Target: Alex Cross Read online

  Potter went to his son’s side and stroked his face before looking at his wife. “I don’t know how to think of life without him,” he choked out. “And they won’t answer the phone. They’re leaving us hanging in the wind, and I don’t know what to do.”

  Mary had tears in her eyes when she nodded. She was barely able to say, “I know.”

  Potter took his attention off his son. He could not bear to watch him just slip away in his sleep. He glanced at the television on mute. His wife had it turned to CNN.

  The anchorman was jazzed up about something, but Potter had no idea what until a chyron appeared on the screen:

  CHIEF JUSTICE RULES TALBOT RIGHTFUL SUCCESSOR TO PRESIDENCY. LARKIN MUM.

  Potter looked over at his wife in disgust. “Was it for nothing?”

  Before Mary could answer, their son moaned and stirred. The burn phone in Potter’s pocket began to buzz.

  He yanked it out, saw a number like the one from St. Petersburg, and surged toward rage as he stomped back into the hallway and answered.

  “My son is dying,” Potter said in a tense whisper. “We had a deal, and you aren’t paying, and—”

  “Is this Mr. Marston?” a woman said in a slight Eastern European accent.

  He stopped ranting. He’d never talked to a female before.

  “Who is this?” Potter said.

  “The woman hired to eliminate you and your wife. I suggest you destroy the phone you are using, find another, and call the number I’m about to give you if you want any chance of saving your son.”

  CHAPTER

  93

  AT SEVEN THIRTY on Monday morning, February 8, three days after the assassinations and almost twenty-four hours since we’d lost our chance at the president’s killer, I sipped coffee and poked at the plate of scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast Nana Mama had set before me.

  I’d had less than ten hours of sleep in the past seventy-two, and we were no closer to the killers still at large. I was feeling grumpy, if not downright cranky, as I ate and gazed dully at the morning news on the television screen.

  Anderson Cooper was up early, standing on the White House lawn and struggling to explain, first, the violent events that had seen President Hobbs and several successors assassinated and, second, the constitutional mechanics that had resulted in Attorney General Larkin assuming leadership. Then he began discussing the chief justice’s ruling that the Oval Office rightfully belonged to Senator Talbot.

  “Will there be a power struggle?” the CNN anchor said. “Will we see yet another constitutional crisis if Larkin refuses to step down?”

  The former attorney general, Cooper noted, had not been seen since the ruling had come down the evening before. He was rumored to have been flying in his airborne command post out west for the past two days, landing only to refuel at various air force bases across the country. But that was unconfirmed.

  For his part, Senator Talbot had been holed up in his office on Capitol Hill all night while a steady stream of advisers had come and gone.

  Cooper touched his earbud, then bobbed his head vigorously and stared into the camera with the peeved look of a man in the wrong place at the wrong time. “Evidently, Senator Talbot has a statement to make live outside his office on Capitol Hill.”

  The screen jumped to an image of the Nevada senator fighting not to look like a deer in the headlights as he went to the microphones.

  “My fellow Americans,” Talbot said, sounding like someone’s nice old uncle. “I am as surprised as you are by these strange turns of events. But the chief justice has ruled, and I am not one to question the Founders of our nation, men like Jefferson and Adams and Franklin, who anticipated these kinds of difficult days. The Founders believed in an order of succession. They crafted that order into our Constitution, the precious document that is the basis of our unique form of governance. And I, as a mayor, a congressman, and a senator, have long sworn allegiance to God, country, and our remarkable system of laws.”

  Talbot paused and stood taller. “So, forthwith, I will assume the office of the president of the United States, and I want to assure every American that while I might be an old dog, I can certainly learn new tricks. I feel deeply humbled and honored to lead you in this time of crisis. My first act is to lift martial law. I want people to resume their lives. We must go on.”

  I set my fork down.

  Nana Mama said, “Did he say no more martial law?”

  “He did.”

  My grandmother threw her arms overhead. “I’ve got serious shopping to do.”

