Chapter 121

“WHY THE HELL ARE YOU HERE?” Francis asked again as we followed him through an all-glass loggia that looked down onto the rolling surf of the Atlantic several floors below. The view was spectacular, worth at least a couple of murders. The afternoon sun created countless stars and diamonds that danced on the water’s surface. Life was so very good for Dr. Bernard Francis.

“Frederic Szabo figured it all out for you, didn’t he?” I said, just to break the ice. “He had an elaborate fantasy for revenge against the banks. He had all the know-how, the obsession, the contacts. Isn’t that how it happened?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Francis looked at Betsey and me as if we were as deranged as some of his mental patients.

I ignored the look and the condescension in his voice. “You heard about his plans in your therapy sessions with Szabo. You were impressed by the detail, the precision. He’d thought through everything. You also learned he hadn’t been a drifter all those years since the war. You found out he’d worked for First Union Bank. Surprise, surprise. He’d been a security executive. He really did know about banks and how to rob them. He was crazy, but not in the way you had thought.”

Francis flicked on a coffeemaker on the kitchen counter. “I won’t even dignify this horseshit with a response. I’d offer you both coffee, but I’m angry. I’m really pissed off. Please finish with your nonsense, then you can both leave.”

“I don’t want coffee,” I said. “I want you, Francis. You killed all those people, without any remorse. You murdered Walsh and Doud. You’re the madman, the Mastermind. Not Frederic Szabo.”

“It’s you who is crazy. You’re both crazy,” Dr. Francis said. “I’m a respected physician, a decorated army officer.”

Then he smiled — almost as if he couldn’t help it — and the look on Francis’s face said it all: I can do anything I want to do. You’re nothing to me. I do what I want to. I’d seen that horrible look before. I knew it well. Gary Soneji, Casanova, Mr. Smith, the Weasel. Francis was a psychopath, too. He was as crazy as any of the killers I’d caught. Maybe he’d spent too long being underappreciated working in veterans hospitals. Undoubtedly, it went a lot deeper than that.

“One of the bank-crew members you interviewed remembered you. He described you as tall, broad forehead, hooked nose, large ears. That’s not Frederic Szabo.”

Francis turned away from his coffee making and let out a harsh, unpleasant laugh. “Oh, that’s very compelling evidence, Detective. I’d like to hear you present it to the district attorney in Washington. I’ll bet the D.A. would get a good belly laugh out of it, too.”

I smiled back at him. “We already have talked to the D.A. She didn’t laugh. By the way, Kathleen McGuigan has talked to us, too. Since you didn’t return her call, we went to see her. You’re under arrest for robbery, kidnapping, and murder. Dr. Francis, I see that you aren’t laughing anymore.”

I sensed that his mind was racing way ahead of the conversation. “You notice that I’m not rushing to call my lawyer, either.”

“You should,” I told him. “There’s something else you should know. Szabo finally talked this morning. Frederic Szabo kept a diary of your sessions, Doctor. He kept notes. He wrote about your interest in his plans. You know how efficient Frederic can be. How thorough. He said you asked more questions in his therapy sessions about the robberies than you asked about him. He showed you his blueprints for everything.”

“We want the money, the fifteen million dollars,” Betsey told Francis. “If we recover the money then everything will go easier for you. That’s the best offer you’re going to get.”

Francis’s disdain was blossoming. “Let’s suppose for a moment that I was this Mastermind you speak of. Don’t you think I’d have a stunning escape plan figured? You couldn’t just barge in here and capture me. The Mastermind wouldn’t allow himself to be caught by two peons like you.”

It was finally my turn to smile. “I don’t know about that, Francis. We peons might surprise you. I think you’re on your own now. Did Szabo give you an escape plan, too? He probably didn’t.”

Chapter 122

“ACTUALLY, HE DID,” Francis said, and his voice was at least an octave lower than it had been. “There was always a slim, slim possibility that you’d catch me. That I’d be faced with life in jail. That’s totally unacceptable, you understand. It isn’t going to happen. You do understand that?”

“No, actually, it is going to happen,” Betsey said with a firmness to match Francis’s statement. Meanwhile, my hand was already reaching for my gun.

Suddenly, Francis broke for the glass door that led out onto the rooftop deck. I knew there was nowhere for him to go out there. What was he doing?

“Francis, no!” I shouted.

Betsey and I pulled our guns simultaneously, but we didn’t fire. There was no reason to kill him. We rushed out through the door and followed Francis in a sprint across the weathered wooden deck.

When he reached the far wall of the roof deck, Francis did something I wouldn’t have ever imagined, not in a hundred lifetimes of polic

e work.

He dived off the deck — which was five floors above the street. Bernard Francis went down headfirst. He’d break his neck for sure. There was no way he’d live.

“I don’t believe it!” Betsey screeched as we got to the edge of the deck and looked down.

I didn’t believe what I saw, either. Francis had made a dive five stories down to a shimmery blue swimming pool. He surfaced and began to stroke rapidly toward the pool’s far wall.

I had no choice and I didn’t hesitate. I jumped off the high roof deck after Dr. Francis.

Betsey was no more than half a step behind me.

Tags: James Patterson Alex Cross Mystery
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