Target: Alex Cross Read online

  “You the ones who pulled them over?” Bree said when she reached the officers.

  “Wiggins and Flaherty, Chief,” said Officer Wiggins, a blonde in her thirties.

  Flaherty said that getting the alert regarding Romero’s felonies had taken long enough to make the gangbanger and his friends anxious.

  “When they saw me climb out of the car, one of the two in the back opened fire, and Romero hit the gas.”

  They gave chase for more than a mile before Romero saw the snowplow coming at them down Aspen Street between Eighth and Ninth. They couldn’t get around the plow, and they abandoned the Escalade in the middle of the street.

  Armed with pistols and AR-style rifles, Romero shot at the snowplow, shattering the windshield and sending the operator scrambling out the other door and down the street. One of the other two opened up on the patrol car before the three of them forced their way into a yellow craftsman bungalow on the north side of the street.

  “Time of last shots?” Bree asked.

  “Nine minutes ago,” Wiggins said. “And we’ve got officers watching the back of the house. They’re still in there.”

  “Hostages?”

  “We’re assuming so,” Flaherty said. “According to city records, residents are Matthew Sheridan, his wife, Sienna, and their eight-year-old twins, Emma and Kate.”

  Before Bree could reply, a gun went off in the house.

  A woman started screaming, and then girls’ shrill voices joined her.

  Bree radioed dispatch, reported the shot and the hostages, and requested that the entire neighborhood be cordoned off.

  Bree clicked off and her phone immediately rang. Chief of Police Michaels.

  “What’s happening?” he demanded.

  Bree told him about Romero. “He threatened Senator Walker two weeks ago in Oakland. Now he’s here in DC armed to the teeth with two of his fellow bangers.”

  “You think he killed Walker?”

  “When pulled over nearly three thousand miles from home, he and his men responded with violence, and they’ve taken hostages. There’s also a homicide victim in Georgetown who may or may not be involved.”

  “Jesus,” Michaels said. “What do you need from me?”

  She looked down the street behind her, saw a big black SWAT van pulling up.

  “The cavalry just arrived, Chief,” Bree said. “I’ll let you know if anything—”

  More screams came from the house.

  “Sorry, Chief, gotta go,” Bree said. She hung up and peeked over the hood of the patrol car.

  Emma and Kate, the terrified eight-year-old Sheridan twins, came out the front door, followed closely by two of the gangsters. The men were wearing kerchiefs over their lower faces, holding on to the collars of the sisters’ nightgowns, and pressing pistol muzzles to the backs of the girls’ heads, using the children as human shields.

  “We ain’t waiting for no SWAT or negotiators,” one shouted. “Get that plow the hell out of here. You let us move on, or we kill them and go out in a blaze!”

  “No!” a woman screamed.

  Bree peeked again and saw a brunette in a Washington Red-skins jersey, jeans, and socks come out the door with the third man behind her. Bree recognized Romero from the picture that dispatch had sent. He held an AK-47 pressed to the back of a sobbing Sienna Sheridan.

  He said something to her.

  “Believe him!” she cried. “He shot my husband. He’ll kill us all.”

  “So what’s it gonna be?” Romero yelled as his men started down the front steps. “A peaceful ending? Or a goddamned bloodbath?”

  CHAPTER

  19

  BREE TOOK THE bullhorn that Officer Wiggins offered her.

  “This is Chief Stone of Metro PD,” she said, trying to sound calm. “No one wants bloodshed here, Mr. Romero.”

  “Then let us leave!” Romero yelled. “Now.”

  “You’re going to have to give me time to clear the streets,” she called out. “It’s not like I have the keys to that snowplow at my fingertips.”

  “Five minutes, then!” Romero said.

  “Fifteen.”

  “No. Ten! And after that we don’t give a damn about no East Coast bullshit, and little girls and Mommy gonna start dying, just like that bitch Betsy Walker did!”

  Betsy Walker. My God, Bree thought as they dragged the girls and their mother back inside the bungalow. He did kill her. Romero is the shooter!

