Red Alert

by James Patterson

  “Dr. Langford,” I called out, trying to keep my tone as friendly as possible. “Aubrey was blackmailing you. It doesn’t get you off the hook for killing her, but it means you were also a victim. A good lawyer could use that to negotiate a lighter sentence with the DA.”

  “News flash, Jordan,” Langford yelled. “Aubrey wasn’t blackmailing me. A few weeks ago I spent the night in her apartment, and she made the mistake of leaving her computer on with no password protection. I found the videos. Her introduction spelled it out. You saw it, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, sir. She had a backup of everything.”

  “Then you know she wasn’t blackmailing anyone. She was making a documentary that would destroy as many men as she could, and I would be hurt the most.”

  “You’re wrong,” I said. “Having sex with a patient wouldn’t have hurt your career.”

  “Maybe not if Aubrey were the only patient. But there are others. Dozens. They’ve been silent till now, but going public with that film would have opened the floodgates. I had to kill her. It was a smart plan. I told her to meet me for dinner at a restaurant that just happened to be near Janek Hoffmann’s apartment. Then I picked her up, told her I changed my mind, and we drove out to Roosevelt Island together. You should have seen the look on her face when she realized I wasn’t going to release the choke hold.”

  My cell rang. It was Kylie. I picked up. “I don’t think I can keep him talking much longer,” I said.

  “Tell him to come out,” she said. “Make him come out.”

  “I’ve been involved in a lot of homicides, Dr. Langford,” I said. “You’d be amazed at how easy some of them are to solve. This one was genius. If Aubrey hadn’t backed up those videos, I never would have caught you. But you couldn’t know she did that. You may wind up in jail, but I know the media. They’re all going to want you: 60 Minutes, the New York Times, Time magazine.”

  The cab door opened, and Langford stepped out, gun in hand. “Did they teach you that at the academy, Jordan? If you’re negotiating with a narcissist, get him to give up by convincing him he can become a media darling, a rock star inmate. I told you: rotting away in prison is not an option.”

  He pointed the gun in my direction and started walking toward me. “You or me, Detective. And trust me, I won’t hesitate to shoot.”

  I raised my gun. “Don’t make me do this,” I said.

  “One of us is going to pull the trigger,” he said, still advancing. “Your choice.”

  And then Kylie stepped out from behind the far side of the yellow Nissan. Her shooting stance was textbook. Feet shoulder width apart, the firing-side foot slightly behind the support-side foot. Her knees were flexed, arms extended straight out, head level.

  She fired.

  The two barbed darts flew from the Taser gun, one hitting Langford in the back, the other in the right hamstring. The pistol dropped from his hand, his body pitched forward, and he let out a prolonged agonizing scream as Kylie unleashed fifty thousand volts into his body.

  Two uniforms poured out from behind the cab. Within five seconds, Kylie killed the power, and the cops pulled Langford to his feet.

  She walked up to him and squared off. “Morris Langford, you’re under arrest for the murder of Aubrey Davenport. You have the right to remain silent.”

  When she finished reading him his rights, one of the cops holding Langford said, “Would you like to do the honors and cuff him, Detective?”

  Kylie slapped her hand to her belt and smiled. “I’m afraid one of you will have to do it, officer,” she said. “My partner and I are out of cuffs. It’s been a busy day.”

  CHAPTER 66

  At four thirty, Mayor Muriel Sykes did what she does best. She showed up at the precinct unannounced.

  Well, almost unannounced. Before she could get up to the third floor, I got a heads-up call from Bob McGrath, my eyes and ears at the front desk.

  “Your prom date is here, Detective,” he said.

  “Thanks. How does she look?”

  “Ravishing as always.”

  “I’m serious, Sarge. Pissed? Happy? What?”

  “I’ve never seen her happy, and if you’re wondering did she bring a box of doughnuts to reward you for your takedown in Central Park, the answer is no. She just blew right by me and headed up the stairs like a heat-seeking missile.”

  “Thanks, Sarge. I owe you one.”

