Kill Alex Cross (Alex Cross 18)

The press had already been cordoned off behind a row of blue police barriers, and I saw a group of what looked like very concerned parents and a few nanny or housekeeper types waiting closer in toward the main gate. Some students were crying.

There wouldn’t be any official statements for several hours, if at all, but that wasn’t going to stop people from figuring out what had happened. The whole scene was barely contained chaos. Something terrible had obviously gone down here and none of us knew the full extent of it yet.

“Catch me up,” I said to one of the uniforms lined across the sidewalk. “What’s going on? Anything in the last hour?”

“All I know is what you can see right here,” he told me. “MPD’s on street security. But FBI’s got the whole school locked down tight.”

“Who’s the lead agent on campus?” I said, but the cop just shook his head.

“Nobody’s going in, Detective, and the only ones coming out are kids and parents. They’re literally clearing them one by one. They’re even detaining the teachers. I wouldn’t hold my breath for intel.”

I left the officer alone to do his job, and I got on the phone instead. For several months now, I’d been the police department’s liaison to the FBI’s Field Intelligence Group. I figured that had to be worth some kind of ticke

t inside.

But I figured wrong. Every line I tried at the Directorate of Intelligence went straight to voice mail.

Same deal with Ned Mahoney, who was a good friend at the Bureau. They were all probably on the other side of that damn school fence right now. Maybe even Ned was there. It was crazy-making.

The worst of it was worrying about Ethan and Zoe Coyle and what they might be going through while I was out here spinning my wheels. The first twenty-four hours after a kidnapping are absolutely crucial and I didn’t think the Secret Service would make all the right decisions.

So I did what I could. I started walking. Maybe I wouldn’t get onto campus, but I could get a feel for the school perimeter, including any possible exit points the kidnapper — or kidnappers — might have used.

I also kept working the phones while I walked. I put in a call to MPD’s Command Information Center. I finally got through to somebody. “CIC, this is Sergeant O’Mara.”

“Bud, it’s Alex Cross. I need to get a couple of disks burned, ASAP. I’m looking for everything we’ve got in a two-block radius around the Branaff School. From five to eleven this morning.”

Washington’s metro surveillance isn’t state of the art, like London’s, but we are ahead of the curve, nationally speaking. We’ve got cameras at intersections all over the city; maybe one of them had picked something up.

“You want me to have someone drop these off at headquarters when they’re ready?” O’Mara asked.

“No, I’ll swing by and get them myself,” I said. “Thanks, Bud.”

I turned off my phone when I hung up. I didn’t want anyone calling and telling me where to be today. If I played it right, I could pick up the disks, spend some time going over them at home, and not show my face at the office until the next morning. I’d learned a long time ago that it’s better to ask forgiveness than permission.

Maybe I was just flattering myself — or even lying to myself. Maybe there was nothing I could do on this that the Bureau or Secret Service wasn’t already covering. But I’d worry about that after the first twenty-four hours.

Finally though, around six, I gave up and went on home. Obviously nobody needed my help here. I didn’t like it, but what I thought didn’t matter. The president’s kids were missing.

IF I’D HAD any idea about the string of horrifying things that were about to happen in Washington, I wouldn’t have gone to help out Sampson that night.

My best friend, John Sampson, and his wife, Billie, were on the steering committee for a much-needed charter school they were trying to get going in our neighborhood in Southeast DC. Tonight’s event was supposed to be an informational meeting, but people around the neighborhood had already started lining up on either side of the issue.

So I brought reinforcements with me — my “ninety-something” grandmother, Nana Mama; and my wife, Bree, who works as a detective with the MPD’s Violent Crimes Branch and was also just crazy enough to marry me a few months earlier.

The three of us showed up early at the community center to help set up. I was trying to keep Ethan and Zoe Coyle off my mind.

“Thanks for doing this, sugar. I owe you,” Sampson said. He was running sound cable while I pulled folding chairs off a big rack. “It’s probably going to get a little ugly in here tonight.”

“Can’t be helped, John. You were just born that way,” I said, and he started for me. Sampson and I bring out the smart-ass kid in each other — ever since we were smartass kids growing up in this same neighborhood.

“And we’re focusing.” Billie came whizzing by with a handful of flyers for us to give out at the door. She was excited, but also nervous, I could tell. A lot of misinformation had been spread around the neighborhood, and the opposition to the charter school was mounting.

I thought the rain might keep people away, but by seven o’clock the room was completely full. John and Billie got things started, talking about a small-community approach, double periods of math and reading, parental involvement — everything that had them jazzed. Just listening to them, I was getting excited myself. My youngest, Ali, might go to this school one day.

But this is Washington, where nobody lets a good idea stand in the way of the status quo, and things started to go downhill in a hurry.

“We’ve heard all this before,” a woman in a housedress and sneakers without laces said from the mike in the aisle. I recognized her from church. “The last thing we need is another charter around here drawing down our public school budget.”