Cross (Alex Cross 12)

He was a little paranoid about working again, and with pretty good reason, but he’d gotten the job through a solid contact in the Boston area. He trusted the guy, at least as far as he could throw him. And he needed the six-figure payday.

A possible break finally came on Long Acre near the Covent Garden underground station. The girl jumped out of the car at a stoplight, started to walk off—and the older man got out as well.

Michael Sullivan pulled over to the curb immediately, and he simply abandoned his car. The rental could never be traced back to him anyway. The move was a classic in that most people wouldn’t even think of doing it, but he couldn’t have cared less about just leaving the car in the middle of London. The car was of no consequence.

He figured the driver-bodyguard wouldn’t do the same with the two-hundred-thousand-dollar Mercedes, and that he had several minutes before the guy caught up with them again.

The streets around the Covent Garden Piazza were densely packed with pedestrians, and he could see the couple, their heads bobbing, laughing, probably about their “escape” from the bodyguard. He followed them down James Street. They continued to laugh and talk, with not a care in the world.

Big, big mistake.

He could see a glass-roof-covered market up ahead. And a crowd gathered around street performers dressed as white marble statues that only moved when someone threw them a coin.

Then, suddenly, he was on top of the couple, and it felt right, so he fired the silenced Beretta—two heart shots.

The girl went down like a throw rug had been pulled out from under her two feet.

He had no idea who she was, who had wanted her dead or why, and he didn’t care one way or the other.

“Heart attack! Someone had a heart attack!” he called out as he let the gun drop from his fingertips, turned, and disappeared into the thickening crowd. He headed up Neal Street past a couple of pubs with Victorian exteriors and found his abandoned car right where he left it. What a nice surprise.

It was safer to stay in London overnight, but then he was on a morning flight back to Washington.

Easy money—like always, or at least how it had been for him before the cock-up in Venice, which he still had to deal with in a major way.

Chapter 56

JOHN AND I MET that night for a little light sparring at the Roxy Gym after my last therapy session. The practice was building steadily, and my days there made me happy and satisfied for the first time in a few years.

The quaint idea of normality was in my head a lot now, though I’m not sure what the word really meant.

“Get your elbows in,” Sampson said, “before I knock your damn head off.”

I pulled them in. It didn’t help much, though.

The big man caught me with a good right jab that stung like only a solid punch can. I swung and connected solidly with his open side, which seemed to hurt my hand more than it hurt him.

It went on like that for a while, but my mind never really got into the ring. After less than twenty minutes, I held up my gloves, feeling an ache in both shoulders.

“TKO,” I said through my mouthpiece. “Let’s go get a drink.”

Our “drink” turned out to be bottles of red Gatorade on the sidewalk in front of the Roxy. Not what I’d had in mind, but it was just fine.

“So,” Sampson said, “either I’m getting a whole lot better in there or you were out of it tonight. Which is it?”

“You aren’t getting better,” I deadpanned.

“Still thinking about yesterday? What? Talk to me.”

We both had felt lousy about the tough interview with Lisa Brandt. It’s one thing to push a witness like that and get somewhere; it’s another to probe hard and get nothing out of it.

I nodded. “Yesterday, yeah.”

Sampson slid down the wall to sit next to me on the sidewalk. “Alex, you’ve got to get off the worry train.”

“Nice bumper sticker,” I told him.

“I thought things were going pretty good for you,” he said. “Lately anyway.”