  “Everybody owes me at least one, Jordan,” McGrath said. “And you and your wackadoo partner owe me more than most.”

  “Shit,” I said, hanging up the phone.

  “What now?” Kylie asked.

  “The mayor is on her way up.”

  “Shit,” Kylie repeated. “Attaboys come by email. Personal appearances are never a good sign.”

  There was no time for further discussion. The stairwell door opened, and the mayor’s heels clackety-clacked across the floor until she got to my desk.

  “Congratulations on breaking the Davenport case,” she said. “It was a home run.”

  The words were there, but the look on her face didn’t match. If we’d hit a home run, how come there was no joy in Mudville?

  “Thank you, ma’am,” I said. “Is something wrong?”

  “Everything is fucking wrong,” she said. “Morris Langford is a celebrity shrink—talk shows, news programs, magazines. Even people who never met a psychiatrist can tell you who he is. And now he’s going to be the focus of a murder trial where the key piece of evidence is a collection of videos that will give new meaning to the phrase ‘New York society’s most prominent members.’”

  “Madam Mayor,” Kylie said, “we know for a fact that the DA will do all he can to keep those tapes from seeing the light of day.”

  “Oh, I’m sure Mick Wilson can get a judge to rule them inadmissible at trial,” Sykes said. “But once the press becomes aware of their existence, they will stop at nothing to get their hands on them. Or at the very least get the name of every man who got caught with his pants around his ankles. To an investigative reporter, those videos are a Pulitzer waiting to happen.”

  If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my job it’s this: never get in the way of a person who outranks you when they’re blowing off steam. Kylie and I didn’t say a word.

  “Where are you on finding this mad bomber, Segura?” the mayor asked.

  “We’ve got thirty-five thousand cops out there looking for him,” Kylie said.

  “And I’ve got eight and a half million people looking over their shoulder, wondering if he’s going to cuff an exploding briefcase to their wrist,” the mayor said. “Find him. Fast.”

  She turned and started to walk away. Then she stopped and came back. “One more thing,” she said.

  It was bullshit. She didn’t have one more thing. This was the only thing. The mayor of the city of New York doesn’t drive over to East 67th Street to congratulate two cops on closing one case and bitch at them for not cracking another. She came because she needed something. But instead of straight out saying “I’m here because I need a favor,” she decided to make it look like it was an afterthought to our little heart-to-heart chat.

  “When was the last time either of you spoke to Princeton Wells?” she said.

  “I called him from Thailand to give him a heads-up about Segura,” Kylie said. “I think it was Sunday night New York time, so it’s been about three days.”

  “I’ve been trying to get hold of him, but he seems to be off the grid.”

  “Considering what happened to his partners, that kind of makes sense,” Kylie said.

  “Remember that little black-tie dinner at The Pierre hotel?” the mayor said. “A lot of powerful people donated a lot of money to build permanent housing for the homeless. Tremont Gardens is important to those donors and to this administration. We’re scheduled to break ground in two weeks, and I can’t get in touch with the man who is supposed to make it all happen. Someone has to tell Princeton Wells that just because the podium exploded
doesn’t mean the entire project gets blown up with it.”

  “Would you like us to reach out on your behalf?” Kylie said.

  “Excellent idea, Detective. Just don’t make it sound like I have NYPD running political errands for me. He’s holed up at his place. Pay him a visit. Reassure him that you’re close to catching Segura. Offer him police protection. Tell him we have to go back to business as usual, or the terrorists win. I don’t care what you say to him—just get him to call me.”

  This time she turned and left. She got what she came for and made it sound like it was Kylie’s idea to help.

  “I guess we’re going to Wells’s place,” I said. “You ready?”

  “I just need a minute to update my résumé,” Kylie said. “I’m going to add ‘Personal flunky to the mayor.’”

  CHAPTER 67

  Geraldo Segura smiled as he watched Carlotta step out of the front door of Princeton Wells’s mansion on Central Park West. He didn’t have to look at his watch to know exactly what time it was: 4:30 p.m. On the dot. Not a minute earlier, not a minute later. Carlotta was a creature of habit.

