Cross Country Page 18

  I took a number from Owens and promised to call his mother when I got back.

  A few minutes later we were all being led out to the airplane. I heard someone call my name and I looked to one side, toward the terminal building.

  What I saw there froze my blood and seemed to change everything.

  Father Bombata was looking right at me, and he raised his small hand and waved.

  Standing beside him, towering over the priest—if he was indeed a priest—was the Tiger. Abi Sowande. The monster ran his thumb across his throat.

  What was that supposed to mean—that this wasn’t finished?

  Hell, I knew that.

  It wasn’t over by a long shot. I had never given up on a case yet.

  But maybe the Tiger already knew that.

  Part Four

  HOME AGAIN, HOME AGAIN

  Chapter 123

  I KNEW I had failed.

  And I knew, and had known for a long time, that I’d already witnessed and investigated enough murders and bloodshed to last me for a couple of lifetimes. Nothing had prepared me for the insane mayhem and horrors of the past few weeks: torture and episodes of genocide; suffering by innocent women and children; finally, the senseless murders of Adanne Tansi and her family.

  I wanted nothing more than to escape into sleep for a few hours on the plane to London, where I would eventually connect with a flight to Washington.

  But I couldn’t stop the terrible nightmare images from my time in Africa: Again and again I saw Adanne’s murder and rape by the monstrous Tiger.

  And what had come of the murders of Adanne and her family? What had been accomplished beyond a failed chase after the killer called Tiger? What of all the other deaths here that would never be avenged, or even properly memorialized? What of the secrets Adanne had shared with me?

  I woke with a shiver as the flight descended into London’s Gatwick. I had slept some and now I felt groggy and had an upset stomach and a splitting headache.

  Maybe it was just my paranoia, but the Virgin Nigeria flight attendants seemed to have avoided me for most of the trip.

  I needed water now and an aspirin. I signaled the attendants, who were collecting cups and soda cans before we landed. “Excuse me?” I called out.

  I was certain the women had seen me signal, but I was ignored by them again.

  Finally, I did something I don’t remember ever having done on a flight. I hit the “Attendant” button. Several times. That got me a stern look from the closer of the flight attendants. She still didn’t come to see what I needed.

  I got up and went to her. “I don’t know what I’ve done to offend you—,” I began.

  She cut me off.

  “I will tell you. You are a most ugly American. Most Americans are that way, but you are even more so. You have caused suffering to those you came into contact with. And now you want my help? No. Not even a cold drink. The seat belt light is on. Return to your seat.”

  I took her arm and held it lightly but firmly. Then I turned and looked around toward the cabin.

  I was hoping to see someone watching us, someone who had spoken to the flight attendants about me.

  No one seemed to be looking our way. Nor did I recognize anyone.

  “Who told you about me?” I asked. “Someone on the plane? Who was it? Show me.”

  She shook herself loose. “You figure it out. You are the detective.” Then she walked away and didn’t look back. That angry face of hers and the mystery of her anger toward me followed me all the way home.

  Chapter 124

  THE NEXT TWELVE hours of the trip passed very slowly, but finally I arrived in Washington. I wasn’t able to reach Nana to tell her I was home. So I just grabbed a taxi waiting at Reagan International and headed to Fifth Street.

  It was a little past nine and the nighttime traffic was heavy, but I was glad to be in DC again. Sometimes it feels that way when I come home after a long, hard trip, and this time certainly qualified. I couldn’t wait to be in my own house, my own bed.

  Once I was in the cab, I got lost in a kind of jet-lagged reverie.

  No one had any idea about the carnage and suffering until they actually visited parts of Nigeria, Sudan, Sierra Leone—and there were no easy answers or solutions either. I didn’t believe that the violence I had seen came from regular people being evil. But those at the top were, at least some of them.

  And then there were psychopaths on the loose, like the Tiger and the other killers for hire, the wild boys. The fact that terrible conditions might have made them killers hardly seemed to matter.

  The irony that kept jabbing at me was that I’d spent the last dozen years chasing murderers in the States, and it seemed like child’s play now, nothing compared with what I’d seen in the past weeks.

  I was shaken out of my reverie when the cab slid over to the side of the road. What was wrong now? I was home, and still misfortune followed me? What—a flat tire?

  The driver peered back and nervously announced, “Engine trouble. I am sorry. Very sorry.” Then he pulled a gun and yelled, “Traitor! Die!”

  Chapter 125

  SOMEBODY WAS STUBBORNLY ringing the front-door bell at the Cross house. Ringing it again and again and again.

  Nana was in Ali’s bedroom, putting him down the way he liked her to, lying in bed next to him until the sweet boy drifted off to sleep as she whispered the words of a favorite story.

  Tonight the book was Ralph S. Mouse, and Ali wouldn’t stop giggling at every page, often a couple of times on the same page, saying, “Read it again, Nana. Read it again.”

  Nana waited patiently for Jannie to get the front door. But it rang again, and then again. Persistent and rude and maddening. Jannie had been making a cake in the kitchen. Where was that girl? Why didn’t she answer the door?

