Hope to Die (Alex Cross 22)

They’re following me, I thought. But how? They’d had no idea where I was on the river, right? In any case, the blind psychic seemed to think I needed her help. Part of me wanted to follow the ferry to the western shore, to ask Madame Minerva what she’d intuited in the past few hours.

But when the ferry passed, I happened to look downriver, and I saw the blue-and-white tower of a river barge about a mile ahead. A feeling came over me then, like I was being pulled by forces beyond myself, and I sped after the barge until I was within four hundred yards of it.

Backing off on the throttle, I raised the binoculars and saw a Zodiac-style raft tied to the stern of the Pandora, and scores of colorful container cars stacked on her deck, and I understood immediately that I had found the mythological box, my family, and Marcus Sunday.

Sure that this was the endgame, I lowered the binoculars and closed my eyes to summon all my smarts, strength, and determination.

But then my phone buzzed, alerting me to a text: You are tenacious, Cross, but far too slow for your own good. I couldn’t wait any longer. Your family? They’re all d …

CHAPTER

91

SUNDAY WAS PLAYING ME yet again.

I knew it in my gut, but the last sentence and the way it trailed away after the letter d still threatened to suck the resolve right out of me.

Then I realized the maniacal sonofabitch had made a mistake sending the

text, a big mistake; my attention shot to the barge, and I scanned its stern and wheelhouse. I saw no one on deck and nothing through the tinted windows on the tower and wheelhouse. But I knew he was right there somewhere, watching me, probably through his own set of binoculars.

That thought went beyond bolstering me. It turned me to ice and steel.

Drawing my pistol, I ducked down behind the windshield and hammered the throttle. The Whaler reared up like a warhorse. The four hundred yards that separated me from the Pandora were covered in seconds.

We were passing mile marker forty-six when I cut the engine and brought the Whaler in at a forty-five-degree angle to the starboard rear corner of the barge, hoping I’d present such a poor target from the windows of the tower that Sunday would hesitate to shoot and reveal his position.

In any case, I hauled back on the throttle and threw the engine in reverse for less than a second and then cut it again. The Whaler’s bow came up within feet of the rubberized bumpers on the barge’s stern. Pocketing the ignition key, I ran forward, grabbed a rope tied to the bow, stepped up onto the padded sitting area, and jumped.

I landed on a narrow aft deck thirty feet below the wheelhouse and tied the Whaler to a cleat. Years of police training suggested that I clear the working and living areas of the barge before I went searching for my family.

Moving with my gun drawn, I saw no one on the way to a narrow metal stairway that climbed the tower. Behind it was a door with a sign that read Engine Room.

Taking a long breath, I put the Maglite between my teeth and yanked open the hatch. The heat came out like a blast furnace, and the throbbing of the engines boomed up out of the hold below an interior staircase.

The engine room was reasonably well lit, and I stepped inside onto a steel grate landing. I scanned the place, alert for movement, and spotted a crumpled figure lying between the two huge diesel engines that powered the river barge.

Male. Late thirties. In a greasy wife-beater and equally greasy shorts. That was definitely a close-range gunshot to the side of his head. When I was certain there was no one else in the engine room, I eased back out into the sunshine and shut the door quietly before stalking up the side of the tower to an unmarked hatch door.

I smelled bacon when I opened it. Looking down a short passage, I could see a stove and part of a countertop. Country music was playing from the galley: Miranda Lambert singing about hiding her crazy and acting like a lady.

Beyond the galley was another passage, and I figured it led to the berths. How many people were in a barge crew? I wondered. Two? Three?

When I stepped into the galley, I looked to my right, saw a booth, and understood the Pandora carried a crew of at least two. Sprawled sideways onto the table in a puddle of spilled coffee was a man in his late twenties, sandy-haired and bare-chested. He had a tattoo of a bleeding heart over his own heart and a bullet hole just above the bridge of his nose.

Creeping up the exterior staircase toward the wheelhouse a minute later, I could hear radio chatter and a woman’s insistent voice. I slid up beside the slightly open door and took a quick peek inside.

A thick-necked bull of a man in a Chicago Bears T-shirt sat in a high-backed padded chair mounted on a pedestal bolted into the forward deck of the wheelhouse. A horseshoe-shaped console surrounded the chair, with controls, computers, and screens around the pilot. One screen clearly showed the barge’s position on the river.

Below that screen, there was a steaming mug of coffee on a narrow workspace. The rest of the wheelhouse looked empty, so with my pistol leading, I opened the door and stepped softly inside.

“Pandora? Scotty Creel? You answer me now, you hear?” the woman’s voice squawked over a shortwave radio mounted on a shelf above him.

“Shirley, do you ever shut the fuck up?” the pilot grumbled as he reached up and turned off the volume.

“Sir?” I said.

He startled, swiveled in the chair; his eyes went wide, and his head retreated sharply. I suppose turning to see a six-foot-two-inch strange man in filthy clothes and bright red high-tops holding a pistol might make a man do that, as well as raise his hands, which he did.