The Trial Read online

  Her father, however, was a different story.

  I’d done some research into Mexican gangsters and learned that Pedro Quintana was the retired head of Los Toros, the original gang that had raised and trained Sierra on his path to becoming the mightiest drug kingpin of them all.

  Sierra had famously disposed of Quintana after he split off from Los Toros and formed Mala Sangre, the new and more powerful drug and crime cartel.

  Both Elena and her father had motive to put Sierra down, but how had one or both of them pulled off this shooting in open court?

  I’d called Joe last night to brainstorm with him. Despite the state of our marriage, Joe Molinari had background to spare as an agent in USA clandestine services, as well as from his stint as deputy to the director of Homeland Security.

  He theorized that during the power outage in the Hall, a C-4 explosive charge had been slapped onto the hinges of Judge Crispin’s courtroom doors. It was plausible that one of the hundreds of law enforcement personnel prowling the Hall that night had been paid to set this charge, and it was possible for a lump of plastic explosive to go unnoticed.

  A package containing a small gun, ammo, and a remote-controlled detonator could have been smuggled in at the same time, left where only Sierra’s killer could find it. It could even have been passed to the killer or killers the morning of the trial.

  Had Elena and her father orchestrated this perfect act of retribution? If so, I thought they were going to get away with it.

  These were my thoughts as I stood with Conklin and Parisi in the windswept and barren cemetery watching the lowering of the coffin, Elena throwing flowers into the grave, the first shovel of dirt, her children clinging to their mother’s skirt.

  The moment ended when a limo pulled around a circular drive and Elena Sierra’s family went to it and got inside.

  Rich said to me, “I’m going to hitch a ride back with Red Dog. Okay with you?”

  I said it was. We hugged good-bye.

  Another car, an aging Mercedes, swung around the circle of dead grass and stone. It stopped for me. I opened the back door and reached out to my baby girl in her car seat. She was wearing a pink sweater and matching hat knit for her by her lovely nanny. I gave Julie a big smooch and what we call a huggy-wuffle.

  Then I got into the front passenger seat.

  Joe was driving.

  “Zoo?” he said.

  “Zoooooooo,” came from behind.

  “It’s unanimous,” I said. “The zoos have it.”

  Joe put his hand behind my neck and pulled me toward him. I hadn’t kissed him in a long time. But I kissed him then.

  There’d be plenty of time to talk later.

  Epilogue

  Chapter 34

  The limo driver who was bringing Elena Sierra and the children back from a shopping trip couldn’t park at the entrance to her apartment building. A long-used family car was stopped right in front of the walkway, where an elderly man was helping his wife out of the car with her walker. The doorman ran outside to help the old couple with their cumbersome luggage.

  Elena told her driver, “Leave us right here, Harlan. Thanks. See you in the morning.”

  After opening the doors for herself and her children, Elena took the two shopping bags from her driver, saying, “I’ve got it. Thanks.”

  Doors closed with solid thunks, the limo pulled away, and the kids surrounded their mother, asking her for money to buy churros from the ice cream shop down the block at the corner.

  She said, “We don’t need churros. We have milk and granola cookies.” But she finally relented, set down the groceries, found a five-dollar bill in her purse, and gave it to Javier.

  “Please get me one, too,” she called after her little boy.

  Elena picked up her grocery bags, and as she stood up, she saw two men in bulky jackets—one with a black scarf covering the bottom of his face and the other with a knit cap—crossing the street toward her.

  She recognized them as Jorge’s men and knew without a doubt that they were coming to kill her. Mercifully, the children were running and were now far down the block.

  The one with the scarf, Alejandro, aimed his gun at the doorman and fired. The gun had a suppressor, and the sound of the discharge was so soft the old man hadn’t heard it, didn’t understand what had happened. He tried to attend to the fallen doorman, while Elena said to the soldier wearing the cap, “Not out here. Please.”

