He was also the enemy.
Jack opened the black duffel bag and handed Jill a pair of handcuffs. “One hand to each bedpost. Please and thank you.”
“It will be my pleasure,” she said. There was a simple elegance in the way she spoke, acted, even the way she moved.
“You’re in on this?” Fitzpatrick gasped as he looked around at the blond woman he’d picked up at the bar in La Colline. He seemed to be actually seeing her for the first time.
Jill smiled. “No, no. I was attracted by your vast, bloated belly, your alcoholic breath.”
Jack took out the camcorder and handed it over to Jill. She immediately aimed it at Senator Fitzpatrick, focused, and started to film. She was good with the camera.
“What in God’s name are you doing?” Fitzpatrick asked. His washed-out blue eyes were wide with astonishment, and then with genuine fear. “What the hell do you want? What’s going on here? Dammit, I’m a United States senator.”
Jill began with the shocked and surprised and hurt look on the senator’s face. She pulled out to a wider shot. Oops, a little too wide. Grabbed focus again.
Jack smiled at the inappropriate outburst of bravado. How very Fitzpatrick.
Then, voilà! It was as if the whiskey-dullness swirling in his brain suddenly stopped. Daniel Fitzpatrick finally understood. “I don’t want to die,” he whispered.
Tears unexpectedly rolled from his eyes. It was strangely affecting. “Please don’t do this. You don’t have to hurt me,” he said. “It doesn’t have to be like this. Please, I beg you. Listen to me. Will you just listen to what I have to say?”
This was incredibly important footage, Jill knew. Academy Award stuff. Perhaps the documentary film of the century. They needed this for the game of games, for one of the surprises later on.
Jack walked briskly across the bedroom. He placed the Beretta inches from the senator’s forehead.
This was it. This was where the exquisite game truly began. Rule Two: This is history. What you’re doing is important. Never forget that for a single moment.
“I’m going to kill you, Senator Fitzpatrick. There’s nothing for us to talk about. There’s no way out of this. You were a Roman Catholic, so if you believe in God, say a prayer. Please say one for me, too. Say a prayer for Jack and Jill.”
This was gut-check time. He noticed that his hand was shaking a little now. Jill saw it, too.
He told himself, This is an execution, and it’s well deserved. And this is most definitely a horror story that I’m in.
He fired once, from a distance of no more than a few inches. Daniel Fitzpatrick’s head exploded. He fired a second time. Measure twice; cut twice as well.
History was made.
The game of games had begun.
Jack and Jill.
Read an extended excerpt and learn more about Jack & Jill.
Alex Cross gets a presidential request:
“Please find my kids!”
For an excerpt from the new Alex Cross novel,
turn the page.
> IT BEGAN WITH PRESIDENT COYLE’S CHILDREN, ETHAN AND ZOE, BOTH high-profile personalities since they had arrived in Washington, and probably even before that.
Twelve-year-old Ethan Coyle thought he had gotten used to living under the microscope and in the public eye. So Ethan hardly noticed anymore the news cameramen perpetually camped outside the Branaff School gates, and he didn’t worry the way he used to if some kid he didn’t know tried to snap his picture in the hall, or the gymnasium, or even the boys’ bathroom.
Sometimes, Ethan even pretended he was invisible. It was kind of babyish, kind of b.s., but who cared. It helped. One of the more personable Secret Service guys had actually suggested it. He told Ethan that Chelsea Clinton used to do the same thing. Who knew if that was true?
But when Ethan saw Ryan Townsend headed his way that morning, he only wished he could disappear.