Target: Alex Cross Page 5

Damon had played at Division II Johns Hopkins, my alma mater. He played so well in a summer league that he attracted the attention of a Davidson coach, Jake Winston, who offered him a walk-on slot if he transferred.

  Under Coach Winston’s guidance, Damon had blossomed into a solid NCAA Division I player.

  “C’mon, Damon!” Jannie cried as he dribbled in and made a nice jump shot. She whistled and clapped, and that made me happy.

  My older son’s basketball abilities came late and had been hard fought for. Athletically, Damon had long been overshadowed by Jannie’s track exploits. He was the sixth man on a team ranked fifth in the Atlantic Coast Conference. She was being recruited by the top track schools in the nation.

  So it was nice seeing my boy get his chance in the spotlight. It was even better seeing how much his little sister was supporting him.

  CHAPTER

  14

  NEAR DUPONT CIRCLE in Washington, DC, a man calling himself Pablo Cruz, a fit man with hawkish features wearing a Washington Nationals hoodie, jeans, and work boots, adjusted the shoulder straps of the heavy, black dry bag on his back.

  He ambled down New Hampshire Avenue, then made a right on M Street. Near the bridge into Georgetown, he took a right onto Twenty-Sixth Street and went to the dead end.

  Cruz glanced around before hurrying past a sign that said Rock Creek Park was closed after dark. Twenty yards downslope, he left the path, cut to his right, and peered up at the lights in the nearest apartment building, focusing on two windows on the third floor on adjacent walls of a corner.

  When he got the angle on that corner right, still watching those two windows over his shoulder, he backed down the slope woods. He shuffled his feet through the leaves and wondered if his read of the city’s drainage schematics was correct.

  His left heel found the edge of the corrugated drainpipe, and he smiled. Cruz got around and below it. He felt for the edge of the cover, found it, and retrieved a hammer, a chisel, and a headlamp from the dry bag.

  Cruz turned on the lamp’s soft red light feature and waited until he heard a bus crossing the M Street Bridge over the park before attacking the spot welds that held the cover in place. Twenty minutes later, he pried the cover off and set it aside.

  He turned the lamp off and returned it, along with his tools, to the dry bag, then sealed the bag and put it inside the drainpipe a few feet back. Then he replaced the cover and tamped it into place.

  Done, he climbed above the pipe and looked at those windows on the third floor of the apartment building again. Cruz fixed the image in his mind.

  He left then, angling back across the slope to the path up to Twenty-Sixth Street and telling himself he could find his way here again, even in the pitch-dark, even under the threat of death.

  CHAPTER

  15

  AS BOTH TEAMS lined up at center court inside the Verizon Center, the overall height disparity was clearly in favor of Georgetown, then in first place in the Atlantic Coast Conference and ranked fourteenth in the nation.

  The overall muscle disparity went the Hoyas’ way as well.

  Georgetown’s center had two inches on our six-foot-seven pivot man, and he easily swatted the ball to one of his guards, who passed across the court to an attacking power forward, who went all the way in for a resounding slam dunk.

  The Davidson players looked flat-footed in comparison to the Georgetown team. Damon was sitting on the bench when Kendall Barnes, the Wildcats’ starting point guard, took the ball.

  Barnes was as quick a young man as I’d ever seen. But coming up-court and cutting to his right, he failed to pick up a Hoya defender, who slashed in and fingered the ball out of Barnes’s control.

  The Hoya went the length of the court and let go with another thunderous slam dunk that threatened to shatter the backboard.

  The people in the Verizon Center crowd went nuts, giving each other high-fives and taunting the Davidson players, who looked dazed. Coach Winston wisely called a time-out to try to calm his team. I twisted in my seat.

  Ali said, “This isn’t David versus Goliath, Dad. It’s more like prisoners fighting lions in ancient Rome.”

  Jannie punched him lightly on the shoulder. “You know too much.”

  Ali shot her a superior look. “I didn’t know that was possible.”

  Bree said, “Anyone hungry?”

  After getting a manageable order of hot dogs, chips, and sodas, Bree got up and left just before the teams retook the court.