  I laughed. “You sound like we’ve been imprisoned for months.”

  “Feels like it to me.” She sniffed. “You know I like ingredients fresh.”

  “I know you do,” I said, taking my plate to the sink and pecking her on the cheek as I passed.

  “He doesn’t sound too bad,” Nana said. “That Talbot. Means well.”

  “I get that sense too,” I said. “But then again, I thought Larkin was a natural leader until he taunted the Russians and the Chinese like that.”

  “Any chance Larkin fights it?”

  “What’s there to fight?” I asked. “The chief justice ruled.”

  “But not the entire court,” she said. “I think it could be appealed on that basis.”

  “I’m sure someone in Washington’s looking at the idea,” I said.

  I didn’t want to go upstairs to shower yet. Everyone else was still sleeping. Even Bree, who’d been working just as hard as I had, if not harder. It was too cold to sit outside, so I went into the television room and sat with my coffee. I shut my eyes and let my thoughts roam.

  Once again, I asked myself, Who benefits from the murders? What about in light of recent events? Talbot, of course. He benefits. But he’d struck me as a reluctant leader, someone who had never seen himself as presidential timber. And yet, now that he was called, he was willing to do his duty.

  But what about Larkin? Why hadn’t he come forward to give the country his reaction to the ruling? For that matter, where was he? The last we’d heard he was at an air force base in Kansas. Doing what? Trying to figure out his next move?

  If Larkin was involved in the assassination plot, I decided, he would emerge to fight tooth and nail to stay president. He would do as Nana Mama had suggested, at the very least: appeal to the full Supreme Court.

  But until then, what was my best course of action? For several minutes, I couldn’t come up with a clear way forward. But then, as I opened my eyes to drink more coffee, I remembered something Viktor Kasimov said.

  Follow the money.

  CHAPTER

  94

  I WAS BACK in the hangar at Joint Base Andrews less than two hours later, standing with Ned Mahoney and Susan Carstensen. We were all once again looking over Keith Karl Rawlins’s shoulder.

  The FBI cybercrimes expert was hacking into bank accounts that, according to British intelligence, belonged to Senator Walker’s killer. The accounts in Sean Lawlor’s name—gleaned upon request from British MI6—were all in known money-laundering centers: Panama, Seychelles, and the Isle of Jersey.

  “There we are,” Rawlins said when the screen jumped to the electronic ledger on Lawlor’s account in Panama.

  He scrolled down. “Empty.”

  “Find recent transactions,” I said.

  He did and we saw that more than a million euros and a million British pounds had been transferred out the same day Lawlor was strangled.

  “Where’d it go?” Mahoney asked.

  “Bank in …” Rawlins said, typing frantically. “El Salvador.”

  “Can you hack it?” I asked.

  He looked at me as if I’d insulted him and soon had the account open on the screen. It, too, was empty.

  “Whose account?”

  “Esmeralda del Toro,” he said. “Address in Madrid.”

  “Send it to me,” Carstensen said. “I’ll dispatch agents.”

  Rawlins did, and then Mahoney said, “Where’d th
e money go from there?”

  “Probably another empty account, probably belonging to a shell corporation, and on and on,” Rawlins said. “I’m betting Esmeralda is not at home in Madrid.”

  “Or that she even exists,” I said.

  “Humor me,” Mahoney said. “Push the ball ahead a few times.”

  Rawlins sighed and gave his computer an order. Nothing. He gave another order. The screen didn’t budge.

  “Interesting,” he said. “There’s a firewall around recent transactions that …”

  The FBI contractor cocked his head, rattled away at his keyboard, and hit Enter. The screen didn’t change at first, but then it blinked to a new document.

  “Ahhh,” Rawlins said. “The money went to an account on Kraken. It’s an exchange for cryptocurrencies in … Singapore.”

  “Can you hack that account?” Mahoney demanded.

  He cringed a little. “That will take time. Those crypto-exchanges have hired the best in the world to build their security systems.”

  “I have faith in you,” Mahoney said. “Alex?”

