Alex Cross 01 - Along Came a Spider Page 4

  “Vic, do you know that two children have been taken from this school, maybe kidnapped?” she snapped. “One is the secretary of the treasury’s son? The other is Katherine Rose’s little girl? The actress Katherine Rose Dunne. How do you think I’m doing? I’m a little sick to my stomach. I’m angry. I’m also petrified.”

  “I just meant hello. Hello, Jezzie? I know what the hell has happened here.”

  But Jezzie Flanagan had already walked away, at least partly to keep from saying anything else to Victor. She did feel nervous. And ill. And mostly, wired as hell. She wasn’t so much looking for familiar faces in the crowded school lobby, as the right faces. There were two of them now!

  Charlie Chakely and Mike Devine. Her agents. The two men she had assigned to young Michael Goldberg, and also Maggie Rose Dunne, since they traveled back and forth to school together.

  “How could this happen?” Her voice was loud. She didn’t care that the talk nearby had stopped and people were staring. A black hole was cut into the noise and chaos of the school lobby. Then she lowered her voice to a whisper as she questioned the agents about what had happened so far. She listened quietly as she let them explain. Apparently, she didn’t like what they had to say.

  “Get the hell out of here,” she exploded a second time. “Get out right now. Out of my sight!”

  “There was nothing we could have done,” Charlie Chakely tried to protest. “What could we have done? Jesus Christ!” Then he and Devine skulked away.

  Those who knew Jezzie Flanagan might have understood her emotional reaction. Two children were missing. It had happened on her watch. She was an immediate supervisor of the Secret Service agents who guarded just about everyone other than the president: key cabinet members and their families, about a half-dozen senators, including Ted Kennedy. She reported to the secretary of the treasury himself.

  She had worked unbelievably hard to get all that trust and responsibility, and she was responsible. Hundred-hour weeks; no vacation year after year; no life to speak of.

  She could hear the upcoming scuttlebutt before it happened. Two of her agents had royally screwed up. There would be an investigation—an old-fashioned witch-hunt. Jezzie Flanagan was on the hot seat. Since she was the first woman ever to hold her job, the fall, if it came, would be steep and painful, and very public.

  She finally spotted the one person she’d been looking for in the crowd—and hoping not to find. Secretary of the Treasury Jerrold Goldberg had already arrived at his son’s school.

  Standing with the secretary were Mayor Carl Monroe, an FBI special agent she knew named Roger Graham, and two black men she didn’t recognize right off. Both of the blacks were tall; one of them extremely so, huge.

  Jezzie Flanagan took a deep breath and walked quickly over to Secretary Goldberg and the others.

  “I’m very sorry, Jerrold,” she said in a whisper as she arrived. “I’m sure the children will be found.”

  “A teacher” was all Jerrold Goldberg could manage. He shook his head of close-cropped white curls. His eyes were wet and shiny. “A teacher of children, little babies. How could this happen?”

  He was clearly heartbroken. The secretary looked ten years older than his actual age, which was forty-nine. His face was as white as the school’s stucco walls.

  Before coming to Washington, Jerrold Goldberg had been at Salomon Brothers on Wall Street. He’d made twenty or thirty million in the prosperous, thoroughly crazy 1980s. He was bright, worldwise, and tested on his wisdom. He was as pragmatic as they came.

  On this day, though, he was just the father of a kidnapped little boy, and he looked extremely fragile.

  CHAPTER 8

  I WAS TALKING to Roger Graham from the FBI when the Secret Service supervisor, Jezzie Flanagan, joined our group. She said what she could to comfort Secretary Goldberg. Then the talk quickly turned back to the apparent kidnapping, and the next steps to be taken.

  “Are we a hundred percent sure it was this math teacher who took the children?” Graham asked the group. He and I had worked closely together before. Graham was extremely smart, and had been a star in the Bureau for years. He’d co-written a book about busting up organized crime in New Jersey. It had been made into a hit movie. We respected and liked each other, which is rare between the Bureau and local police. When my wife had been killed in Washington, Roger had gone out of his way to involve the Bureau in the investigation. He’d given me more help than my own department.

