Cross Fire Page 21

  Jannie was sitting on the edge of the unmade bed, but now she was watching me intently. I think she had started to sense that something was wrong.

  “She’ll be right out,” I said, as naturally as I could.

  “Good,” Kyle said. “Then I’m going to take you all for a drive. Kids, you up for a little adventure?”

  “Sure!” Ali said. Jannie stayed quiet. The whole time, Kyle kept his right hand covered with that towel, his gun out of sight.

  When Bree came into the room, she was in bare feet and wearing one of the resort’s robes. You’d never know from watching her that she was just as scared and pumped up as I was.

  “Max, good to see you,” she said, and extended a hand as she came toward him.

  “Not as good as it is to see you,” he said, without hiding his pleasure anymore.

  But then as they went to shake, Bree’s free hand whipped a small canister out of the pocket in her robe — the hair spray from the complimentary kit in the bathroom. She sprayed it in Kyle’s eyes. He yelled in pain, and with a second fluid motion, Bree kneed him in the groin.

  At the same time, I took a glass decanter off the bar, where I’d positioned myself. I crossed the floor in three fast steps and swung as hard as I could. The heavy container smashed into Kyle’s jaw and nose. He crumpled to the floor. Shards of glass flew everywhere.

  Ali screamed, but there was no time for explanation or soothing. Bree scooped him up as if he were weightless, grabbed Jannie’s arm, and got them out the door.

  And I fell onto Kyle with everything I had.

  Chapter 114

  KYLE SWUNG HIS fist and caught me square in the jaw. A shock ran through my head, but I couldn’t swing back. I now had one hand on his wrist and the other on the gun he’d carried in.

  I head-butted him instead, hard, where he’d already been cut. It was enough to wrench the weapon free. A Beretta nine millimeter. Max Siegel’s gun.

  I scrambled backward on the floor, aiming it between his eyes, which he was rubbing at furiously, trying to see.

  “Roll over!” I told him, getting to my feet. “Face down on the floor, hands away from your body!”

  Kyle smiled. His eyes were practically bloodred, running with tears, but I knew that he could see me again.

  “This is ironic,” he said. “I could have sworn you were lying that night in the car, but you really can’t pull that trigger, can you?”

  “Not without a reason,” I said. “So either give me one, or roll over and kiss the floor — right now! Do it!”

  “You know I don’t say this lightly, Cross, but fuck you.”

  Suddenly, he did roll, too fast, and a shard of glass clenched in his hand crossed the space between us. I felt the muscle in my calf tear. My knee buckled. I was halfway to the ground before I knew what happened.

  And Kyle was up on his feet.

  He stumbled on his way out, and it probably saved his life. The one shot I managed to get off splintered the sliding door instead of his head, just before he jumped off the terrace and disappeared outside.

  Chapter 115

  I FIRED ONCE into the air as I came onto the beach. Anyone who wasn’t already moving out of Kyle’s way started scattering now. His gait was erratic. It was possible he had a concussion, but my leg wasn’t doing me any favors either. I had never seen a chase like this one.

  Some people were screaming; others were pulling their kids out of the water. Then, without a clear shot, I could only watch as Kyle reached down and plucked a small boy, maybe two or three years old, off the ground before his mother could get to him.

  The woman ran right at them, but Kyle clutched her boy over his torso like a shield.

  “Get back!” he screamed. “Get back, or I’ll —”

  “Take me!” The mother was on her knees, unable to come closer or turn away. “Take me instead!”

  “Kyle, put him down!”

  He turned to look at me then, and I was close enough to see the calm coming back into his eyes. He had the bargaining chip he needed, and he knew it.

  “You came here for me, not this boy,” I said. “Let him go! Take me.”

  The poor boy was sobbing and reaching out for his mother, but Kyle just hitched him up a little higher and held on even tighter.

