Double Cross (Alex Cross 13)

Then the lawyer stood, looking like Kyle Craig.

Kyle extended his arms, and Mason Wainwright moved into them. “In your honor,” the lawyer whispered. “I apologize that this took so long to arrange.”

“Masterpieces take time,” said Kyle Craig.

Chapter 32

MASON WAINWRIGHT WAS SLUMPED over slightly and looking down at the floor when the guard opened the door to the small meeting room. “Let’s go, Craig,” the guard ordered. “Play period’s over. Time to go back to your suite.”

Wainwright muttered his assent, then he moved down the hallway in front of the ill-tempered turnkey. He was bent over and shuffling like the “dead man walking” he was supposed to be. Just don’t let him see you blink, he reminded himself.

This was the time when the whole plan could go up in flames. Everything could be lost in the next few minutes. His part was an easy one to play, though—stay calm, keep quiet, head down—unless the guard noticed some change, some error on his part. The lawyer had studied Kyle Craig’s mannerisms for months and believed he pretty much had everything down. Still, he couldn’t be certain until this was over.

Suddenly the guard’s nightstick was in the small of his back. What was this? Shit, no!

He’d obviously made a mistake and wondered what it was. Where had he messed up and ruined the escape Kyle Craig had been planning since the first day he arrived at the supermaximum-security prison? Maybe even before then, since the Mastermind seemed to anticipate everything that could possibly happen.

“This way, Mastermind. You forget the way to your own cell, genius?” the guard said, and laughed derisively. “C’mon, let’s move it! Gotta get back to my Court TV.”

The lawyer didn’t look around at the prison guard, didn’t acknowledge him in any way, just turned down the indicated corridor and continued to slump along.

Fortunately nothing else went wrong on the way back to Kyle Craig’s cell. Finally the guard slammed the door, and Wainwright was alone. He’d done it!

Only then did the lawyer raise his eyes and dare to look around. So, this was where the Mastermind had lived, and how he had lived for the past several years. What a disgrace that such a fine mind would be trapped in a space with virtually no stimulation and that Kyle had been subject to the urges and whims of bestial prison guards and slow-witted administrators.

“In your honor,” the lawyer whispered again, then he prepared himself to follow the rest of Kyle Craig’s instructions.

The lawyer checked out the small cell, which was made of poured concrete. The bed, desk, stool, and bedside table were screwed into the floor as a safety precaution. The toilet had an automatic shutdown so cells couldn’t be flooded. Kyle had “earned” a black-and-whi

te TV, but it only played self-help and religious programming, so who would want to watch it?

The lawyer felt claustrophobic, terribly so, and thought that it would be difficult not to lose one’s sanity in this tiny hellhole. Mason Wainwright finally had to laugh at that. Most people would feel that he had lost his sanity a long time ago, even before he became one of the Mastermind’s disciples.

When a guard did a check just before mealtime at six that night, he couldn’t believe what he saw. He immediately pushed the panic button on his belt. Then he waited for help to come running. Still, the guard couldn’t take his eyes away from the jail cell.

Kyle Craig had hung himself!

Chapter 33

THE SUN WAS SHINING in Kyle Craig’s eyes, and what a glorious thing that was. The sun! Imagine. He drove Mason Wainwright’s Jaguar coupe a couple of miles over the speed limit to a mall outside Denver, where a Mercedes SUV was waiting for him. Now this was more like it, power and comfort. Plus, nobody would be looking for the Mercedes.

Kyle Craig had doubters to confound and frustrate.

Followers to delight.

Promises to keep, promises written in blood, promises recorded in the august Washington Post and the New York Times.

Yes, he would see the sun again, and he’d see a whole lot more than that too.

He was traveling to Washington, but he thought he’d take a roundabout route, visit a few enemies, maybe kill them in their own homes.

He was going to make a name for himself again, and he had a plan on how to do it.

Not a word of it on paper, though—everything in his head.

“My God, just look at that sun!” he exclaimed.

Chapter 34