  I decided to try to answer Roger Graham’s question. I’d calmed down enough to talk by then, and I told them what Sampson and I had picked up so far.

  “They definitely left the school grounds together,” I said. “A porter saw them. The math teacher, a Mr. Soneji, went to Ms. Kim’s class. He lied to her. Said there was a telephone threat and that he was supposed to take the kids to the headmaster’s office to be driven home. Said the Secret Service hadn’t specified whether the threat involved the boy or girl. He just kept on going with them. The kids trusted him enough to go along.”

  “How could a potential kidnapper possibly get on the teaching staff of this kind of school?” the special agent asked. A pair of sunglasses peeked from the breast pocket of his suit. Winter shades. Harrison Ford had played him in the movie made from his book. It wasn’t bad casting, really. Sampson called Graham “Big Screen.”

  “That, we don’t know yet,” I told Graham. “We will soon.”

  Sampson and I were finally introduced to Secretary Goldberg by Mayor Monroe. Monroe did a little bit on how we were one of D.C.’s most decorated detective teams and so on and so forth. Then the mayor ushered the secretary inside the headmaster’s office. Special Agent Graham trailed along. He rolled his eyes at Sampson and me. He wanted us to know it wasn’t his show.

  Jezzie Flanagan stayed behind. “I’ve heard about you, Detective Cross, now that I think of it. You’re the psychologist. There was an article in the Washington Post.” She smiled nicely, a demi-smile.

  I didn’t smile back. “You know newspaper articles,” I told her. “Usually a pack of half-truths. In that case, definitely some tall tales.”

  “I’m not so sure about that,” she said. “Nice to meet you, anyway.” Then she walked into the office behind Secretary Goldberg, the mayor, and the star FBI agent. Nobody invited me—the psychologist-detective of magazine fame. Nobody invited Sampson.

  Monroe did poke his head out. “Stick around, you two. Don’t make any waves. Don’t get pissy, either. We need you here. I need to talk with you, Alex. Stay put. Don’t get pissy.”

  Sampson and I tried to be good cops. We stood around outside the headmaster’s office for another ten minutes. Finally, we left our posts. We were feeling pissy.

  I kept seeing the face of little Mustaf Sanders. Who was going to go and find his killer? No one. Mustaf had already been forgotten. I knew that would never happen with the two private-school children.

  A little later that morning, Sampson and I were lying across the natural pine floor of the Day School “playroom” with a few of the children.

  We were there with Luisa, Jonathan, Stuart, Mary-Berry, and her “big” sister Brigid. No one had been able to pick these kids up yet, and they were frightened. Some of the children at the school had wet their pants, and there was one case of severe vomiting. There was the possibility of crisis trauma, a condition I had some experience treating.

  Also down on the polished wood floor with us was the teacher, Vivian Kim. We’d wanted to talk to her about Soneji’s visit to her class, and Soneji, in general.

  “We’re new kids in your school,” Sampson joked with the children. He had actually taken his sunglasses off, though I wasn’t sure if he had to. Kids usually take to Sampson. He fits into their “friendly monster” grouping.

  “No you’re not!” said Mary-Berry. Sampson had gotten her to smile already. A good sign.

  “That’s right, we’re really policemen,” I told the kids. “We’re here to make sure everybody’s okay now. I mean, phew, what—a—morning!”

  Ms. Kim smiled at me from across the floor. She knew I was trying to give the kids some reassurance. The police were there and it was safe again. No one could hurt them now; order had been restored.

  “Are you a good policeman?” Jonathan asked me. He seemed very serious and earnest for such a small boy.

  “Yes, I am. So is my partner here, Detective Sampson.”

  “You’re big. You’re awfully big,” said Luisa. “Big, big, BIG as my house!”

  “So we can protect everybody better,” Sampson said to the little girl. Sampson had caught on fast.

  “Do you have any kids?” Brigid asked me. She’d carefully observed us both before speaking. She was wonderfully bright-eyed, and I liked her already.

  “I have two children,” I said. “A boy and a girl.”

  “And what are their names?” asked Brigid. She had neatly reversed our roles.

