Final Crossing: A Novel of Suspense

by Carter Wilson

  Jonas bristled. The news of a second brutal killing had occupied countless hours of reporting, speculation, and shameless fear-mongering on every television news outlet. Serial killers were usually enough to get the public salivating. Original ones really commanded attention.

  Jonas shrugged. “To be honest, I’m fascinated by it,” he said. He remembered first seeing the breaking news on CNN, then the aerial footage of the cross, the hole in the ground with the bloody sheet draped over it. Jonas had watched the coverage well longer than he would normally pay attention to anything on TV, and he couldn’t shake the feeling of There but for the grace of God go I... “Maybe it’s because of...the type of crime itself. Or just the seeming randomness of the two victims. Or maybe it’s because I had met one of them.”

  He felt himself being studied.

  “Do you feel a connection to the second victim?”

  “The student? No. Not at all. Should I?”

  “I’m just trying to determine if your connection to the first killing has a relationship to the second. Whoever killed Calloway likely also killed that student in West Virginia, so I’m looking for more than a murderer here. I’m looking for a serial killer. And maybe your connection isn’t to Calloway. Maybe your connection, if there is one, is to the killer.”

  Jonas could feel his forehead heating up. He hated feeling like he was hiding something, especially if he didn’t even know what he was hiding.

  “I don’t know who killed Calloway.”

  “I didn’t say you knew who killed him. Just that you might know the person who did. Big difference.”

  “This is weird.”

  She released his hand. “And we’re just getting started.” Jonas thought of something. “When you get your senses, is it from people or things?”

  “Both,” she said. “Though people give off stronger indicators than objects.”

  Jonas reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out the pamphlet he’d found on his desk.

  “What is that?”

  He handed it to her.

  Anne’s hand began to shake.

  16

  “WHO GAVE this to you?”

  “How do you know someone gave it to me?”

  She ran her fingers over the glossy paper. “This is something you didn’t ask for.”

  Jonas studied her face and tried to read how much of Anne Deneuve’s power of perception was training versus talent.

  “I found it on my desk this morning.”

  Anne’s gaze remained steady and firm on the front of the pamphlet for at least a minute. Finally, she opened it and read the inside. When she was done, she put in on the floor rather than handing it back to Jonas.

  “You need to find out who gave that to you,” she said. “Why?”

  “I’m not ready to tell you the answer to that.”

  Jonas felt his patience asking for the check. “Are you fucking with me?”

  “Trust me, Jonas. You would know it if I was.”

  “So what now?”

  “I want to talk to you. The real you.”

  “Anne...”

  “Jonas, let me hypnotize you. There’s something going on inside your head that I need to get to. I don’t know what it is or if you even know what it is, but it’s important.”

  Jonas remained silent. The idea of opening up didn’t scare him. It terrified him.

  “Anne, I really don’t want to do this.”

  “That’s obvious, but it’s not all about you.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  She brushed an imaginary piece of lint off her knee, making him focus momentarily on her legs.

  “Tell me something, Jonas. Have you been...remembering things lately?”

  “Remembering things?”

  “Yes. Things from your past. Things you’ve been suppressing coming back into your consciousness.”

  Jonas felt his breath sharpen, and to the extent his heart ever beat faster from anxiety, it did so now. The more he spoke with Anne, the more he believed her credentials. And the more he wanted to run from her. He was uncomfortable with another person peering through the layers he chose to present.

  Still...

  There were the memories. In that, Anne was right. Things had been coming to the surface lately.

  “How did you know that?”

  “So you have.”

  “How did you know that?”

  She leaned forward and placed her hand on top of his. He felt her warmth flow through him. “Jonas, it’s what I do. You can choose to believe or not.”

  He heard her refrigerator humming in the silence after she spoke.

  “I...yes, I have been remembering things. Since my accident, I’ve had some...I’m not sure what to call them. Flashbacks?”

  “While you were awake?”