  Her key ring was already in her hand, and she double-locked the front door with a practiced twist, tossed the keys in her purse, and zipped it up.

  He raised the binoculars to his eyes. She had aged well over the years. She was in her sixties now. Her face was rounder, fuller, but her dark eyes were just as alert and intense as ever as she lifted the flap on the keypad at the front door and carefully punched in the security code.

  He trained his gaze on her fingers. Eight. One. One. Seven. Five. Gracias, Carlotta.

  He knew where she was going. She’d follow the same path she took every day, five days a week, for thirty-six years: a block and a half to the subway station at 72nd Street, catch the uptown C train, take it ten stops to West 155th Street, and walk another block and a half to her apartment on St. Nicholas Avenue.

  He and Carlotta had bonded from the very first day he set foot in Princeton Wells’s house. She was Salvadoran; he was Guatemalan. They had an almost identical coppery skin tone, a shared culture, and a mutual distrust of rich white people.

  He remembered asking her once why she didn’t ask Princeton’s mother to have the family chauffeur drive her home, or at least pay for a cab.

  “Mrs. Wells, she offered,” Carlotta said. “But I say ‘No thank you very much.’”

  “Why would you turn down a ride in a limo?” he asked.

  “A ride in a limo is wonderful,” she said. “But getting out of a limo in my neighborhood is not so smart. When you take the subway, nobody notices you.”

  And Carlotta definitely did not want to be noticed. Thanks to the Wells family, she was a permanent legal resident of the United States, but her husband, Milton, his two brothers, and three of her cousins were not.

  He watched her walk purposefully toward the station. When she was halfway down the stairs, he stepped out of the shadows and followed her. God, how he wished they could reconnect. If she saw him, she’d scoop him up in her arms and insist on taking him home and cooking up a big platter of pupusas.

  If only, he thought as he came up behind her and wrapped his left arm around her neck and pushed her head forward with his right hand, putting enough pressure on her carotid artery to cut off the blood flow to her brain.

  She went limp immediately, and he lowered her to the ground. He unzipped her purse, removed her keys, and went back up the stairs. She’d regain consciousness in a few minutes, check her purse, and breathe a sigh of relief when she saw that her wallet and her money were still there.

  She’d be home before she realized her keys were missing. But she wouldn’t call the cops to report the attack. Even though she could produce a green card, Carlotta would never invite la policía into her apartment when there were that many undocumented skeletons in her family closet.

  Segura walked back toward Wells’s home, tapped the digits 81175 into the keypad, and unlocked the door. As soon as he stepped inside, he heard the beep-beep-beep of the alarm system asking for yet another security code that would prove he was not an intruder.

  That was easy. He’d learned it years ago, and he was sure it would never change. The password was 36459, which spelled e-m-i-l-y on the keypad.

  Emily Gerson Wells was Princeton’s great-grandmother. Her singular sense of design and elegance permeated every corner of the mansion. Her portrait, painted by the renowned John Singer Sargent, hung over the mantel in the great room. And lest anyone forget their heritage, her name had to be spelled out every time one of her heirs wanted passage into the grand home that was her legacy.

  Segura tapped in Emily’s name, and the beeping stopped.

  Back in the day, Princeton’s father had an imposing office on the second floor. The old man had died a few years ago, so the office would be Princeton’s now. Segura trod silently up the stairs, put his ear to the mahogany door, and heard the soulful voice of Mary J. Blige coming from inside.

  He opened the door and stepped over the threshold. Princeton was stretched out on a leather sofa, a book in one hand, a drink on the table at his side. He looked up at the bronze hard-bodied ghost from his past, and he froze.

  “Hello, Princeton,” Segura said. “I see you’re still a reader. Is it a good book?”

  “Hello, Geraldo,” Wells said. “Yes, I’m enjoying it.”

  Segura nodded. “Too bad you’re not going to live long enough to finish it.”

  CHAPTER 68

  “Would you care for a drink before you kill me?” Wells asked.

