Target: Alex Cross Read online

  “All public-transit systems will halt. Drive if you have to, but know that your vehicle, especially in and around the District of Columbia, is subject to search. We will find whoever is behind these assassinations, and we will find them—”

  I heard the doorbell before the front door opened and I went to the hall to see Mahoney rushing toward me. “Let’s go, Alex,” he said. “We’ve got work to do.”

  CHAPTER

  59

  SITTING IN THE Suburban in the driving rain, snarled in traffic trying to get on the Brooklyn Bridge leaving Manhattan, Martin Franks was listening to 1010 WINS all-news radio about the attacks.

  Franks swallowed hard against the searing pain in his upper right arm. Waiting for the narcotics to kick in, he checked the belt he’d placed as a tourniquet just below his shoulder and just above the gaping wound.

  The treasury secretary’s bodyguard’s second shot had blown through Franks’s upper right shoulder, shattering the humerus bone and destroying nerves. Years of training was the only thing that kept Franks from blacking out in agony.

  At the first stoplight south of the church, the assassin had looked in the rearview, saw no flashing lights, and dug with his left hand in his pockets for the two things he always carried into battle: commercially made foil packages that contained bandages treated with clotting agents and antibiotics and a small envelope containing forty OxyContin pills.

  Franks shook six pills into his mouth and chewed them as he tore open his shirt. Swallowing the pills, he used his teeth to rip one clotting bandage free of the foil.

  He slid it in under his shirt. When he stuffed the bandage in the entry wound, he almost fainted. When he got a second bandage and used it to stuff the exit wound, he’d dry-heaved and moaned.

  The light turned green. Shaken, woozy, not thinking straight, Franks drove on rather than trying to take a left onto John Street.

  His original escape plan called for him to abandon the Suburban as soon as possible, then get off the streets and use the subway to get uptown to Penn Station, where he’d catch an Amtrak to Albany and points north.

  But being wounded like this changed everything.

  Franks had to use the car to take him someplace far away where he could call for a specialist to help. The specialist would cost Franks hundreds of thousands of dollars, no doubt, but he’d live. He’d live and he’d …

  In his daze and looking through the slapping windshield wipers and the driving rain, Franks tried to stay in his lane and focus on his options. He could get to the Carey Tunnel from here. But there was a toll, wasn’t there? Brooklyn Bridge, then.

  He moaned when he realized he’d just missed another chance to go east. The intensity of the rain made traffic crawl as he drove farther south toward Battery Park and finally got on Water Street, where he turned and headed north.

  When traffic came to a stop, Franks checked the wound again. The bleeding was slowing, and he didn’t feel like his lung had been damaged. The drugs kicked in like a warm fountain, going up his spine and into his head. He swooned.

  A car honked. Franks came around, feeling better, sweeter. Traffic rolled forward half a block and stalled again. Then, on the radio, he heard the attorney general, now acting president, Larkin describe the scope of the conspiracy.

  Five of them, Franks thought in awe. Coordinated attacks on the top five. Who does that?

  Traffic started to move before he could consider his own involvement. He was a traitor, wasn’t he?

  “Yes, that’s what I am,” he said, and he laughed bitterly and ate two more painkillers. “Just like dear old dad.”

  Two minutes later, he heard Larkin institute martial law. The drugs became a wave, then, that washed over the assassin, and he barely kept the SUV in the lane.

  The rain came in sheets. The windshield wipers swept wildly back and forth. He tried to use that visualization method that had served him so well in Afghanistan, tried to see what he was about to do, and he asked the universe to signal him if he was in danger.

  Franks felt hypnotized and numb when he finally took a left on Beekman Street and crawled toward the right turn on Park Row and the entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge.

  Traffic slowed to a halt again.

  On the radio, some army general was ordering people to get off the streets.

  Where do they expect people to go? Franks thought, and he laughed at the absurdity of it.

  Looking ahead through the rain and the wipers, he saw cruisers with lights flashing at the bridge entrance. He thought he saw dark figures walking between the cars, coming at him. And then he didn’t need a sign from above. He was positive that the police, five of them, guns drawn, were knocking on car windows and speaking to drivers and passengers alike.

  Franks started to whistle “Carry On Wayward Son” and then pushed the button that popped the rear hatch. He yanked the car into park left-handed and grabbed his pistol. He forced himself over the front seat and then over the backseat, then rolled out into the pelting rain.

  A young woman was driving the Land Rover behind him. She was peering at Franks through the windshield. He ignored her and took two steps, figuring out the route he would take, when the woman started honking her horn.

  Franks considered shooting her but instead lowered his head to the rain and hurried diagonally away from the police across Park Row. He made the sidewalk by City Hall Park, and kept moving away from the bridge. The woman kept honking her horn.

  He never looked back and thought he’d make the corner onto Vesey Street.

  Twelve steps from being out of sight, he heard a woman shout, “Stop where you are. Show me your hands!”

  For some reason, Franks thought of the logger, then he stuffed the barrel of his gun under his right armpit, lifted the Treasury agent badge up with his left hand, and turned to find a young female uniformed cop about thirty feet away.

