Cross the Line: (Alex Cross 24) Read online

“But you didn’t,” she said.

  “I thought it warranted further investigation. And guess what? You further investigated. You found documents we should have looked at weeks ago, but you found them nonetheless. You made a mistake, but you corrected it. You’re back on track, Chief Stone.”

  “Am I?” she said, unconvinced.

  “I have faith in you,” I said.

  “Thank you. It means everything.”

  We kissed.

  She scrunched up her nose afterward and said, “You are the love of my life, Alex, but you need a shower.”

  “On it now,” I said and headed into the bathroom.

  Letting the hot water beat on my neck, I thought back on the two documents Terry Howard had left behind. The first was a simple will that the disgraced detective wrote himself and had had notarized in duplicate. The will awarded all of Howard’s property, including his shotgun collection, to his nine-year-old daughter, Cecilia.

  Attached to the will was a letter explaining that he’d started investing in fine shotguns after learning that they tended to appreciate fast and were a safer bet than the stock market. Beginning with a small inheritance he’d received in his early twenties, he had been buying and trading shotguns for many years. He recommended a gun buyer in Dallas who could determine the collection’s value after his death.

  The second document was a brief letter to Tommy McGrath, Howard’s ex-partner. In it, Howard said he bore no ill will toward McGrath and that he knew his disgrace was the result of his own actions.

  And now the cancer’s got me, Tommy, or you wouldn’t be reading this, Howard wrote. I couldn’t tell you because I did not want you to pity me. I saw you with your young lady friend—you dog—and realized things were going better for you. You deserve better. May your life be long and fantastic. Remember me fondly—T.

  It didn’t sound like a man who was angry and ready to commit murder. To me and to Bree, it sounded like a man trying to make peace with himself and his old partner. If he’d killed McGrath and then committed suicide, why would he have left such a note? He’d obviously written it before McGrath’s death, so wouldn’t he have retrieved it and destroyed it before he killed himself? Or had he just forgotten it?

  The most cynical slice of me played with the idea that Howard had put the letter there as a way to throw us off the scent, but that didn’t make sense in light of the suicide. Wouldn’t he have left some kind of diatribe condemning McGrath?

  So maybe Howard didn’t commit suicide. In that scenario, whoever killed McGrath had also killed Howard and then framed the disgraced detective for McGrath’s murder.

  It wasn’t the perfect crime. But it was close. That is, if we could prove it.

  I got out of the shower and dried off. Bree came into the bathroom.

  “Chief Michaels is going to need harder evidence than that letter to officially reopen the case,” I said.

  “I know,” she said. “Can you help grease the wheels at the gun house?”

  “Sure. How fast?”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Thanks. By the way, how’d your day go?”

  I briefed her as I pulled on clothes.

  When I finished, she sighed. “So we’re no closer to finding Tommy’s killer or the road-rage shooter.”

  “Or the vigilantes, for that matter. Whoever they are.”

  CHAPTER

  62

  THANK GOD FOR Alex and Ned Mahoney, Bree thought the next afternoon as she and Muller hurried down a hallway to the Gun Room, the area of the FBI’s crime lab that was dedicated to the Firearms/Toolmarks Unit. The backlog for FBI testing was weeks long, and yet here they were in Quantico, marching in the front door on less than three hours’ notice.

  “We’re here to see Ammunition Specialist Noble,” Bree told the receptionist who was inspecting their visitors’ passes.

  The receptionist made a call, and several minutes later a petite woman in her late forties wearing a blue skirt, a white shirt, a white lab coat, and reading glasses on a chain came out to meet them.

  “Judith Noble,” she said crisply. “You have friends in high places, Chief Stone.”

  “We’re lucky,” Bree said. “And thank you for agreeing to help us.”

  “Not agreeing wasn’t an option,” she said coolly. “What can I do for you?”

  Bree handed over the evidence bag containing the .45-caliber bullets found in Howard’s storage unit as well as the bullets that had killed Howard, Tommy McGrath, and Edita Kravic.

