The People vs. Alex Cross (31 page)

“Those could be some of our missing women,” Special Agent Batra said.

“Easily,” Bree said, and she sipped from a go-cup of steaming coffee.

“That changes things,” Mahoney said. “Show me the Google Earth image again.”

Rawlins switched it back to the satellite image.

Mahoney pointed to a rocky knoll on the estate’s far north boundary. “This is excellent high ground. We’ll put four agents there to cover the back door.”

I noticed something in the trees along a creek well to the east of the knoll, but before I could say anything, Rawlins switched back to the drone’s feed showing more gray-green forest but no other distinct thermal images.

“Thanks for the flyby,” Mahoney said into his cell, then he ordered four agents to enter the woods at the estate’s northeast corner. He also moved a six-man hostage-rescue team, or HRT, into position to get to and storm that building in the woods as soon as possible. Bree and Sampson would ride with Mahoney and follow a breach team of FBI agents onto the property to arrest Edgars and Pratt.

“Alex, you’ll be with Batra and Rawlins in a follow car, where you will remain until the clear is given,” Mahoney said.

Before I could protest, Bree said, “Be practical, Alex. With your ankle like that, you won’t be much help if things go south.”

“It’s not that bad, really,” I said. “I’m not even on crutches. But I hear you.”

“We’ll give you a radio,” Mahoney said. “For once you’ll have to just listen to the action.”

AS I LIMPED
into the backseat of Agent Batra’s black Chevy Tahoe, I had to admit I was feeling guilty for wanting to be part of the raiding party and hostage-rescue attempt.

The evening before, I’d been telling Bree that I wanted to get out of police work, away from dangerous moments like these when the adrenaline starts to drip and your senses get super-sharp and super-clear.

But as I shut the door and Batra started the engine, I knew a part of me could never leave the police game. Not entirely. Being a psychologist had its own deep and fruitful rewards, but it could never replace the rush of catching bad guys, ending their dark work, and seeing them get just punishment.

“Let’s roll,” Mahoney said.

I heard his voice over the radio and the light headset they’d given me.

“Isn’t this exciting, Dr. Cross?” Krazy Kat Rawlins said,
looking over the front seat at me as Batra put on her headlights and followed Mahoney’s Tahoe onto a rural route heading east.

“The trick is not to get too excited,” I said. “You have to keep your head.”

“Oh, of course,” he said, slightly crestfallen. “I guess I’m just looking forward to seeing Nash Edgars in handcuffs and telling him that I beat him. Do you ever feel that way?”

“From time to time, sure,” I said.

“Right now?”

“Right now, I look forward to seeing those women safe and sound.”

Over my headset, Mahoney said, “Half a mile out. HRT, you are go. Breaching team, you are go.”

The acknowledgments came back fast, and in my mind I was seeing the rescue team flipping on their thermal-imaging goggles, surging into the woods, and angling through the forest toward the shed and four of the missing women.

We came over a rise in the road and saw a huge, black, six-wheel-drive armored FBI truck roll to the gate. I expected the guards to immediately stand down, but instead there were flashes from behind the gate and reports of gunfire over the radio.

“Take it down,” Mahoney said.

The big armored rig backed up and then sped at the steel gate and blew it off its hinges. Agents inside the truck fired from portholes at the guards, who’d retreated up the hill into the trees toward the compound. Mahoney followed the armored truck, driving across the downed gate, with us trailing.

“HRT?” Mahoney said.

“Two hundred yards out, SAC,” came the reply. “No visuals on the shed yet, but you have lights going on up the hill.”

The breaching rig sped up on that news, disappeared around a curve in the long serpentine driveway. By the time we reached the edge of the compound, spotlights were blazing on the courtyard between the main house, the carriage house, and the barn.

Ten FBI agents in full SWAT gear poured out of the armored vehicle, divided into teams of two, and fanned out toward the mansion, a modern building made of stone, redwood, and glass.

The doors of the carriage house at the far side of the yard were up. The interior wasn’t lit, but there was enough light from the exterior spotlights to reveal a white Range Rover and a black pickup truck in the first two bays and several ATVs and dirt bikes in the third.

Black pickup truck,
I thought.
Bet it has a window with a bullet hole or two in it.