  She was shakily aiming her service pistol at him, and he could see doubt and fear all about her.

  “Federal agent!” Franks cried, showing her the badge and ID. “Don’t shoot!”

  “Down on the ground!” she shouted.

  “You’re making a mistake, rookie,” he warned her as he started to lower himself down. “I was chasing the killer. He’s getting—”

  A squall of rain hit them. He dropped to his knees, went for the gun, snagged it expertly, and whipped it out, intending to shoot the young cop.

  She shot first and hit Franks square in the chest. He staggered back in disbelief but still tried to aim at her. She shot him twice more.

  He fell on his back, dying.

  Franks’s last vision was of the cop standing over him, aiming at him.

  “No rookie mistake, man,” she said, her voice taunting and quivering both. “No rookie mistake at all.”

  CHAPTER

  60

  ROUGHLY TWO HOURS after President Hobbs was shot, Mahoney and I lifted off the roof of FBI headquarters in a helicopter bound for Joint Base Andrews, which used to be known as Andrews Air Force Base.

  Looking down on the nation’s capital, I saw tanks flanking the bridges and armed soldiers amassing on every corner. There were cops and FBI agents searching every vehicle trying to leave Washington. In all my years in DC, I had never seen this level of military presence, not even after 9/11.

  The media was painting the mood of the country as bordering on panic. There were reports of runs on grocery stores and on guns and ammunition. People were frightened and desperate to know what was happening.

  “We’ll catch him,” Mahoney said, breaking into my thoughts. “With or without professional footage of the actual shooting.”

  “Krazy Kat said he thought he could do something,” I said.

  Ned cringed. “Did we have to bring him in?”

  “Rawlins is the best there is,” I said. “I figure he’s our only chance of getting a look at the killer anytime soon.”

  Mahoney grunted and looked at his phone screen. We flew within sight of my home
, and I looked toward it, wondering when I’d return. For a moment, I shut my eyes and prayed it would happen sooner rather than later.

  We landed on a helipad at Andrews, not far from Marine One, the president’s helicopter. Air Force One was there, but it looked different to me. There were three other planes just like it, all unmarked, all Boeing E-4s, sitting on the tarmac along with ten fighter jets and half a dozen private jets.

  Armed airmen inspected our FBI identifications. Everywhere we looked, we saw battle-ready soldiers and airmen.

  For the first time, it felt to me like we really could be a nation at war.

  My generation of Americans had never experienced political assassination. And nothing of this magnitude had ever happened in U.S. history.

  That shook me. It really did. I understood why people might feel on the verge of panic. No one knew who or what was behind the attacks or what might be coming next. That dread and uncertainty were enough to push people right to the edge psychologically, and I expected to hear about looting and civil unrest before too long.

  A soldier led us into an open hangar, and we entered a space big enough to hold a C-130 cargo jet or two. As we crossed the hangar floor, I looked down at my casual clothes and felt underdressed to meet the president, even given the circumstances. Nana Mama would have been appalled.

  The soldier stopped and stood aside, and I followed Mahoney into a large room with six long rectangular tables.

  Around the tables sat perhaps twenty people, several of whom I knew at a glance. Samuel Larkin, the acting president, was huddled at the far end of one table with FBI director Sanford, General Hayes, and Homeland Security director Elaine Monroe as well as CIA director Felix White.

  I recognized the upset faces of enough other people at the table to realize they were the surviving members of the cabinet. John Watts, the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, was there as well. So were the leaders of both parties in both houses of Congress.

  “What in God’s name am I doing in this room?” I whispered to Mahoney.

  “I was thinking the same thing,” Mahoney said.

  “Mahoney, Cross,” FBI director Sanford said, waving us toward the president.

  We shook hands with Larkin.

  “I’ve heard a lot about you, Dr. Cross,” he said in a grave voice. “Director Sanford said you and Special Agent Mahoney were the people he wanted involved in the investigation immediately.”

  “Well,” I said, taken aback. “I’m honored to be here to help in any way I can, and please excuse the clothes.”

  Larkin put his hand on my shoulder and gazed at me evenly. “We’ve got more dire things to deal with.”

  “Yes, Mr. President.”

  He held my gaze a moment and then nodded and said softly, “Good. Take a seat, Dr. Cross. And keep your eyes and ears open.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll do that.”

  CHAPTER

  61

  AS MAHONEY AND I took seats, we saw members of the cabinet, one of the congressional leaders, and several others I did not recognize sizing us up. My first inclination was to ignore them, but then I realized that all of the people in the room feared for their lives but were also probably jockeying for position in the power vacuum created by the assassinations.

  The killings were an act of war or a coup, something huge and sinister—I was in such a deep state of shock that for the moment I couldn’t do anything but heed Larkin’s advice to sit down, listen, and watch.

  The acting president said, “The purpose of this meeting is twofold. All members of the current cabinet are to serve through the period of martial law at least. You will be separated, however, and flown with your families aboard one of the E-fours, the advanced airborne command posts, to secure locations.”

  Several of them started to protest. Larkin held up his hand and said, “There is no discussion. This is being done for your own safety and for the good of the country. I will be doing the same thing in the near future.

