James Patterson - Alex Cross 10 - London Bridges

by London Bridges

  Always a schedule.

  And a plan.

  Chapter 115

  He never once screamed, never made a sound during any of the grueling procedures, and neither the surgeon nor the nurse could comprehend what they were witnessing. The patient seemed to have no feeling at all. As males often do, he bled a great deal during the operations, and there was already a lot of deep purple bruising on his face. The pain he endured during the hour-and-a-half rhinoplasty, or nose job, was the worst by far, especially when large chunks of bone and cartilage were removed without even a topical anesthetic.

  At the conclusion of the rhinoplasty, the final procedure, he was told by Dr. Levine not to stand, but he did anyway.

  His neck felt tight and tender, and there was Betadine all over his scalp and throat. "Not bad," he rasped. "I've experienced much worse."

  "Do not blow your nose. For at least a week," the doctor insisted, seemingly trying to maintain her dignity and a tenuous sense of control.

  The Wolf reached into his trousers and produced a handkerchief, but then put it back. "Just kidding," he said, then frowned. "Do you have any sense of humor, Doctor?"

  "You can't drive, either," said the doctor. "That I will not allow. For the sake of others."

  "No, of course not. I wouldn't think of it, putting others in jeopardy. I'll just leave my vehicle here on the street to be carjacked. Let me get your money. It's become boring to be here with you."

  It was then, as he walked to fetch his briefcase, that the Russian staggered slightly-and also got the first look at himself in a mirror, his incredibly bruised and swollen face, at least what showed around the bandages.

  "You do nice work," he said, and laughed.

  He opened the briefcase and pulled out a Beretta with silencer. He shot the astonished nurse in the face, twice, then turned to Dr. Levine, who had hurt him so much.

  "Any other things I should or shouldn't do?" he asked. "Any last bits of advice you wish to impart?"

  "My children. Please don't kill me," the doctor begged. "You know I have children."

  "They'll be better off without you. I think so, bitch. I bet they would agree."

  He shot her through the heart. A mercy killing, he thought to himself, especially after the way she'd tortured him. Plus, he just didn't like her, the humorless bitch.

  Finally, the Wolf left the office and walked to his Range Rover. He was thinking that no one knew what he looked like now. Not a single person anywhere.

  And that got him laughing, almost uncontrollably. This was his piece of the puzzle.

  Chapter 116

  "There he is-has to be."

  "He's laughing! What's so funny? Look at him. Can you believe it?"

  "He looks like he was scalped, then had his skin flayed," Ned Mahoney said when the heavily bandaged man in a gray overcoat emerged from the brownstone. "He looks like a goddamn ghoul."

  "Don't underestimate him," I reminded Ned. "And don't forget, he is a ghoul."

  We were watching the Wolf-at least, the man we believed to be the Wolf-as he left a plastic surgeon's office on the East Side of Manhattan. We had just gotten there, less than sixty seconds before. Almost missed him again.

  "Don't worry, I'm not underestimating him, Alex. That's why we have half a dozen teams getting ready to pounce on him. If we'd gotten here sooner, we could have grabbed him inside the doctor's office."

  I nodded. "At least we're here. It was a complicated negotiation in England. Kl ra Lodge and her children are somewhere in northern Africa now. She did her part."

  "So the Wolf has had a tracking device under his shoulder blade since he came out of Russia? That's the story?"

  "We're here, aren't we? According to Kl ra, Martin Lodge knew where he was all along. That kept Lodge alive."

  "We're ready to go, then? We take him?"

  "We're ready. I'm ready." Jesus, was I ready. I wanted to take this bastard down so badly. I couldn't wait to see the look on his face.

  Mahoney spoke into the mike attached to his headset. "Close on him now. And remember, he's extremely dangerous."

  You got that right, Neddo.

  Chapter 117

  The black Range Rover was stopped at a light on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Fifty-ninth Street. Dark sedans pulled up on both sides. A third car blocked off the intersection. Agents jumped out of the cars. We had him!

  Gunfire suddenly erupted from a white Hummer in front of the Range Rover. The doors of the Hummer flew open. Three men with automatic weapons came out firing.

  "Where the hell did they come from?" Mahoney yelled into his mike. "Everybody down!"

  We were already out of our car and running toward the gunfight. Ned fired and took down one of the Wolf's bodyguards. I hit another, and a third bodyguard opened up on us.

  Meanwhile, the Wolf was out of the Range Rover and running down Fifth Avenue, staying out in the street with the cars. The condition of his face made him look as though he'd already been shot, or maybe badly burned in a fire. People on the sidewalk were hitting the pavement because of the gunshots coming from everywhere. Several were screaming uncontrollably. How far did the Wolf think he could get, looking the way he did? In New York City, maybe far!

  More gunmen appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. More of his bodyguards. He had certainly brought backup. Had we brought enough?

