Alex Cross 3 - Jack and Jill

by Patterson, James

  No, the Truth School killer wouldn't take the chance. He had too much fun, too many games, ahead of him to blow it like this.

  He was too experienced now. He was getting better and better at this.

  He disappeared into the night. He had other choices, other business, he could take care of. Danny Boudreaux was on the loose in D.C., and he loved it. He had a taste for it now. There would be time for Cross and his stupid family later.

  He'd already forgotten that just minutes before he had been crying his eyes out. He hadn't taken his medicine in seven days.

  The hated, despicable Depakote, his goddamn mood-disorder medicine.

  He was wearing his favorite sweatshirt again. Happy, happy.

  Joy, joy.

  I WOKE WITH A START and a trembling shiver. My skin was prickling, my heart racing furiously.

  Bad dream? Something unholy, real, or imagined? The room was pitch-black, all the lights out, and it took me a second to remember where in the name of God I was.

  Then I remembered. I remembered everything. I was part of the team assigned to try and protect the President- except the President had decided to make our job even harder than it had been. The President had decided to travel out of Washington m to show the colors- to demonstrate that he wasn't afraid of terrorists and crackpots of any kind.

  I was in New York City m at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel on Park Avenue. Jack and Jill were in New York, too. They were so sure of themselves that they had sent us a calling card.

  I groped around for the lamp on the bedside table, then for the damn lamp switch. Finally, I clicked it on. I looked at the night table clock. Two fifty-five.

  “That's just terrific,” I whispered under my breath. “That's great.”

  I thought of calling my kids in Washington. Calling Nana. It wasn't a real serious idea, but the notion floated across my mind.

  I thought about Christine Johnson. Calling her at home. Absolutely not! But I did have the thought, and I did like the idea of talking to her on the phone.

  I finally pulled on a pair of khakis, stepped into battered Converse sneaks, slipped into an old sweatshirt. I wandered out into the hotel. I needed to be out of my hotel room. I needed to be out of my own skin.

  The Waldorf-Astoria was sound asleep. As it should be. Except that very uptight Secret Service agents were posted everywhere! in every hallway where I wandered. The presidential detail was on its night watch. They were mostly athletic-looking men, who reminded me of very fit accountants. Only a couple of women were assigned to the detail in New York.

  “You going for a late walk through midtown New York, Detective Cross?” one of the Secret Service agents asked as I passed by.

  It was a woman named Camille Robinson. She was serious and very dedicated, as most of the Secret Service agents seemed to be. They seemed to like President Thomas Byrnes a lot, enough to take a bullet for.

  “My mind is up and mnning, for sure,” I said and managed a smile. “Probably do a couple of marathons before morning. You okay? Need some coffee or anything?”

  Camille shook her head and kept her serious face on. Watchdogs can be female, too. I'd met my share of them. I saluted the diligent agent, then kept on walking.

  A few thoughts continued to plague me as I wandered inside the eerily quiet hotel. My mind was running way too hot.

  The murder of Charlotte Kinsey was one disturbing puzzle piece.

  That murder might have been committed by somebody other than Jack and Jill. Could there be a third killer? Why would there be a third killer? How did it fit?

  I continued down another long hallway, and down still another track in my mind.

  What about larger and more complicated conspiracies? Dallas and JFK? Los Angeles and RFK? Memphis and Dr. King?

  Where did that insane and depressing line of thinking take me?

  The list of possible conspirators was impossibly long, and I didn't have the resources to get at most of the suspects, anyway. The crisis group talked about conspiracies a lot. The Federal Bureau was obsessed with conspiracies. So was the CIA... but a powerful fact remained: thirty years after the Kennedy assassinations, no one was really convinced that either of those murders had been solved.

  The more I delved into conspiracy theories, the more I realized that getting to the core was almost impossible. Certainly, no one had yet. I'd talked to several people at the Assassination Archives and Research Center in Washington, and they had come to exactly the same conclusion. Or dead end.

