Cross the Line: (Alex Cross 24) Read online

  “Me too, actually,” Mahoney said, opening the envelope.

  He pulled out several pages of architectural drawings and diagrams.

  “Yours?” Sampson asked.

  Condon looked them over and shook his head. “No. What are they?”

  Mahoney shrugged and gave them to me. I studied them and almost handed them off to Sampson before it dawned on me what they were.

  “These are drawings of the attack locations,” I said. “This one’s the factory where they killed the meth makers. And this one shows an aerial view of the tobacco-drying sheds and the road coming down the middle.”

  Condon said, “Before you say anything, there is no way those are mine. This was supposed to be a diversion. Kill me and plant evidence. Keep you guys off the trail of the real vigilante crew.”

  The more I thought about it, the more I thought Condon was right—unless, of course, he’d shot his dummy-on-a-rope and put the evidence in his saddlebag to keep us from suspecting he was part of the vigilante group.

  For the time being, however, I was going to trust him.

  “So whoever they are, they think you’re dead,” Sampson said.

  “A fair assumption,” Condon said.

  “Let’s let them think it,” I said.

  Mahoney looked at me with a raised eyebrow. “What for?”

  “Make them believe that they’ve succeeded and the investigation has shifted to looking at Condon’s circle of mercenary friends.”

  “And we start quietly looking for a victim of a dog bite,” Sampson said.

  “Among other things,” I said, trying to wrap my head around this entire incident. Why implicate Condon? Why not someone else? Why attempt to kill him?

  The only solid answer I came up with was that they knew of Condon’s past and had decided he would be the perfect fall guy.

  “I thought of that while I was waiting for you to get here,” Condon replied. “But maybe it was more than that. Maybe they were trying to kill me because I do know something about your vigilantes. Two of them, anyway.”

  CHAPTER

  67

  THAT MORNING, AS Alex, Sampson, and Mahoney were talking to Condon, Bree was struggling to make connections between the late chief of detectives Tom McGrath, Edita Kravic, and a competition pistol shooter.

  She had the late Terry Howard’s service records up on her computer screen. Four times during Howard’s career, he’d failed his annual shooting qualification test. On his best day, he was evaluated as an average shot.

  Hardly the competitor, Bree thought and shut the file.

  But lots of police officers did compete. It kept their marks-manship sharp. So she couldn’t discount the possibility of a cop or a former cop or a former military guy, perhaps someone McGrath and Howard knew, being the shooter.

  Her desk phone rang.

  “Stone,” she said.

  “Michaels,” the police chief said. “I’m not happy.”

  “Chief?”

  “I’m hearing rumors that you’ve reopened the McGrath case.”

  “True,” she said, her heart starting to race.

  “Goddamn it, Stone, I’m going to get crucified over this. Howard’s our guy. You said so yourself.”

  “I believed it then, Chief,” she said. “But not now.”

  She recounted her visit to the FBI lab and finished by saying, “So I think the way we look at this is, we take some lumps for jumping to the wrong conclusion, but we’ll get applauded when it comes out we were dogged enough to recognize our mistake and find the real killer.”

  Chief Michaels sighed, said, “I can live with that. Any suspects?”

  “Not yet.”

  “We’re at square one on a dead cop?”

  “Definitely not,” she said. “We’ve got new leads we’re actively working.”

  “Keep me posted, will you please?”

  “You’ll be the first to know everything, Chief,” she said, and he hung up.

  Bree set her phone down, thinking that that had gone smoother than she’d expected. Maybe she was getting better at the job, not as rattled by every crisis.

  After Sampson and I got back from talking to Condon, I stuck my head into Bree’s office. “We’ve had a couple of breaks you need to know about.”

  Bree smiled. “I could use some good news.”

  “Oh, we’ve got lots of news,” Sampson said, coming in behind me. “Can’t figure out if it’s good or bad.”