  “I’ll need that gun back first,” he said. “No more talk. Just set the gun down and back away. Three. Two —”

  “Okay.” I started kneeling slowly. My leg was seizing up, and I could barely move it now. “I’m putting it down,” I said.

  But I didn’t trust that boy’s life to Kyle’s word. So I took the chance I had to take. I turned the gun at the last second and fired low. The boy wasn’t big enough to shield Kyle top to bottom. My shot caught him just below the kneecap.

  He howled like a wild animal. The boy dropped to the sand and then scrambled for his mother. Kyle tried to stand, but he could get up only on one leg — and only until I shot that one, too.

  He flew back into the sand, his chest heaving with pain. His legs were a bloody mess now, and it felt good. I especially liked taking him down with his own weapon.

  I saw Bree then, running toward us with two uniformed officers. She pointed Kyle out to them as they came, and then ran straight over to me.

  “Oh my God.” She put an arm around me to take some of the weight off my leg. “Are you all right?”

  I nodded. “He’ll need an ambulance.”

  “It’s on the way,” one of the police officers said.

  Kyle’s eyes were closed, but he opened them when my shadow crossed between the sun and his face.

  “It’s over, Kyle,” I said. “For good this time.”

  “Define ‘over,’” he wheezed. His breath was ragged, and he was shaking with pain. “You think you’ve won something here?”

  “I’m not talking about winning,” I said. “I’m talking about putting you away where you can’t hurt anyone ever again.”

  He tried to smile. “Didn’t stop me the last time,” he said.

  “Well, you know what they say. The only thing worse than going into solitary is going back,” I said. “But maybe it’s just an expression.”

  For possibly the first time ever, I saw something like fear in Kyle Craig’s eyes. It lasted only a second before he snapped back to the same rigid demeanor.

  “This isn’t over!” he croaked, but he was already talking to my back.

  The ambulance was just pulling up to where we were, and I wanted to warn the EMTs.

  “Take care of him first,” I said, “but you need to be careful. This man is extremely dangerous.”

  “We’ve got this, sir,” one of the policemen told me. “And I need you to surrender that weapon.”

  I handed it over a little reluctantly, and Bree helped me down onto a lounge chair, where I could still keep an eye on things. In the meantime she grabbed a towel and wrapped it tightly around my leg.

  Kyle didn’t bother to resist as the med techs gave him a drip and an oxygen mask, then cut away his pant legs. He’d lost a lot of blood. His face was paper white. I think the reality of going back to ADX Florence was really starting to sink in.

  They got him onto a gurney and put the IV bag and oxygen tank between his legs so that they could lift everything up into the ambulance.

  “You need to cuff him,” I called over to the cops. “And don’t let those EMTs ride alone!”

  “Just calm down, sir,” one of them told me in an angry voice.

  “I’m a police officer, and I know what I’m talking about,” I said. “This man’s wanted by the FBI, and you need to restrain him. Right now!”

  “Okay, okay.” He motioned to his partner, and they walked over toward Kyle.

  Almost as if the scene were in slow motion, I watched as the first cop stepped into the back of the ambulance. The cuffs came up — and then I saw Kyle reach for them, with the kind of channeled strength only a psychopath like him could muster in that condition. He used the cuffs to pull the officer
down to him and, in a second, had the man’s gun in his hand.

  Bree stood up instinctively to help, but I rolled off the lounge chair and pulled her down with me.

  There was a gunshot, and then another.

  Then the first of two loud explosions. We would find out later that a bullet had pierced Kyle’s oxygen tank.

  It burst into a ball of flame inside the confines of the ambulance, followed quickly by the fuel tank.

  The entire vehicle imploded with a blast that stunned my eardrums. Glass and metal flew more up than out, and a shower of sand rained down over us. People were screaming again.

  When I raised my head, I saw that there was no question of survivors. The ambulance was a black carcass, with flames and dark smoke still rising into the air. Both police officers and both EMTs were dead.

  And so was Kyle. By the time the fire was out and we got close enough to see his body, we realized that it was charred from top to bottom.

