Authors: James Patterson
Two SWAT officers in the hall nodded at me as I came up, but they didn't say anything. I could also see two of the three who were inside the bedroom, covering Bowie from different angles with their MP5s. I called out to Bowie.
"Bowie, my name's Alex Cross. I'm with MPD and I'm coming in, okay?" There was a pause, and then a strained voice. "Come in. Let me see a shield." He was sitting flat on the floor, wearing just boxers, sweating profusely. The king-size bed had obviously been slept in, and the nightstand drawer was hanging open.
He'd cornered himself under a window, between the bed and one of the two closets. His arms were locked out in front of him, with a .357 SIG Sauer pointed at the nearest officer.
The other thing I noticed was the signet ring on his right hand — gold with a red stone, just like the one in the video we'd all seen by now.
Man, he was making this too easy. Why?
Was he Zeus?
I kept my own hands in front of me with my badge showing, and only came as far as the doorway. Everyone else stayed still as statues.
"Nice house," I said right off. "How long have you lived here?"
"What?"
Bowie's eyes took me in for half a second, then went back to his target.
"I was wondering how long you've lived here. That's all. Breaking the ice." He scoffed. "Checking my mental acuity?"
"That's right."
"I've been here two years. The president of the United States is Margaret Vance. Seven times eight is fifty-six, okay?"
"So I guess you understand the gravity of what you're doing," I told him.
"That's where you're wrong," he said. "I have no fucking clue what's going on here."
"Well then, I'll tell you. I'll try to anyway. Technically, you're under arrest for the murder of Sally Anne Perry."
His eyes flashed anger without actually moving. "Fuck that! They've been gunning for me ever since I got pushed out."
"Who has?"
"The Service. The Feds. Goddamn President Vance for all I know." I stopped and took a breath, hoping he'd do the same. "You're giving me mixed signals here, Bowie," I said.
"One second you seem lucid and the next —"
"Yeah, well, just cause I'm paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get me, right?" Oddly enough, I couldn't argue with that, so I moved on.
"Why don't you tell me what you need to hear before you lower that weapon?" He chinned at the officer closest to him. "They put theirs down first."
"Come on, Constantine. That's not going to happen, and you know it isn't. Work with me here. If you really are innocent, then I'm on your side. Where did you get that ring?"
"Stop with the questions. Just stop."
"Okay."
His arms were all muscle, but after at least twenty minutes outstretched, they were starting to shake. And in fact, he moved to adjust himself, up onto one knee with the shooting arm resting on top.
"Bowie, I —"
A tinkle of glass sounded. That was all it was. One of the small windowpanes behind him split into shards, and Bowie fell facedown onto the carpet, a small dark hole in the back of his head. I couldn't believe it. Didn't want to believe it. Immediately SWAT flew into action. Someone pulled me backward into the hall while the rest closed in around Bowie.
"One round fired — subject is down! We need medical up here right away!" A few seconds later, I'd pushed my way back into the room. My body was shaking with rage. Why had they page 89
fired on him? Why now? I had him talking. Bowie was splayed on the ground, arms out at his sides. Through the broken window, I could see another officer on the opposite roof, standing down with his rifle.
"Scratch that, medical," the commander was saying. "We'll meet you downstairs and bring you up." And then two of them were walking me out the door and down the stairs, in no uncertain terms. My usefulness had obviously played itself out here.
When we got to the front stoop, the EMTs were waiting. It was protocol to call them in, but at this point, that's all it was. I'd already seen enough to know that Constantine Bowie was as dead as he was going to get. And that I'd just been bait in the whole damn thing. They had meant to kill him all along. Whoever
they
were.
Once the paperwork was behind me, I put in for the rest of the week off. I left the office late on Wednesday and went straight to the hospital. Nana was looking a lot more peaceful these days, like an angel, which was kind of nice and also hard to take. I stayed awake most of that night, just watching her. Then Aunt Tia spelled me early on Thursday, and I managed to catch Bree still in bed when I finally, finally got home. She was just starting to stir as I spooned up next to her.
"Do whatever you want," she whispered softly. "Just don't wake me up." But then she laughed and turned over to kiss me good morning. Her feet and legs stayed tangled up with mine under the covers.
"All right, then, just do whatever you want to me," she said.
"This is nice. Remember this?" I said.
She nodded with her forehead against mine, and I was thinking maybe I never had to be anywhere else but here. Ever again.
Then the bedroom door opened.
Of course it did
. "Daddy, you home?" Ali poked his head around the corner and jumped up onto the bed before we could tell him to go away.
"Little man, how many times have I told you to knock first?" I asked him.
"About a million," he said, and he laughed and wormed in between us anyway. Not to be outdone, Jannie was there soon enough, and the two of them started chattering at us like maybe it wasn't six thirty in the morning. Even so, it was kind of nice to be all together again. By seven, I was frying up a batch of bacon, egg, and tomato sandwiches while Bree made coffee and poured the orange juice. Jannie and Ali were scanning the morning paper for my name, and I even had a little Gershwin playing in the living room. Not the bedroom with Bree, but not too shabby either. Just as I was flipping my breakfast creations out of the pan, a phone chirped from upstairs, loud enough to be heard over the music.
Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at me, standing there with my greasy spatula in hand.
"What?" I said, all wide-eyed and innocent. "I don't hear anything." That got me a chorus of cheers all around the table, and even a little pat on the butt from Bree. Whoever it was, they had the good sense not to call again.
errands to the drug-and food stores. "Upstairs," I told her before the front door had even closed behind us.
"We've got some unfinished business, you and I."
She took the grocery bag out of my hands with a kiss. "I'll be right there. Don't start without me." I was halfway up the stairs, when she called me back from the kitchen.