  She dropped behind the cruiser and keyed her radio mike.

  “DC SWAT, this is Chief Stone.”

  “Captain Forchek here, Chief. SWAT is armored and ready to deploy.”

  A plan formulated quickly in her head. “Captain, I need a team ready to push forward in support of my current location. I want quality shooters up high, with a clear view to that Land Rover. And put teams on porches on the southwest and northwest corners of Aspen and Tenth. Your best officers. Block off Ninth, north and south.”

  “Roger that, Chief.”

  From the house, Romero yelled, “Seven minutes, Stone!”

  “I hear you, Mr. Romero,” she said through the bullhorn. “We’re trying to find the snowplow operator.”

  A rattle of gunfire went off inside before he shouted, “There’s no trying! We’re about doing here, right?”

  “Right, Mr. Romero,” she said, and then she ducked back behind the cruiser, still working out her strategy.

  She looked at Officer Wiggins. “Where is the snowplow driver?”

  “With Barstow and Hayes,” she said. “Other end of the street.”

  Bree jumped up and started running east. She keyed her mike. “Forchek, send your best driver to Aspen and Eighth.”

  “That would be me,” the SWAT captain said. “And I’m already on my way.”

  Bree checked her watch as she ran. Six minutes.

  Near the corner of Eighth, she cut right into an alley that wound back around south and then to the west, paralleling the hostage scene.

  Bree triggered her mike. “Where are we, Captain?”

  “We are go at twenty-two hundred five, Chief. I’m driving the plow?”

  “Roger that,” she said.

  She checked her watch: 10:00. Five minutes. Was it enough?

  It had to be enough. She focused on an image of Jannie and went from a run to a sprint, dodging trashcans and the odd stack of boxes for three blocks, trying not to slip in the snow. She turned back north on Tenth and raced toward the other cruiser blocking access to Aspen.

  Captain Forchek, a rangy guy even in his body armor, stood there waiting with two uniformed officers and their cruiser blocking Aspen.

  Gasping, she laid out her plan to the SWAT commander.

  Forchek listened, thought, and then smiled. “As long as the department backs me up afterward, I can do that, Chief.”

  “Good,” she said, and she nodded to the other officers. “Pull your car and retreat to Eleventh and Aspen. Park north on Eleventh. Stand ready to block Aspen on my command.”

  CHAPTER

  20

  NINETY SECONDS LATER , Captain Forchek ran crouched along the snow-packed south sidewalk of Aspen Street, sticking to the shadows until he was half a block from the snowplow.

  Bree watched him through binoculars from the front porch of a town house at the southeast corner of Tenth and Aspen. Four SWAT officers awaited her command behind her, across Tenth. Another four waited on a porch across Aspen. The last of the twelve was diagonally across from her on the northwest corner of the intersection.

  She keyed the bullhorn.

  “Mr. Romero, we are moving the snowplow. I am assuring you safe passage as long as you leave the hostages behind.”

  “You think I’m stupid?” Romero bellowed. “They’re staying with us until we decide to let them go. Just move the damn snowplow and get the hell out of our way!”

  Suit yourself, Bree thought as she watched Forchek creep between two cars and angle onto the street itself, keeping the snowplow betwe
en him and the Sheridans’ bungalow. He climbed in the open side door.

  She keyed her mike. “Nice and easy now, Captain.”

  “Roger that, Chief.”

  The snowplow engine turned over. Bree swung her binoculars to the front porch of the Sheridans’ house and saw Mrs. Sheridan and her daughters coming out. Romero and his two masked men were behind them.

  “Move that goddamned plow!” Romero shouted.

  Forchek lifted the snowplow’s blade, turned on the headlights, and drove.

  Bree watched Romero and his men hustling Sienna, Emma, and Kate Sheridan off the porch and down the short path toward the north sidewalk.

  The moving snowplow blocked her view for several moments before Forchek drove past her, slowed, swung the plow in reverse, and backed it up onto Tenth Street heading north. He stopped the plow about fifty yards from the intersection, right where Bree wanted him. The plow headlights died.