  “Janelle and Damon,” I told her. “Janelle’s four and Damon’s six.”

  “What’s your wife’s name?” asked Stuart.

  “I don’t have a wife,” I told him.

  “My, my, my, Mr. Rogers,” Sampson said under his breath.

  “Are you divorced?” Mary-Berry asked me. “Is that the deal?”

  Ms. Kim laughed out loud. “What a question to ask our nice friend, Mary.”

  “Are they going to hurt Maggie Rose and Michael Goldberg?” Jonathan the Serious wanted to know. It was a good, fair question. It deserved an answer.

  “I hope they won’t, Jonathan. I will tell you one thing. Nobody will hurt you. Detective Sampson and I are here just to make sure.”

  “We’re tough, in case you couldn’t tell.” Sampson grinned. “Grrr. Nobody will ever hurt these kids. Grrr.
”

  Luisa started to cry a few minutes later. She was a cute kid. I wanted to hug her, but I couldn’t.

  “What’s the matter, Luisa?” Ms. Kim asked. “Your mom or your dad will be here soon.”

  “No, they won’t.” The little girl shook her head. “They won’t come. They never pick me up at school.”

  “Someone will come,” I said in a quiet voice. “And tomorrow, everything will be fine again.”

  The door to the playroom slowly opened. I looked away from the children. It was Mayor Carl Monroe come for a visit to our city’s schools for the advantaged.

  “You keeping out of trouble, Alex?” Mr. Mayor nodded and smiled as he took in the unusual playroom scene. Monroe was in his mid-forties, and ruggedly handsome. He had a full head of hair and a thick black mustache. He looked businesslike in a navy blue suit, white shirt, and bright yellow tie.

  “Oh, yeah. I’m just trying to do something worthwhile with my spare time here. Both Sampson and I are.”

  That got a mayoral chuckle. “Looks like you’ve succeeded. Let’s take a ride. Come with me, Alex. We’ve got to talk over a few things.”

  I said good-bye to the kids and Ms. Kim and walked with Monroe out of the school building. Maybe I’d find out what was really going on now, and why I was on the kidnapping instead of my homicide cases. And if I had any choice in the matter.

  “You come in your own car, Alex?” Monroe asked as we jogged down the school’s front steps.

  “Mine and HFC Finance’s,” I said.

  “We’ll take your car. How’s the S.I.T. group working out for you? The concept’s strong,” he said as we continued toward the parking area. He had apparently already sent his own driver and car ahead. A man of the people, our mayor.

  “What exactly is the concept for S.I.T.?” I asked him. I’d been pondering my current job situation, especially reporting in to George Pittman.

  Carl Monroe smiled broadly. He can be very slick with people, and he’s actually very smart. He always appears to be caring and benevolent, and maybe he is. He can even listen when he needs to.

  “The main idea is to make sure that the strongest black men and women in the Metro police force rise to the top, as they should. Not just the ass-kissers, Alex. That hasn’t always happened in the past.”

  “I think we’d be all right without too much affirmative action. You heard about the murders in Condon and Langley Terrace?” I asked Monroe.

  He nodded, but didn’t say anything more about the signature murders. They were not a priority with the mayor today.

  “Mother, daughter, three-year-old little boy,” I persisted, starting to get angry again. “Nobody gives a shit about them.”

  “So what’s new, Alex? Nobody cared about their lives. Why should anybody care about their deaths?”

  We had gotten to my car, a ’74 Porsche that has seen much better days. The doors creaked and there was a faint odor of past fast-food lunches. I drove it during the three years I was in private practice. We both got in.

  “You know, Alex, Colin Powell is head of the Joint Chiefs now. Louis Sullivan was our secretary of Health and Human Services. Jesse Jackson helped to get me this job,” Monroe said as we got onto Canal Road and headed downtown. He stared at his reflection in the side window as he talked.

  “And now you’re helping me?” I said. “Without even being asked. That’s real nice, real thoughtful.”

  “That’s right,” he agreed. “You’re so damn quick, Alex.”

  “Then help me out here. I want to solve the murders in the projects. I’m sorry as hell about those two white children, but their kidnapping won’t go wanting for attention or help. Fact is, that’s going to be a problem. Too much goddamned help.”