  “In any case, we will stay in close contact via secure satellite transmission. You will be involved in all major policy debates and made aware of decisions in real time.

  “Chief Justice Watts and leaders of the majority and minority parties, I ask that you remain readily available in the coming days. In an emergency like this, I will need clear legal guidance on what I can and cannot do to try to defend the nation.”

  The chief justice hesitated but then said, “It’s highly unorthodox, but I think in this time of crisis, it’s a smart idea, Mr. President.”

  Larkin nodded, leaned forward, and looked around the table.

  “Let me be clear about something,” he said. “In this case, no one is above the law or outside our jurisdiction. I am instructing Director Sanford and all intelligence agency leaders to follow the investigation wherever it leads.

  “If this is the work of a hostile nation, we will declare war. If this is the work of any ideological group, domestic or foreign, we will root them out and bring them to justice. I will not have these heinous acts wreck the country, not on my watch.”

  Many at the table nodded and voiced their approval.

  Larkin started signing executive orders that put the Justice Department’s assassination-contingency plan into effect. In line with that plan, he sought and received approval from the congressional leaders and from the chief justice to temporarily amend the rules of Congress to limit members’ access to classified information as the investigation rolled forward.

  The plan also called for a rapidly deployed investigative group answering to the FBI director, the AG, the president, and those gathered in the room. Larkin asked the majority leaders of both houses to form select committees on the assassinations that would provide independent oversight and reports.

  “I will not allow this to be like the JFK investigation,” Larkin said. “I will not have some future panel judge us deficient in our investigation. This is no lone gunman. These coordinated assassinations are clearly the result of a massive conspiracy, the most outrageous attack on our democracy since Pearl Harbor, and I plan to tell the nation just that when I address them later in the day.”

  For a moment Larkin seemed excited by that prospect, the idea of speaking to the nation in a time of great crisis, and I wondered whether he’d ever imagined himself president of the United States. He certainly had been a brilliant careerist.

  I knew his résumé; he’d been a decorated army captain before going to Yale Law School and then joining the Justice Department. It was almost as if he’d planned his rise. And now here it was, his moment, probably a lot sooner than he’d expected.

  The acting president looked down the table at me and Mahoney. “Dr. Cross, SAC Mahoney, for the next one hundred hours I am allocating unlimited resources to bring to bear on these crimes. Advise us on how best to proceed.”

  CHAPTER

  62

  METRO POLICE CHIEF of detectives Bree Stone and Metro detective John Sampson walked the perimeter of the DC arena as a mix of FBI, Secret Service, and Metro investigators manned a system to get the children out of the venue while interviewing anyone with any information, anything at all.

  The main security checkpoint was clogged with kids and their parents and chaperones trying to get out of the arena. Bree spotted Secret Service Agent Lance Reamer, who looked beyond agitated.

  “Anything?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “They cut the—”

  “Please, coming through!” a woman called out.

  Bree looked up to see two paramedics flanking a man on a rolling gurney who had bloody bandages all over his head and face. A DC SWAT officer trailed them.

  Several of the children got upset at the sight of the wounded man.

  The paramedics pushed the gurney through. Bree walked with them toward a waiting ambulance. “What happened?”

  The SWAT officer said, “We found him in the basement in a pool of blood from four different head wounds. Name’s Kent Leonard. Works here. Lost some te
eth, probably some broken bones in his face. Looks like he was hit with a piece of iron. They destroyed his hearing aids too. Guy’s stone-deaf without them.”

  “Hearing aids?” said a Secret Service agent coming their way.

  Another agent came over too. “We know this guy.”

  They introduced themselves as Agents Crane and Lewis, then Agent Crane went to the wounded man’s side, made eye contact, and nodded.

  Leonard looked at him fuzzily, then reached his hand up to the side of his head and said in a duck-like voice. “Where are my hearing aids?”

  Bree tugged out a notebook, scribbled: They’re broken. Do you sign?

  He shook his head no.

  “Can we do this later?” the EMT said. “He could have a skull fracture.”

  “And the president’s been shot,” Bree said to him, scribbling again. “I just want him to answer one question.”

  She flipped the pad around. What happened?

  He gazed at the question a moment before coughing and saying in that nasal quacking voice, “I was down getting paper towels from storage when the lights went out. I used the light on my watch to go to the room with the big electrical panels. I got there and started to open the door. Someone hit me from behind. I bounced off the door, and then fell to the ground, and he just kept hitting me until I blacked out.”

  He? Bree wrote. You saw him?

  He nodded. “In the watch light. Blond guy. Weird blue eyes. I …” His eyes fluttered, and he moaned. “My head hurts.”

  The EMT said, “I need to get him to a level-one trauma center.”

  Bree wanted to ask him more questions, but Reamer said, “Go ahead.”

  She looked at the man’s face, which was swollen and an angry purplish color.

  “Load him,” she said. “But I want someone with him in case he remembers anything else. He’s the only one who’s come in direct contact with one of the assassins.”

  “You think there were two?” Sampson said.

  “Someone shot the president upstairs in the arena. A blond man with weird blue eyes cut the lights. Mr. Leonard surprised that person and got beaten.”