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  “I was worried about myself. I was starting to get a Massachusetts accent. All those broad a’s. And I was becoming politically correct.”

  “Something I need to talk to you about. Been on my mind a lot.”

  “I’m listening. Nice night for a talk.”

  “Little hard to get into it, to get started. This happened maybe two, three months after Maria was killed,” Sampson continued. “You remember a neighborhood guy, Clyde Wills?”

  “I remember Wills very well. Drug runner with lofty aspirations. Until they got him killed and dumped in a trash bin behind a Popeyes Chicken, if I recall.”

  “You got it right. Wills was a snitch for Rakeem Powell when Rakeem was a detective in the 103.”

  “Uh-huh. I’m not surprised Wills played both sides of the street. Where is this going?”

  “That’s what I’m going to tell you, sugar. That’s what I’m trying to do. Clyde Wills found out some things about Maria—like who might have killed her,” Sampson went on.

  I didn’t say anything, but a chill ran down my back. I kept walking forward, legs a little unsteady.

  “It wasn’t Michael Sullivan?” I asked. “Just like he said.”

  “He had a partner those days,” Sampson said. “Tough guy from his old neighborhood in Brooklyn, name of James ‘Hats’ Galati. Galati was the one who shot Maria. Sullivan wasn’t there. He may have put Galati up to it. Or maybe Galati was gunning for you.”

  I didn’t say anything. To be honest, I couldn’t. Besides, I wanted to let Sampson finish what he had come here to do. He stared straight ahead as he walked and talked, never once looking at me.

  “Rakeem and I investigated. Took us a few weeks, Alex. We worked the case hard. Even went to Brooklyn. But we couldn’t get any hard proof against Galati. We knew he did it, though. He’d talked about the hit to friends in New York. Galati had been trained as a sniper in the army down at Fort Bragg.”

  “You met Anthony Mullino back then, didn’t you? That’s why he remembered you?”

  Sampson nodded. “So here’s the thing, here’s the thing I’ve been carrying around ever since. I have a lot of trouble just saying it now. We put the mutt down, Alex. Rakeem and I killed Jimmy Galati one night in Brooklyn. I could never tell you, ’til right now. I tried back then. I wanted to when we started looking for Sullivan again. But I couldn’t.”

  “Sullivan was a killer, a bad one,” I said. “He needed to be caught.”

  Sampson didn’t say any more than that, and neither did I. We walked for a while more; then he trailed away and headed home, I guess, down those same streets where we grew up together. He’d taken care of Maria’s killer for me. He’d done what he thought was right, but he knew that I couldn’t have lived with it. So he never told me about it, not even when we were chasing after Sullivan. I didn’t quite understand that last part, but you never get to understand everything. Maybe I’d ask John about it some other time.

  That night at home I couldn’t sleep, and I couldn’t think straight. Finally, I went in and bunked with Ali again. He was sleeping like an angel, not a care in the world.

  I lay there, and I thought about what Sampson had told me and how much I loved him, no matter what had happened. Then I thought about Maria and how much I’d loved her.

  You helped me so much, I whispered to my memory of her. You knocked the chip off my shoulder. Taught me how to believe in love, to know there is such a thing, no matter how hard it is to come by. So help me now, Maria . . . I need to be over you, sweet girl. You know what I mean. I need to be over you so I can start up my life again.

  Suddenly I heard a voice in the dark, and it startled me because I’d been somewhere else in my mind, far away from the present.

  “Daddy, you all right?”

  I hugged Ali lightly against my chest. “I’m all right now. Of course I am. Thanks for asking. I love you, buddy.”

  “I love you, Daddy. I’m your little man,” he said.

  Yeah. That’s all there is to it.

  Epilogue

  SOMEBODY’S BIRTHDAY PARTY

  Chapter 122

  SO THIS IS HOW MY NEW LIFE BEGINS, or maybe just how it continues from story to story. Mostly, it’s pretty good and nice today, because it’s Nana’s birthday, though she refuses to say which one or even what decade we’re talking about.

