Cross the Line (Alex Cross 24)

When Potter looked back, Whitaker was gazing at him sympathetically.

Click. Click.

The colonel pressed the push-button device the DEA agent used to control his narcotic drip. Whitaker had used one of these hundreds of times after his war injury.

Click. Click.

The colonel said, “I’m giving you a monster dose of morphine here, George. It will help things go quicker.”

Potter looked puzzled until he glanced at Whitaker’s right hand. The colonel held a hypodermic needle attached to an empty syringe; he’d taken it from a medical-waste container in the bathroom. The colonel pulled the plunger of the syringe back and inserted the needle into the injection port of the DEA agent’s IV line.

“What the hell are you doing?” Potter asked even as the narcotic hit him in a rush and he started to swoon and slur. “What’s in that…syringe, Colonel?”

“Air,” Whitaker said, and he pressed the plunger down.

Chapter

93

Bree Stone and Kurt Muller pulled into the Fort Hill Rifle and Pistol Club in rural Cumberland, Maryland. After the winds the night before, it was a calm, late-summer day in the Mid-Atlantic, a perfect afternoon for the national combat-pistol championship regional qualifier.

The place was surprisingly packed. There were twenty or more motor homes parked at the Morningside Range. With the tents, flags, food vendors, and booths selling various wares, it could have been a county fair were it not for the irregular blasts of staccato gunfire coming from the range.

Bree and Muller pushed in foam ear protectors and donned sunglasses. Acting like spectators, they worked forward through the crowd to where they could see the competitors attack the course.

A shooter with a fancy custom pistol had just finished, and the score was going up on a digital readout by a judges’ table. Polite applause indicated it was only a so-so effort despite his tricked-out gun.

Next up was a Pennsylvania state trooper; he used his service pistol and shot well, knocking down two metal silhouettes at thirty yards and avoiding shooting a civilian target. When the course demanded the trooper move laterally while shooting, however, his weakness was revealed, and he turned in a score lower than the previous man’s.

Bree watched the competition with interest. She’d had combat-pistol training and scored reasonably well on yearly exams, but this course was set at an entirely different level. She saw several strong runs during the next forty minutes, but nothing spectacular, nothing close to perfection.

Then out stepped a tall, lanky guy wearing a Shooter’s Connection ball cap, black earmuffs, and rose-lensed sunglasses. Bree had been talking to Muller and missed the shooter’s name, but heard that he was using a CK Arms Hardcore pistol in .45 caliber with a holo sight.

When the buzzer went off, the shooter drew the pistol, leaped forward to the first line, and touched off two rounds. Two metal silhouettes tipped over at thirty yards. He killed the bad guy at the window of the next building. He held off on two civilian pop-up targets and hit everything else put in front of him clean and tight. When his pistol action locked open after the last target, the sign flashed a near-perfect score.

The crowd went wild, and even the shooter seemed amazed at his skill.

He walked back, smiling, his entire body balanced and fluid. Bree barely listened to the announcer’s remarks, just watched him and marveled at the shooting ability he’d just displayed.

“Best I’ve ever seen,” Muller said.

Bree said, “I think congratulations are in order.”

They angled through the spectators toward the tall shooter. He stopped at the judges’ desk, took off his sunglasses, and handed his weapon over for a brief inspection. Then he shook hands with one of the judges, joked with another, retrieved his gun, and left the area.

Bree and Muller followed, seeing him go to a pretty sandy-blond woman in the crowd. She patted him on the arm and smiled. They turned and walked away, heading toward the exit.

Bree and Muller waited until the couple had gotten to where the food and merchandise vendors were set up.

When they were in range, Bree called out, “Mrs. McGrath? I thought that was you.”

Chapter

94

Tommy McGrath’s widow looked startled. “Detective Stone? Kurt? What are you doing here?”

“It’s Chief Stone now, Vivian,” Muller said.