I, Alex Cross (Alex Cross 16)

Ned downed the last of his coffee, and I slid mine over to his side of the table. Some of the usual rev was coming back into him already. “This guy’s got a story he thinks might be important. And guess what, Alex. It is.”

Chapter 105

THERE WAS NO way Mahoney could get travel status for this. Even if it were his case, which it wasn’t, the Bureau watches out for our tax dollars by requiring agents to use the local field offices for out-of-state interviews. Ned had already traded a few electronic communications with the Mobile office, but in the end, we decided to fly to Alabama on our own nickel.

We arrived at Mobile Regional Airport late the next morning and rented a car from there.

Aubrey Johnson lived on Dauphin Island, about an hour south. It was a sleepy little village, at least this time of year, and we had no trouble finding his store—Big Daddy’s Fishing Tackle, on Cadillac Avenue.

“This is why we’re here? Big Daddy’s Fishing Tackle?” I said to Ned.

“Odd as it may seem, this is it, the end of the road. The conspiracy gets tripped up here. If we’re lucky, that is.”

“So let’s start getting lucky.”

Johnson was a tall, gregarious guy in his midfifties, and he ushered us in like a couple of old friends, just before he double-locked up behind us.

Ned had already questioned him on the phone, but Johnson repeated his story for me—how he’d been driving late one night on Route 33 in Virginia about a month ago, when a beautiful girl in a negligee stumbled out of the woods in front of his truck.

“Truth be told, I thought it was my lucky night,” he said, “until I saw what kind of terrible shape she was in. Any bigger caliber on that slug in her back and she would have been dead.”

Even so, the girl had insisted that Johnson keep driving, at least unti

l they were across the state line. He finally got her to an ER just outside Winston-Salem.

“Still, Annie wasn’t hanging around for any cops to show up,” he went on. “She told me she was either leaving there on foot or in my truck, so I drove her. Probably shouldn’t have, but what’s done is done. My wife and I have been looking after her ever since.”

“Her name is Annie?” I asked.

“I’ll get to that part,” Johnson said.

“Why did she come forward when she did?” I asked them. All I knew was that the contact between Mr. Johnson and Mahoney had started before the names Constantine Bowie and Zeus had ever made it into the headlines.

“That’s a little complicated,” he said. “She still hasn’t told us everything. We don’t even know her real name; we just call her Annie to keep things simple. When I tried putting out some feelers, there wasn’t much I could say, so I don’t think people took me too seriously. At least, not until Agent Mahoney here called me back. He was following up on a call I’d made to the FBI field office in Mobile.”

“And where is she now, Aubrey?” Ned asked.

“Not far.” Johnson took a set of keys off the counter. “I’ll let her speak for herself, but I will tell you this much. That fellow they’re calling Zeus on the news? She says you all got the wrong man. She isn’t Annie, and he isn’t Zeus.”

Chapter 106

JOHNSON LED US back through the village in his truck, almost to the mainland bridge.

Then he turned off and parked at the Dauphin Island Marina. Fewer than half of the slips were occupied, and the office and snack shack on the waterfront both looked closed and shuttered for the season.

We followed him up one of the three long docks to a sport fishing boat called the May. A heavyset woman, presumably Mrs. Johnson, was waiting on the deck. She looked at us a lot more skeptically than her husband had.

“This them?” she said.

“You know it is, May. Let’s go.”

She didn’t move. “This girl’s been through a living hell, do you understand me? You need to go easy with her.”

I had no quarrel with the attitude; actually, I was grateful for it. We assured Mrs. Johnson that we’d be good with the girl, and then followed her down to the little cabin below deck.

“Annie” was sitting in the crook of the dining banquette, looking drawn and nervous. Even so, she was an obviously beautiful girl, with the kind of china doll features that Tony Nicholson seemed to have favored for Blacksmith Farms. Her cargo pants and baggy pink sweatshirt were either borrowed or thrift shop specials, and she had a gray canvas sling on her right arm. She was huddled over, and when she moved, I could see that her back, where she’d been shot, still hurt quite a bit.

Mahoney started with introductions and asked if she was willing to give us her name.