  I was staring off, blinking, trying to see what was bothering me through the fog of fatigue and ignorance. And then I flashed on the inner back cover of that Bible and saw a glimmer of hope.

  “Can you call up the Kraken Exchange home page?” I said.

  Rawlins did, and I saw more than hope. I saw possibility.

  “What are you thinking, Cross?” Carstensen asked.

  “Forget following the money,” I said. “Let’s play follow the Bitcoin.”

  CHAPTER

  95

  FOUR HOURS LATER , with the help of Rawlins, Mahoney, Carstensen, and a dozen others assigned to the investigation, I believed I knew who and what was behind the plot to overthrow the U.S. government by assassination.

  “Who does that?” FBI director Derek Sanford said, shaking his head after I’d explained my theory to him in the conference room. “Is there no end, no bottom?”

  “We can’t prove it beyond a doubt yet, sir,” Carstensen said. “We’ve still got a lot of legwork to do before we know the details. In the meantime, I wish we were still under martial law. It would make things easier.”

  Sanford paused, then said, “I can offer you extraordinary powers for now. Mirandize when you have to. Otherwise, do what you need to do.”

  I heard his cell phone buzz. The FBI director glanced at the screen, said, “Larkin petitioned the full Supreme Court over the validity of Talbot’s claim to the Oval Office.”

  “He’s still flying around?” Mahoney said.

  “At his home in Kansas awaiting the court’s decision,” Sanford said. “Whatever. That’s outside our purview. Go make real arrests. When you’ve got the lot of them in custody, I want the perp walk to end all perp walks.”

  “What about their homes? Offices?” Mahoney said.

  “Search warrants will be executed within the hour. Once that has happened, I’ll contact my Russian counterparts and Interpol. They’ll handle everything outside our jurisdiction. And when it’s appropriate, I’ll personally notify the Secret Service of our intentions.”

  After Sanford left the conference room, Carstensen pointed to me and then Mahoney. “You two are coming with me.”

  “By car?” Ned asked.

  “Helicopter,” she said, heading to the door.

  “SWAT?” I asked.

  Carstensen paused to check her watch. “What time did you say it started?”

  “Seven p.m.”

  “I’ll put a full SWAT team on standby,” she said, opening the door. “I’m hoping that given the setting and occasion, our targets will be easy to locate and subdue.”

  CHAPTER

  96

  AT SIX P.M., Kristina Varjan got out the carbon knife Pablo Cruz had given her and slid it up her sleeve, then she slipped through a throng of people packing a long, wide concrete hallway.

  The assassin barely noticed them. She was focused. Prepared.

  “Coming from the southwest,” she said, her voice picked up by and transmitted from the sensitive Bluetooth mike taped to her throat and hidden beneath her shirt.

  “Coming from northwest,” Cruz said over a small earbud.

  “Cutting east to west,” Dana Potter said. “I’ll approach up the near staircase.”

  “Muscle?” Varjan said.

  “Unseen,” Potter said. “But I’m sure it’s there.”

  “No blood if possible,” Cruz said.

  Varjan did not reply. She’d spotted a woman coming at her through the crowd. She was looking at her phone with a worried scowl on her face and had a VIP pass hanging around her neck on a lanyard.

  Putting on sunglasses, Varjan looked down at the VIP pass she held and felt confident. She climbed stairs to a higher floor and ran into a security guard at the top who was looking at his phone. She smiled, then held out her VIP pass.

  “The lanyard broke,” she said, acting embarrassed.

  The guard appeared bored, waved her on, and went back to staring at his phone. Varjan went around him into a long hallway and saw Cruz coming at her from the far end, also wearing a VIP pass.

  Between them stood a big white guy with a military haircut and military bearing. He was leaning with his back to a door. She noted a gun bulge, chest-high, under the suit jacket.

  The muscle’s head swiveled, took them both in.

  Varjan went by a staircase to her right, saw in her peripheral vision that Potter, the Canadian assassin, was climbing with a VIP badge around his neck.