  I would think she might be at a stage where she’d want to brag about her longevity, but that’s not the case.

  Anyway, it’s definitely her night, her birthday week, she says, and she can do whatever she wants. Just like on every other day of the year, I think to myself—and keep it to myself.

  It is her highness’s command that “the boys” prepare dinner, and so Damon, Ali, and I take our family car to the market and use up some of the eighty-five cubic feet of cargo space. Then we spend the better part of the afternoon making two kinds of fried chicken, biscuits from scratch, corn on the cob, butter beans, tomato aspic.

  Dinner is served at seven, and it includes a nice Bordeaux, even a sip for the kids. “Happy one hundredth!” I say, and raise a glass.

  “I have some toasts of my own to make,” Nana says, and rises at her place. “I look around our table, and I have to say that I love our family more than ever, and I feel proud and lucky to be a part of it. Especially at my age. Whatever age that may be, which is not one hundred years.”

  “Hear, hear,” we all agree, and clap our hands like those little toy monkeys with the clangers.

  “Here’s to Ali, who is reading books all by himself, and who can tie his shoelaces like a real champion,” Nana continues.

  “To Ali! To Ali!” I chant. “Way to tie those shoelaces.”

  “Damon has so many wonderful options to consider in life. He is a beautiful, beautiful singer, an excellent student—when he applies himself. I love you, Damon.”

  “I love you, Nana. You forgot the NBA,” says Damon.

  “I didn’t forget the National Basketball Association.” Nana nods his way. “You have a weak left hand. Work on it like a demon possessed if you want to play at a higher level.”

  Then she goes on, “My girl, Janelle, is another excellent student, and she doesn’t do it for me or for her father—she does it all on her own, for herself. I’m proud to say that Janelle rules Janelle.”

  Then Nana sits down, and we’re all a little surprised, but especially me, since I didn’t even get a mention. I didn’t even know I was in her doghouse until now.

  Then she pops up again with a sly smile spread across her small, angular face. “Oh, I almost forgot someone.

  “Alex has made the most profound changes of anyone this year, and we all know how hard it is for that man to change. He has his practice again and is giving of himself to others. Working in the kitchen at St. A’s too, though it’s hard to get him going in my kitchen.”

  “Who cooked this dinner?”

  “The boys did a splendid job, all of you. I’m so proud of our family, and I know that I’m repeating myself. Alex, I’m very proud of you. You are a puzzle. But you are a constant delight to me. You always have been. God bless the Crosses.”

  “God bless the Crosses!” we agree in unison.

  Later that night I put Ali down as I usually do lately, and I stay in his bed for a few extra minutes. The boy has had a big day, and he goes right off.

  Then the phone sounds like an alarm, and I jump up and hurry out into the hall. I grab it off the wobbly stand.

  “Cross family residence,” I answer, in the spirit of the day.

  “There’s been a murder,” I hear, and my stomach falls.

  I pause a beat before I say anything. “Why are you calling me?” I ask.

  “Because you’re Dr. Cross, and I’m the murderer.”

  Acknowledgments

  Many thanks to Fern Galperin and Mary Jordan for their assistance with the research; and to Chris Tebbetts, who added research and helped draft a section of the story. And finally, Steve Bowen, who is slowly getting Ho
llywood to see the obvious, no easy task.

  Alex Cross is being targeted by two psychopathic killers.

  For an excerpt from the next Alex Cross novel,

  turn the page.

  AT THE TIME of his formal sentencing in Alexandria, Virginia, for eleven known murders, the former FBI agent and pattern killer Kyle Craig, known as the Mastermind, was lectured and condescended to by U.S. District Judge Nina Wolff. At least that’s the way he took the judicial scolding, and he definitely took it personally, and very much to heart.

  “Mr. Craig, you are, by any criteria I know, the most evil human being who has ever come before me in this courtroom, and some despicable characters have come—”

  Craig interrupted, “Thank you so very much, Judge Wolff. I’m honored by your kind and, I’m quite sure, thoughtful words. Who wouldn’t be pleased to be the best? Do continue. This is music to my ears.”