  I wandered into the hallway on the twenty-first floor, where the President was sleeping. I had a chilling thought that he might be dead in his room; that Jack and Jill had already struck and left a note, another poem for us to discover in the morning.

  “Everything okay?” I asked the agents stationed just outside the door of the presidential suite.

  They watched me carefully, as if they were asking themselves, Why is he here? “So far,” one of them said stiffly. “No problems here.”

  Eventually, I made it full circle back to my room. It was almost four in the morning.

  I slipped inside the room. Lay down on the bed. I thought of my conversation with Sampson earlier that night, hearing about the murder of Sumner Moore. Apparently, the Moore boy wasn't the Truth School killer. I tried not to think about either case anymore.

  I finally dozed until six -- when the clock radio went off like a fire alarm next to my head.

  Rock-and-roll music blared. “K-Rock” in New York. Howard Stem was talking to me. He had worked down in Washington years ago. Howard said, “The prez is in town. Can Jack and Jill be far away?”

  Everybody knew about it. The President's motorcade through Manhattan started at eleven. Stagecoach was ready to roll again.

  HISTORY was about to be made in New York City. At the very least, it was white-knuckle time. Definitely that. The game had ceased being a game.

  Jack jogged at a strong, steady pace through Central Park. It was a little before six in the morning. He'd been out running since just after five. He had a lot on his mind. D day had finally arrived. New York City was the war zone, and he couldn't imagine a better one.

  He observed the very striking Manhattan skyline from where he was running alongside Fifth Avenue, heading south. Above the tall, uneven line of buildings, the sky was the color of charcoal seen through tissue paper. Huge plumes of smoke billowed up from turn-of-the-century buildings.

  It was pretty as hell, actually. Close to glorious. Not the way he usually thought of New York City. It was just a facade, though.

  Like Jack and Jill, he was thinking.

  As he ran alongside a blue city bus chargang down Fifth Avenue, he wondered if he might die in the next few hours. He had to be ready for that, to be prepared for anything.

  Kamikaze, he thought. The final plan was deadly, and it was as surefire as these things could be. He didn't believe that the target could possibly survive this attack. No one could. There would be other deaths as well. This was a war, after all, and people died in war.

  Jack finally emerged from the park at Fifth Avenue and Fifty-ninth.

  He continued to run south, picking up his pace.

  A few moments later, he entered the formal and attractive lobby of the Peninsula Hotel in the West Fifties. It was ten past six in the morning. The Peninsula was a little more than twenty blocks from Madison Square Garden, where President Byrnes was scheduled to appear at twenty-five past eleven. The New York Times was just being delivered into the hotel lobby He caught the headline: JACK AND JILL KILLERS FEARED IN NEW YORK AS PRESIDENT VISITS.

  He was impressed. Even the Times was on top of things.

  Then Jack saw Jill. Jill was right on time in the lobby. Always on time. She was at the Peninsula according to plan. Always according to plan.

  She had on a silver-and-blue jogging suit, but she didn't look as if she'd raised a sweat coming up from the Waldorf. He wondered if she had run or walked. Or maybe even caught a Yellow Cab.

  He
didn't acknowledge her in any way He stepped into a waiting elevator and took it to his floor. Sara would take the next elevator.

  He let himself into his room and waited for her. A single knock on the door. She was on schedule. Less than sixty seconds behind him.

  “I look terrible,” she said. Sara's first words. It was so typical of her self-effacing tone, her view of herself, her vulnerability Sara the poor gimp.

  “No, you don't,” he reassured her. “You look beautiful, because you are beautiful.” She didn't look her best, though. She was showing the terrible strain of these last hours. Her face was a mask of worry and doubt, too much makeup and mascara and bright red lipstick. D day. She'd sprayed her blond hair, and it looked brittle.

  “The Waldorf is hopping already,” she reported to him. “They think an assassination attempt definitely will be made today They're ready for it, at least they think they are. Five thousand regular New York police, plus the Secret Service, the FBI. They have an army on hand.”

