The Big Bad Wolf Read online

  The only thing Burns had been quiet about was my class supervisor at Quantico, a senior agent named Gordon Nooney. Nooney ran Agent Training. He had been a profiler before that, and prior to becoming an FBI agent, had been a prison psychologist in New Hampshire. I was finding him to be a bean counter at best.

  That morning, Nooney was standing there waiting when I arrived for my class in abnormal psych, an hour and fifty minutes on understanding psychopathic behavior, something I hadn’t been able to do in nearly fifteen years with the D.C. police force.

  There was gunfire in the air, probably from the nearby Marine base. “How was traffic from D.C.?” Nooney asked. I didn’t miss the barb behind the question: I was permitted to go home nights, while the other agents-in-training slept at Quantico.

  “No problem,” I said. “Forty-five minutes in moving traffic on Ninety-five. I left plenty of extra time.”

  “The Bureau isn’t known for breaking rules for individuals,” Nooney said. Then he offered a tight, thin smile that was awfully close to a frown. “Of course, you’re Alex Cross.”

  “I appreciate it,” I said. I left it at that.

  “I just hope it’s worth the trouble,” Nooney mumbled as he walked off in the direction of Admin. I shook my head and went into class, which was held in a tiered symposium-style room.

  Dr. Horowitz’s lesson this day was interesting to me. It concentrated on the work of Professor Robert Hare, who’d done original research on psychopaths by using brain scans. According to Hare’s studies, when healthy people are shown “neutral” and “emotional” words, they respond acutely to emotional words, such as cancer or death. Psychopaths register the words equally. A sentence like “I love you” means nothing more to a psychopath than “I’ll have some coffee.” Maybe less. According to Hare’s analysis of data, attempts to reform psychopaths only make them more manipulative. It certainly was a point of view.

  Even though I was familiar with some of the material, I found myself jotting down Hare’s “characteristics” of psychopathic personality and behavior. There were forty of them. As I wrote them down, I found myself agreeing that most rang true.

  Glibness and superficial charm

  Need for constant stimulation / prone to boredom

  Lack of any remorse or guilt

  Shallow emotional response

  Complete lack of empathy . . .

  I was remembering two psychopaths in particular: Gary Soneji and Kyle Craig. I wondered how many of the forty “characteristics” the two of them shared, and started putting G.S. and K.C. next to the appropriate ones.

  Then I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned away from Dr. Horowitz.

  “Senior Agent Nooney needs to see you right now in his office,” said an executive assistant, who then walked away with the full confidence that I would be right on his heels.

  I was.

  I was in the FBI now.

  Chapter 5

  SENIOR AGENT GORDON NOONEY was waiting in his small, cramped office in the Administration building. He was obviously upset, which had the desired effect: I wondered what I could have done wrong in the time since we’d talked before class.

  It didn’t take him long to let me know why he was so angry. “Don’t bother to sit down. You’ll be out of here in a minute. I just received a highly unusual call from Tony Woods in the director’s office. There’s a ‘situation’ going down in Baltimore. Apparently the director wants you there. It will take precedence over your training classes.”

  Nooney shrugged his broad shoulders. Out the window behind him I could see thick woods, and also Hoover Road, where a couple of agents jogged. “What the hell, why would you need any training here, Dr. Cross? You caught Casanova in North Carolina. You’re the man who brought down Kyle Craig. You’re like Clarice Starling in the movies. You’re already a star.”

  I took a deep breath before responding. “I had nothing to do with this. I won’t apologize for catching Casanova or Kyle Craig.”

  Nooney waved a hand my way. “Why should you apologize? You’re dismissed from the day’s classes. There’s a helicopter waiting for you over at HRT. You do know where Hostage Rescue Team is?”

  “I know where it is.”

  Class dismissed, I was thinking as I ran to the helipad. I could hear the crack, crack of weapons being fired at the shooting range. Then I was onboard the helicopter and strapping in. Less than twenty minutes later, the Bell helicopter touched down in Baltimore. I still hadn’t gotten over my meeting with Nooney. Did he understand that I hadn’t asked for this assignment? I didn’t even know why I was in Baltimore.