  The face he’d invested so much in was completely unrecognizable, just a featureless black mask where the man used to be. In fact, not that much of him was even there anymore.

  As to whether Kyle fired into that oxygen tank on purpose, I have to wonder. Maybe going back to solitary confinement was more than he could bear. Prison might have easily killed him in the end, and maybe Kyle knew that.

  Maybe he was even trying to take me out with him as he went — one last effort to finish the job that, for whatever reason, he’d turned into his life’s work.

  Actually, I think I know what the answers to all those questions are, but of course I’ll never know for sure. And maybe someday I won’t care anymore either.

  Epilogue

  SUMMER

  Chapter 116

  THE MEDIA STORM WAITING for me when I got home topped what I’d left behind, if that was possible. Kyle Craig had been the most famous wanted person in the country, and everyone clamored for a piece of the story. I had to hire Rakeem Powell’s security service for several more days just to keep the gawkers at bay and give my family some semblance of privacy.

  I thought Nana would blow a fuse over what happened in Nassau, but she didn’t. We all quietly settled back in as best we could.

  Over the next several days, I started the slow and steady process of talking to the kids, together and separately. I wanted them to know that while what happened was very real, it was also the end of something.

  I think each got that in his or her own way. By the time my two weeks’ vacation was up, everyone was doing pretty well.

  But I’d also come to a decision. I needed to be around more than I’d been, at least for a while. I put in for an unpaid leave from work through the end of the summer and just hoped they’d accept it. If not, then not. I’d find something else to do.

  In fact, I was thinking seriously about writing another book, this one focusing on Kyle Craig and the Mastermind case. Not only had Kyle been the toughest challenge of my career, he’d also been a friend of mine — once. I felt as if I had a story to tell, and it would be a powerful one.

  Meanwhile, there were sunflowers to plant and movies to see. Boxing lessons to catch up on in the basement, baseball games, trips to the Smithsonian. Long dinners to linger over until after dark, with good conversations or games of Go Fish. There was my new wife to lavish with all the love I could give.

  And, of course, a new life to start together.

  Chapter 117

  IF ONLY THINGS could have stayed that way — the endless summer.

  It was just after Fourth of July weekend when I got that call from MPD, the call that everyone over there swore they wouldn’t make, no matter what the circumstances.

  A detective in Austin, Texas, had been calling around looking for me. He was dealing with a multiple down there, a baffling and grisly one. But it wasn’t just the murders. The case was starting to show a striking similarity to one of my own — something I thought I’d put to bed years ago.

  Even so, I made the appropriate referral to a detective I’d worked with in Dallas and stood my ground. I wasn’t a cop right now. Not until September.

  But then the next call came about two weeks later. This one was from a detective in San Francisco by the name of Boxer. She had a strange one on her hands, and her case sounded familiar, too, a lot like the murders committed by a madman known as “Mr. Smith.” I had caught Smith and watched him die. At least, I thought I had.

  But that’s a story for another day.

  IN A WORLD WHERE FREEDOM HAS ALL BUT DISAPPEARED…

  WHERE MUSIC, READING, AND CREATIVITY OF ANY KIND ARE STRICTLY PROHIBITED…

  WHERE EVEN CHILDREN ARE KIDNAPPED AND IMPRISONED BY THE GOVERNMENT…

  THERE IS ONLY ONE HOPE LEFT.

  WITCH & WIZARD

  Whit

  HERE’S WHAT HAPPENED, to the best of my shattered ability to recall it.

  I do remember that I couldn’t have been more lost and alone as I wandered the streets of this gray, crowded, and forsaken city. Where is my sister? Where are the others from the Resistance? I kept thinking, or maybe muttering the words like some homeless madman.

  The New Order has already disfigured this once beautiful city beyond recognition. It seems like a decaying corpse swelling with mindless maggots. The suffocatingly low sky, the featureless buildings — even the faces of the nervously rushing people flooding around me — are as colorless and lifeless as the concrete under my feet.