  “Let them think they're ready,” Jack said. “We'll see soon enough, won't we? Now come here, you,” he smiled. “You don't look terrible at all. Never happen. You look ravishing, Sara. May I ravage you?”

  “Now?” Sara weakly protested. It was a whisper. So tiny and vulnerable and unsure. But she couldn't resist his strong, reassuring embrace. She never had been able to, and that was part of the plan as well. Everything had been anticipated, which was why they couldn't fail.

  He slid out of his running shirt, exposing a glistening-wet chest. All the tufts of his hair were damp with sweat. He pressed up against Sara. She arched her body hard against him. Their pulses were racing. Jack and Jill. In New York. So close to the end.

  He could feel her heartbeat quickening, like a small hunted animal's. She couldn't help it. She was so scared now, legitimately so.

  "Please tell me that we'll see each other again, even if we won't.

  Tell me it isn't over after today, Sam."

  "It won't be over, Monkey Face. I'm as frightened as you are right now. To feel this way is normal, and sane. You're very sane.

  We both are."

  “In a few hours we'll be on our way out of New York. All of this Jack and Jill will be behind us,” she whispered. “Oh, I do love you, Sam. I love you so much that it's scary.”

  It was scary. More than Sara could possibly know. More than anybody ought to know, or ever would. History wasn't for the general public -- it never had been.

  Slowly and carefully, he slid a Ruger from the rear waistband of his sweatpants. His hands were sweaty He was holding his breath now. He placed the gun against Sara's head and fired at a slightly downward angle into her temple. Just one shot.

  A professional execution.

  Without passion.

  Almost without passion.

  The Ruger was silenced. The noise in the hotel room was no more than a tiny, insignificant spit. The harsh impact of the 9mm bullet took her out of his arms. He shivered involuntarily as he looked down on the lifeless body on the hotel rug.

  “Now it's over,” he said. “The pain of your life is over, all the bitterness and hurt. I'm sorry, Monkey Face.”

  He put the final note in Jill's right hand. Then he squeezed her fist so that the note crumpled naturally. He held Sara's hand for the last time.

  And Jill came tumbling after. He thought of the words in the children's rhyme.

  But Jack would not fall down.

  The day of ultimate madness had begun.

  Jack and Jill had finally begun.

  Alex Cross 3 - Jack and Jill

  PART 6

  NOBODY IS SAFE ANYMORE-NOBODY

  THE THICK DOCUMENT in my hands was entitled Visit of the President of the United States. New York City, December 16 and 17. It ran to eighty-nine pages and included virtually every moment from when the President would step off Air Force One at La Guardia until he reboarded at approximately two in the afternoon and traveled back to Washington.

  Included among the pages were sketches, literally of everywhere the President would be: La Guardia Airport, the Waldorf, the Felt Forum inside Madison Square Garden, the motorcade routes, alternate routes.

  The Secret Service document stated:

  10:55 A.t The President and Mrs. Byrnes board motorcade Note: The President and Mrs. Byrnes proceed through a cordon of NYPD officers at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel

  11:00 A.M. Motorcade departs Waldorf via route (code C) to Madison Square Garden, the Felt Forum Closed arrival.

  No press pool coverage.

  I occupied my mind with the puzzle of Jack and Jill as the time approached for the President to leave the Waldorf and then travel downtown with the motorcade of limousines, police radio cars, and motorcycles. For the past three days, the FBI, Secret Service, and New York police had been cooperating on a massive plan to try and capture Jack and Jill if they actually came to Madison Square Garden. Nearly a thousand plainclothes agents and detectives would be inside for the President's speech. We all had doubts that it would be enough protection.

  A disturbing mania had been running through my head all morning: No one ever stops an assassin bullet. No one stops a bullet except the victim.

  What would Jack and Jill do? How would it go down? I believed they would be at Madison Square Garden. I suspected that they planned to do the job up close. And somehow, they planned to escape.

