The Big Bad Wolf (Alex Cross 9)

I was finishing breakfast with Nana and Rosie the cat at the kitchen table when I heard the morning paper plop on the front porch.

“Sit. You eat. I’ll get it,” I told Nana as I pushed my chair away from the table.

“No argument from this corner,” Nana said, and sipped her tea with great little-old-lady aplomb. “I have to conserve myself, you know.”

“Right.”

Nana was still cleaning every square inch of the house, inside and out, and cooking most of the meals. A couple of weeks ago I’d caught her hanging on to an extension ladder, cleaning out the gutters on the roof. “It’s not a problem,” she hollered down to me. “My balance is excellent and I’m light as a parachute.” Come again?

The Washington Post hadn’t actually reached the porch. It lay open halfway up the sidewalk. I didn’t even have to stoop to read the front page.

“Awhh, hell,” I said. “Damn it.”

This wasn’t good. It was awful, actually. I almost couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

The headline was a shocker: ABDUCTIONS OF TWO WOMEN MAY BE CONNECTED. Worst of all, the rest of the story contained very specific details that only a few people in the FBI knew. Unfortunately, I was one of them.

Key was the story told about a couple—a man and a woman—who had been seen at the most recent kidnapping in Pennsylvania. I felt sick in the pit of my stomach. The eyewitness account given by Audrey Meek’s children was information that we hadn’t wanted released to the press.

Somebody had leaked the story to the Post; somebody had also connected the dots for them. Other than maybe Bob Woodward, nobody at the newspaper could have done it by themselves. They weren’t that smart.

Who had leaked information to the Post?

Why?

It didn’t make sense. Was somebody trying to sabotage the investigation? Who?

Chapter 28

I DIDN’T WALK Jannie and Damon to school Monday morning. I sat out on the sunporch with the cat and played the piano—Mozart, Brahms. I had the guilty thought that I should have gotten up earlier and helped out at St. Anthony’s soup kitchen. I usually pitch in a couple mornings a week, often on Sundays. My church.

Traffic was terrible that morning and the frustrating drive down to Quantic

o took me almost an hour and a half. I imagined SSA Nooney standing at the front gates, waiting impatiently for me to arrive. At least the drive gave me time to think over my current situation. I decided the best course of action, for now, anyway, was to go to my classes. Keep my head down. If Director Burns wanted me on White Girl, he’d get word to me. If not, then fine.

That morning the class centered on what the Bureau called a “practical application exercise.” We had to investigate a fictitious bank robbery in Hogans Alley, including interviews with witnesses and tellers. The instructor was another very competent SSA named Marilyn May.

About half an hour into the exercise, Agent May notified the class of a fictitious automobile accident about a mile from the bank. We proceeded as a group to investigate the accident, and to see if it had any connection to the bank robbery. I was being conscientious, but I’d been involved in actual investigations like this for the past dozen years, and it was hard for me to take it too seriously, especially since some of my classmates conducted interviews according to the instructional manual. I thought maybe they’d watched cop shows on television too often. Agent May seemed amused at times herself.

As I stood around the accident scene with a new buddy who had been a captain in the army before going into the Bureau, I heard my name spoken. I turned to see Nooney’s administrative assistant. “Senior Agent Nooney wants to see you in his office,” he said.

Oh, Christ, what now? This guy is nuts! I was thinking as I walked quickly to Administration. I hurried upstairs to where Nooney was waiting.

“Shut the door, please,” he said. He was seated behind a scarred oak desk, looking as if someone close to him had died.

I was getting hot under the collar. “I’m in the middle of an exercise.”

“I know what you’re doing. I wrote the program and the schedule,” he said. “I want to talk to you about the front page of today’s Washington Post,” he went on. “You see it?”

“I saw it.”

“I spoke to your former chief of detectives this morning. He told me that you’ve used the Post before. He said you have friends there.”

I tried hard not to roll my eyes. “I used to have a good friend at the Post. He was murdered. I don’t have friends there anymore. Why would I leak information about the abductions? What would I gain?”

Nooney pointed a rigid finger my way. He raised his voice. “I know how you work. And I know what you’re after—you don’t want to be part of a team. Or to be controlled or influenced in any way. Well, it’s not going to happen that way. We don’t believe in golden boys or special situations. We don’t think that you’re more imaginative or creative than anyone else in your class. So get back to your exercise, Dr. Cross. And wise up.”

Without saying another word, I left the office, fuming. I returned to the fake accident scene which Agent Marilyn May soon neatly connected to the fake robbery that had been staged in Hogans Alley. Some program that Nooney had written. I could have done a better one in my sleep. And yeah, now I was mad. I just didn’t know who I was supposed to be mad at. I didn’t know how to play this game.