  “Sometimes. Sometimes during sleep.”

  “Okay.”

  “But...they aren’t pleasant things.”

  “I know.”

  “I don’t know how much I want to keep dragging them up again.”

  She ignored his request.

  “I need you to tell me what happened. What you’re suddenly remembering. I think it’s important to my case.”

  “But how can that be?”

  Anne stood and walked a tight circle in the room before ending behind him. Her voice draped over him like a heavy, comforting cloak.

  “I stopped asking myself that question a long time ago, Jonas. I just know that it can be. Things can be, Jonas. And once you start accepting that, there’s almost no limit to what you can discover.” She placed her hands on top of his shoulders and brought her lips next to his ear. “Let’s do this and see what we can discover.”

  Jonas felt himself nod, lured more by her voice than her words. He would do it, but he knew it was only to convince a beautiful woman he could relinquish control if he had to. He didn’t think hypnosis would help her case, and it was certain to be unpleasant for him. Whatever it was swimming just below the surface of his memory would soon be coming up to feed.

  And it was hungry.

  17

  RUDIGER PEERS through the window. A man and woman inside. On the couch.

  The beam from a nearby streetlight cuts into him, spotlighting him against the old row home. Not smart, he thinks. Should be in the car, waiting for Jonas to come out.

  But he can’t help himself. Lets himself believe the risk is worth it.

  God wants me to see what’s happening.

  He gazes through the slats of the wood blinds and into the room. The woman is beautiful. Strong. She reaches out and touches Jonas.

  Jonas Osbourne.

  Rudiger hasn’t seen him since the time in the Mog. Since the day he almost died. Rudiger found out Jonas had survived the attack that day. In fact, Jonas had always been in the back of Rudiger’s mind over the years, enough so that Rudiger even tracked his progress as a successful politician, knew he was in D.C. Now Jonas Osbourne is sitting twenty feet away from him.

  Rudiger feels the connection, feels it deep in his bones. It would have been easy to simply take him, but instead Rudiger gave Jonas some warning. First the phone call. Then the pamphlet.

  He needs Jonas’s mind lubricated, wondering what is happening. Open to all possibilities. Just like Preacherman said. Open minds bring open hearts.

  Listen, boy, Preacherman had said, open up your mind to what’s out there. Open up to all I ken give you. Open up to my flesh. Receive me as the One. Feel my heat pass through you. Feel the pain and the glory. The blood and the spit. The hair and the skin. Feel it all, because there is no redemption without sin. You can’t be saved if you have nothin’ to be saved from, boy, don’t you see that? What me and the woman do to you—that ain’t no punishment, don’t you see that? It’s a means to eternal glory.

  Rudiger tries to shake the image of the Preacherman’s teeth puncturing his thighs and focuses instead on the couple inside the row home.

  Jonas isn’t sleeping, but his eyes are clo
sed. The woman moves from the couch and sits across from him, leaning forward. She speaks, but Rudiger can’t hear her. Probably has a deep voice, he thinks. Deep and smoky.

  He pulls back for a moment. Looks behind him. Street is empty, but two cars have passed in the last minute.

  Rudiger leans forward a last time and looks into the house. Jonas is talking now. Eyes still closed. The woman looks uncertain, the confidence in her face replaced with hesitation. She begins to speak but stops. Jonas keeps talking. The woman shifts back in her seat. Away from him. Doesn’t like what she’s hearing.

  Rudiger pivots and walks back to his car. Flips the collar of his black peacoat up against the cool night air. The street is quiet. Rudiger slides into the driver’s seat of his car, which is parked behind Jonas’s car.

  Jonas could be inside for minutes or hours, but it doesn’t matter.

  Rudiger waits.

  18

  MOGADISHU, SOMALIA 1993

  FUCKING REGULAR Army piece of shit, Jonas thought. It would be a shame not to kill the sniper, but it was better than a green PFC trying to play Rambo and getting his skull separated from his body.

