Cross the Line (Alex Cross 24)

He would not die this way. He would not die in the dark.

THE SOLDIER WATCHED through the rifle scope as the kid stumbled, his remaining hand gripping at the stump. The Soldier had seen the Barrett M82 rifle take heads clean off necks in the Gaza Strip, and in the Australian desert the weapon didn’t disappoint. Lying flat on his belly on a ridge, the Soldier actioned the huge black rifle, set the upper rim of his eye against the scope. He breathed, shifted back, pulled the trigger, and watched the kid collapse as the scare shot whizzed past his ear.

What next? A leg? An ear? The Soldier was surprised at his own callousness. He knew it wasn’t military justice to play with the traitor while doling out his sentence, but the rage still burned in him.

You would have given us away, he seethed as he watched the boy running in the dark. You would have sacrificed us all.

There was no lesser creature on Earth than a liar, a cheat, and a traitor. And bringing about a fellow soldier’s end was never easy. In some ways, it felt like a second betrayal. Look what you’ve forced me to do, the Soldier thought, watching the kid screaming into the wind. The Soldier let the boy scream. The wind would carry his voice south, away from the camp.

The cry of a traitor. He would remember it for his own times of weakness.

The Soldier shifted in the sand, lined up a headshot, and followed Danny in the crosshairs as he got up one last time.

“Target acquired,” the Soldier murmured to himself, exhaling slowly. “Executing directive.”

He pulled the trigger. What the Soldier saw through the scope made him smile sadly. He rose, flicked the bipod down on the end of the huge gun, and slung the weapon over his shoulder.

“Target terminated. Mission complete.”

He walked down the embankment into the dark.

IT WAS CHIEF MORR

IS who called me into the interrogation room. He was sitting on the left of the table, in one of the investigators’ chairs, and motioned for me to sit on the right where the perps sit.

“What?” I said. “What’s this all about, Pops? I’ve got work to do.”

His face was grave. I hadn’t seen him look that way since the last time I punched Nigel over in Homicide for taking my parking spot. The Chief had been forced to give me a serious reprimand, on paper, and it hurt him.

“Sit down, Detective Blue,” he said.

Holy crap, I thought. This is bad. I know I’m in trouble when the Chief calls me by my official title.

The truth is, most of our time together is spent far from the busy halls of the Sydney Police Centre in Surry Hills.

I was twenty-one when I started working Sex Crimes. It was my first assignment after two years on street patrol, so I moved into the Sydney Metro offices with more than a little terror in my heart at my new role and the responsibility that came with it. I’d been told I was the first woman in the Sex Crimes department in half a decade. It was up to me to show the boys how to handle women in crisis. The department was broken; I needed to fix it, fast. The Chief had grunted a demoralized hello at me a few times in the coffee room in those early weeks, and that had been it. I’d lain awake plenty of nights thinking about his obvious lack of faith in me, wondering how I could prove him wrong.

After a first month punctuated by a couple of violent rape cases and three or four aggravated assaults, I’d signed up for one-on-one boxing training at a gym near my apartment. From what I’d seen, I figured it was a good idea for a woman in this city to know how to land a swift uppercut. I’d waited outside the gym office that night sure that the young, muscle-bound woman wrapping her knuckles by the lockers was my trainer.

But it was Chief Morris in a sweaty gray singlet who tapped me on the shoulder and told me to get into the ring.

Inside the ropes, the Chief called me “Blue.” Inside the office, he grunted.

There was none of the warmth and trust shared by Blue and Pops in the ring here in the interrogation room. The Chief’s eyes were cold. I felt a little of that old terror from my first days on the job.

“Pops,” I said. “What’s the deal?”

He took the statement notepad and a pencil from beside the interview recorder and pushed them toward me.

“Make a list of items from your apartment that you’ll need while you’re away. It may be for weeks,” he said. “Toiletries. Clothes. That sort of stuff.”

“Where am I going?”

“As far away as you can get,” he sighed.

“Chief, you’re talking crazy,” I said. “Why can’t I go home and get this stuff myself?”

“Because right now your apartment is crawling with Forensics officers. Patrols have blockaded the street. They’ve impounded your car, Detective Blue,” he said. “You’re not going home.”