  “Damon’s in!” Jannie said.

  I looked out and saw she was right. Damon had been subbed in at guard to play opposite Barnes. Coach Winston had also replaced one of the starting forwards for a lanky true freshman from Missouri named Tanner Ott.

  Barnes had the ball again. He acted as if he was going to make the same forward charge and cut right. When he feinted that way, the Hoyas bought it and shifted. Barnes flicked the ball behind him to Damon, who was set up in three-point range.

  Damon received the ball, set, and sprang into his release.

  “Nothing but net!” Jannie screamed before the ball even reached the hoop and swished through.

  We were all on our feet cheering as Damon spun in his tracks, pumping his fist.

  The Hoyas guard brought the ball up-court and tried to flick it to his center. But Tanner Ott intercepted the pass and drove the length of the court to an easy layup.

  “We’re ahead by one!” Jannie cried, leaping to her feet and clapping.

  That lead went to four when Damon dropped another three-point bomb, and the Hoyas called their own time-out.

  Things got uglier for Davidson after that.

  The Hoyas sank five straight field goals and then a three-pointer before Barnes worked to Ott, who drew a foul scoring inside. From then on, it was a real pitched battle.

  Coach Winston had taught his Davidson team to use their superior speed to swarm on defense and to stay aggressive enough with their bigger opponents to draw fouls on offense. The Wildcats took a physical beating, but the free-throw shooters and Damon’s third three-pointer kept the score a respectable 43 to 37 at the half.

  “I can’t believe the score’s that low,” Ali said.

  Jannie said, “I bet Georgetown’s thinking the same thing.”

  “Davidson has a good defense, I’ll grant you that,” Nana said between bites of the hot dog Bree had brought her.

  “Think they can keep it up?” Bree asked me.

  I smiled and shrugged. “I think they can consider it a victory to be only six points behind a nationally ranked team at the half.”

  Ali said, “So you’re saying if they lost by twelve points, it would still be a victory?”

  “Okay, an achievement,” I said.

  “It is an achievement,” Bree said. “I’m impressed by their poise.”

  The second half was harder fought than the first. Georgetown came onto the court trying to put Davidson away for good. But through the third quarter, the Wildcats chipped the Hoyas’ lead to four and then to one when Damon fed to Barnes, who sank from three-point land.

  Two of Georgetown’s best players fouled out early in the fourth quarter. You could see the concern in the faces of the Hoyas when their coach called time-out. You could feel it in the crowd too.

  The Wildcat players looked out of their minds, especially Ott, Barnes, and Damon, who was as pumped up as I’d ever seen him. Winston kept my son in the game and Damon delivered, dropping two more three-pointers, three field goals, and a free throw in the fourth quarter.

  The game was tied with a minute left, and even skeptical Ali and Nana were on their feet cheering wildly for Davidson. The Hoyas scored on their first possession, an easy layup. Then Barnes fed Ott in the paint, and he laid the shot in and drew a foul.

  His free throw dropped with twenty-nine seconds left. Down by one, Georgetown called its last time-out.

  “I’m going to faint if this goes on much longer,” my grandmother said.

  “We’ll hold you u
p,” Jannie said. She took one of her hands and Ali took the other.

  Bree’s cell rang. She answered and listened.

  “I’ll be right there,” she said and then hung up.

  “You can’t leave now,” I said.

  “I have to. Murder in Georgetown five blocks from where Walker was shot.”

  “That was hours ago.”

  “I’m looking for straws to grasp at.”

  “Need company?”

  “Can’t; you’re under FBI contract. Michaels would have my head if I let you in. Text me what happens?”

  I nodded and kissed her. “Be safe.”

  She slipped down the aisle and disappeared before the referee blew his whistle. Georgetown brought the ball out-of-bounds and up-court in three long and precise passes. But the Wildcats’ pesky defense kept them from getting an immediate shot.

  When the Hoyas passed a fourth time, Barnes darted forward, intercepted it, and passed to Ott, who slammed the ball through Georgetown’s hoop with eighteen seconds on the clock.

  “We’re up by three!” Ali squealed.