  “We need a comparison done,” she said. “Just to make sure we’ve gotten all our ducks in a row.”

  The ammunition specialist glanced at her watch and nodded. “Long as things don’t get too complicated, I can do that.”

  Noble led them back to her workstation, which was immaculate.

  “How do you get any work done?” Muller said. “I need a proper mess to think straight.”

  The ammunition tech said, “Thank God you’re not in my field, Detective Muller. Defense attorneys would crucify you on the stand.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Firearms testing is like engineering,” Noble said, putting on gloves. “This is about precision, not chaos.”

  “Like I said, I wouldn’t get a thing done,” Muller said and he smiled at Noble in a way that Bree found kind of strange.

  Noble did not respond, merely took out the three bullets that had killed Tommy McGrath, the two that had struck Edita Kravic, and the single shot that had ended Terry Howard’s life.

  “They’re all a match for this gun,” Muller said, handing over the suicide .45 in an evidence bag.

  “Says who?”

  “I dunno,” Muller said. “Someone here.”

  “I can call up the report,” Bree said, pulling out her phone.

  Noble held up her hand. “I believe you. So all you’re looking for is confirmation that the ammunition in this box matches these six rounds?”

  “Exactly,” Bree said.

  “It should be easy,” the tech said. “We have everything Federal makes in the SAF, the standard ammunition file.”

  She looked at the end of the box. “Personal-defense grade, two hundred and thirty grain. Pretty standard for a forty-five semiautomatic.”

  Noble opened the box, took out one of the fourteen remaining bullets, looked at it, and frowned. “That doesn’t match.”

  CHAPTER

  63

  “WHAT?” MULLER SAID. “You haven’t even looked at the others.”

  “I don’t need to,” Noble said, miffed. “The unfired cartridges here might indeed match the killing rounds, but they do not match the labeling on the Federal box.”

  “No markings around the primers, right?” Bree said.

  Noble cocked her head in appreciation and nodded. “That is correct, Chief Stone. All commercially made handgun ammunition has a stamp indicating manufacture and caliber on the brass around the primer.”

  “Which means what?” Muller asked.

  “Which means that these are hand loads,” the tech said. “Someone bought the components—the brass, the powder, the primer, and the bullets—and built these to custom specifications.”

  “We didn’t see any hand-loading equipment at Howard’s apartment or in the storage unit,” Muller said.

  “He could have hired someone to build the bullets,” Noble said.

  “So do they all match?” Bree asked.

  “Give me a few minutes,” Noble said, and then she looked at Muller. “You neat enough to get coffee and bring it back?”

  “On my best days,” Muller said, and he gave her that goofy grin again.

  While Noble told Muller how to get to the cafeteria, he continued to moon at her. Bree happened to look at the ammunition tech’s left hand. No ring.

  She fought not to laugh. Muller was smitten!

  Part of her wanted to mention his kidney stones or one of his other ailments, but she took pity and said nothi
ng when he hurried off.

  “He’s an odd duck,” Noble said, starting to work on the bullets.

  “He kind of grows on you after a while,” Bree said.

  “Married?” the tech asked.

  “Divorced.”

  “Hmm,” Noble said, and she kept at her work.

  Twenty minutes later, Muller returned. The ammunition specialist didn’t look his way. She stared at the image of a bullet on her computer screen.

  He put the coffee in front of her, and she said, “The bullets in the box are a match for the used slugs. They’re all Bear Creek moly-coated two-hundred-grain RNHBs. Which are about as far as could be from the specs on the box. These were made by and for an expert to exact, competition-level specs.”

  “You mean like three-gun competitions?” Muller asked.

  “Or straight pistol on a combat range,” the tech said.

  “That’s a problem, then,” Bree said. “As far as we know, Terry Howard never competed with a pistol, never built his own bullets, and was not a gun nut. Well, not a pistol nut.”