  Judge Wolff nodded calmly, then went on as if Craig hadn’t spoken a word.

  “In reparation for these unspeakable murders and repeated acts of torture, you are hereby sentenced to death. Until such sentence is carried out, you will spend the remainder of your life in a supermaximum-security prison. Once there, you will be cut off from human contact as most of us know it. You will never see the sun again. Take him out of my sight!”

  “Very dramatic,” Kyle Craig called to Judge Wolff as he was escorted from the courtroom, “but it’s not going to happen that way. You’ve just given yourself a death sentence.

  “I will see the sun again, and I’ll see you, Judge Wolff. You can bet on it. I’ll see Alex Cross again. For sure, I will see Alex Cross. And his charming family. You have my word on it, my solemn promise before all these witnesses, this pathetic audience of thrill seekers and press hyenas, and all the rest of you who honor me with your presence today. You haven’t seen the last of Kyle Craig.”

  In the audience, among the “thrill seekers and press hyenas,” was Alex Cross. He listened to his former friend’s empty threats. And yet he couldn’t help hoping that ADX Florence was as secure as it was supposed to be.

  FOUR YEARS TO THE DAY LATER, Kyle Craig was still being held, or perhaps smothered was the more apt description, in the maximum-security prison in Florence, Colorado, about a hundred miles from Denver. He hadn’t seen the sun in all that time. He was cut off from most human contact. His anger was growing, blossoming, and that was a terrifying thing to consider.

  His fellow inmates included the Unabomber—Ted Kaczynski; Oklahoma City conspirator Terry Nichols; and Al Qaeda terrorists Richard Reid and Zacarias Moussaoui. None of them had required much sunblock lately either. The prisoners were kept locked away in soundproof, seven-by-twelve concrete cells for twenty-three hours every day, completely isolated from anyone other than their lawyers and high-security guards. The solitary experience at ADX Florence had been compared to “dying every single day.”

  Even Kyle admitted that escaping from Florence was a daunting challenge, maybe impossible. In fact, none of the prisoners inside had ever succeeded, or even come close. Still, one could only hope, one could dream, one could plot and exercise the old imagination. One could most definitely plan a little revenge.

  His case was currently on appeal, and his lawyer from Denver, Mason Wainwright, visited once a week. This day, he arrived as he always did, promptly at four p.m.

  Mason Wainwright sported a long silver-gray ponytail, scuffed black cowboy boots, and a cowboy hat worn jauntily back on his head. He had on a buckskin jacket, a snakeskin belt, and large horn-rimmed glasses that gave him the appearance of a rather studious country-and-western singer, or a country-and-western-loving college professor, take your pick. He seemed a curious choice as an attorney, but Kyle Craig had a reputation for brilliance, so the selection of Wainwright wasn’t seriously questioned.

  Craig and the lawyer hugged when Wainwright arrived. As he usually did, Kyle whispered near the lawyer’s ear, “There’s no videotaping permitted in this room? That rule is still in force? You’re sure of it, Mr. Wainwright?”

  “There’s no videotape,” answered Wainwright. “You have attorney-client privilege, even in this pathetic hellhole. I’m sorry that I can’t do more for you. I sincerely apologize for that. You know how I feel about you.”

  “I don’t question your loyalty, Mason.”

  Following the hug, Craig and the lawyer sat on opposite sides of a gray metal conference table, which was bolted securely to the concrete floor. So were the chairs.

  Kyle now asked the lawyer eight specific questions, always the same questions, in session after session. He asked them rapidly, leaving no time for any answers by his attorney, who just sat there in respectful silence.

  “That great consoler of mass-murdering prisoners, Truman Capote, once said that he was afraid of two things, and two things only. So which of these is worse, betrayal or abandonment?” Kyle Craig began, then went right to the next question.

  “What was the very first thing you forced yourself not to cry over, and how old were you when it occurred?”

  And then, “Tell me this, Counselor: what is the average length of time it takes a drowning person to lose consciousness?

