99
FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, AT A QUARTER TO ONE IN THE MORNING, I STOOD IN the snow on the roof of the detention center with Ned Mahoney, waiting for a U.S. Marine helicopter that was coming in from Quantico loaded with members of the Critical Incident Response Group.
“We’ve got a location on the train,” Mahoney said. “It’s almost to Trenton. We’ll stop it somewhere north of there, someplace rural.”
“What if it’s booby-trapped?” I asked.
“Believe me, we’ll be wearing full HAZMAT gear,” Mahoney said. “Sounds sporty, doesn’t it? I can’t believe you don’t want to be there to see this through.”
I’d known Mahoney for nearly fifteen years, worked side by side with him for several of those years, had been to his home too many times to count, knew all the doings of his wife and children. And yet right then, he seemed a stranger to me.
“I didn’t like what went on in that room, Ned,” I said.
“You think I did, Alex?” he shot back.
“It’s beneath us.”
“It is,” he agreed, pain rippling through his face. “Shows you that you’ve got to meet people like that on their own turf, using their rules. It’s a sad thing to say, but true.”
“They were kids.”
“They were leverage against an insane scheme.”
I heard the thumping of the helicopter coming, saw the spotlight on its belly. “What if her attorney finds out, Ned? Demands to see a tape of the interrogation. Everything Hala told us will be fruit of the poisoned tree, disallowed in court.”
“Not everything has to play out in court,” Mahoney replied coldly. “Besides, when I raised my hand there just before we began, the battery pack on the camera in the observation booth mysteriously fell off. Anything that went on beyond that is baseless hearsay on Dr. Al Dossari’s part, her word against ours, and who is a judge going to trust, Alex? A twenty-year veteran of the FBI and the legendary Dr. Alex Cross, or a madwoman willing to send nerve gas into Manhattan?”
I gazed at him as if he were transforming before my eyes, seeing new dimensions to his character. “I never pegged you as a ma
ster strategist, Ned.”
He raised his arm to block the snow being thrown up by the helicopter, yelled, “I have my moments. You can take my car home if you’re good to drive.”
“I’ll make it,” I said and accepted the keys as the chopper settled into the snow. “Ned?”
“What’s that, Alex?”
“Be careful,” I said. “You’ve got a lot of people to come back to.”
Mahoney locked gazes with me, understanding. He shook my hand. “Thanks, Alex. It means a lot.”
CHAPTER
100
I MADE IT HOME AT TWO IN THE MORNING ON THE DAY AFTER CHRISTMAS. Everyone had gone to sleep, though the lights on the tree still glowed in the front window, a beacon left on for me, I guessed. Where had the holiday gone?
I kicked off my shoes, climbed the stairs, listened at the doors of my children and my grandmother, and felt drowsy at the rhythm of their breathing. Not even Nana’s gentle snoring could keep me awake.
I slipped into my room, dropped my pants, and slid into bed, feeling the heat of Bree’s body. Her smell was there too, all around me. She rolled over, laid her head on my chest, murmured, “You okay, baby?”
“I’m good now,” I said, and closed my eyes, telling myself to compartmentalize, to take refuge in my own bed with my wife holding me, and rest.
But as I hugged Bree, my mind slipped back and forth between images of the Al Dossari children under torture and the details of the story Hala told us.
Just before I plunged into sleep, I remembered something I’d said to Mahoney the evening before: Confessions made under torture can’t be taken seriously. They’re half-truths mixed with what the tortured person thinks the torturer wants to hear.
CHAPTER