  Two agents in a dark blue sedan were waiting for me. One of them, Jim Heekin, took charge immediately, and also put me in my place. “You must be the FNG,” he said as we shook hands.

  I wasn’t familiar with what the letters stood for, so I asked Heekin what they meant as we got into the car.

  He smiled, and so did his partner. “The Fucking New Guy,” he said.

  “What we have so far is a bad deal. And it’s hot,” Heekin said. “City of Baltimore homicide detective is involved. Probably why they wanted you here. He’s holed up in his own house. Most of his immediate family’s in there with him. We don’t know if he’s suicidal, homicidal, or both, but he’s apparently taken the family hostage. Seems similar to a situation created by a police officer last year in south Jersey. This officer’s family was gathered together for his father’s birthday party. Some birthday party.”

  “Do we know how many are in the house with him?” I asked.

  Heekin shook his head. “Best guess, at least a dozen, including a couple of children. Detective won’t let us talk to any of the family members, and he won’t answer our questions. Most of the people in the neighborhood don’t want us here either.”

  “What’s his name?” I asked as I jotted down a few notes to myself. I couldn’t believe I was about to get involved in a hostage negotiation. It still didn’t make any sense to me—and then—it did.

  “His name is Dennis Coulter.”

  I looked up in surprise. “I know Dennis Coulter. I worked a murder case with him. Shared a bushel of crabs at Obrycki’s once upon a time.”

  “We know,” said Agent Heekin. “He asked for you.”

  Chapter 6

  DETECTIVE COULTER HAD ASKED FOR ME. What the hell was that all about? I hadn’t known we were so close. Because we weren’t. I’d met him only a couple of times. We were friendly, but not exactly friends. So why did Dennis Coulter want me here?

  A while back, I had worked with Dennis Coulter on an investigation of drug dealers who were trying to connect, and control, the trade in D.C. and Baltimore and everywhere in between. I’d found Coulter to be tough, very egotistical, but good at his job. I remembered he was a big Eubie Blake fan, and that Blake was from Baltimore.

  Coulter and his hostages were huddled somewhere inside the house, a gray wood-shingle Colonial on Ailsa Avenue in Lauraville, in the northeast part of Baltimore. Venetian blinds were tightly closed in the windows. What was going on behind the front door was anybody’s guess. Three stone steps climbed to the porch, where a rocking chair and a wooden glider sat. The house had recently been painted, which suggested to me that Coulter probably hadn’t been expecting trouble in his life. So what happened?

  Several dozen Baltimore PD, including SWAT team members, had surrounded the house. Weapons were drawn and, in some cases, aimed at the windows and the front door. The Baltimore police helicopter unit Foxtrot had responded.

  Not good.

  I already had one idea. “What do you think about everybody lowering their guns for starters?” I asked the field commander from the Baltimore PD. “He hasn’t fired on anybody, has he?”

  The field commander and SWAT team leader conferred briefly, and then weapons around the perimeter were lowered, at least the ones I could see. Meanwhile, one of the Foxtrot helicopters continued to hover close to the house.

  I turned to the commander again. I needed
him on my side. “Thank you, Lieutenant. Have you been talking to him?”

  He pointed to a man crouched behind a cruiser. “Detective Fescoe has the honor. He’s been on the horn with Coulter for about an hour.”

  I made a point of walking over to Detective Fescoe and introducing myself. “Mick Fescoe,” he said, but he didn’t seem overjoyed to meet me. “Heard you were coming. We’re fine here.”

  “This intrusion isn’t my idea,” I told him. “I just left the force in D.C. I don’t want to get in anybody’s way.”

  “So don’t,” Fescoe said. He was a slender, wiry man who looked as if he might have played some ball at one time. He moved like it.

  I rubbed my hand over my chin. “Any idea why he asked for me? I don’t know him that well.”