  “Now who can it be?” Nana mumbled as she pushed herself up and out of Ali’s bed. “I’ll be right back, Ali. . . . Janelle, you are trying my patience, and that’s not a good idea.”

  But when she got to the living room, Nana Mama saw that Janelle was already at the door—which was flung wide open.

  A strange boy in a red Houston Rockets basketball shirt was still ringing the bell.

  “Are you some kind of a crazy person?” Nana called out as she hobbled quickly across the foyer. “Stop that bell ringing this instant! Just stop it now. What do you want here so late? Do I know you, son?”

  The boy in the Rockets jersey finally took his hand off the bell. Then he held up a sawed-off shotgun for Nana to see, but she kept coming forward until she protectively held Jannie.

  “I will kill dis stupid girl in a second,” he said. “And I will kill you, ol’ woman. I will not hesitate jus’ ’cause you de detective’s family.”

  Chapter 126

  IT ALL HAPPENED so fast in the taxi and caught me completely off guard and unprepared, but I saw a chance, and I had to take it.

  I didn’t think the cab driver was an experienced killer. He’d hesitated instead of just pulling the trigger and shooting me.

  So I lurched forward and grabbed the gun and his hand at the same time.

  Then I smashed his wrist against the taxi’s metal partition. I smashed it again as hard as I could.

  The man yelped loudly and he let go of the gun. I pulled it away and swung it toward him.

  Suddenly he ducked low and then flung himself out the front door.

  I jumped out the back door, but he was already scampering down a grassy hill. Then he disappeared into a thicket of woods off to the side of the highway.

  I had a shot with his gun, but I didn’t take it. He’d called me “traitor.” Just like the flight attendant.

  Did he believe that, or was he doing what he’d been told?

  I pictured the man’s face, gaunt, a goatee, maybe in his midtwenties. A soldier? A thug? His accented English showed hints of a Nigerian dialect. So who had sent him after me—the Tiger? Somebody else? Who?

  I tried not to speculate on
conspiracy theories right now. Not here, not yet.

  The keys were still in the ignition, and without much deliberation I decided to drive the taxi home. I’d call Metro once I was there.

  But what would I tell them—how much of this strange and disturbing story?

  And how much would I tell Nana? She wouldn’t be happy to see me like this: driving a cab—taken from the driver, who had wanted to kill me.

  Chapter 127

  IT TOOK ONLY a few minutes for me to get to the house on Fifth Street.

  I parked the cab out on the street. Suddenly I was sprinting toward the house. On the way home, I had started to worry about Nana and the kids.

  Was everyone all right? Maybe this was just more paranoia on my part. But maybe it wasn’t. The Tiger went after families, didn’t he? And someone had just tried to kill me. I wasn’t making that up.

  I was startled by Rosie the cat, who snuck up behind me on the front lawn.

  Who had let Rosie out? She was a committed indoor cat. I could see she was highly agitated. Why was that? What had happened? What had Rosie seen?

  “Nana,” I called as I ran up the front steps. “Nana!”

  I turned the knob—and the door wasn’t locked.

  That wasn’t right either. Nobody left their doors unlocked in Southeast, especially Nana.

  “Nana! . . . Kids!” I called as I let myself in and began hurrying though the downstairs part of the house. I didn’t want to scare them just because I was frightened out of my skull.

  Still?

  I stopped in the kitchen because it was a complete disaster area. I’d never seen it like this. It looked like someone had been making a cake and had stopped in the middle of things.

  But that wasn’t all that had happened here. Chairs had been turned over. Plates and glasses were broken on the floor.

  So was a mixing bowl that looked like it had held vanilla frosting. Nana had been making a cake—lucky for me.

  I pulled out the gun I’d taken from the taxi driver.

  Then I started upstairs, unable to get my breath. I tried not to trample on Rosie as we hurried up there together.

  Quietly.

  And quickly.

  Chapter 128

  I CHECKED ALL the bedrooms on the second floor. Then my office in the attic. Finally I went down to the cellar.

  There was nothing, no one, anywhere in the house.

  Finally, I called Metro and reported the possible kidnapping of my family.

  Within minutes, three cruisers pulled up in front. Their roof lights were flashing ominously. I came outside just as Sampson arrived.

  I explained to John what I knew so far. He stood with me on the porch, where I was holding Rosie, holding on to her for support, really. Everything felt unreal and I was numb from my head to my feet.

  “It’s the Tiger, has to be him. Something about what happened in Africa,” I said to John. “I almost got shot on the way from the airport.” I pointed toward the taxi sitting on the street. “Cab driver pulled a gun on me.”

  “They’re alive, Alex,” Sampson said and put an arm around me. “They have to be.”

  “I hope you’re right. Otherwise, they would have killed them here, like Ellie and her family.”

  “They must think you know something. Do you, Alex?”

  “Not very much,” I told Sampson. But it was a white lie.

  I heard a woman’s scream then. “Alex! . . . Alex!”

  Bree! She was running down the block from where she’d had to leave her car. The police had completely blocked off Fifth Street now. It was starting to look like one of those gruesome crime scenes that I hated to be called in on. Only this time, it was my house, my family.

  “What is it, Alex? I just got the call. Saw the address. What happened?”

