Jack & Jill (Alex Cross 3)

Gunshots!

Thunderous, scary noise in the confined space. No thud of a bullet to my chest or head, thank God.

I saw Jeanne Sterling leaning out of the window of her station wagon. She had a semiautomatic clutched in one hand. I pushed myself up again.

Take her alive! my brain screamed as I ducked out of sight.

I had seen something else in the car. She had her youngest daughter with her. Her three-year-old, Karon. She was using Karon as a shield. She knew we wouldn’t shoot with the girl in the way. The little girl was screaming loudly. She was terrified. How could Jeanne Sterling do this to a child?

I crouched behind the oil tank in the darkened, cramped space. I was trying to think straight.

I shut my eyes for a beat. Half a second at most.

I drank in a huge breath of cold air and gasoline fumes. Tried to think in absolutely straight lines. I made a decision and hoped it was the right one.

When I came up again, I fired. I carefully aimed away from the little girl. But I fired.

I went down in the crouch again, hidden behind the dark tank. I knew I hadn’t hit anybody.

My shot had only been a warning, a final one. Andrew Klauk had been right when we’d talked in the Sterlings’ backyard. The CIA “ghost” was the one who told me all I needed to know right now—the game is played with no rules.

“Jeanne, put the goddamn gun down!” I called to her. “Your little girl is in danger.”

No answer came back, just terrifying silence.

Jeanne Sterling would do whatever it took to get away. She had murdered a president, ordered it done, helped plan every step. Would Jeanne Sterling really sacrifice her own child, though? For what? For money? A cause she and her husband believed in? What cause could be worth the life of a president? Of your own child?

Take her alive. Even if she deserves to die here in this garage. Execution-style.

I popped up again. I fired a second shot into the car windshield—the driver’s side, far right. Glass shattered all over the garage. Glass fragments sprayed against the ceiling, then rained back down again.

The noise was deafening in the closed space. Karon was sobbing and screeching.

I could see Jeanne Sterling through the mosaic of broken windshield glass. There was blood all over one side of her face. She looked startled and shocked. It’s one thing to plan a murder, quite another to be shot at. To be wounded. To take a hit. To feel that deadly thud in your own body.

I took three fast steps toward the Volvo station wagon.

I grabbed the car door and yanked it open. I kept my head down low, close to my chest. My teeth were gritted so hard that they hurt.

I grabbed a full handful of Jeanne Sterling’s blond hair. Then I hit her. I popped Jeanne with a full, hard shot. Same as her husband got. The right side of her face crunched as it met my fist.

Jeanne Sterling sagged over the steering wheel. She must have had a glass jaw. Jeanne was a killer, but not much of a prizefighter. She went out with the first good punch. We had her now. I had taken her down alive.

We finally had Jack and Jill.

Her little girl was crying in the front seat, but she wasn’t hurt. Neither was the mother. I couldn’t have done it any easier, any other way. We had Jack, and now we had Jill. Maybe we would hear the truth. No—we would hear the truth!

I grabbed the little girl and held her tight against me. I wanted to erase all this for her. I didn’t want her to remember it. I kept repeating, “It’s all right, it’s all right. Everything is all right.”

It wasn’t, though. I doubted it ever would be again. Not for the Sterling children, not for my own kids. Not for any of us.

There are no rules anymore.

CHAPTER

111

THE NIGHT of the capture of Jeanne and Brett Sterling, the television networks were filled with the powerful, highly disturbing story. I did a brief interview with CNN, but mostly I declined the attention. I went home and stayed there.