  Bree looked back at the Escalade and saw Romero already in the front passenger seat aiming his gun at a trembling Sienna Sheridan, who was behind the wheel. The other four were in the backseat, one girl at each window, Romero’s men in the middle.

  Real heroes.

  Calling their positions into her radio, Bree watched the headlights on the Escalade go on, and the big SUV started toward her.

  “Here we go,” she said. “On my call, Forchek.”

  “Roger that, Chief.”

  The SWAT officers on both sides of Aspen ducked low. Bree pushed back into the shadows, watching through binoculars. For a moment, she held her breath as the Escalade approached Ninth. She feared Romero might turn onto the side street but sighed with relief when he kept on coming.

  “He’s taking the easy way out,” she said into her mike. “Ten seconds, Captain.”

  The Cadillac’s headlights swayed closer.

  Bree dropped the binoculars, let them hang around her neck, and drew her service weapon. The snowplow’s lights were still off, but Forchek had it moving in a slow roll toward Aspen.

  She glanced from the accelerating SUV to the plow and said, “Now.”

  She heard the plow’s big diesel engine roar and saw it barreling toward Aspen and the approaching Cadillac. The Escalade almost got through the intersection. But then the forward edge of the plow blade clipped the SUV’s right rear quarter panel and tore off the bumper.

  On the slick winter surface, the Cadillac was hurled into a sharp, clockwise spin. It smashed into two parked cars. Forchek skidded the plow to a stop, blocking their retreat but not her view.

  Bree said, “Take Romero.”

  A rifle was shot from the rooftop diagonally across the intersection from her, shattering the passenger side of the Cadillac’s windshield. The three SWAT teams exploded from their positions, and charged the Escalade.

  Bree could see one of the girls screaming in the backseat of the SUV and feared the two other gunmen would execute them before the SWAT teams could set them free.

  Romero opened fire with the AK-47 through the Escalade ’s passenger-side window, blowing it out and hitting two of the SWAT men. They sprawled on the sidewalk behind parked cars.

  Romero kicked open the Cadillac’s door and sprayed bullets in a quick side-to-side arc, then he jumped out, crouched down, and fired another burst.

  Three SWAT officers opened fire. All three hit the gangster, and he crumpled. Blood haloed around him on the snowy street.

  Captain Forchek pushed open the plow door and leaped down, gun up and aiming through the Escalade’s side rear window. The silhouette of one of Romero’s men was sagged over on one of the Sheridan twins, who was shrieking in fear. The other gunman had her sister around the neck, a pistol pressed to her head.

  “Don’t do it!” Forchek shouted. “I’ve got a dead shot at you from six feet! Drop the gun and put your hands up!”

  The third gunman hesitated and then dropped the pistol.

  Forchek yanked open the passenger rear door and pulled a sobbing Sheridan girl out.

  Bree ran forward, calling into her radio for SWAT to raid the Sheridans’ home. Other officers were helping Sienna Sheridan and her other daughter from the car. Inside the Cadillac, the third of Romero’s crew stared straight ahead.

  Even with the wool hat she wore down over her eyebrows, there was no mistaking her gender. Latina, mid-twenties, she had tattoos of lavender-colored teardrops on her lower cheeks.

  There was blood all over her from the dead man beside her. There was a gaping wound in his throat from the SWAT sniper’s shot, the one that missed Romero.

  “Hands behind your head,” Bree said. “Fingers laced, and slide to me.”

  She did. Bree spun her around and zip-cuffed her wrists.

  She keyed her radio and said, “This is Chief Stone. Hostages are safe. Repeat, hostages safe. But I need ambulances. Over.”

  She didn’t bother listening to dispatch’s reply but ran past Romero’s corpse to check on the SWAT officers hit in that flurry of gunfire. Both men had taken the rounds to their bulletproof vests. They were shaken, but alive.

  Her cell phone rang. Chief Michaels.

  “Chief,” she said. “I have Senator Walker’s confessed assassin here. He’s dead. Do you still want his head delivered to Ned Mahoney on a platter?”