  “Howard could have gotten the custom ammunition with the gun,” Noble said. “Bought them from the owner.”

  Bree said, “Or maybe an expert shot, someone who competes with a forty-five handgun and builds his own ammo, killed all three of them and framed Howard to get away with it.”

  CHAPTER

  64

  THEY WAITED UNTIL the heart of the cloudy night before turning on night-vision goggles and climbing over the chained and locked aluminum gate.

  Hobbes and Fender went over smoothly, making no sound. But John Brown’s bad knee was acting up again. As he straddled the gate, the chain clinked ever so softly.

  Brown landed on the dirt road on the other side. A dog barked once, straight to the south, five, maybe six hundred yards. Brown saw in his night-vision goggles that Hobbes was holding up his hand for him not to move.

  Another bark, and then nothing for five long minutes.

  “Like a cat, now,” Fender whispered through a jawbone microphone, and he began to pad down the dirt driveway.

  Fender wore fleece-bottomed booties over his sneakers. They all wore them and barely made a sound moving deeper and deeper into the property. The dog stayed quiet.

  That wouldn’t last long with a trained canine listening and scent-checking the wind. For the moment, however, they had it made from a scent perspective. A sturdy breeze blew right in their faces. The dog’s superior nose was disabled.

  But sooner or later, one of the German shepherds would hear something or perhaps see them moving into position. If the noise was blatant or the dog got a solid look at them, it would certainly bark and sound an alarm. Things would get difficult then, but not untenable.

  If the movements and noises they made were soft and irregular, however, the dogs would be uncertain and would come to investigate. And that would make things easier all around.

  They crossed a clearing without alerting the dogs and crept closer. Slats of light from the house were visible through the trees when Hobbes toed a rock. It rolled and tumbled into the ditch.

  The dog barked once. Brown and his men froze, listening, and heard a low growl and then a heavy dog’s nails clicking and scraping on porch floorboards. They’d anticipated something like this scenario and stayed with their plan. Hobbes stepped off the right side of the driveway into the ditch. He leaned against the bank there, both hands gripping a pistol with tritium night sights.

  Brown and Fender did the same on the left side of the drive, back to back, with Brown facing the house with his pistol, Fender covering their trail with an ultralight, suppressed backpacking rifle.

  Rather than circling to catch their scent in the wind, the dog came directly at them, trotting confidently down the driveway and into the dense pines where they waited.

  When the dog was fifteen yards away, Hobbes pulled the trigger, causing a burst of pressurized air to drive a tranquilizer dart into the animal’s shoulder.

  It made a soft yipping sound, staggered to its left, panted, and went down.

  No one budged for another five long minutes, during which Brown caught the faint sound of—cheering? And where was the second dog? Inside?

  Hobbes moved first; he stalked forward to the edge of the yard, Brown right behind him. Fender passed them and stuck to the shadows, moving to the right and up onto a dirt mound where he could get a better look at the front of the house.

  Brown paused next to Hobbes, hearing the voices of announcers and seeing the flicker of a television through the partially open blinds of the room to the right of the front door.

  “See anything in there?” he murmured.

  CHAPTER

  65

  A FEW MOMENTS later, Fender said, “College football highlights playing on the big-screen, but I’m not seeing anyone in there watching. Dark, though. Lot of shadows. Hard to tell.”

  “I’m going,” Brown said, and he moved slowly across the yard, heading past a Grady-White fishing boat toward a motorcycle. He crouched by the side of the bike and worked at a leather saddlebag strap with leather gloves.

  When Brown had it open, he drew out from his jacket a plastic ziplock bag that held a kit wrapped in dark cloth. He got the kit free of the plastic and placed it behind a tool kit in the saddlebag.

  Then he reached into a top pocket and fished out a film canister. He opened it and spilled the contents onto the gas tank.

  “I’ve got him,” Fender whispered in Brown’s earbud. “He’s leaning forward in a chair. Just changed the channel.”

  “Kill him if you can,” Brown said, buckling the saddlebag.