"Alex!" Her voice was tense. What was it now?
"Company."
When I came down, she was standing at the pass-through to the sunporch, looking out.
"Guess who's here?" she said.
I stepped up next to her and saw Ned Mahoney sitting in our backyard, drumming his fingers on the picnic table.
"God
damn
it," I said.
He stayed where he was as I came out onto the porch and then down into the yard to see what was happening.
"Was that you who called earlier?" I asked. Ned nodded, and before he even said a word, I realized the case wasn't over. "You want to come in?"
"Let's talk out here," he said.
I grabbed a jacket and two cups of coffee from inside, and then came back out to the picnic table. Ned gulped the coffee as I sat down. He looked exhausted. All his usual effusiveness seemed to be gone — or at least depleted.
"You okay?" I asked him.
"Just a little tired," he said. "I haven't let go of this thing, Alex. I've used up all my personal days, all my vacation. Kathy's ready to kill me."
I nodded. "So is Bree. And she has a gun."
"Still, it's paid off. Boy, has it ever. I've got somebody I want you to meet. His name is Aubrey Lee Johnson. He lives down in Alabama, but he's got a custom fly reel business that brings him up to Virginia a lot." Ned downed the last of his coffee, and I slid mine over to his side of the table. Some of the usual rev was coming back into him already. "This guy's got a story he thinks might be important. And guess what, Alex?
It
is
."
We arrived at Mobile Regional Airport late the next morning and rented a car from there. Aubrey Johnson lived on Dauphin Island, about an hour south. It was a sleepy little village, at least this time of year, and we had no trouble finding his store — Big Daddy's Fishing Tackle, on Cadillac Avenue.
"This is why we're here? Big Daddy's Fishing Tackle?" I said to Ned.
"Odd as it may seem, this is it, the end of the road. The conspiracy gets tripped up here. If we're lucky, that is."
"So let's start getting lucky."
Johnson was a tall, gregarious guy in his midfifties, and he ushered us in like a couple of old friends, just before he double-locked up behind us.
Ned had already questioned him on the phone, but Johnson repeated his story for me — how he'd been driving late one night on Route 33 in virginia about a month ago, when a beautiful girl in a negligee stumbled out of the woods in front of his truck.
"Truth be told, I thought it was my lucky night," he said, "until I saw what kind of terrible shape she was in. Any bigger caliber on that slug in her back and she would have been dead." Even so, the girl had insisted that Johnson keep driving, at least until they were across the state line. He finally got her to an ER just outside Winston-Salem.
"Still, Annie wasn't hanging around for any cops to show up," he went on. "She told me she was either leaving there on foot or in my truck, so I drove her. Probably shouldn't have, but what's done is done. My wife and I have been looking after her ever since."
"Her name is Annie?" I asked.
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"I'll get to that part," Johnson said.
"Why did she come forward when she did?" I asked them. All I knew was that the contact between Mr. Johnson and Mahoney had started before the names Constantine Bowie and Zeus had ever made it into the headlines.
"That's a little complicated," he said. "She still hasn't told us everything. We don't even know her real name; we just call her Annie to keep things simple. When I tried putting out some feelers, there wasn't much I could say, so I don't think people took me too seriously. At least, not until Agent Mahoney here called me back. He was following up on a call I'd made to the FBI field office in Mobile."
"And where is she now, Aubrey?" Ned asked.
"Not far." Johnson took a set of keys off the counter. "I'll let her speak for herself, but I will tell you this much. That fellow they're calling Zeus on the news? She says you all got the wrong man. She isn't Annie, and he isn't Zeus."
"This them?" she said.
"You know it is, May. Let's go."
She didn't move. "This girl's been through a living hell, do you understand me? You need to go easy with her." I had no quarrel with the attitude; actually, I was grateful for it. We assured Mrs. Johnson that we'd be good with the girl, and then followed her down to the little cabin below deck.
"Annie" was sitting in the crook of the dining banquette, looking drawn and nervous. Even so, she was an obviously beautiful girl, with the kind of china doll features that Tony Nicholson seemed to have favored for Blacksmith Farms. Her cargo pants and baggy pink sweatshirt were either borrowed or thrift shop specials, and she had a gray canvas sling on her right arm. She was huddled over, and when she moved, I could see that her back, where she'd been shot, still hurt quite a bit.
Mahoney started with introductions and asked if she was willing to give us her name.
"It's Hannah," she said, tentatively at first. "Hannah Willis. Is that something you can help me with? Becoming somebody else? Witness protection, or whatever it is you use these days." Ned explained that the US Attorney's office would decide if she even needed to testify, but if so, then yes, she was a perfect candidate for WitSec. In the meantime, he assured her, we wouldn't record anything that she had to tell us.
"Let's start with what happened to you," I said. "The night Aubrey picked you up in his truck." She nodded slowly, mustering the memory, or maybe just the will to tell it. May Johnson sat next to her, holding her hand the whole time.
"It was supposed to be some kind of private party at Blacksmith," Hannah said. "We didn't know anything except the client code name.
Zeus
. You think maybe he has a high opinion of himself? Code name is a god?"
"Was this party held in the apartment over the carriage barn?" I asked.
"That's right." She seemed surprised that I already knew. "I'd never been up there before. I knew the pay was better."
"When you say 'we,' " Ned asked, "how many of you were there with Zeus?"
"Just me and one other girl, Nicole," she said. "Although I doubt that was her real name." It also wasn't the first time I'd heard it used in a conversation like this. I could feel my heart thumping as I reached into my pocket and took out the picture of Caroline that I'd been carrying with me from the start of this terrible, unholy mess.
"Is this her, Hannah?" I asked.
She nodded, and the tears started to come.
"Yes, sir. That's the girl who died. That's Nicole."
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