  He moved to the open doorway and readied himself for the sprint, hoping he could still run in his condition. He began counting in his head, preparing to run on three.

  One.

  Squeezed his eyes shut.

  Calm yourself. You can do this.

  When he got to two he heard the screams.

  • • •

  Jonas sprinted across the street and ran straight into the same building where PFC Rudy Sonman had disappeared. Once inside, his brain registered that the sniper hadn’t taken a second shot at him.

  So far, so good.

  The building was a three-story concrete shell, its exterior unpainted and scarred by time and violence. Rough layers of mortar scabbed over random parts of the façade, and hand-cut fenestrations served as windows, protected by neither glass nor shutters.

  It was dark and dusty inside. To Jonas’s eye, it was an abandoned building, though he knew the Somalis abandoned nothing except hope. Probably a residence, he thought.

  The scream came again. A woman. Then shouting. A man. American. Sonman.

  Jonas took the first flight of uneven concrete stairs with ease, his adrenaline overpowering the pain in his ribs and the fifty pounds of gear on his body. At the top of the steps he crouched and aimed his rifle into an empty corridor extending fifty feet in front of him. Halfway down, a small black face peered into the hallway from a room. Just a boy, Jonas saw. Probably no more than ten.

  But even boys carry guns in Somalia. And they used them. “Hoyadaa futada ka was!” the boy shouted.

  Jonas had been in the Mog long enough to pick up some of the choice local phrases. He knew what the boy had said. Go fuck your mother in the ass.

  The boy disappeared back into the room. Seconds later, the barrel of an assault rifle inched its way into view. Jonas sighted the weapon and considered firing as a warning, but then decided against it. An open hallway was not a place he wanted to be during a firefight.

  More screams erupted from above him, this time followed by three shots. The woman stopped screaming. Seconds later, Jonas could hear the cries of a baby.

  “Sonman!” Jonas shouted. “Sonman, what’s your situation?”

  No answer.

  The rifle barrel floated in the doorway in front of Jonas. Inside, the boy laughed, and then taunted Jonas in heavily accented English.

  “American. Here, American.”

  Another door opened, directly across from the boy. Another rifle barrel emerged. More laughing.

  “Come death, American.”

  Jonas felt the situation growing out of control. He had no idea how many armed Somalis were inside this building, and he started to realize that running in here without support was a mistake.

  Fuck the sniper, he thought. Get Sonman and get out. Stupid place to die.

  A flash before him.

  The boy took a shot without exposing anything but his arms. The shot was wildly inaccurate, driving deep into the concrete ceiling far from Jonas, but there would be more. Jonas had no choice. He aimed at the exposed flesh and fired a single round.

  The boy screamed as the bullet tore through his forearm.

  His weapon crashed onto the hallway floor.

  The baby kept crying upstairs. “Sonman!” Jonas shouted.

  No answer.

  Jonas remained in position. The screaming boy-soldier howled from within his room.

  “Asad! Asad!”

  The voice came from the other room off the hallway. From the holder of the second rifle.

  “Asad!”

  Jonas assumed Asad was the wounded boy’s name. Asad kept screaming.

  The baby upstairs kept crying.

  Jonas saw what would happen next. It was too predictable, and it was a fucking shame.

  Asad’s friend would go to help Asad. But by running across the hallway, he would expose himself to the American, which was a great risk. His only hope to help his friend was to kill the American and then comfort Asad.

  Jonas waited for it. It would happen. He wished it wouldn’t. He wanted to walk away, but that wasn’t protocol.

  The boy jumped into the hallway. He was about the same age as Asad. Just a kid. Just a fucking kid. With an assault rifle pointed directly at Jonas.

  The boy let out a howl of rage, his brilliant white teeth shining against his coal black skin.

  Jonas fired once.

  The bullet hit the boy in his shirtless chest. He collapsed in a lifeless heap before firing a shot. Instant death.

  Asad screamed louder.

  “Nadif! Nadif!”