  Fender’s ultralight rifle produced a sound similar to the air pistol’s. The bullet made a small tinkling noise as it passed through the screen, the blinds, and the window, and then there was the sound of lead hitting flesh and bone.

  “Done,” Fender said.

  “Done,” Brown said; he spun away from the Harley and took off in a low crouch across the yard.

  Inside the house, a woman began to scream.

  “Shit,” Hobbes said. “He wasn’t alone.”

  “Too late,” Brown said. “Get to the car.”

  They sprinted into the pines, through them, and across the clearing. When they entered the woodlot close to the road, Brown thought they were going to get away clean. The woman had stopped screaming. She was probably calling 911, but they were less than one hundred yards from the car. Nothing could—

  A form hurtled out of the woods to Brown’s right and sprang at him with a guttural snarl. The second dog got hold of his upper right arm and bit down viciously.

  “Ahhh!” Brown cried out, feeling his flesh rip as the dog shook its head and dragged him down. Brown sprawled on his side, but he still had his pistol in his right hand.

  The dog released its hold and bit again, harder this time.

  Before Hobbes or Fender could do a thing to help him, Brown let go of the pistol, grabbed it with his left hand, and, at point-blank range, fired a tranquilizer dart into the attack dog’s stomach.

  It yelped and scratched the back of Brown’s head getting off him. It didn’t make it six more feet before flopping over and panting.

  Part Four

  THE REGULATORS

  CHAPTER

  66

  AN HOUR AFTER sunrise, Ned Mahoney, John Sampson, and I were looking into an open saddlebag attached to Nicholas Condon’s Harley-Davidson. There was a rectangular package inside, wrapped in dark cloth.

  “What’s in it?” Mahoney asked.

  “Haven’t looked,” Condon said. “Soon as I saw it, I called Dr. Cross.”

  “Before or after someone shot at you?” Mahoney said.

  “You mean before or after someone head-shot my dummy,” Condon said. “That’s exactly why I’ve got a little winch on a timer in there. Makes the mannequin move every four or five minutes throughout the night. Handy gadget.”

  I didn’t comment on the fact that the sniper had to
have a decoy in order to sleep soundly; I just focused on the package.

  “No indication of a bomb?” Sampson asked.

  “No,” Condon said. “After Azore woke up, I had him sniff it.”

  “Could the lingering effects of the drug throw off the dog’s sense of smell?” I asked.

  “I’d be glad to take the package out for you if you’re not up to the job.”

  “I’ll do it,” Mahoney said, and he stuck a gloved hand into the saddlebag and came out with the package. “Heavy.”

  He set it down and started to work at the knot that held the fabric together.

  “You said they were scared off by a woman screaming,” Sampson said.

  “I said they were scared off by a woman’s scream,” Condon said. “An app on my iPhone. Goes to Bluetooth and my speakers. You’d swear she was right there, screaming her head off.”

  “How’s the other dog?” I asked. “The one you said bit one of them?”

  “Denni. She’s resting inside.”

  “We didn’t find any blood out on the road yet,” Mahoney said, finally getting the knot undone.

  “There’s blood there somewhere,” Condon said. “I could hear the guy yelling. She got into him good before he knocked her out.”

  “You wash her?”

  “No, but I caught Azore licking her muzzle, so I don’t know what you’ll get from her.”

  “Okay,” Mahoney said, folding back the fabric, revealing something silkscreened on the other side and a cardboard box.

  He lifted the box up. We could see now that the fabric was a piece of a T-shirt featuring artwork for Reggae Sunsplash, a Jamaican music festival.

  “I wondered where that went,” Condon said.

  “Stolen?”

  “Or I left it at the gym. Either way, my DNA will be all over it.”

  Mahoney opened the cardboard box. There was a large envelope inside and a .45-caliber Remington model 1911.

  “That yours?” I asked.

  “No,” he said. “Nice gun, though I prefer a Glock in a forty caliber.”