  Fescoe’s eyes drifted toward the house. “Says he’s being set up by Internal Affairs. Doesn’t trust anybody connected to the Baltimore PD. He knew you’d gone over to the FBI recently.”

  “Would you tell him I’m here? But also tell him I’m being briefed now. I want to hear how he sounds before I talk to him.”

  Fescoe nodded, then he called the house. It rang several times before it was picked up.

  “Agent Cross has just arrived, Dennis. He’s being briefed now,” said Fescoe.

  “Like hell he is. Get him on the hook. Don’t make me shoot in here. I’m getting close to creating a real problem. Get him now!”

  Fescoe handed me the phone and I spoke into it. “Dennis, this is Alex Cross. I’m here. I did want to be briefed first.”

  “This really Alex Cross?” Coulter asked, sounding surprised.

  “Yeah, it’s me. I don’t know too many of the details. Except you say you’re being set up by Internal Affairs.”

  “I don’t just say it, I am being set up. I can tell you why too. I’ll brief you. That way you’ll hear it straight.”

  “All right,” I told him. “I’m on your side so far. I know you, Dennis. I don’t know Baltimore Internal Affairs.”

  Coulter cut me off. “I want you to listen to me. Don’t talk. Just hear me out.”

  “All right,” I said. “I’m listening.”

  I sat down on the ground behind a Baltimore PD cruiser, and I got ready to listen to the armed man who was supposedly holding a dozen of his family members hostage. Jesus, I was back on the Job again.

  “They want to kill me,” Dennis Coulter began. “The Baltimore PD has me in its crosshairs.”

  Chapter 7

  POP!

  I jumped. Someone had pulled open a can of soda and tapped me on the shoulder with it.

  I looked up to see none other than Ned Mahoney, head of the Hostage Rescue Team at Quantico, handing me a Diet Coke, caffeine-free. I had taken a couple of classes from him during orientation. He knew his stuff—in the classroom, anyway.

  “Welcome to my private hell,” I said. “What am I doing here, by the way?”

  Mahoney winked and dropped down beside me.

  “You’re a rising star, or maybe a risen star. You know the drill. Get him talking. Keep him talking,” said Mahoney. “We hear you’re real good at this.”

  “So what are you doing here?” I asked.

  “What do you think? Watching, studying your technique. You’re the director’s boy, right? He thinks you’re gifted.”

  I took a sip of soda, then pressed the cold can to my forehead. Hell of an introduction to the FBI for the FNG.

  “Dennis, who wants to kill you?” I spoke into the cell phone again. “Tell me all you can about what’s going on here. I also need to ask about your family. Is everybody all right in there?”

  Coulter bristled. “Hey! Let’s not waste time on a lot of bullshit negotiation crap. I’m about to be executed. That’s what this is. Make no mistake. Look around you, man. It’s an execution.”

  I couldn’t see Coulter, but I remembered him. No more than five-eight, goatee, hip, always cracking a wiseass joke, very tough. All in all, a small-man complex. He began to tell his story, his side of things, and unfortunately I had no idea what to make of what he was spilling out. According to Coulter, detectives in the Baltimore PD had been involved in large drug payoffs. Even he didn’t know how many, but the number was high. He’d blown the whistle. The next thing he knew, his house was surrounded by cops.

  Then Coulter dropped the bomb. “I was getting kickbacks too. Somebody turned me in to Internal Affairs. One of my partners.”

  “Why would a partner do that?”

  He laughed. “Because I got greedy. I went for a bigger piece of the pie. Thought I had my partners by the short hairs. They didn’t see it that way.”

  “How did you have them by the short hairs?”

  “I told my partners that I had copies of records—who had been paid what. A couple years’ worth of records.”

  Now we were getting somewhere. “Do you?” I asked.

  Coulter hesitated. Why was that? Either he did or he didn’t.

  “I might,” he finally said. “They sure think I do. So now they’re going to put me down. They were coming for me today. . . . I’m not supposed to leave this house alive.”

