Kill Alex Cross (Alex Cross 18)

He answered on the first ring. “I thought you might call,” he said.

SAMPSON WAS ON board the minute I told him what I wanted to do. He knew I couldn’t ask outright, so he volunteered, and I was just desperate enough to accept. John is six nine, with the kind of arms Michael Vick might wish for. Plus he had exactly the skill set I needed to back me up.

And Ned Mahoney had the tools. He was carrying a small messenger bag when we picked him up at a Park and Ride in North Fairlington.

With twelve years on Hostage and Rescue, Ned was the break-in expert of our group. For the rest of the ride, he did most of the talking. Planning. I just drove and listened.

By two thirty a.m., the three of us were huddled around the back door of Rodney Glass’s condo in Alexandria. It was an attached duplex with a well-lit shared driveway in front, but a lawn and pool area in the back that was all dark and closed up for the night.

I held a penlight for Ned while he unrolled a leather kit of picks and tension wrenches, each one in its own pocket. Usually Ned’s all about the forty-pound battering ram, but he knows how to do small and quiet, too.

Less than ten seconds after he’d angled the first pick into the dead bolt, it turned with a soft click.

The lock on the doorknob went even faster.

I took it from there and led the way inside. It was dark and quiet on the first floor. We stopped there to pull the black balaclavas down over our faces. Honestly, it wasn’t a good feeling. Seeing Ned and John in their masks really drove home for me what we were doing. This was nowhere I ever thought I’d be, but there was no turning back now.

For that matter, I didn’t want to. I wanted to save those kids if they were still alive.

We went in a line up the hall to the front of the house. The stairs were carpeted, and therefore no problem. It didn’t take long before we were standing outside Glass’s open bedroom door. I could hear him snoring and saw his outline, sleeping on his back with one arm thrown over his head.

I signaled John to take one side of the bed. I hurried around and took the other. Mahoney stayed at the foot with his first syringe uncapped and ready.

Then I counted it down for them on my fingers.

Three — two —

All at once, Glass roared awake. He rolled toward me and reached for something under the mattress, but John was already there to pull his arm back. I stuck my hand into the same place and felt the contours of a pistol. He was an avid hunter, I knew, with several legally registered firearms in his name. I left the pistol where it was.

As soon as Sampson had him, I tore off a length of duct tape and pressed it over Glass’s mouth. Then I pushed him facedown into the mattress while John slapped a pair of speed cuffs onto his wrists.

Mahoney was next. He knelt on the bed, flipped back the covers, and jammed a needle into his hip. Glass tried to scream from behind the tape. Then his whole body went rigid like he was being Tasered.

The rush of adrenaline made him even harder to handle, but that didn’t last long. Within a minute, his limbs started to go slack. Every sound he made got a little weaker, until they’d ebbed into a kind of lazy, constant hum. He shuddered the way we sometimes do at the edge of sleep. He wasn’t completely out, but he was completely useless, for the time being.

“That’s it,” Ned said. “We’re good to go.”

We hustled him into some pants and down the stairs, holding him up, dragging his legs. At the door, I threw a jacket over his shoulders to hide the cuffs. Then we walked him out to the car in a tight group.

As we took off, I had no doubt in my mind that, ultimately, we were doing the right thing. Rodney Glass knew where Ethan and Zoe were. He had to know. But God help us if I was wrong, I thought.

In fact, God help us, period.

We were kidnapping Glass.

“WAKE UP. WAKE up right now!”

It all happened very fast. Hala hadn’t meant to fall asleep. Now someone was there, shining a bright light in her eyes. By instinct, her hand went straight to the Sig in her lap. Before she could reach it, the point of another pistol came out of the light. It stopped just short of her forehead.

“Don’t, sister!” the other woman said. “Please. We’re from The Family. We’ve come to get you. We’re only here to help.”

“Hala?” Tariq was just stirring. The infection in his hand had left him feverish and bleary. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Someone is here. They say they’re from The Family.”

“We have to hurry,” a man’s voice said. “And I’ll take that weapon.”

Her finger tensed on the trigger. “I don’t think so,” she said.