  She smeared an easy smile across her face and acted a little tipsy as she ambled to the security guy.

  “This where the VIP bash is at?” she asked shyly.

  “No, ma’am.”

  “That right?” Cruz said, also acting like he’d had a few. “I was told this was the place too.”

  “Me three,” Potter said behind her.

  The bodyguard seemed relaxed, in control, not bothered by them or the odd outfits they wore.

  “Well, I’m Philip Stapleton, director of security for Victorious, and I can tell you there’s no party up here. Yet.”

  “Yet?” Varjan said, lifting her VIP pass to show him as she slid closer.

  “So we’re early?” Cruz said.

  The question distracted Stapleton just long enough for Varjan to spring at him and get the blade of the carbon knife up against the side of his neck, right under the jawbone and across his carotid.

  “One wrong move, and I’ll bleed you right here,” Varjan whispered.

  Cruz came in beside them, took the pistol from Stapleton’s chest holster.

  “Open the door now,” Varjan said.

  Cruz set the muzzle of the guard’s pistol against his temple. “Your call.”

  “It’s coded,” the guard said. But he gave them the number.

  Potter keyed the code into the pad by the door. They heard the door lock click open. Knife blade still tight to Stapleton’s jaw, Varjan pushed him through. The other two assassins followed her, stepping inside fast.

  “Nobody move,” Varjan said to the people in the room as Cruz kicked the door shut behind him. “Or this man dies.”

  CHAPTER

  97

  WE REACHED THE outskirts of Atlantic City at 6:40 on Monday evening. Out the window and far below the FBI helicopter, life was going on. From that height, you’d never have known that the country had been under martial law and in the grip of one constitutional crisis after another for the past several days.

  My cell phone buzzed, alerting me to a text. It was Nina Davis again.

  Please, Dr. Cross. I need your help. I think someone is stalking me, not the other way around. And I’m scared.

  I stared at the text, and then answered: Still tied up in the investigation. Stay home. If you feel threatened, call local police. I will call as soon as I can.

  Rather than wait for an answer, I turned the phone off.

  “Police lights,” Carstensen said, looking out t
he window on her side of the chopper. “Heading toward our landing zone. Pilot, can you find out why?”

  “Roger that,” the pilot said.

  Now I could see the police cars, five of them, racing east toward the ocean.

  The pilot came back on. “Police in Atlantic City say there was a murder and a vicious assault and robbery in the Tropicana garage. Three victims, three assailants, all dressed in costumes.”

  “As long as it’s not about us,” Carstensen said. “Put us on that roof.”

  “What did they steal?” I asked.

  “VIP passes to the big show.”

  “What kind of costumes?”

  “Didn’t say,” the pilot said. “But I’ll ask.”

  We circled, the helicopter shuddering in the wind before landing on a helipad atop the Tropicana casino. We jumped out into a chill, raw sea breeze.

  Carstensen spoke with the casino’s head of security while Mahoney and I hustled to a hatch and a stairway. We waited for her outside, and then we all walked together north several blocks toward Boardwalk Hall, a famous sports and entertainment venue where some of history’s greatest boxing matches had been held.

  That night, however, the marquee read

  VICTORIOUS E-SPORTS

  WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP FINALS.

  The three of us went to the main gate and showed our badges and credentials to security. Carstensen quietly told the guard in charge to let us in and keep our presence to himself or she’d have him arrested for obstruction of justice.

  The lobby and the hallways of the venue were jammed with video-gamers, most dressed as Victorious avatars, all pressing toward the event hall itself.

  “Ten thousand five hundred capacity,” Mahoney said.

  “Narrow the search,” Carstensen said. “We’re not looking in the cheap seats.”

  We split up. Mahoney headed north, and Carstensen went south. I climbed as high as I could go and came out in the nosebleed section. The auditorium was already more than half full. There was rap music playing and a festive atmosphere around a large wrestling ring that filled the center of the floor. Inside the ring, there were six empty gaming stations, and television cameras on arms swung around above them.