In front of us, Mahoney got out of the Tahoe. Caught in Batra’s headlights, he blinked, held up a hand, and signaled for her to shut them off. Bree and Sampson got out. The radio chatter from the raiding team and the HRT forces started coming nonstop. I got whining feedback in my headset for a moment.

Four agents went to the front door, used a battering ram to break it open, and then vanished inside.

In the woods to our north, the HRT unit had the plywood-faced building surrounded. Thermals showed the four people were still inside, still lying flat or curled up. That didn’t seem right to me; they should have been sitting or standing. But maybe they hadn’t heard the gunfire? Or maybe they were restrained?

“HRT, go in and get them out,” Mahoney said over my headset. “Now.”

“Lower front hall clear,” said an agent inside the house.

“Walkout basement clear,” said another.

“Where is he?” Rawlins said from the front seat of Batra’s car. “Don’t tell me Edgars isn’t here.”

Even with the windows up, even with the heater going and the radio chatter in our ears, we all heard the first explosion.

“HRT AGENT DOWN,”
the rescue commander said. “Repeat, HRT agent down. The place is booby-trapped.”

“Back out and contain,” Mahoney said. “How bad?”

“We’ll need Life Flight ASAP.”

“Calling now.”

On the radio, the search commander inside Edgars’s mansion said, “Watch for booby traps, gentlemen.”

“Kitchen clear,” said another.

“Home theater clear,” said a third.

“All first-floor closets and bathrooms clear,” said a fourth. “First floor cleared in full,” the commander said.

Bree and Sampson left Mahoney and started toward the mansion. I got anxious, felt claustrophobic, and opened the car door.

“You’re to remain in the car, Dr. Cross,” Batra said.

“I’m going to stand outside.” I got out and shut the door.

My wife and my partner entered Edgars’s house with the FBI agents inside already moving to clear the second story.
Mahoney told the HRT commander that Life Flight was eleven minutes out and then he headed inside as well.

I caught some of the communications between the hostage-rescue commander and the incoming Life Flight medic. The agent had opened a door to the building and triggered a small explosive. He had shrapnel in his right thigh and a severed femoral artery. They’d applied direct pressure to the wound so he wouldn’t bleed out and were preparing to move him from the woods to the county road for pickup.

“Roger that,” the medic replied. “We are seven minutes out.”

An agent in the house said, “Second-floor landing and hallway clear.”

“All bedrooms cleared,” another said. “Place is empty, Cap.”

A high-pitched tone screeched through the headset, so loud I thought my eardrums would burst. I tore the headset off, stuck it in my pocket.

The dark second-floor windows facing the courtyard suddenly flashed as automatic-weapon fire broke out inside the house. Two guns, three, maybe more.

I took several limping steps toward the courtyard and the mansion, wanting to see Bree, Sampson, and Mahoney retreat out the front door. But they didn’t, and the shooting went on in bursts and waves, and—

“Dr. Cross!” Agent Batra yelled behind me.

I ignored her, pulled toward the violence, wanting to end it. But the gunfire stopped as I passed Mahoney’s Tahoe and entered the courtyard. I caught a flicker of motion in the third bay of the carriage house just before a second bomb exploded, much closer, on the other side of the mansion.

At the blast, the spotlights flickered and died. The shooting stopped too.

Then I heard a noise I’ll never forget—shrill, primitive, and terrified—coming from the carriage house.

I pulled out my weapon and flashlight and hobbled fast in that direction as something large and boxy tore out of the third bay. I got my flashlight beam on it as it was leaving the courtyard for the woods: a red-and-black side-by-side Honda Pioneer 1000 utility vehicle.

I caught only a glimpse of the driver and the front-seat passenger before it disappeared, but the blond teen in the bed, blindfolded, gagged, and hog-tied, was plain as day. Gretchen Lindel was writhing and trying to scream, and then she was gone.

“Batra!” I yelled, flashing the light around and seeing a Kawasaki ATV in the third bay. “Batra!”

The shooting started again inside, drowning my second cry.

Ignoring the pain shrieking in my ankle, I hobbled to the ATV, yanking the radio from my pocket and tearing free the headset cord, figuring to stop the feedback. But it was worse, and I had to turn the squelch almost off.

