side of the highway, what are you doing here?”

  “You haven’t been returning my calls.”

  Rawlins patted his Mohawk, gauging its stiffness, before saying, “I don’t believe you deserve to talk to me or to Batra anymore.”

  “Excuse me?”

  He squared off, crossing his arms. “I’ve looked at the videos, Dr. Cross. Metadata’s all there and I don’t see any evidence that the sections that show the victims’ hands have been altered in any way.”

  The words took a moment to sink in, and then I felt detached from my body. I looked around the dance club as if it were part of some weird dream.

  “I saw guns, pistols,” I said.

  “The data doesn’t lie,” Rawlins said.

  “No, that’s not right. I’m telling you, Krazy Kat, that—”

  “I can’t help you.”

  I put my hands to my head. “I feel like I’m in some alternate universe, like I’m losing my mind.”

  He knit his brow. “Then you should go talk to someone, like a therapist, someone who can help you understand what you’ve done.”

  “But I didn’t—”

  “The videos say you did,” Rawlins said. “The videos say Winslow and Diggs were unarmed. You killed them in cold blood, not self-defense.”

  “I saw guns!”

  “Then your brain invented the guns so you could deal with what you’d done. You’d gotten off before. You’d do it again.”

  The FBI tech guru walked away and disappeared into the mass of writhing bodies on the dance floor with me staring dumbly after him.

  CHAPTER

  60

  I HAVE NEVER been a quitter in my entire life, never tried to do anything but face my responsibilities and duties head-on. But sitting in another cab twenty minutes after Rawlins vanished back onto the dance floor at the club, I felt like telling the driver to take me to National Airport or Union Station instead of home.

  I wanted to flee, get a new identity, and hide out on a South Sea island, do anything except go home to tell Bree, Nana Mama, and the kids what Rawlins had said. There’d been no guns. I’d been deluded at best, downright evil at worst. In either case, I was going to federal prison, probably for life.

  I shut my eyes, trying to remember the entire incident, clearly seeing the gun in Watkins’s hand, and in Virginia Winslow’s, and Leonard Diggs’s. It made me sick to my stomach when I thought of the videos, clearly showing no guns before I shot.

  How in God’s name was that possible?

  I thought back again, trying to remember every instant, and recalled that I’d felt odd, light-headed when Kimiko Binx and I arrived at the factory. Inside the factory, I’d felt … giddy? Why would I have been giddy? There were people with guns trying to kill me and I’d been … elated?

  Maybe Rawlins was right. Maybe I did need to see a shrink, or at least someone who might understand what I was going through, someone like …

  “Driver,” I said. “Change of plans. Take me downtown.”

  He dropped me on a corner not far from the courthouse. I walked north several blocks to a familiar street with lights blazing in some of the town houses and big dumpsters out in front of the ones that were dark.

  There were a few lights on in one of the duplexes, which did and didn’t surprise me. Bernie Aaliyah had been fixing up the place.

  As I climbed the stairs to the porch and the front door, my mind fled back to the last time I’d been here. I remembered being outside Tess Aaliyah’s bedroom door, hearing the gunshot, and jumping back in shock and despair. And poor Bernie Aaliyah pounding on the door, begging the silence for an answer, some hope.

  I shook off the memory, hesitated, and then knocked. A few moments later, the dead bolts were thrown and the door opened.

  “Dr. Cross?”

  “I wonder if I could talk to you.”

  “I’m doing good since we last spoke,” Tess said, and she smiled. “We have another meeting set, don’t we?”

  “This time it’s not about you,” I said.

  “Oh,” she said, and frowned. “Well, then, of course, please come in.”

  CHAPTER

  61

  I FOLLOWED HER inside, remarking to myself how good she looked after only a month off the various interacting drugs that had helped put her behind a locked door with her backup pistol talking about rats, and her father and I outside thinking suicide.

  It turned out that the construction projects up and down the street had disturbed the neighborhood’s urban rat population and caused a migration. Tess had seen rats twice in her closet upstairs earlier that day. After her fight with her dad, and in a semidelusional state due to the drugs, she decided she’d clean out the closet, put cracke
rs and birdseed in a pile, and then sit back and wait for a shot. It was why she’d insisted on talking quietly. She’d been hunting.

  After Tess shot the rat, the ringing in her ears was so loud that for several long, agonizing moments, she didn’t hear her father pounding on the door. Then she’d opened the door and looked at us with bloodshot, drug-puzzled eyes, as if she couldn’t imagine what we were so upset about.

  It had taken several hours to convince Tess to enter a psychiatric facility in Virginia so she could be properly evaluated. But she eventually agreed and spent a week there getting clean and undergoing tests. She’d gone into the psych ward taking a multi-pill cocktail and left on a single drug for depression. The doctors said that in her effort to forget, she was lucky she hadn’t done permanent brain damage.

  “You want a beer?” Tess said. “Dad left some.”

  “Water if you’ve got it,” I said.

  “Coming up,” she said and got me some chilled from the fridge.

  I sat in Bernie Aaliyah’s favorite chair. Tess gave me my water, curled her feet under her on the couch, and said, “Thank you again for helping me, Alex. You were the only one who saw I was a danger to myself.”

  “I’m glad you agreed to get help,” I said. “Which is why I came to see you.”

  “Okay?”

  “Have you been following my trial?”

  She shook her head. “My therapist advised me to go on a no-media diet for a few months.”

  “That’s not a bad idea,” I said, but then I brought her up to speed on the latest trial developments, including the video and Rawlins’s contention that it had not been doctored.

  “But you saw those pistols?”

  “Every time I close my eyes, I see them,” I said.

  “Any chance you imagined them?”

  I started to tell her absolutely not but then said, “Part of me doesn’t know anymore, Tess, and it’s got me scared that I did something heinous and that my mind has somehow erased it and put something else in its place to justify my actions. Does that make sense? Has that ever happened to you?”