A POLICE OFFICER I didn’t recognize was pushing Adanne into the room. She shuffled ahead of him, with a wad of tape over her mouth. Blood streaked both her cheeks.
Her braids had been cut short; they stuck out at angles from her head. One of her eyes was swollen shut and colored blue-black. She saw me and nodded that she was okay. I didn’t believe it for a second.
“Now maybe there’s more that you can tell me,” the commander said. “Something I don’t already know about the Tiger. Why did you come here? Not to solve a murder case. Why would I believe that? How do you know Adanne Tansi?”
I began to shout at him. “What the hell is the matter with you? I’m a cop, just like you. I’m investigating a murder case. It’s that simple.”
The cuffs tore at my wrists. Then the pain in my shoulder turned to nausea. I thought I was going to throw up.
The commander nodded once at the cop who’d brought in Adanne. The underling threw a hard uppercut into her stomach. I felt the cruel blow in my own body.
Adanne groaned behind the tape and fell to her knees. The dirt on her face was streaked with tears, but she wasn’t crying now. She was watching me. Blood from her mouth was turning the tape red. Her eyes were pleading. But for what?
“Why are you doing this?” I spit between clenched teeth. I could imagine my hands around his throat. “My friend was killed in Washington. That’s why I’m here. That’s all there is. I’m not part of some conspiracy.”
“Take the tape off her mouth,” the commander ordered.
The guard ripped it away and Adanne said, “Alex, don’t worry about me.”
The commander turned to the cop. “Again. Hit her.” He turned back to me. “Alex!Worry about her.”
“Okay!” I cut him off. “The Tiger’s name is Abidemi Sowande. He disappeared in nineteen eighty-one, when he was nine years old, turned up in England at a university for two years, and hasn’t used that identity since.
“He’s murdered a lot of people, here and in America. He uses wild boys. He may control other Tigers. That’s all I know. That’s everything I have. You know about the diamonds, the gasoline, the illegal trading.”
The commander kept his hand in the air to hold off the next punch. “You’re sure that’s it?”
“I’m sure, goddammit! I’m just a cop from Washington, DC. Adanne has nothing to do with this.”
He squinted, thinking about it, and then seemed satisfied. His hand came down slowly. “I should kill you anyway,” he said. “But that’s not my choice.”
Then I heard another voice in the room. “No, that would be my choice, Detective Cross.”
Chapter 112
A MAN STEPPED out of the shadows, a large man—the mercenary soldier known as the Tiger. The one I’d been chasing.
“No one seems to know much about me. That’s good, don’t you think? I want to keep it that way. She writes stories in newspapers, the London Times, maybe the New York Times. You get in the way a lot.”
He walked over to me. “Unbelievable,” he said. “Some people fear you, eh? Not me. I find you to be a funny man. Big joke. The joke is on you, Detective Cross.”
My body eased just a fraction. He didn’t seem angry, and he wasn’t concerned about me, but he was huge, and muscle-bound, as fierce as any man I’d ever seen.
Then, with his eyes still on me, he said, “Shoot her. Wait. No, no. Give me a gun.”
“NO!” I yelled.
That’s all I got out. Adanne’s good eye flew open and she found me in this unbelievable nightmare we were sharing.
The Tiger took a quick step forward. “Pretty girl,” he said. “Stupid bitch. Dead woman! You did this to her, Cross. You did this, not me.”
Blam.
Blam.
Chapter 113
HE HAD FIRED a police service revolver close to her head. Twice. He missed on purpose, and he laughed merrily at the prank.