My flashlight found the ATV ignition but with no key in it. I lifted the seat, revealing a storage for helmets, and located the key. I straddled the seat, looked at the controls, turned on the headlights, and started the engine.

I roared out of the garage, praying Batra could see me, turned onto the two-track lane that went from the compound to the woods, and accelerated.

BREE, SAMPSON, AND
Mahoney had gone into a large, open, and vaulted space on the main level of the mansion to wait while the upper floors were cleared. The room contained Edgars’s state-of-the-art kitchen, a rustic dining area, and several leather couches set before a massive stone fireplace that was flanked by built-in wooden cabinets and shelves crammed with books.

Sampson said, “Place looks spick-and-span.”

Mahoney nodded. “Ready for that
Architectural Digest
photographer.”

Their radios crackled: “Second-floor landing and hallway clear.” “All bedrooms cleared. Place is empty, Cap.”

Empty?
That felt wrong to Bree. She’d been on edge since hearing the bomb explode in the distance. Why booby-trap the outer building and not—

A piercing whine went off in her earbud, the worst feedback ever, and she tore it out. Sampson did the same.

Across the room, Mahoney threw his down too. “What the hell is—”

Automatic weapons began to bark and rattle upstairs. Bree instinctively dived behind the kitchen counter with Sampson right beside her.

The shooting stopped, leaving them shaken and going for their guns.

“Agents down!” someone shouted upstairs. “Arthur and Boggs. Bedroom five. Far east end of upper hallway.”

The search commander at the bottom of the stairs bellowed back over the shooting, “How many? I thought the place was cleared!”

“It was, Cap! Shooters must have been—”

An explosion outside shook the house. The lights died.

“It’s an ambush!” Mahoney yelled from over by the couches. “They’re jamming our radios and cells. Bree, take Sampson and get out of here, establish communication with—”

Bree was about to turn on her flashlight when sound-suppressed automatic weapons lit up. She covered her head as slugs ripped into granite countertops, splintered cabinets, and shattered dishes.

The bullets moved left to right and then right to left, punching holes in the stainless-steel appliances, ten, maybe fifteen shots in all, raining debris down on Bree and Sampson before stopping.

Bree shook from fear and adrenaline. Smelling the burned gunpowder, she felt nauseated, but her mind whirled. Where was the shooter? Where had he hidden? Those cabinets weren’t big enough to hide a grown man, were they?

She felt a tug on her leg.

“Chief?” Sampson whispered. “You okay?”

“Fine. Where’s the shooter?”

“Hit,” Mahoney croaked.

The fear fled her. Bree flicked on her flashlight and belly-crawled across the kitchen tiles, calling, “How bad, Ned?”

Mahoney gasped. “Gut. You tell me.”

Somewhere a generator coughed and hummed. Dim light returned. Agents upstairs were shouting, but Bree ignored them.

“Where’s the shooter, Ned?” she called, louder.

“Behind me. Cabinets.”

Bree turned her flashlight off, inched forward, and peered around the bottom corner of the kitchen cabinets. She could see well enough to tell Mahoney was sitting upright on the floor by one of the leather couches, but there was no sign of the shooter.

“We have to get him out, Chief,” Sampson said behind her. “Now!”

“Not until I know where that shooter is. I won’t get us all killed.”

She thumbed on her flashlight again, peeked around the corner, and let the beam play over Mahoney about forty feet away. He was hunched over and squinting. Bree focused on the large patch of dark blood showing on his white shirt, just below his armored vest.

Low liver hit,
she thought, and fought to swallow down the panic creeping in the back of her throat. They did have to get him out fast. But the shooter …

Bree shifted her light toward the stone fireplace and the cabinets and shelves to either side. The beam flickered over doors far too small for a child, much less a man, and then over rows of books before stopping cold on a small open cabinet.

“Jesus Christ,” she whispered.

THE ATV WAS
equipped with a heavy-duty muffler, so the engine barely made any noise as I drove on the two-track deeper and deeper into the estate.

Edgars’s side-by-side was no more than three or four minutes in front of me. I couldn’t see tracks in the frozen mud, but the leaves were broken and shiny where it had passed.