  I know the general populace has been efficiently brainwashed by the New Order, but these citizens seem a little too hushed, a little too urgent, a little too riveted to the scraps of propaganda clutched in their hands like prayer books.

  Suddenly, my eyes spot a word in bold letters on the paper: EXECUTION.

  And then the huge video displays hanging above the boulevard light up, and everything becomes clear to me. Every pedestrian stops and stands stock-still, and every head turns upward as if there has suddenly been an eclipse.

  On the video screens, a hooded prisoner — small-framed, frail-looking — is kneeling on a starkly lit stage.

  “Wisteria Allgood,” blares a bone-chilling voice, “do you wish to confess to the use of the dark arts for the wicked purpose of undermining all that is good and proper in our society?”

  This can’t be happening. My heart is a big lump in my throat. Wisty? Did that voice really just say Wisteria Allgood? My sister’s on an executioner’s scaffold?

  I grab a slack-jawed adult by his dismally gray overcoat lapels. “Where is this execution happening? Tell me right now!”

  “The Courtyard of Justice.” He blinks at me irritably, as if I’ve woken him from a deep sleep. “Where else?”

  “Courtyard of Justice? Where’s that?” I demand of the man, throwing my hands around his neck, nearly losing control of my own strength. I swear, I’m ready to throw this adult against a wall if I have to.

  “Under the victory arch — down there,” he gasps. He points at a boulevard that runs off to my left. “Let me go! I’ll call the police!”

  I shove him and take off running toward a massive ceremonial arch maybe a half mile away.

  “You! Wait!” he yells after me. “Don’t I know your face from somewhere?”

  He does. Oh yes. And so would everyone else, if they took the time to notice that there was a wanted criminal running loose in their midst.

  But his fellow citizens’ eyes remain glued to the screen. They’ve got an insatiable appetite for malicious gossip of any kind and, of course, an equal taste for senseless death and destruction.

  Even when the falsely condemned are kids. Just kids.

  I can hear a distant roar now. The sound of hunger — for “justice,” for blood.

  I forge ahead into the pathetic herd of lemmings. I’m not going to let them take my sister from me. Not without a fight to the death anyway.

  I round a corner, and then, across the top of the crowd, I see… Is that my sister, Wisty, up on the stage? She’s hooded, dressed all in blac
k, but standing now. Proudly. Brave as ever.

  A man — if you would call him that — is on the stage with her. He’s leaning on a crooked stick, his wickedly sharp black suit hanging strangely motionless in the wind that’s begun to howl through the civic square. His angular face is glowing with smug self-satisfaction, as if he’s just devoured a potful of whipping cream.

  I know him; I despise him. The One Who Is The One. Quite possibly the most evil individual in the history of humanity.

  Are there minutes or seconds left before this hideous execution? I have no way of knowing.

  I knock people aside as I barrel through the thickening, or should I say sickening, throng. I can see a line of wellarmed soldiers holding everyone back from the platform. If I can knock one of them down and snatch away a gun…

  I look up at the stage just in time to see The One raise his knobby black stick and shake it menacingly at my sister. He has a look of absolute triumph.

  “No!” I yell, but I’m unheard in the roaring crowd. They all know what’s about to happen. I know, too. I just don’t see how I can possibly stop it. There has to be a way.

  “Nooo!” I scream. “You can’t do this! This is cold-blooded murder!”

  There’s a flash — not of light but somehow of blackness — and she’s gone. Wisty. My sister. My best friend in the world.

  My little sister is dead.

  Whit

  IF I’M STILL DRAWING air, it’s not because I care about living.

  The last person in the Allgood family that I knew for certain to be alive, the person who knew me better than anyone else in the world, the person who looked up to me in everything, is gone. What an incredible waste of an incredible life.

  Wisty died while I watched, and I could do nothing to help her.