Cross Fire (Alex Cross 17)
“All right, well…” Denny lit his own cigarette, blew smoke, and smiled. “We’ll get out of your hair now. God bless you, Officer, and thank you for what you’re doing.”
Chapter 28
THE FRIDAY AFTER the Dlouhy shooting was one of those breezy spring days, the kind where you can feel summer coming on the wind, even though it was still jacket weather.
Kyle buttoned his blazer as he turned onto Mississippi Avenue and walked north, blending in with the local color, so to speak. His wig, makeup, and contacts were all perfectly effective, even if they were comically rudimentary. Ever since the surgery on his face, anything less was simply beneath him — if not also a necessary evil.
Likewise, this run-down neighborhood was not a place he’d choose to spend a lovely spring afternoon. It was the kind of locale that kept white liberal guilt alive and well in America, just never enough that anyone actually did something about it.
All of which was neither Kyle’s problem nor his concern right now.
He ambled up the street slowly, making a point of arriving outside the Southeast Community Center just before four thirty. Word was that they were giving out Wizards tickets today, along with the latest “Just Say No” inculcation for the kiddies. Even some of the roughest boys had shown up, and a stream of them came running out through the double glass doors just as Kyle approached the squat redbrick building.
One boy in particular caught his eye. He bypassed the front steps and jumped off a low wall, then stopped to drop the wrapper off a 3 Musketeers bar before continuing up the street.
Kyle followed, close enough to register on the boy’s radar but far enough back that they’d be well out of earshot before anything happened.
A block and a half later, the boy stopped short and turned around quickly. He was still chewing the candy bar, and he spoke around it.
“Man, whatha fuck you comin’ up on me like that?”
He was child-young, but there was nothing resembling fear in those brown doe eyes of his. The sneer on his face was a carbon copy of every other wannabe gangster who trawled these miserable streets for a living.
The boy lifted the hem on his too-long white undershirt and showed a black leather-wrapped hilt of a knife that probably went halfway down his skinny leg. “You got somethin’ to say, punk?” he asked.
Kyle smiled approvingly. “It’s Bronson, right? Or do you prefer Pop-Pop?”
“Who wants to know?” His instincts were good — and he was just stupid enough. Bronson pulled the knife out a little farther, to show off some steel.
Kyle angled himself away from the street and opened his own jacket. Inside was a compact Beretta pistol, holstered at his side. He took it out and held it by the barrel, with the grip toward the boy.
Little Bronson’s pupils dilated — not with fear but with sudden interest.
“I’ve got a nice job for you, little man, if you’re up to it. You want to earn five hundred dollars?”
Book Two
FOXES IN THE HENHOUSE
Chapter 29
BALLISTICS WERE IN.
This was the report everyone had been waiting for, and I scheduled it to coincide with that day’s Field Intelligence Group conference call. On the line, we had the whole team from MPD, as well as people from FBI, ATF, Capitol Police — just about everyone was dialed into this case by now.
Reporting in, we had Cailin Jerger, from the Forensic Analysis Branch at the FBI lab in Quantico, and Alison Steedman, who was with their Firearms-Toolmarks Unit.
After a few quick introductions, I handed the call over to them.
“Based on fragments in all three victims’ skulls, I can tell you conclusively that the same weapon was used every time,” Jerger told the group. I’d gotten most of this in the morning, but it was news to almost everyone else on the call. “A 7.62 caliber can trace back to dozens of weapons, but given the nature and distance of these shots, we believe we’re looking at a high-grade sniper system. That brings it down to seven possibilities.”
“And it gets better from there,” Agent Steedman joined in. “Four of those seven are bolt-action rifles. By all accounts, the first two victims, Vinton and Pilkey, went down within two seconds of each other. That’s too fast for bolt-action, which leaves three semiautomatic possibilities — the M21, the M25, and the newer M110, which is state of the art. We can’t rule any of those out, but these shots were all taken at night into variable lighting conditions, and the M110 comes with a thermal optical site, standard.”
“All of which is to say that your shooter is likely to be very well equipped,” Jerger said.
“How hard is it to put your hands on an M110?” I r
ecognized Jim Heekin’s voice from the Directorate of Intelligence.