  CHAPTER

  21

  THE NEXT MORNING , February 2, around seven, Damon and Jannie were ferrying plates of steaming scrambled eggs, maple-smoked bacon, and hash-brown potatoes with hot sauce, a Cross family favorite breakfast, to the table.

  “You’re sure you won’t have coffee?” Nana Mama asked Bree, who had walked in the door only twenty minutes before.

  “I’m going to sleep once Damon and Song leave,” she said, and she yawned.

  “Orange juice, then?”

  Bree smiled. “That sounds wonderful, Nana.”

  As we dished breakfast onto our plates, I said, “We’re proud of you, by the way. All of us, Bree.”

  Ali and Song started clapping and whistling, and we all joined in.

  “Stop!” Bree said, holding up her hands in mild protest but smiling softly. “I was just doing my job.”

  “Just doing your job?” Song said in disbelief. “You caught Senator Walker’s killer less than twenty-four hours after she was shot. You did it before the FBI was even on the scene, and all four hostages survived!” SWAT team members had entered the Sheridans’ bungalow, found Mr. Sheridan wounded but alive, and rushed him, his wife, and their daughters to the hospital.

  I wanted to say that Bree had also handled the pressure from Chief Michaels admirably, but I kept that to myself. She’d called me the night before shortly after talking to Michaels, who’d been forced to eat crow, and said that he was recommending her for citations.

  “I got lucky,” Bree told Song. “And, for the record, I think Damon did too.”

  Song grinned, glanced shyly my older son’s way, then gazed at each of us in turn. “Thank you. All of you. You’ve been so kind, and I want to say how very much I appreciate it.”

  “You’re more than welcome here,” Nana said. “Anytime.”

  We ate our fill. Bree’s eyes were fluttering shut before she agreed to my offer to help her to bed. She sleepily said her good-byes, and we disappeared upstairs. I tucked her in with a promise to wake her at three so she could participate in the FBI interrogation of Romero’s female accomplice.

  Downstairs, I found Damon and Song already in their coats and carrying their small travel bags.

  “Sure you don’t want me to drive you to the airport?”

  “I have a per diem from school, Dad,” Damon said. “It will cover the Uber.”

  “Okay, then,” I said, and I gave him a big hug. “You did great last night.”

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “The first of many more great games,” I said.

  “Definitely,” Song said, and she hugged me. “Again, Dr. Cross, it was an honor to meet you and Chief Stone. My father will be most, most pleased.
”

  “Give your dad my best,” I said. “All our best.”

  Song and Damon hugged Nana and Jannie. Song and Ali said their good-byes in Chinese, which delighted them both. And then my oldest and his girlfriend waved and went out to the Uber car to return to their lives too many miles away.

  I felt sad for myself and excited for them all in the same moment.

  “C’mon, Ali,” Jannie said. “Or we’ll be late for school.”

  “And don’t forget you’ve got an early patient, Alex,” my grandmother said.

  I glanced at my watch. It was twelve minutes to eight.

  “Thanks for the reminder,” I said, and I gave Nana a kiss and my kids high-fives and then went back through the kitchen.

  Taking the stairs down to my basement office, I realized once again how lucky I was and how grateful I was to have good kids and a wife who was damn near a superhero. I laughed at that and at the fact that she’d be embarrassed to hear me say anything remotely like—

  At the bottom of the staircase, I saw an envelope had been pushed through the mail slot. I went over and picked it up off the carpet. My name was printed in block letters on the front. No address. No return address.

  Tearing the envelope open, I walked to my office, then I pulled out a folded sheet of unlined paper. Spelled out in letters cut from magazines, the note read:

  CHAPTER

  22

  I READ THE message twice more, feeling inexplicably angered.

  Stop who from doing what? Why not just tell me?

  I started to ball up the paper, intending to toss it, but then stopped.

  Who’s sending them? And why?

  Taking a deep breath after these questions popped in my head, I realized the message was a form of manipulation, a way of toying with me.

  It was in my nature to help people whenever I could, either through my practice or through my investigative skills.