  The baby no longer cried upstairs.

  Nadif was motionless. Blood pooled on the concrete beneath him.

  “Fuck,” Jonas muttered. It was his first kill in-country. It was his first kill ever. And it was a boy. “Fuck.”

  Go, he told himself. Place could be swarming with belligerents in a matter of seconds. Get the hell out of here.

  First get Sonman.

  Jonas grabbed his radio.

  “Two-five this is two-six. Over.”

  “Two-six I read you. Over.”

  “In pursuit of sniper and receiving resistance. I’m anticipating more soon, so I’m going to find Sonman and fall back until support arrives. ETA? Over.”

  “Roger that, two-six. Fall back as necessary. Support is on foot about seven blocks west of your position but are encountering their own resistance. ETA within fifteen. Am requesting bird support and will let you know. Over.”

  Asad’s screams were now whimpers. Jonas saw his twitching arm reach into the hallway.

  “Roger, two-five. I also have a wounded boy here on the second level of this building. If possible, medical support requested.” That’s not going to happen, he thought to himself. “Over.”

  “Copy, two-six. Out.”

  Jonas clipped the radio back to his shoulder. Hot dust sparkled and danced in the hallway, illuminated by stray beams of light from cracks in the walls. He turned and headed up the stairs behind him, knowing violence could come from any direction. He kept his gun trained in the direction he walked: forward and up.

  It was library-quiet now; even Asad ceased his suffering wails. Probably succumbed to shock, Jonas thought.

  He climbed the stairs quickly but not carelessly. The stairs gave way into another empty hallway, the top floor of the small building. Like the floor below, the hall extended for about fifty feet, with two doors on each side of the corridor. Enough for four small apartments, which in the Mog was a concrete room with no kitchen or running water.

  Jonas crouched and leaned against the corridor wall. He had no idea what room, if any, Sonman was in. He also didn’t know who else might be waiting in the rooms for him. Waiting to kill.

  “Sonman!”

  The shout ricocheted off the concrete walls. Silence. Jonas shimmied along the wall until he re
ached the first door on the left. The sniper would have shot from one of the two rooms on this side of the corridor, he knew. He also knew the unpainted, brittle wood door would give little resistance against his Army boots.

  He kicked in the door and readied his rifle.

  The room was empty save a balled up blanket sitting in the middle of the dirty floor. Closed wooden shutters adorned the far wall of the room. No shell casings on the ground. If the sniper had been in this room, he’d bothered to clean up before leaving. Possible.

  He considered yelling Sonman’s name again, but decided against it. The first shout was loud enough for the soldier to have heard. Sonman was either no longer in the building or was incapacitated. Giving away his own position wouldn’t do Jonas any good, so he remained quiet as he crept to the next door.

  The second door on the left was similar to the first. There was one difference with this room, however: Jonas heard something inside. The sound was neither loud nor constant, but someone was definitely inside. It sounded like...like an animal. Growling.

  Jonas squeezed his eyes shut for a second, steadying his nerves. He then took a deep breath and counted to three in his head.

  He kicked in the door, which splintered as it flew open. Jonas immediately crouched and aimed his rifle, but he couldn’t understand what his targets were supposed to be.

  In fact, his brain couldn’t process what he was seeing at all. “Sonman...”

  Jonas breathed the name, but he didn’t hear himself. He didn’t hear anything. There was too much already in his head, overwhelming his senses. He felt his brain wanting to shut down, to reverse the last few seconds and replay it with a new ending. But the human machine is a wondrous thing, and Jonas’s was particularly fine-tuned. Despite what he was seeing, Jonas was able to take command of himself and function with the training drilled so deeply in him.

  “Sonman! Drop your weapon!” Jonas pointed his rifle directly at Sonman’s helmetless skull. Willfully aiming a loaded weapon at a fellow soldier was something that you never, ever did, unless the situation was so out of control that the safety of other members of the unit or innocents was in immediate jeopardy.