  “Somebody took Nana, Ali, and Jannie,” Sampson told Bree. “That’s what it looks like.”

  Bree came into my arms and held me tight. “Oh, Alex, Alex, no.” She made no empty promises, just gave me the only comfort she could. Her embrace, a few whispered words.

  “No note, no message?” she finally asked.

  “I didn’t find anything. We should look again. I don’t think I was too clearheaded the first time I looked. I know I wasn’t.”

  “You think you ought to go back in there right now?” she said and took my arm.

  “I have to. Come with me. Both of you, come.”

  We all went back into the house.

  Chapter 129

  WHILE BREE AND Sampson started looking around, I called Damon’s school and talked to the headmaster, then got Damon on the line. I told him to pack some things. We would be moving him soon. Sampson had already made the arrangements for him to be picked up. “Why do I have to come home?” Damon wanted to know.

  “You’re not coming home right now. Not yet. It isn’t safe here. Not for any of us.”

  I joined Bree and Sampson and we searched the house for several hours, but there was nothing for us to find. No message left anywhere. The only evidence of a struggle was the mess in the kitchen and a tangled runner in the foyer.

  I thought to check my computer, but there was nothing there either. No messages had been left anywhere. No threats. No explanation of any kind. Was that the message?

  I decided to place a call to Lagos next. It was eight a.m. there.

  I reached Ian Flaherty’s office, but he didn’t pick up himself this time.

  “Mr. Flaherty is not here at the moment,” said his assistant. She sounded nervous.

  “Do you know where he is or when he’s expected back?” I asked her. “It’s important that I talk to him.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t. There is a lot going on here, sir. It’s a very bad situation.”

  “Yes, I know. May I leave a message for him?”

  “Of course.”

  “Tell him that Alex Cross is back in Washington. They’ve taken my family. I think it’s the Tiger or his people who did this. I need to talk to him. Please make sure that he gets this message. It could be a matter of life or death.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the assistant, “it always is.”

  Chapter 130

  SAMPSON, BREE, AND I stayed in the house another hour or so. We searched every room again, looking for anything to work with.

  But I understood that the two of them were here to make sure I was all right, especially since I was showing a few cracks.

  Finally I told John to go home to his family and get some sleep.

  No one had called or tried to get a message to me.

  “There are two squad cars outside,” Sampson said. “They’ll stay here the rest of the night. Don’t argue with me about it.”

  “I know. I can see them.”

  “That’s the idea, sugar. They’re supposed to be seen.”

  “Make sure they’re on their toes,” Bree said. “I’ll be here too. Tell them I’ll be checking.”

  Sampson hugged Bree, then did the same with me. There was no cop humor tonight, no making light of this. “Anything—you call,” he told me.

  Then he started out the kitchen door. He stopped and turned back. “I’ll talk to the men outside. Maybe put on one more car.”

  I didn’t bother to agree or disagree. I was in no shape to make decisions right now. “Thank you.”

  “We’ll be fine,” Bree said.

  “I have no doubt,” Sampson said and nodded. “Call me if anything happens!” Finally he shut the door behind him.

  I went over and locked the door, which would give us an extra few seconds if somebody tried to come in. Maybe we’d need it.

  “You all right with this?” Bree asked.

  I nodded. “You staying with me? Of course I am.”

  She drifted over and hugged me again. “Let’s go upstairs, then.” She took my hand. “Alex, come.”

  I let Bree take me upstairs. I was numb and in a faraway dreamscape anyway.

  “There’s a phone in here,” she said as we entered the bedroom.
Then she hugged me again and reached down and started to unhook my belt. I didn’t think that was what I needed, but I was wrong about that.

  Until the phone in the bedroom rang.

  Chapter 131

  THE CALLS TO the house started at a few minutes past four in the morning. Hang-ups, one after the other, virtually nonstop.

  The calls were emotional torture for me, but I answered every time; and I didn’t dare take the phone off the hook. How could I? The phone was my lifeline to Nana and the kids. Whoever was calling had them. I had to believe that.

  Bree and I held each other through the night, probably the worst night of my life.

  I told her some of what I’d done and seen in Africa—about the horrors and Adanne and her family—their senseless murders. But I also talked about the goodness and naturalness of the people; their helplessness, caught in a nightmare they hadn’t created and didn’t want.

  “And this Tiger, what more did you learn about that bastard, Alex?”

  “Terrorist, assassin—seems to work both sides of the street. Anyone who pays him. He’s the most violent killer I’ve ever seen, Bree. He likes to hurt people. And there are others like him. It’s a name they have for killers for hire: Tiger.”

  “So he took Nana and the kids? He did this? You’re sure about that?”

  “Yes,” I said as the phone rang again. “And that’s him.”

  The phone kept ringing—and I began to pace around the house, going from room to room, thinking about my family all the while. Rosie followed me everywhere.

  In the kitchen, Nana’s favorite cookbook was still out—The Gift of Southern Cooking. I checked and saw it was open to a starred recipe for chocolate-pecan cake.

  Nana’s famous gabardine raincoat was draped over the back of a kitchen chair. How many times had she told me, “I don’t want another raincoat. It took me half a century to get this one worn in right”?