London Bridges (Alex Cross 10)

I never lost sight of the Wolf, never lost my focus on him. No matter what he did, no matter what the danger, he couldn’t be allowed to get away this time. The cost was too high. This was the man who had held the world hostage. He’d already murdered thousands.

Mahoney ran down one aisle and I took another. The Wolf appeared to be headed for an exit onto a side street. I’d lost track of where we were. Fifty-fifth Street? Fifty-sixth?

“He doesn’t get out!” Ned shouted over to me.

“You’ve got that right.”

We were getting closer and I could see the Wolf’s face. With all the bandages, the bruising and swelling, he looked fiercer than I could have imagined. Worse, he looked desperate, capable of anything. But we already knew that.

He yelled, “I’ll kill everybody in the store!”

Neither Mahoney nor I answered; we just kept coming. But we didn’t doubt what he’d said.

He grabbed a small blond girl away from what looked to be a nanny. “I’ll kill her. I’ll kill the little girl. She’s dead! I’ll kill her!”

We kept coming.

He held the toddler against his chest. His blood was dripping all over her. The girl was screaming, squirming wildly in his arms.

“I’ll kill —”

Ned and I fired at almost the same time—two shots and the Wolf stumbled backward, letting go of the girl. She fell to the floor, then got up screeching and ran to safety.

So did the Wolf. Out the nearest side door and onto the street.

“He’s wearing a vest—has to be.”

“We’ll shoot him in the head,” I said.

Chapter 118

WE CHASED HIM east on Fifty-fifth Street, along with a couple of our agents and two fleet-footed New York City policemen. If any of the Wolf’s bodyguards had survived the bloody shoot-out on Fifth Avenue, they’d lost track of their boss in the shuffle inside the store. They were nowhere to be seen now.

Still, the Wolf looked as though he knew where he was going. Was that possible? How could he have planned for this? He probably couldn’t have—so we’d get him now, right? I couldn’t let myself believe otherwise—that all of this could come to nothing.

We had him in our sights. He was right there in front of us.

Suddenly he turned into a building, redbrick, eight to ten stories high. Did he know someone there? More backup? A trap? What?

There was security inside; at least, there had been. But the uniformed guard was dead now, shot in the head, lying facedown and bleeding on the glossy marble floor.

The elevators were all busy, red lights flashing the floors—eight, four, three—all going up.

“He’s not getting out of here. That’s settled,” Mahoney said.

“We can’t know that, Ned.”

“He can’t fucking fly, can he?”

“No, but who the hell knows what else he can do. He came in here for a reason.”

Mahoney assigned agents to wait for all of the elevators, then to systematically check the floors from bottom to top. Reinforcements were on the way from the NYPD. There would be dozens of cops here soon. Then hundreds. The Wolf was in the building.

Mahoney and I took to the stairs in pursuit.

“Where do we go? How far?”

“The roof. It’s the only other way out of here.”