  Neither team had time-outs left. Georgetown tried to break quickly up-court, but Barnes and Damon kept pressing the Hoyas.

  When they tried to come inside with a lob pass to their center, Ott sprang and batted the ball. The Hoyas’ guard snatched it up before Ott could steal, however, and passed it to Georgetown’s best outside shooter.

  He set to release, and I thought for sure we were heading into overtime. But Damon came leaping laterally and windmilling his right hand.

  After the shot, my son’s fingers brushed the ball just enough that it caromed off the rim and into Barnes’s able hands. He dribbled away from the Hoyas chasing and trying to foul him.

  He was just too quick. The buzzer went off, and the Wildcats went crazy.

  “Upset of the year!” Jannie cried, and we all cheered as if Damon and Davidson College had made the Final Four.

  Part Two

  TIME OF DEATH

  CHAPTER

  16

  BREE DRANK FROM a cup of hot black coffee as she surveyed the scene inside the apartment in Georgetown. The victim, a white male in his fifties, sat slumped in a club chair. Blood had spilled from his neck wound to his lap and clotted on his chest and belly like an apron.

  “Time of death?” she asked Evelynn Kincaid, a top medical field examiner.

  “Four or five hours ago?” said Kincaid, a tall lanky woman who used to play volleyball at Purdue. “The heat was turned up, so I’ll need more tests to be precise.”

  “Nasty neck wound. The knife?” Bree said, gesturing to a switchblade on the carpet near the corpse.

  Kincaid shook her head. “That’s his knife. There’s a scabbard for it around his right ankle, and there’s no blood on the blade.”

  “So what was the weapon?”

  The ME put on reading glasses, peered at the victim’s neck. “He’s got bruising and skin abrasions above and below the wound. And the edges are ragged. Could be a thin rope, but I’m thinking small-gauge wire.”

  “From behind?”

  “I’d say so,” Kincaid said. “The killer had to be plenty strong for the wire to cut deep like that. And smart. Victim got a shot off with that little Ruger in the corner, but it missed. Bullet hole is in the south wall, over there.”

  “No one heard the shot?”

  Natalie Parks, the detective on the scene, said, “No one yet.”

  “We have an ID? Who found him?”

  Detective Parks said they’d found a driver’s license and credit cards that identified the deceased as Carl Thomas of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and business cards that pegged him as a medical-equipment salesman. A maid for the apartment’s owners had arrived to bring clean towels around seven p.m. and found Thomas in his present state.

  “I’ve already spoken with the owners,” Parks said. “Thomas booked online nine days ago. He indicated in his application he was going to combine business with tourism and stay for three nights.”

  Bree thought about that. “Anything linking him to Senator Walker’s killing?”

  Parks and Kincaid both seemed surprised by the question.

  “Two killings seventeen hours and five blocks apart,” Bree said. “And this guy is armed not only with a pistol, but a knife he carries in an ankle sheath. So until we prove otherwise, we’re considering these murders connected. Meantime, I want his prints run. Anything else? Itinerary? Phone? Computer?”

  Parks shook her head. “Nothing beyond the wallet and the IDs, Chief.”

  “Killer took them. Clothes?”

  “An overnight suitcase. A down parka, hat, gloves.”

  “How’d he get here? Where’s his car?”

  “No idea yet.”

  “Nothing that said ‘shooter’ in that overnight bag?”

  “No bullets or rifle components, if that’s what you mean,” Parks said.

  Bree’s phone rang. Dispatch.

  Bree sighed and answered. “This better be good. I’m running on fumes.”

  “Chief, we’ve had officers under fire, a high-speed chase on Blair Road, and now an armed standoff in Takoma, multiple weapons involved,” the dispatcher said.

  Bree started toward the door fast, barking questions at the dispatcher. She was told that it started when a Metro patrol unit had pulled over a Cadillac Escalade with California plates for failure to make a full stop at a blinking light. There were three males in the car. The officer ran the plates and found them registered to Fernando Romero of Oakland.

  The name had rung bells.

  “What kind of bells?” Bree demanded, leaving the apartment crime scene.

