Jack & Jill (Alex Cross 3)

CHAPTER

42

A SECRET SERVICE AGENT named James McLean, one of Jay Grayer’s lieutenants, walked me around the White House. More than a million visitors come here every year, but this was the show none of them got. This was the real deal.

Instead of the usual tour of Library, East, Blue, Green, and Red Rooms, I got to see the private family quarters on the second and third floors. I requested a viewing of the President’s offices in the West Wing, as well as Vice President Mahoney’s in the Executive Office Building.

As the two of us wandered through the impressive Center Hall, with its bright yellow color scheme, I half expected either “Ruffles and Flourishes” or “Hail to the Chief” to suddenly ring out.

Agent McLean was filling me in on details about security at the White House. The grounds were covered by audio and pressure sensors, electronic eyes, and infrared. A SWAT team was on the roof at all times now. Helicopters were less than two and a half minutes away. Somehow, I wasn’t comforted by the tight security.

“What do you think of all this?” McLean asked as he led me into the Cabinet Room. It was dominated by serious-looking leather chairs, each bearing a brass plaque with the cabinet member’s title. A very impressive place to visit.

“What I’m thinking is that every person working here has to be checked out,” I said.

“They’ve all been checked, Alex.”

“I know that. They haven’t been checked by me, though. We need to check them all over again. I’d like each of them run against an interest in poetry or literature, even college degrees in literature; any kind of film-making experience; painting, sculpting, any endeavor requiring creativity. I’d like to know what magazines they subscribe to. Also their charitable contributions.”

If McLean had an opinion on all that, he kept it to himself. “Anything else?” he asked.

We were looking out over the Rose Garden. I could see office buildings off in the distance, so I assumed they could see us. I didn’t like that too much.

“Yeah, I’m afraid so,” I went on. “While we’re doing those background checks, we need to look at everyone in the crisis group. You can start with me.”

Agent James McLean stared at me for a long moment.

“You’re shitting me, aren’t you?” he finally spoke his mind.

I spoke my mind, too. “I shit you not. This is a murder investigation. This is how it’s done.”

The dragonslayer had come to the White House.

CHAPTER

43

THE PHOTOJOURNALIST had chosen a conservative dark gray suit and a striped rep’s tie for the sold-out performance of Miss Saigon at the Kennedy Center.

He had cut his grayish blond hair short; the ponytail was long gone. He no longer wore a diamond stud earring. It was doubtful whether anyone he knew would have recognized him. Just as it should be, as it had to be from now until the end of the game.

“Seems like old times,” Kevin Hawkins sang softly as he crossed a parking lot facing USA Today headquarters across the river in Rosslyn.

“Keep those big presses running,” he muttered under his breath. “Might have something for you later. Might just have a big, late-breaking story tonight at the Kennedy Center. Quien sabe?”

He was so glad to be back in Washington, where he’d lived at various times in the past. He was happy to be back in the game as well. The game of games, he couldn’t help thinking, and believing it in his heart. Code name: Jack and Jill. Intrigue just didn’t get any better than this. It couldn’t.

There were two essential parts to his psychological buildup as he approached the difficult evening ahead. The first part was to make himself as cautious, as suspicious, as paranoid, as he possibly could. The second part, equally important, was to pump himself up with a full megadose of confidence so that he would succeed.

He could not fail. He would not fail, he told himself. His job was to murder someone—often a well-known someone, sometimes in public view—and not get caught.

In public view.

And not get caught.

So far, he had never been caught in the act.

He found it curious, although not particularly disturbing anymore, that he had little or no conscience, no guilt about the killings; and yet he could be perfectly normal in many other areas of his life. His sister, Eileen, for example, called him the “last believer” and the “last patriot.” Her children thought he was the nicest, kindest Uncle Kevin imaginable. His parents back in Hudson adored him. He had plenty of nice, normal, close friends all around the globe. And yet here he was, ready for another cold-blooded kill. Looking forward to it, actually. Craving it.