Kill Alex Cross (Alex Cross 18)

I came back and stood in the alley between the tack wall and the stalls, shining my Maglite in every direction. What were we missing? Were the kids even here?

As I came around again, I noticed that all but one of the stalls were empty. The one farthest from the door was piled high with junk. It looked like someone had taken everything they could find and dumped it in one place. Why?

“Hey!” I yelled. “Hey! Give me a hand!”

By the time Ned and Sampson found me, I was already throwing splintered wooden pallets and loose lumber out of the stall. There was a truck axle, a few bundles of rusted wire mesh, some concrete pilings, and an old corn shucker — the kind of thing I hadn’t laid eyes on since I was a little kid in North Carolina.

As soon as the space was clear, we dropped down and started brushing away the dirt and gravel and old remnants of hay.

While I did, I noticed some of the debris was trickling down through a crack in the boards. Right away, it showed itself as a straight line — and then a definite rectangle in the floor.

“It’s a door!” John said, and we dug our fingers into the gap.

We heaved straight up and flung open the whole panel. Then we picked up our flashlights and shone them down into the space we’d just opened.

“Oh, my God,” Mahoney said. “Oh, no.”

Sampson and I stood there, speechless.

Just below floor level, there was a layer of dirt. It was dark, and moist, and looked like fresh earth to me. Like someone had only recently filled this hole.

The only other thing to see was the top of an old wooden ladder, just breaking the surface.

It looked like a grave.

And behind me, I could still hear Rodney Glass laughing in the car.

BY SIX THIRTY A.M., THE old abandoned farm was a full-blown federal crime scene, and it was lit up like Nationals stadium on a game night. The tension was unbelievable. I could see it on every face. I’m sure the others could see it on mine.

A military excavation crew had been driven up from Fort Detrick. Peter Lindley sent a team from the Crisis Management Unit in DC to supervise the logistics, including security.

Even the Frederick County Sheriff’s department was kept out on the road. And word was that the Bureau director himself, Ron Burns, was on his way to the scene. I didn’t doubt it for a second. I wondered if the president or First Lady would come here. I hoped not, for their sakes.

The toughest part was not knowing what to expect. Nobody was calling this a recovery mission yet, but no one was calling it a rescue, either. The feel

ing on the farm was incredibly intense. I’ve never seen such a huge operation get under way so quietly, and with so much mystery.

After a fast consult with an engineering unit from Quantico, it was decided that all the digging would be done by hand. There was a rotating auger and mini excavator parked in the yard, but this root cellar was a complete question mark. We couldn’t risk the machinery, or the vibrations it would cause.

Three soldiers in fatigues and headlamps got right to it. They worked with sawed-off shovels, taking shallow scoops as quickly and as carefully as possible.

Even the soil itself had to be loaded out, bucket by bucket, for transport to the Bureau’s forensics lab.

Ned, Sampson, and I split up. John helped haul equipment at first, and then dirt, as the digging got under way. Mahoney ran interference on Rodney Glass, who was sleeping off the last of his scopolamine in the back of a Bureau car. As for what Glass would say, or even remember, when he woke up, I couldn’t be bothered right now. I had other things on my mind.

I spent my time with two of the Bureau’s witness-victim specialists, Agents Wardrip and Daya. Both of them had extensive backgrounds in child and trauma psychology and knew a great deal about the impact that something like this could have on a kid. Survival was just the beginning.

I told them everything I knew about the case, but it was a tough conversation. We needed to be ready for the best and worst possible outcomes at the same time. The longer this went on, the harder it was to stay optimistic.

But then around seven thirty, everything changed.

I was outside with Wardrip and Daya when word started circulating that the crew had found something. We dropped everything and ran inside.

As I came to the edge of the stall, I saw one of the three soldiers, up to his waist in the hole. He was conferring with the special agent in charge from DC, while the other two were crouched down under the floorboards, furiously pulling dirt away from one side with their hands.

So far, the digging had exposed only an old stone and mortar wall under the barn. But now they’d come to a wooden frame of some kind, and beneath that, the beginnings of a steel panel. Or maybe a door.

I could hear the first soldier talking with the SAC now. He was excited, and his voice carried above all the other chatter around me.