  “Romero’s a big gangbanger with ties to the Mexican drug cartels. He’s got a long history of violence and three felony warrants out for his arrest, including one for threatening bodily harm to a U.S. senator two weeks ago.”

  “Betsy Walker?” Bree said, running now.

  “That’s affirmative.”

  CHAPTER

  17

  WE WAITED OUTSIDE the Verizon Center until Damon emerged as happy as I’d ever seen him. And not just because he’d played an integral part in the upset of the NCAA season. He had his arm around a very pretty young Asian woman.

  “This is my girlfriend, Song Li,” he said. “She’s from Hong Kong and goes to Davidson, a transfer like me.”

  Girlfriend, I thought. That’s a first for Damon.

  “Song Li,” Nana said, walking up and taking her hand. “What a beautiful name.”

  Song smiled shyly and said in a soft British accent, “Thank you, Mrs. Hope. Damon has told me so much about you, I feel like I know you.”

  “You can call me Nana or Nana Mama like everyone else, dear,” my grandmother said.

  Jannie appeared suspicious until Song turned to her and said, “Are you the fabled Jannie?”

  My daughter laughed. “Fabled?”

  “Damon brags on you almost every day.”

  “That’s not true,” Damon protested. “Well, maybe almost every other day.”

  “Dr. Cross?” Song said. She shook my hand and bowed her head. “It is indeed an honor to meet you. My father will be most pleased.”

  “It’s nice to meet you too, Song,” I said. “Your father?”

  Damon said, “He’s a detective in Hong Kong. It’s how Song and I got to talking.”

  Song smiled. “When I told my father who Damon’s father was, he got very excited. He has watched the tapes of your FBI seminars on profiling and homicide investigations. He says you are one of the best in the world.”

  “I don’t know about that. But it’s very flattering and kind of him to say so.”

  “I will tell him,” Song said. Beaming, she turned to Ali. “Damon says you are studying Chinese in school?”

  Ali rattled off something in Chinese that made Song laugh and clap her hands. She replied to Ali, and he started laughing as well.

  “Okay,” Nana said. “Fill the rest of us i
n?”

  Song said, “Ali said it was nice to meet a daughter of Hong Kong.”

  Ali grinned. “And she said it was nice to meet the brother of Mr. Basketball.”

  “Mr. Basketball?” Damon said.

  Song clapped again, laughed, and said, “He has a very good ear. How long have you been studying, Ali?”

  “A year?” he said.

  “That’s amazing!”

  “Here’s the Uber car, Dad,” Jannie said.

  Damon looked at me. “Can Song come with us? Stay at the house tonight?”

  “Of course,” I said. “She fits right in.”

  Damon grinned and put his arm around her again. “She does, doesn’t she?”

  “C’mon, then,” Nana Mama said. “Get in, you two must be hungry.”

  “Damon is always hungry,” Song said, shaking her head and looking awed enough that we all chuckled.

  We climbed into the car and set off toward home.

  Damon said, “Can Song sleep in your old attic office, Dad?”

  I was slightly relieved to hear the plan. “That’s fine. You can blow up the mattress for her up there.”

  On the ten-minute ride, Nana Mama gently interrogated Song, and we learned that she was born in Hong Kong, her mother worked in financial services, and her father had spent two years with Scotland Yard in London before returning home to head the detective and special investigations bureau for the Hong Kong police force.

  “So he’s like Bree?” Ali said.

  I nodded. “Sounds like it.”

  Damon said, “Where is Bree, anyway?”

  CHAPTER

  18

  WHEN BREE REACHED the Takoma area of Washington, DC, patrol cars had blocked off both ends of Aspen Street between Seventh and Tenth.

  “FBI here?” she asked a patrol officer.

  “Not yet, Chief.”

  “Secret Service, Capitol Police?”

  “Negative. Metro SWAT’s en route.”

  That helped. Bree ducked under the crime scene tape and kept low as she hustled toward another patrol car up the block where two officers were crouched, their weapons drawn. The side windows of the cruiser were blown out. So was the windshield. Half a block beyond them, in the middle of the street, there was a midnight-blue Cadillac Escalade with California plates and an abandoned city snowplow.