  The President and Mrs. Byrnes were escorted to their car at precisely five minutes to eleven. A phalanx of a dozen Secret Service agents shadowed them from the tower suite to an armor-plated limousine waiting in the hotel's underground garage.

  I walked closely behind the main escort group. My role here wasn't to physically protect the President. I had already told Jay Grayer how I believed the attempt would be made. It would be close in. It would be showy. But they would have a plan to escape.

  There had already been a change in plans that morning. No cordon of high-ranking policemen at the hotel rear entrance. No photo opportunities. The President had been convinced not to go through the open Waldorf lobby a second time.

  I watched as Mrs. Byrnes and the President walked into the limousine for the two-mile ride. The two of them held hands. It was a touching moment to witness. It fit with everything I knew about Thomas and Sally Byrnes.

  No regrets.

  The motorcade began to move right on time. It was what the Secret Service called “the formal package motorcade.” There were twenty-eight cars. Six held counterassault teams. One Car, “Intelligence,” held computers to keep contact with surveillance on known threats to the President. I wondered if Jack and Jill had the schedule, even the number of cars.

  The motorcade's limos and town cars rode at almost perpendicular angles out of the steep hotel garage. Manhole covers clattered loudly under our tires. The route to the auditorium began on Park Avenue, then jogged west along Forty-seventh Street to Fifth.

  I rode with Don Hamerman, two cars behind the President.

  Even Hamerman was subdued and distant that morning. Nothing had happened yet. Could Jack and Jill possibly have changed their plan? Was this part of covering their trail? Would they surface when we began to doubt that they would? Would they surprise me and attack the motorcade?

  I watched everything out the car window. The morning was an eerie, out-of-body experience. The people lining the street were enthusiastic, clapping and cheering as the motorcade passed by. That was one reason why President Byrnes had decided he couldn't hide in the White House any longer. The people, even New Yorkers, wanted a piece of him. He was a good president so far, a popular one, a courageous one, too.

  Who wanted to kill Thomas Byrnes, and why? There were so many potential enemies, but I kept returning to the President's own list. Senator Glass, Vice President Mahoney, a few reactionaries in Congress, powerful men connected to Wall Street. He had said that he was trying to change the system, and the system fiercely resented change.

  The system fiercely resented change!

  P
olice sirens wailed and seemed to be everywhere around us.

  It was a screaming wall of noise that was just right for the occasion.

  My eyes drifted back and forth between the cheering crowds and the quickly moving line of cars, the presidential motorcade.

  I was a part of it, and yet I also felt disconnected. I couldn't help thinking of Dallas, John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Dr. King. The past tragedies of our country. Our sorrowful history.

  I couldn't take my eyes off Stagecoach.

  It struck me as almost impossible, as unthinkable, that two of the three major assassinations remained mysterious and unsolved in most people's minds. Two of the three major murder cases of our century had never been satisfactorily cleared.

  The VIP garage underneath Madison Square Garden was a concrete bunker, which was painted bright white. There must have been a hundred Secret Service and New York police gathered there to meet us. The Secret Service agents all wore earphones that plugged them into the Service's cellular net.

  I watched Thomas and Sally Byrnes slowly get out of their armored car. I watched the President's eyes. He seemed steady and confident and focused. Maybe he knew exactly what he was doing; maybe his way was the only way for this to go.

  I was less than a dozen feet away from the President and his wife. Every second they were out in the open seemed an eternity There were too many people there in the parking garage. Any of them could be a killer.

  The President and Sally Byrnes were smiling, talking smoothly and easily to important well-wishers from New York. They were both very skilled at this. They understood the tremendously important ceremonial role of the office. The symbolism and the absolute power. That was why they were here. I very much liked their sense of duty and responsibility Nana was wrong about them. I was convinced they were decent people trying to do their best. I understood how difficult their jobs were. I hadn't realized this before I came to the White House.

  Nothing must happen to President Byrnes or Sally Byrnes, I thought -- as if an act of will could stop an assassin's bullet, stop terrible things from happening there in the garage or upstairs in the packed Felt Forum.