  And then the Wolf ducked into a store on Fifth. Mahoney and I followed him. I didn't even notice what store it was. Upscale. Glitzy. Fifth Avenue, for God's sake!

  The Wolf did the unthinkable then. Although nothing he did completely surprised me anymore. His right arm shot forward and released a dark object into the air. I watched it start to tumble.

  I shouted, "Grenade! Everybody down! Get down! Grenade!"

  A powerful explosion at the front of the store blew out two massive picture windows. Shoppers were hurt. The smoke was very thick and dark. Everybody inside the store was screaming, including the clerks behind nearly every counter.

  I never lost sight of the Wolf, never lost my focus on him. No matter what he did, no matter what the danger, he couldn't be allowed to get away this time. The cost was too high. This was the man who had held the world hostage. He'd already murdered thousands.

  Mahoney ran down one aisle and I took another. The Wolf appeared to be headed for an exit onto a side street. I'd lost track of where we were. Fifty-fifth Street? Fifty-sixth?

  "He doesn't get out!" Ned shouted over to me.

  "You've got that right."

  We were getting closer and I could see the Wolf's face. With all the bandages, the bruising and swelling, he looked fiercer than I could have imagined. Worse, he looked desperate, capable of anything. But we already knew that.

  He yelled, "I'll kill everybody in the store!"

  Neither Mahoney nor I answered; we just kept coming. But we didn't doubt what he'd said.

  He grabbed a small blond girl away from what looked to be a nanny. "I'll kill her. I'll kill the little girl. She's dead! I'll kill her!"

  We kept coming.

  He held the toddler against his chest. His blood was dripping all over her. The girl was screaming, squirming wildly in his arms.

  "I'll kill -"

  Ned and I fired at almost the same time-two shots and the Wolf stumbled backward, letting go of the girl. She fell to the floor, then got up screeching and ran to safety.

  So did the Wolf. Out the nearest side door and onto the street.

  "He's wearing a vest-has to be."

  "We'll shoot him in the head," I said.

  Chapter 118

  We chased him east on Fifty-fifth Street, along with a couple of our agents and two fleet-footed New York City policemen. If any of the Wolf's bodyguards had survived the bloody shoot-out on Fifth Avenue, they'd lost track of their boss in the shuffle inside the store. They were nowhere to be seen now.

  Still, the Wolf looked as though he knew where he was going. Was that possible? How could he have planned for this? He probably co
uldn't have-so we'd get him now, right? I couldn't let myself believe otherwise-that all of this could come to nothing.

  We had him in our sights. He was right there in front of us.

  Suddenly he turned into a building, redbrick, eight to ten stories high. Did he know someone there? More backup? A trap? What?

  There was security inside; at least, there had been. But the uniformed guard was dead now, shot in the head, lying facedown and bleeding on the glossy marble floor.

  The elevators were all busy, red lights flashing the floors-eight, four, three-all going up.

  "He's not getting out of here. That's settled," Mahoney said.

  "We can't know that, Ned."

  "He can't fucking fly, can he?"

  "No, but who the hell knows what else he can do. He came in here for a reason."

  Mahoney assigned agents to wait for all of the elevators, then to systematically check the floors from bottom to top. Reinforcements were on the way from the NYPD. There would be dozens of cops here soon. Then hundreds. The Wolf was in the building.

  Mahoney and I took to the stairs in pursuit.

  "Where do we go? How far?"

  "The roof. It's the only other way out of here."

  "You really think he's got a plan? How, Alex?"

  I shook my head; I had no way of knowing. He was bleeding, had to be weak; maybe he was even delirious. Or maybe he had a plan. Hell, he'd always had a plan before.

  So up we went, all the way. The top floor was nine, and we didn't see the Wolf as we peeked out of the stairwell. We quickly checked the offices; no one had seen him-and they sure would have remembered if they had.

  "In the back. There's stairs up to the roof," someone told us in a law office.

  Ned Mahoney and I climbed more stairs, then we stepped outside into bright daylight. We didn't see the Wolf. There was a single-story structure, like a small hat on top of the old building. Water tower? The super's office?

  We tried the door; it was locked.

  "He has to be here somewhere. Unless he jumped," Ned said.

  Then we saw him coming around from behind the tower. "I didn't jump, Mr. Mahoney. And I thought I told you not to work on this case. I think I was clear. Put down your guns right now."

  I stepped forward. "I brought him here."

  "Of course you did. You're the indefatigable, don't-give-up, relentless Dr. Cross. That's why you're so predictable, and useful."

  Suddenly a New York City policeman stepped out of the same trapdoor opening to the roof that we had used. He saw the Wolf and fired.

  He hit the Wolf in the chest, but it didn't stop him. He was wearing a vest, had to be. The Russian growled like a bear and charged the cop, waving both arms over his head.

  He grabbed the surprised officer and picked him up. There was nothing Ned or I could do. Next thing, he hurled the man off the roof.

