Pop Goes the Weasel (Alex Cross 5)

“Not now. Not here,” I said in a hoarse, raw whisper. “I’m not going to hit you, Shafer. What? Have you run to the newspapers and TV? But I am going to bring you down. Soon.”

He came out with a crazy laugh. “You are fucking hilarious, do you know that? You’re a scream. I love it.”

I walked away from Shafer in the dark tunnel. It was the hardest thing I’d ever had to do. I wanted to beat the answers out of him, get a confession. I wanted to know about Christine. I had so many questions, but I knew he wouldn’t answer them. He was here to bait me, to play.

“You’re losing… everything,” he said to my back.

I think I could have killed Geoffrey Shafer on the spot.

I almost turned, but I didn’t. I opened the creaking door and went outside instead. Sunlight streamed into my eyes, half blinding me for a dizzying moment. Shading my face with an arm, I climbed the stone stairs to the parking area, where I got another unwanted surprise.

A dozen grim-faced members of the press, including some well-known reporters, were gathered in the back parking lot. Someone had alerted them; someone had tipped them off that I was coming out this way.

I looked back at the gray metal door, but Geoffrey Shafer didn’t come out behind me. He had retreated and disappeared back into the basement.

“Detective Cross,” I heard a reporter call my name. “You’re losing this case. You know that, don’t you?”

Yes, I knew. I was losing everything. I just didn’t know what I could do to stop it.

Chapter 98

THE FOLLOWING DAY was taken up with my cross-examination by Catherine Fitzgibbon. Catherine did a good job of redressing some of the harm done by Jules Halpern, but not all of it. Halpern consistently broke up her rhythm with his objections. Like so many recent high-profile trials, this one was maddening. It should have been easy to convict and put away Geoffrey Shafer, but that wasn’t the case.

Two days later, we got our best chance to win, and Shafer himself gave it to us, almost as if he were daring us. We now realized that he was even crazier than we’d thought. The game was his life; nothing else seemed to matter.

Shafer agreed to take the stand. I think I was the only one in the courtroom who wasn’t completely surprised that he was testifying, that he was playing the game right in front of us.

Catherine Fitzgibbon was almost certain that Jules Halpern had advised, begged, and warned him not to do it, but there Shafer was anyway, striding toward the witness stand, looking as if he had been called up there to be ceremoniously knighted by the queen.

He couldn’t resist the stage, could he? He looked every bit as confident and in control as he had the night I arrested him for Patsy Hampton’s murder. He was dressed in a navy-blue double-breasted suit, white shirt, and gold tie. Not a single blond hair was out of place, nor was there any hint of the anger that was boiling just under the surface of his meticulously groomed exterior.

Jules Halpern addressed him in conversational tones, but I was sure that he felt uneasy about this unnecessary gamble.

“Colonel Shafer, first, I want to thank you for coming to the witness stand. This is completely voluntary on your part. From the very beginning, you’ve stated that you wanted to come here to clear your name.”

Shafer smiled politely and then cut off his lawyer with a raised hand. The lawyers on both sides of the bar exchanged looks. What was happening? What was he going to do?

I leaned way forward in my seat. It struck me that Jules Halpern might actually know that his client was guilty. If so, he wouldn’t be able to cross-examine him. Legally, he couldn’t ask questions that disguised the real facts as he knew them.

This was the only way Shafer could have his moment in the sun: a soliloquy. Once called to the stand, Shafer could give a speech. It was unusual but absolutely legal—and if Halpern knew that his client was guilty, it was the only way Shafer could take the stand and not be incriminated by his own attorney.

Shafer had the floor. “If you will please excuse me, Mr. Halpern, I believe I can talk to these good people myself. I really can manage. You see, I don’t need a lot of expert help to tell the simple truth.”

Jules Halpern stepped back, nodded sagely, and tried to keep his poise. What else could he do under the circumstances? If he hadn’t known before that his client was an egomaniac or insane, he surely knew it now.

Shafer looked toward the jury. “It has been stated here in court that I am with British intelligence, and that I was MI-Six, a spy. I’m afraid that I am actually a rather unglamorous agent—Double-or-Nothing, if you will.”

The light, well-aimed jab at himself drew laughter in the courtroom.

“I am a simple bureaucrat, like so many others who toil away their days and nights in Washington. I follow well-established procedures at the embassy. I get approvals for virtually everything I do. My homelife is simple and orderly as well. My wife and I have been married nearly sixteen years. We love each other dearly. We’re devoted to our three children.

“So I want to apologize to my wife and children. I am so frightfully sorry for this hellish ordeal they’ve had to go through. To my son, Rob, and the twins, Tricia and Erica, I’m so sorry. If I’d had any idea what a circus this would become, I would have insisted on maintaining diplomatic immunity rather than trying to clear my name, our name, their name.

“While I’m making heartfelt apologies, I’ll make one to all of you for being a bit of a bore right now. It’s just that when you’re accused of murder, something so heinous, so unthinkable, you want desperately to get it off your chest. You want to tell the truth more than anything else in the world. So that’s what I’m doing today.

“You’ve heard the evidence—and there simply isn’t any. You’ve heard character witnesses. And now you’ve heard from me. I did not kill Detective Patsy Hampton. I think you all know that, but I wanted to say it to you myself. Thank you for listening,” he said, and bowed slightly in his seat.

Shafer was brief, but he was poised and articulate and, unfortunately, very believable. He always held eye contact with the jury members. His words weren’t nearly as important as the way he delivered them.