  Invoking what residual status she might have as the King’s widow, Elena turned and walked into the modern, beautifully appointed lobby, her back prickling with expectation of a bullet to her spine.

  She walked past the young couple sitting on a love seat, past the young man leashing his dog, and pressed the elevator button. The doors instantly slid open and the two men followed her inside.

  The doors closed.

  Elena stood at the rear with one armed man standing to her left and the other to her right. She looked straight ahead, thinking about the next few minutes as the elevator rose upward, then chimed as it opened directly into her living room.

  Esteban, the shooter with the knit cap, had the words Mala Sangre inked on the side of his neck. He stepped ahead of her into the room, looked around at the antiques, the books, the art on the walls. He went to the plate-glass window overlooking the Transamerica Pyramid and the great bay.

  “Nice view, Mrs. Sierra,” he said with a booming voice. “Maybe you’d like to be looking out the window now. That would be easiest.”

  “Don’t hurt my children,” she said. “They are Jorge’s. His blood.”

  She went to the window and placed her hands on the glass. She heard a door open inside the apartment. A familiar voice said loudly, “Drop your guns. Do it now.”

  Alejandro whipped around, but before he could fire, Elena’s father cut him down with a shot to the throat, two more to the chest as he fell.

  Pedro Quintana said to the man with the cap, who was holding his hands above his head, “Esteban, get down on your knees while I am deciding what to do with you.”

  Esteban obeyed, dropping to his knees, keeping his hands up while facing Elena’s father, and beseeching him in Spanish.

  “Pedro, please. I have known you for twenty years. I named my oldest son for you. I was loyal, but Jorge, he threatened my family. I can prove myself. Elena, I’m sorry. Por favor.”

  Elena walked around the dead man, who was bleeding on her fine Persian carpet where her children liked to play, and took the gun from her father’s hand.

  She aimed at Esteban and fired into his chest. He fell sideways, grabbed at his wound, and grunted, “Dios.”

  Elena shot him three more times.

  When her husband’s soldiers were dead, Elena made calls: First to Harlan to pick up the children immediately and keep them in the car. “Papa will meet you on the corner in five minutes. Wait for him. Take directions from him.”

  Then she called the police and told them that she had shot two intruders who had attempted to murder her.

  Her father stretched out his arms and Elena went in for a hug. Her father said, “Finish what we started. It’s yours now, Elena.”

  “Thank you, Papa.”

  She went to the bar and poured out two drinks, gave one glass to her father.

  They toasted. “Viva Los Toros.”

  Their cartel would be at the top again.

  This was the way it was always meant to be.

  About the Authors

  James Patterson has written more bestsellers and created more enduring fictional characters than any other novelist writing today. He lives in Florida with his family.

  Maxine Paetro has collaborated with James Patterson on the bestselling Women’s Murder Club and Private series. She lives with her husband in New York State.

  “Alex Cross, I’m coming for you.…”

  Gary Soneji, the killer from Along Came a Spider, has been dead for more than ten years—but Cross swears he saw Soneji gun down his partner. Is
Cross’s worst enemy back from the grave?

  Nothing will prepare you for the wicked truth.

  Read on for a special excerpt from the riveting Alex Cross story, available only from

  A late winter storm bore down on Washington, DC, that March morning, and more folks than usual were waiting in the cafeteria of St. Anthony of Padua Catholic School on Monroe Avenue in the northeast quadrant.

  “If you need a jolt before you eat, coffee’s in those urns over there,” I called to the cafeteria line.

  From behind a serving counter, my partner, John Sampson, said, “You want pancakes or eggs and sausage, you come see me first. Dry cereal, oatmeal, and toast at the end. Fruit, too.”

  It was early, a quarter to seven, and we’d already seen twenty-five people come through the kitchen, mostly moms and kids from the surrounding neighborhood. By my count, another forty were waiting in the hallway, with more coming in from outside where the first flakes were falling.

