Page 31 of Cross Down
I finally get there, and we sit at the rear, close to the swinging doors of the kitchen.
Mel is a couple of years younger than me; he has a narrow face, dark eyes, and black hair cut in a high-and-tight. Today he’s wearing civvy clothes: jeans and a dungaree jacket. He sees me remove my Glock 17 and put it on the seat next to me, then shift my position so it’s hidden by my right buttock.
“Glad to see you’re taking my warnings seriously,” he says.
“Nothing to do with your warnings,” I say. “In the past twenty-four hours, I’ve been shot at twice by men intent on killing me. I want to be ready if they try again. I like to keep my perfect survival record.”
Mel swears and says, “What the hell happened?”
I tell him about the ambush yesterday morning that nearly killed Alex Cross and go on to describe what happened at the Pine Grove Motel last night.
He shakes his head. “Jesus, John, you took one hell of a risk coming down here.”
“We’re both at risk,” I say. “No getting around that. We need to find out the how and why, and soon. One thing’s for certain—these guys are tough and dedicated.”
“Dedicated how?”
“In the motel attack, there was one survivor, briefly, wound to the neck. Looked like my bullet tore open a major artery. I tried to help, but he wouldn’t cooperate. Just smiled at me, lifted his hand off the towels, and bled out within seconds.”
Mel shivered. “That’s hard core. Not wanting to get saved so you won’t get captured and questioned.”
A plump young blond waitress in a black uniform takes our orders, and I take stock of the other customers. A few locals, it looks like, but mostly army personnel sitting and talking low. No laughter, no smiles.
I can feel the tension in the air. It’s like being in an FOB in Afghanistan and getting ready to go out on patrol when you know you’re going to run into heavily armed and strongly motivated bad guys.
But here, the bad guys aren’t outside the wire. They could be sitting right next to me. I say, “What’s going on at the fort?”
“Not much since I first talked to you. Lots of guys being shuffled out, lots of rumors. It’s hell on morale and unit cohesion.”
“I saw one giant traffic backup at the main gate,” I say. “Soldiers were patrolling the median, and there were two Humvees there too.”
Coffee mugs are placed before us by the waitress, and when she leaves, Mel says, “Yeah, it takes about twice as long to get into base than it used to, but after the attacks on Leavenworth and Fort Irwin, nobody’s taking any chances.”
“Fort Irwin? In California? I didn’t hear about any attacks on the news.”
“What, you think all news gets reported? Tell you what, remember Sergeants Ortiz and Powell, they were with us when we went into the ’Stan?”
“Sure, I remember them,” I say. “Good guys to have at your back. Always had spare dry socks if you needed them.”
Mel leans across the table, lowers his voice: “They both died this past week. Initial reports are that they were suicides and that they died at their off-base housing. But I’ve got a friend in CID investigating the matter, and she says otherwise.”
I sure as hell don’t like where this is going, and when Mel speaks again, he confirms what I’m dreading.
“John, they were straight-up murdered, and it’s being swept under the rug.”
Chapter
35
At George WashingtonUniversity Hospital, a woman carrying a fake ID that identifies her as Mary Mullen, a nurse at the facility, walks in along with the morning stream of people. She has a black leather purse over her shoulder and a Starbucks coffee cup in her right hand. She also has a key card that gives her access to every part of the hospital.
She goes through the main lobby with purpose and direction, having earlier memorized the floor plan for the lobby and the floor where the trauma ICU and her target are located.
She takes the elevator to the sixth floor, gets off, ducks into a restroom, and dumps her purse in a trash bin. On a floor like this one, if you’re walking around with a purse, you don’t belong. And she is determined to blend in.
She uses her key card to enter the ICU. There is quiet lighting, smooth white floors, and light brown cabinets and wood trim. Voices are low. Nurses and doctors are moving back and forth, and there are plenty of low counters and workstations with black computers.
There. Around the corner and she’ll be at Alex Cross’s room.
