Pop Goes the Weasel (Alex Cross 5)

“Actually, I talked to Kyle last night,” I said. “The Bureau’s been involved for some time. He’ll help out if we say the word.”

Sampson tossed me a pair of gloves, and I examined the cab’s backseat. I saw what could be bloodstains in the fabric of the seat cushion. The stains would be easy enough to check out.

John and I finally climbed upstairs into the apartment above the garage. It was dusty, grimy, without much furniture. Eerie and unpleasant on the eyes. It didn’t look as if anyone lived there, but if someone did, he was really weird. The landlady had said as much.

The kitchen was mostly empty. An expensive juicer was the only personal indulgence. Not a low-end model—expensive. I took out my handkerchief and opened the refrigerator. There was nothing in it but bottled water and some aging fruit. The fruit was rotting, and I hated to think of what else we might find here in the apartment.

“Health nut,” Sampson offered.

“Nut, anyway,” I said. “There’s a sense of animal fear in here. He gets very tense, excited, when he comes to this place.”

“Yeah,” Sampson said. “I know the feeling.”

We entered the bedroom, which was furnished with only a small cot, a couple of stuffed chairs, nothing else. The sense of fear was here, too.

I opened the closet door, and what I saw stopped me dead. There was a pair of khaki pants, a blue chambray shirt, a blue blazer —and something else.

“John, come here,” I called. “John!”

“Oh, shit. Do I have to? Not more bodies.”

“Just come here. It’s him. This is the Weasel’s place. I’m sure of it. It’s worse than a body.”

I opened the closet door wider and let Sampson see what I’d found there.

“Shit,” he groaned. “Goddamn it, Alex.”

Someone had put up pictures. Half a dozen black-and-white photographs were taped to the wall of the closet. It wasn’t a killer’s shrine; it was meant to be found.

There were pictures of Nana, Damon, Jannie, me, and Christine. Christine almost seemed to be smiling at the camera, that incredible smile of hers, those big, welcoming eyes.

The pictures had been taken in Bermuda. Whoever had rented this apartment had taken them. Finally, I had something to link Christine’s abduction to the murders in Washington. I knew who had taken her.

“Back off.

“Before you lose everything.”

I sensed fear again. It was my own.

Chapter 64

PATSY HAMPTON had decided that she wasn’t ready to confide in Chief George Pittman just yet. She didn’t want The Jefe interfering or crowding her. Also, she flat out didn’t trust or like the bastard.

She still hadn’t made up her mind what to do about Alex Cross. Cross was a complication. The more she checked him out, the better he looked. He seemed to be a very good, dedicated detective, and she felt bad about keeping Chuck Hufstedler’s information away from him. Chuck had been Cross’s source first, but she’d used the techie’s crush on her to gain an advantage. She didn’t like herself for doing that.

She drove her Jeep to the British Embassy late that afternoon. She had Geoffrey Shafer under limited surveillance—hers. She could get more teams, but that would mean going to Pittman now, and she didn’t want anyone to know what she had. She didn’t want to be crowded.

She had done her preliminary homework on Shafer. He was in the Security Service, which meant he was British intelligence, operating outside England. Most likely he was a spy working out of the embassy on Massachusetts Avenue. His reputation was okay—good, actually. His current assignment supposedly had to do with the British Government’s human-rights program, which meant the assignment was bullshit. He lived in Kalorama, a high-rent district, one he couldn’t afford on his salary. So who the hell was this Shafer chap?

Hampton sat parked in her vehicle outside the embassy on California Street. She smoked a Marlboro Light and started to think things through. She really ought to talk to Cross about where he was with his investigation. Did he know anything that could help? Maybe he was onto Shafer, too? It was almost criminal for her not to contact Cross and share what she’d gotten from Chucky Cheese.

Pittman’s dislike for Cross was well known; he considered him competition. She didn’t know Cross that well, but he got too many headlines. Still, she wished she knew what Cross had in his files, and especially whether Geoffrey Shafer had appeared on Cross’s radar.

There was too much fricking noise on the fricking street near the British Embassy. Workers were doing construction on the Turkish Chancery across California Street. Hampton already had a headache—her life was one big headache—and she wished they would stop pounding and hammering and battering and sawing. For some reason or other, there was a crowd of people swarming all over the National Mosque today.

At a few minutes past five, Shafer got into his Jaguar in a parking lot outside the glass-walled Rotunda.

She’d seen him twice before. He was in very good shape, and attractive, too, though not a physical type she herself responded to. Shafer sure didn’t hang around long after the workday ended. Hampton figured he either had someplace to go or really hated his day job. Possibly both.