  It was all my ninety-something grandmother’s idea. She’d hit the DC Lottery Powerball the year before and wanted to make sure the unfortunate received some of her good fortune. She’d partnered with the church to see the hot-breakfast program started.

  “Are there any doughnuts?” asked a little boy, who put me in mind of my younger son, Ali.

  He was holding on to his mother, a devastatingly thin woman with rheumy eyes and a habit of scratching at her neck.

  “No doughnuts today,” I said.

  “What am I gonna eat?” he complained.

  “Something that’s good for you for once,” his mom said. “Eggs, bacon, and toast. Not all that Cocoa Puffs sugar crap.”

  I nodded. Mom looked like she was high on something, but she did know her nutrition.

  “This sucks,” her son said. “I want a doughnut. I want two doughnuts!”

  “Go on, there,” his mom said, and pushed him toward Sampson.

  “Kind of overkill for a church cafeteria,” said the man who followed her. He was in his late twenties and dressed in baggy jeans, Timberland boots, and a big gray snorkel jacket.

  I realized he was talking to me and looked at him, puzzled.

  “Bulletproof vest?” he said.

  “Oh,” I said, and shrugged at the body armor beneath my shirt.

  Sampson and I are major-case detectives with the Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police Department. Immediately after our shift in the soup kitchen, we were joining a team taking down a drug gang operating in the streets around St. Anthony’s. Members of the gang had been known to take free breakfasts at the school from time to time, so we’d decided to armor up. Just in case.

  I wasn’t telling him that, though. I couldn’t identify him as a known gangster, but he looked the part.

  “I’m up for a PT test end of next week,” I said. “Got to get used to the weight since I’ll be running three miles with it on.”

  “That vest make you hotter or colder today?”

  “Warmer. Always.”

  “I need one of them,” he said, and shivered. “I’m from Miami, you know? I must have been crazy to want to come on up here.”

  “Why did you come up here?” I asked.

  “School. I’m a freshman at Howard.”

  “You’re not on the meal program?”

  “Barely making my tuition.”

  I saw him in a whole new light then, and was about to say so when gunshots rang out and people began to scream.

  Drawing my service pistol, I pushed against the fleeing crowd, hearing two more shots, and realizing they were coming from inside the kitchen behind Sampson. My partner had figured it out as well.

  Sampson spun away from the eggs and bacon, drew his gun as I vaulted over the counter. We split and went to either side of the pair of swinging industrial kitchen doors. There were small portholes in both.

  Ignoring the people still bolting from the cafeteria, I leaned forward and took a quick peek. Mixing bowls had spilled off the stainless-steel counters, throwing flour and eggs across the cement floor. Nothing moved, and I could detect no one inside.

  Sampson took a longer look from the opposite angle. His face almost immediately screwed up.

  “Two wounded,” he hissed. “The cook, Theresa, and a nun I’ve never seen before.”

  “How bad?”

  “There’s blood all over Theresa’s white apron. Looks like the nun’s hit in the leg. She’s sitting up against the stove with a big pool below her.”

  “Femoral?”

  Sampson took another look and said, “It’s a lot of blood.”

  “Cover me,” I said. “I’m going in low to get them.”

  Sampson nodded. I squatted down and threw my shoulder into the door, which swung away. Half expecting some unseen gunman to open fire, I rolled inside. I slid through the slurry of two dozen eggs and came to a stop on the floor between two prep counters.

  Sampson came in with his weapon high, searching for a target.

  But no one shot. No one moved. And there was no sound except the labored breathing of the cook and the nun who were to our left, on the other side of a counter, by a big industrial stove.

  The nun’s eyes were open and bewildered. The cook’s head slumped but she was breathing.

  I scrambled under the prep counter to the women and started tugging off my belt. The nun shrank from me when I reached for her.

  “I’m a cop, Sister,” I said. “My name is Alex Cross. I need to put a tourniquet on your leg or you could die.”

  She blinked, but then nodded.

  “John?” I said, observing a serious gunshot wound to her lower thigh. A needle-thin jet of blood erupted with every heartbeat.