  “Of course it is. We both know that.” Monroe nodded agreement. “Those dumb bastards will be tripping all over one another. Listen to me, Alex. Will you just listen?”

  When Carl Monroe wants something from you, he’ll talk you into submission if he has to. I had seen this before and now he started up with me again.

  “As the legend of Alex Cross has it, you’re broke now.”

  “I’m doing fine,” I said. “Roof over our heads. Food on the table.”

  “You stayed in Southeast, when you could easily have gotten out,” he continued with this broken record I’d heard before. “You still working over at St. A’s?”

  “Yeah. Soup brigade. Some free therapy sessions. The Black Samaritan.”

  “You know, I saw you in a play once at St. A’s. You can act, too. You have real presence.”

  “Athol Fugard’s The Blood Knot.” I remembered the time. Maria had lured me into her theater group. “The play is powerful. It can make anybody look all right.”

  “You follow what I’m saying? You listening to me at all?”

  “You want to marry me.” I laughed out loud at Monroe. “You want to go out on a date with me first, though.”

  “Something like that,” Monroe roared back.

  “You’re doing it just the right way, Carl. I like to be sweet-talked before I get fucked.”

  Monroe laughed some more, a little harder than he should have. He could be buddies with you, then stare right through you the next time you met. Some people called him “Coconut” around the department. I was one of them. “Brown on the outside, white inside.” I had the feeling that he was actually a lonely man. I still wondered exactly what he wanted from me.

  Monroe was quiet for a moment. He spoke again as we turned onto the Whitehurst Freeway. Traffic was heavy, and slushy streets didn’t help.

  “This is a tragic, tragic situation we’re facing. This kidnapping is also important for us. Whoever solves it will be important. I want you to help solve it, to be a player. I want you to establish a reputation with this case.”

  “I don’t want a reputation,” I said flat out to Monroe. “Don’t want to be a fucking player.”

  “I know you don’t. And that’s one of the reasons you should be. I’ll tell you something that is the truth. You’re smarter than us, and you are going to be a big deal in this city. Stop being such a stubborn bastard about it. Let the walls come down now.”

  “I don’t agree. Not if I can help it. Not if I can get in the way of it. Your idea of being a success isn’t mine.”

  “Well, I know what’s right here. For both of us,” he said. This time Carl Monroe didn’t smile one bit. “You keep me up to date on the progress of this case. You and I are in this one together, Alex. This is a career-making case.”

  I nodded at Monroe. Sure thing, I thought. “Whose career, Carl?”

  I had stopped in front of the District Building with all its fancy trimmings. Monroe slid out of his seat. He looked down at me from outside the car. “This case is going to be enormously important, Alex. It’s yours.”

  “No, thanks,” I said.

  But Monroe was already gone.

  CHAPTER 9

  AT TWENTY-FIVE MINUTES PAST TEN, well within the range he’d set during his dry runs from Washington, Gary Soneji turned his van onto an unmarked drive. The side road was badly potholed and densely overgrown with weeds. A blackberry bramble was on either shoulder.

  Less than fifty yards in from the main highway, he couldn’t see anything but the dirt road and a mess of overhanging bushes. No one could see his van from the highway.

  The van bumped along past a ramshackle, faded white farmhouse. The building looked as if it were shrinking, collapsing right back into its foundation. No more than forty yards past the house was what remained of an equally run-down storage barn.

  Soneji drove the van inside. He’d done it; he’d pulled it off.

  A black 1985 Saab was parked in the barn. Unlike the rest of the deserted farm, the barn had a lived-in feel.

  It had a dirt floor. Cheesecloth was taped over three broken windows in the hayloft. There were no rusting tractors or other farm machinery. The barn had the smell of damp earth and gasoline.

  Gary Soneji pulled two Cokes from a cooler on the passenger seat. He polished off both sodas, letting out a satisfied belch after downing the second cold one.

  “Either of you guys want a Coke?” he called out to the drugged, comatose children. “No? Okay then, but you’re going to be real thirsty soon.”