  As we told her about our trip to Nicholas Condon’s place, the planted evidence, and the possibility that the sniper knew two of the vigilantes, I sent two pictures to a screen on Bree’s wall.

  One photograph showed a wiry man in a nice suit with a face that was a fusion of Asia and Africa. He had a quarter-inch of beard and was leaning against a car, smoking a cigarette— he looked like the kind of guy who would fit in anywhere. The other picture showed a U.S. Army Green Beret officer with pale skin and a battle-gaunt face.

  “The suit is Lester Hobbes, ex-CIA,” Sampson said. “The soldier turned mercenary is Charles Fender.”

  Both men had contracted with international security firms operating in Afghanistan early on in Condon’s time there. They hadn’t worked directly with the sniper, but they all knew one another well enough to have a drink or two occasionally. Both Fender and Hobbes were hard-liners who thought the U.S. was bungling foreign policy in the Middle East and going to hell in a handbasket back home.

  “Condon says he didn’t see Hobbes or Fender for years,” I said. “Then, after the death of his fiancée, the investigation in Afghanistan, and his exile on the Eastern Shore, Condon gets a call one day from Lester Hobbes.”

  Hobbes told Condon he thought he’d gotten a raw deal and offered his condolences. He asked the sniper if he’d be interested in having lunch sometime. Condon agreed. They met one day at a restaurant in Annapolis.

  Charles Fender was there too. They all had a few too many beers as they recalled old times, and the talk turned to what was wrong with the U.S.A. Hobbes and Fender had said that people’s lack of conviction and action had allowed new forms of slavery to take hold in the country.

  “Slavery?” Bree said.

  “‘People harnessed by other people in a criminal manner’ was how they put it, evidently,” Sampson said. “As in a drug user is enslaved by the drug cartels or a prostitute enslaved by her handlers. Or ordinary U.S. citizens enslaved by corrupt politicians.”

  I said, “Hobbes and Fender told Condon they were part of a growing group of people who thought this way. They compared themselves to John Brown and the men he led in an armed uprising against slavery.”

  “Violent abolitionists,” Sampson said. “Willing to kill and die to free others.”

  “Jesus,” Bree said.

  “Right?” I said. “They’re calling themselves the Regulators, and they asked Condon to join them. Condon declined, said he was looking to lead a quieter life, and they left it at that.”

  “Why didn’t he tell you this the first time you talked to him?” Bree asked.

  “He claims he didn’t put it together until after the second attack. Even then, he couldn’t see the harm in having fewer drug cartels and human traffickers in the world.”

  “Until Fender and Hobbes decided to frame and kill him,” Bree said.

  “Correct,” Sampson said.

  Bree sat there a few moments, absorbing it, before she leaned forward and said, “They’ve killed drug dealers and human traffickers, but no corrupt politicians.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “Which is why we need to find Lester Hobbes and Charles Fender sooner rather than later.”

  CHAPTER

  68

  JOHN BROWN SAT with several others at his home, his arm throbbing from the dog bite. He tried to ignore the pain as he watched the footage on the local evening news of the medical examiner’s wagon rolling through the gate of Nicholas Condon’s place in Denton.

  A young female reporter came on in standup and gus
hed, “WBAL-TV Channel Eleven brings you this exclusive report. FBI and local law enforcement officials are telling us that evidence gathered at the scene of the gangland-style murder indicates a connection between the victim, former SEAL Team 6 sniper Nicholas Condon, and the massacres of drug dealers and human traffickers in the past month.

  “The FBI also says the evidence has pushed the multistate investigation in a new direction, and all of Condon’s known and former associates will be coming under increased scrutiny in the days ahead,” the reporter said.

  “It worked,” Cass said, shutting off the TV with a remote. “I have to admit, I had my doubts.”

  “Not me,” Hobbes said. “Well played.”

  Fender and the rest of the eleven people gathered in Brown’s living room applauded.

  “We do have some breathing room now,” Brown said. “Which will help us with our next target.”