  “Right here,” Sampson said behind me. “Just seeing what’s what.”

  “Call it in,” I said, as I wrapped the belt around her upper thigh, cinching it tight. “We need two ambulances. Fast.”

  The blood stopped squirting. I could hear my partner making the radio call.

  The nun’s eyes fluttered and drifted toward shut.

  “Sister,” I said. “What happened? Who shot you?”

  Her eyes blinked open. She gaped at me, disoriented for a moment, before her attention strayed past me. Her eyes widened, and the skin of her cheek went taut with terror.

  I snatched up my gun and spun around, raising the pistol. I saw Sampson with his back to me, radio to his ear, gun lowered, and then a door at the back of the kitchen. It had swung open, revealing a large pantry.

  A man crouched in a fighting stance in the pantry doorway.

  In his crossed arms he held two nickel-plated pistols, one aimed at Sampson and the other at me.

  With all the training I’ve been lucky enough to receive over the years, you’d think I would have done the instinctual thing for a veteran cop facing an armed assailant, that I would have registered Man with gun! in my brain, and I would have shot him immediately.

  But for a split second I didn’t listen to Man with a gun! because I was too stunned by the fact that I knew him, and that he was long, long dead.

  In that same instant, he fired both pistols. Traveling less than thirty feet, the bullet hit me so hard it slammed me backward. My head cracked off the concrete and everything went just this side of midnight, like I was swirling and draining down a black pipe, before I heard a third shot and then a fourth.

  Something crashed close to me, and I fought my way toward the sound, toward consciousness, seeing the blackness give way, disjointed and incomplete, like a jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces.

  Five, maybe six seconds passed before I found more pieces and I knew who I was and what had happened. Two more seconds passed before I realized I’d taken the bullet square in the Kevlar that covered my chest. It felt like I’d taken a sledgehammer to my ribs and a swift kick to my head.

  In the next instant, I grabbed my gun and looked for…

  John Sampson sprawled on the floor by the sinks, his massive frame looking crumpled until he started twitching electrically, a
nd I saw the head wound.

  “No!” I shouted, becoming fully alert and stumbling over to his side.

  Sampson’s eyes were rolled up in his head and quivering. I grabbed the radio on the floor beyond him, hit the transmitter, and said, “This is Detective Alex Cross. Ten-Zero-Zero. Repeat. Officer down. Monroe Avenue and 12th, Northeast. St. Anthony’s Catholic School kitchen. Multiple shots fired. Ten-Fifty-Twos needed immediately. Repeat. Multiple ambulances needed, and a Life Flight for officer with head wound!”

  “We have ambulances and patrols on their way, Detective,” the dispatcher came back. “ETA twenty seconds. I’ll call Life Flight. Do you have the shooter?”

  “No, damn it. Make the Life Flight call.”

  The line went dead. I lowered the radio. Only then did I look back at the best friend I’ve ever had, the first kid I met after Nana Mama brought me up from South Carolina, the man I’d grown up with, the partner I’d relied on more times than I could count. The spasms subsided and Sampson’s eyes glazed over and he gasped.

  “John,” I said, kneeling beside him and taking his hand. “Hold on now. Cavalry’s coming.”

  He seemed not to hear, just stared vacantly past me toward the wall.

  I started to cry. I couldn’t stop. I shook from head to toe, and then I wanted to shoot the man who’d done this. I wanted to shoot him twenty times, completely destroy the creature that had risen from the dead.

  Sirens closed in on the school from six directions. I wiped at my tears, and then squeezed Sampson’s hand, before forcing myself to my feet and back out into the cafeteria, where the first patrol officers were charging in, followed by a pair of EMTs whose shoulders were flecked with melting snowflakes.

  They got Sampson’s head immobilized, then put him on a board and then a gurney. He was under blankets and moving in less than six minutes. It was snowing hard outside. They waited inside the front door to the school for the helicopter to come, and put IV lines into his wrists.