  I was trying to listen for other voices or sounds in the house while he kept talking. I didn’t hear any. Was anybody else still alive in there? What had Coulter done to his family? How desperate was he?

  I looked at Ned Mahoney and shrugged my shoulders. I really wasn’t sure whether Coulter was telling the truth or if he was just a street cop who’d gone loco. Mahoney looked skeptical too. He had a don’t ask me look on his face. I had to go somewhere else for guidance.

  “So what do we do now?” I asked Coulter.

  He sniffed out a laugh. “I was hoping you’d have an idea. You’re supposed to be the hotshot, right?”

  That’s what everybody keeps saying.

  Chapter 8

  THE SITUATION IN BALTIMORE didn’t get any better during the next several hours. If anything, it got worse. It was impossible to keep the neighbors from wandering out on their porches to watch the standoff in progress. Then the Baltimore PD began to evacuate the Coulters’ neighbors, many of whom were also the Coulters’ friends. A temporary shelter had been set up at the nearby Garrett Heights elementary school. It reminded everyone that there were probably children trapped inside Detective Coulter’s house. His family. Jesus!

  I looked around and shook my head in dismay as I saw an awful lot of Baltimore police, including SWAT, and also the Hostage Rescue Team from Quantico. A swarm of crazy-eyed spectators was pushing and shoving outside the barricades, some of them rooting for cops to be shot—any cop would do.

  I stood up and cautiously made my way over to a group of officers waiting behind an emergency rescue van. I didn’t need to be told that they didn’t appreciate interference from the Feds. I hadn’t either when I was on the D.C. police force. I addressed Captain Stockton James Sheehan, whom I’d spoken to briefly when I arrived. “What do you think? Where do we go with this?”

  “Has he agreed to let anybody out?” Sheehan asked. “That’s the first question.”

  I shook my head. “He won’t even talk about his family. Won’t confirm or deny that they’re in the house.”

  Sheehan asked, “Well, what is he talking about?”

  I shared some of what I’d been told by Coulter but not everything. How could I? I left out that he’d sworn Baltimore cops were involved in a large-scale drug scheme—and, more devastating, that he had records that would incriminate them.

  Stockton Sheehan listened and then he offered, “Either he lets go of some of the hostages or we have to go in and get him. He’s not going to gun down his own family.”

  “He says he will. That’s the threat.”

  Sheehan shook his head. “I’m willing to take the risk. We go in when it gets dark. You know this should be our call.”

  I nodded without agreeing or disagreeing, then I walked away from the others. It looked as if we might have another half hour of light. I didn’t like to think
about what would happen once darkness came.

  I called Coulter again. He picked up right away.

  “I have an idea,” I told him. “I think it’s your best shot.” I didn’t tell Coulter, but I also thought it was his only shot.

  “So tell me what you’re thinking,” he said.

  I told Dennis Coulter my plan. . . .

  Ten minutes later, Captain Sheehan was shouting in my face that I was “worse than any motherfucking FBI asshole” he had ever dealt with. I guess I was a fast learner. Maybe I didn’t even need the orientation classes I was missing at Quantico. Not if I was already the “king of the FBI assholes.” Which was one way of saying that the Baltimore police didn’t approve of my plan to defuse the situation with Detective Coulter.

  Even Mahoney had doubts. “I guess you’re not real big on social and political correctness,” he commented when I told him Captain Sheehan’s reaction.

  “Thought I was; guess I’m not. Hope this works. It better work. I think they want to kill him, Ned.”

  “Yeah. So do I. I think we’re making the right call.”

  “We?” I asked.

  Mahoney nodded. “I’m in this with you, podjo. No guts, no glory. It’s a Bureau thing.”

  Minutes later, Mahoney and I watched the Baltimore police very reluctantly pull back from the house. I had told Sheehan I didn’t want to see a single blue uniform or SWAT coverall anywhere around. The captain had his idea of what constituted acceptable risks and I had mine. If they rushed the house, somebody would die for sure. If my idea failed, at least nobody would get hurt. Or, at least, nobody but me.