  The group focused on Brown as he laid it all out. One by one, their faces turned somber and then skeptical.

  “I don’t know,” Fender said when Brown finished. “Looks like a fortress.”

  Hobbes said, “There won’t be small-timers guarding the place. We’ll be facing pros with talent.”

  “Likely,” Brown said. “But if you want to chop off a snake’s head, you have to get close to the fangs.”

  Fender said, “How is our friend so sure this is the snake’s head?”

  “He says it’s the snake’s head for the East Coast, anyway. We chop it off, we leave their organization in total destruction. We chop it off, we’ll be clear to move to the next phase of the cleanup.”

  “We’re getting ahead of ourselves,” Cass said. “Our friend’s intel on the compound is solid?”

  “World-class,” Brown replied. “The place has been under satellite and drone surveillance for the past ten days.”

  “So what’s the plan?” Hobbes asked. “You’re the strategist.”

  Brown showed satellite photographs and diagrams of the next target. His followers listened intently. They had to. Their lives and cause depended on it.

  When he was done, he opened the floor to questions, comments, and suggestions. They talked for hours, until long past midnight, altering and tweaking the plan until all of them agreed it could work despite the fact there would likely be casualties on their side for the first time. It seemed unavoidable, but no one backed out.

  “When do we go?” Cass asked.

  “The meeting’s in three days,” Brown said.

  “That helps us,” Fender said. “It will be the dark of the moon.”

  CHAPTER

  69

  TRACKING POTENTIAL MASS murderers can be a delicate job in this day and age of instant information and programs that alert someone when certain kinds of data are accessed. This is especially true when the suspects are former employees of the Central Intelligence Agency and the U.S. Special Forces.

  Everything about this particular part of the investigation, Mahoney told us, had to operate under the radar. The rest of that day and on into the next, Sampson and I focused on public records. Hobbes and Fender both had Virginia driver’s licenses with addresses that turned out to be mail-drop boxes in Fairfax County. Both paid income taxes from those addresses, and each listed his job as security consultant. Beyond that, they didn’t exist.

  “These guys are pros,” Sampson said. “They leave no trace.”

  “They’re probably using documented aliases and leading secret lives.”

  “Paranoid way to live.”

  “Unless you have someone hunting you.”

  “Point taken, but I’m feeling like we’re dead in the water until Mahoney comes up with something.”

  My cell phone rang. A number I didn’t recognize.

  “Alex Cross,” I said.

  On the other end of the line, a woman blubbered, “Who killed Nick? Were you there?”

  For a moment I was confused, and then I remembered. “Dolores?”

  She stopped crying and sniffed. “I loved him. I can’t … I can’t believe he’s gone. Were you there, Dr. Cross? Did he suffer? What do you think happened? Was he really part of this vigilante group?”

  I was feeling pinched and unsure how to respond, but then I said, “What’s your security clearance, Dolores?”

  There was a strong tremor in her voice as she said, “I helped you, Dr. Cross. Now you help me. That’s how it works in this town. I need to know.”

  I thought about Mahoney’s investigative strategy and the need to limit the number of people who knew the truth and weighed that against the obvious grief and pain Dolores was suffering.

  “He’s not dead.”

  There was a long moment before she said in a whisper, “What?”

  “You heard me. Take heart. Wait it out. There are reasons for this.”

  Dolores choked, and then laughed, sniffed, and laughed again, and I imagined her wiping her tears away with her sleeve.

  “I’m sure,” she said. “Oh God, you don’t know how … I was up all night after I heard. I have never felt such regret, Dr. Cross. For what could have been.”

  “I think you’ll get the chance to tell him that yourself before long,” I said.

  “Thank you,” she said, sounding stuffy but ecstatic. “From the bottom of my heart, thank you. And if there’s anything else I can do for you, just ask.”

  “There is, actually. Tell me what you know about Lester Hobbes and Charles Fender.”