  “No thanks. But feel free to finish yours.”

  Wells sat up on the sofa and downed his drink. “Do you mind if I have one more for the long journey ahead?” he said, getting up and going to the bar.

  “You’re taking this rather calmly,” Segura said.

  “Geraldo, it’s not like I didn’t expect you. Even so, I’m rather in awe of how you slipped in the way you did.”

  “It helps to have a history. I’ll leave these here for Carlotta.” He dropped her key ring on the desk. “So tell me something: if you knew I was coming, why didn’t you get out of the country? You have a plane. You have money. You could have gone anywhere.”

  “I didn’t want to go anywhere,” Wells said, pouring from a bottle of Balvenie thirty-year single malt. “New York is my home. My work is here. My charity is here. My whole life is here. I decided I’d wait for you to show up and try to do what I do best.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Negotiate.”

  Segura laughed. “You mean beg for mercy like Nathan did.”

  “Give me a little credit, will you? I’m not begging. I’m trying to increase the value of my life.”

  “It’s like old times, Princeton. You’ve totally lost me.”

  “Right now I’m worth nothing to you. You kill me, and I’m dead. End of story. But what if I said I’d give you a hundred dollars not to kill me? Now I’m no longer worth nothing. Now it’s going to cost you a hundred bucks to kill me.”

  Segura laughed. “And worth every penny. Pour me a little of that Scotch, will you?”

  Wells took a clean rocks glass from the bar, added three fingers of the single malt, and handed it to Segura.

  “You trying to get me drunk, mate?”

  “I don’t think that would help my case. Now, where were we?”

  “It was costing me a hundred dollars to whack you, and I happily paid the price.”

  “Now what if I said a million dollars? You’d probably still kill me, but you’d walk out of the room knowing that revenge cost you a million dollars. You see where I’m going with this?”

  “You’re very good at these high-finance shenanigans, aren’t you? So now you’re going to try to come up with a number that would make me think, I can’t kill the fucker. It’s going to cost me a fortune.”

  “That’s the plan,” Wells said. “It’s a gentleman’s game. Very civilized. All I have to do is make me worth so muc
h money alive that you realize you can’t afford to kill me.”

  “You took twenty years of my life,” Segura said. “Do you think I can put a price on that?”

  “I think you already have, Geraldo. That’s why you’re here. Del, Arnie, and Nathan all paid for what we did to you. If you kill me, you’ll have exacted revenge. But what about justice? Shouldn’t one of us compensate you for your twenty years of pain and suffering? Shouldn’t one of us pay for the forty or fifty years you have left ahead of you? I’m the only one with those kinds of resources. That’s why I’m still alive, and you’re here drinking my single malt.”

  Segura grinned. “You’re right. In the beginning, I wanted to mow down the four of you with an AK-47. But as I got closer to freedom, I realized that while four dead former friends would make me feel good for a few brief moments, three dead and a shitload of money would keep me happy forever.”

  “Hallelujah,” Wells said, tossing down half of his drink. “So tell me the number you have in your head, and we can both get a second chance at life.”

  “Five million dollars—”

  “Done,” Wells said quickly.

  “A year,” Segura said. “Five million dollars for every year I spent in that rat-infested shithole wearing leg-irons and shackles in the stupefying heat, choking on the stench from the communal latrine, while you got fatter and richer, never once lifting a finger to rescue me from the hell you subjected me to.”

  “A hundred million dollars,” Wells said, making it sound partly like a statement, partly like a question.

  “Take it or leave it.”

  “Clearly you’re very good at these high-finance shenanigans yourself,” Wells said. “I’ll take it.”

  “You can wire it to my offshore account. I’ll give you the number.”

  Wells sat down at his computer and began to type. “One question,” he said. “How do I know you won’t wait for me to wire the money and then kill me?”

  “You took my youth, my dream years, but my honor is still intact. If I take your blood money, I swear on the graves of my parents that I won’t kill you. Not now. Not ever. And once I walk out that door, you’ll never see me or hear from me again.”