  The Wolf started to race toward the other side of the rooftop, and he seemed genuinely insane. What was he doing? Suddenly I thought I knew. The building to the south was close enough so that he was going to jump for it. Then, coming in from the west, I saw a helicopter. For him? Was that the escape plan? Don't let this be happening.

  I ran after him. So did Mahoney. "Stop! Stop right there!"

  He was running in crazy zigzags away from us. We fired but didn't hit him with the first shots.

  Then the Wolf was airborne, both his arms flailing-and he was going to make it to the other rooftop with room to spare.

  "You bastard, no!" Ned yelled. "No!"

  I stopped running, aimed carefully, and squeezed the trigger four times.

  Chapter 119

  The Wolf kept pumping his legs and seemed almost to be running on thin air, but then he started to drop. His arms reached out toward the edge of the other building. His fingers reached for the roof.

  Mahoney and I ran up to the edge of our building. Could the Wolf get out of this one? Somehow, he always found a way. Except this time-I knew I'd hit him in the throat. He had to be drowning in his own blood.

  "Fall, you fuck!" Ned screamed at him.

  "He's not going to make it," I said.

  And he didn't. The Russian's body fell, and he didn't fight it, didn't make a sound, never screamed out. Not a sound came from him.

  Mahoney yelled down at him. "Hey, Wolf! Hey, Wolfman! Go to hell!"

  The fall looked as if it had been shot in slow motion, but then he hit the ground in the alleyway between the buildings. Hit it hard. I stared down at the Wolf's mangled body, the bandaged face, and I felt satisfied for the first time in a long while. I felt fulfilled and whole. We'd gotten him, and he deserved to die like that, squashed like a bug on the pavement.

  Then Ned Mahoney started to clap and whoop and dance around like a complete madman. I didn't join in, but I knew what he was feeling. The man down there deserved this fate, if anyone ever did. Stone-cold dead in an alleyway.

  "He didn't scream," I finally said. "Couldn't even give us that."

  Mahoney shrugged his wide shoulders. "I don't care if he did or not. Here we are up here, there he is down with the garbage. Maybe there's some justice after all. Well, maybe not," Ned said, and laughed, putting his arm around me and squeezing.

  "We won," I said to him. "Damnit, we finally won, Neddy."

  Chapter 120

  We won!

  The next morning I flew back to Quantico in a Bell helicopter with Ned Mahoney and some of his stellar crew. They were celebrating the Wolf's demise at HRT over in Quantico, but I wanted to get home. I'd told Nana to keep the kids away from school because we were celebrating.

  We won!

  I let myself decompress for some of the car ride from Quantico to Washington. When I finally got to the house, when I could see it up ahead, I started to feel closer to normal, almost myself, or at least somebody I recognized. No one had come out onto the porch yet, so Nana and the kids hadn't seen me arrive. I decided to surprise them.

  We won!

  The front door wasn't locked, and I went inside. A few lights were on, but I didn't see anybody yet. Maybe they're going to surprise me?

  Keeping very quiet, I made my way back to the kitchen. The lights were on-plates and silverware had been laid out for lunch-but nobody was there, either.

  Kind of strange. Just a little bit off kilter. Rosie the cat came meowing from somewhere, rubbing up against me.

  Finally I called out, "I'm home. Your daddy's home. Where is everybody? I'm home from the wars."

  I hurried upstairs, but nobody was there. I checked for notes that might have been left for me. Nothing.

  I ran downstairs. I looked out back, then up and down Fifth Street in front of the house. Not a soul in sight anywhere. Where were Nana and the kids? They knew I was coming.

  I went back inside and made a few phone calls to places Nana and the kids might be. But Nana almost always left a note when she went out with the kids, even for an hour or so, and they'd been expecting me.

  Suddenly I felt sick. I waited another half an hour before I contacted some people at the Hoover Building, starting with Tony Woods in the director's office. In the meantime, I'd looked around the house again, found no sign of any kind of disturbance.

  A team of technical people arrived, and shortly afterward one of them approached me in the kitchen. "There are footprints out in the yard, probably male. Some dirt was recently tracked into the house. Could have been repairmen, or a delivery service, but it's definitely fresh."

  That was all they found that afternoon, not another clue, not one.

  Sampson and Billie came over in the evening, and we sat together and waited, at least for a call, something to go on, something to give me hope. But no call came, and sometime after two in the morning, Sampson finally went home. Billie had left about ten.

  I stayed up all night-but nothing, no contact. No word at all about Nana and the kids. I talked to Jamilla on my cell phone, and it helped, but not enough. Nothing could have helped that night.

  Fin
ally, early in the morning, I stood at the front door bleary-eyed and stared up and down the street. It occurred to me that this had always been my worst fear, maybe everybody's worst fear, to be all alone, with nobody, and to have those you love the most in terrible danger.