  CHAPTER

  70

  THE LINE WAS quiet for several moments before Dolores said, “Interesting pair. Can I ask where this is going?”

  “Not today,” I said. “And please don’t start poking around in any files with security clearances attached to those two. Just give me what you know.”

  “Fair enough,” Dolores said. “I’ll give you only what’s in my files.”

  “You’ve got files on Hobbes and Fender?”

  “I’ve got files on almost everyone in this business.”

  “Can I ask how?”

  “Only if you wish to pay me for my services.”

  I smiled. “So, what, you’re like an agent for mercenaries?”

  “A broker is closer to it,” Dolores said, all business now. “I’m the person you go to when you want to recruit a talented warrior, like Fender, or an assassin, like Hobbes.”

  “That’s what Hobbes does?”

  “Quite well. Very clean operator. Only takes out targets who deserve it.”

  I wondered at Dolores’s sense of morality and justice for a moment but then pushed those concerns aside.

  “Can you tell me where to find Hobbes and Fender?”

  She laughed. “You want to talk to them?”

  “Interrogate them is more like it.”

  She laughed again. “Good luck with that.”

  “You won’t help me find them?”

  “I don’t know how to find them. The only time we communicate is when I have an offer for their services, and that’s done by secure e-mail. Honestly, we’ve never even met in person.”

  I thought about that. “Could you make them an offer on our behalf?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “There are certain ethical standards in my line of work.”

  “Your work representing mercenaries.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Next thing you’ll tell me is there’s an association of mercenary agents here in town.”

  “There’s talk.”

  “Remember how this conversation began?” I said.

  After a pause, Dolores said, “I do, and I’m grateful for the peace of mind.”

  “And I imagine you want to prevent further bloodshed?”

  “That too.”

  “Then you’ll help us find Hobbes and Fender?”

  A longer silence followed before she said, “I’ll draft a proposal for you and see if they bite.”

  “Make it a very lucrative offer,” I said. “Then they’ll definitely bite.”

>   CHAPTER

  71

  OUT IN THE mouth of Mobjack Bay, close to where it meets the greater Chesapeake, John Brown’s fishing boat bobbed at anchor a mile north of a fifty-acre gated and guarded compound on a point.

  Cass was aboard. So were Hobbes and Fender, who were holding fishing poles, jigging for bottom fish, and studying the compound.

  “If we do it right, this will be a total surprise,” Brown said, handing binoculars to Fender. “We’ll be in and out in twenty minutes, tops.”

  “That’s the plan, anyway,” Hobbes said, raising and lowering his rod.

  That annoyed Brown. “What does that mean?”

  “It means shit happens,” Hobbes said. “And sometimes you have to ad-lib. I mean, who knows, a big goddamned storm comes up and we’re blowing off whitecaps on our way in, we might want to ad-lib and take a different approach. That’s all I’m saying.”

  Brown felt on edge, and he didn’t know why. His arm throbbed less, but it was waking him up at night. And of course there had to be contingencies in place, but with a situation like this, he wanted specific actions to move like clockwork, the team going in and out like phantoms.

  “Those are huge cigarette boats,” Cass said, glued to her binoculars.

  Brown shielded his eyes to look toward the big lifts that held the three boats above the water. “It’s a perfect location to take advantage of the eastern shipping lanes. Less than eight miles from the Atlantic. Boats that fast can get twenty miles out in minutes, offload cargo in the middle of the night, and be back quick.”

  “There’s another guard,” said Fender, who was also glued to the binoculars. “Three so far. Looks like they’re on constant patrol.”

  “And they’ll beef up security for the meeting,” Brown said. “But we are a superior fighting force.”

  “Damned straight on that,” Fender said. “If this goes down as planned, they’ll never know what hit them.”

  Fender had no sooner said that than his cell phone pinged. Hobbes’s phone buzzed a moment later.

  Fender set his binoculars down to check his phone. Hobbes held his fishing pole one-handed to look at his message.