  “Here’s something I’m curious about—do most murders take place indoors or out?

  “Why is laughing at a funeral considered unacceptable, while crying at a wedding is not?

  “Can you hear the sound of one hand clapping if all the flesh is removed from the hand?

  “How many ways are there to skin a cat, if you wish it to remain alive through the entire process?

  “And, oh yes, how are my Boston Red Sox doing?”

  Then there was silence between Kyle and the lawyer. Occasionally, the convicted murderer would ask a few more specifics—perhaps additional detail about the Red Sox or about the Yankees, whom he despised, or about some interesting killer working on the outside whom the lawyer had informed him about.

  Then came another hug as Mason Wainwright was about to leave the room.

  The lawyer whispered against Kyle’s cheek. “They’re ready to go. The preparations are complete. There will be important doings in Washington, DC, soon. There will be payback. We expect a large audience. All in your honor.”

  Kyle Craig didn’t say anything to this news, but he put his index fingers together and pressed them hard against the lawyer’s skull. Very hard indeed, and he made an unmistakable impression that traveled instantly to Mason Wainwright’s brain.

  The fingers were in the shape of a cross.

  WASHINGTON, DC.

  The first story, a thriller, involved an Iraqi soldier and a crime writer. This soldier was observing a twelve-story luxury apartment building, and he was thinking, So this is how the rich and famous live. Stupidly at best, and very dangerously for sure.

  He began his checklist of possibilities for a break-in.

  The service entrance at the back of the superluxury River-walk apartment building was rarely, if ever, used by the residents, or even by their sullen lackeys. More secluded than the main entry or the underground parking garage, it was also more vulnerable.

  A single reinforced door showed off no external hardware. The frame was wired on all sides.

  Any attempt at forced entry would trigger simultaneous alarms at the Riverwalk’s main office and with dispatch at a private security firm based just a few blocks away.

  Static overhead cameras monitored all deliveries and other foot traffic during the day.

  Use of the entrance was forbidden after seven p.m., when motion detectors were also engaged.

  None of this was a serious problem, the soldier believed. Actually, it was an advantage for him.

  Yousef Qasim had been a captain for twelve years with the Mukhabarat under Saddam. He had a sixth sense about such things, anything to do with the illusion of security. Qasim could see what the Americans could not—that their love of technology made them complacent and blind to danger. His best way into the Riverwalk was also the easiest.


  Garbage was the answer. Qasim knew it was carried out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoon, without fail. American efficiency, so valued here, was another of the luxury building’s vulnerabilities.

  Efficiency was predictability.

  Predictability was weakness.

  SURE ENOUGH, at 4:34 p.m. the door to the service entrance opened from inside. A tall black lackey in stained green coveralls and a silver Afro latched a chain from inside the door to a hook on the outside wall. His flatbed dolly, loaded with bulging plastic garbage bags, was too wide to negotiate the opening.

  The man moved slowly, lazily carrying two bags at a time to a pair of commercial Dumpsters at the far end of a covered loading dock.

  This man is still a slave to the whites, Qasim thought to himself. And look at him—the pathetic shuffle, the downcast eyes. He knows it too. He hates his job and the terrible people in the Riverwalk building.

  Qasim watched closely, and he counted. Twelve paces away from the door, nine seconds to throw the garbage bags in, then back again.

  On the man’s third trip, Qasim slipped by him unnoticed. And if his own cap and green coveralls weren’t enough to fool the camera, it was no crucial matter. He’d be long gone by the time anyone came to investigate the security breach.

  He found the poorly lit service stairs easily enough. Qasim took the first flight cautiously, then ran up the next three. Actually, the running released pent-up adrenaline, which was useful to get under control.

  On the fourth-floor landing was an unused utility closet, where he stashed the garment bag he had carried in, then continued up to twelve.

  Less than three and a half minutes after entering the luxury building, he stood at the front door to apartment 12F. He gauged his position relative to the peephole in the door. His finger hovered over the buzzer, a recessed white button in the painted brick.

  But he went no further than that. He didn’t actually push the buzzer today.