Cross the Line (Alex Cross 24)

“Backup first,” I said, and pulled out my cell. “Great—no service.”

“I had it over by the road.”

“Not here,” I said, and then I heard something over the ringing in my left ear.

Sampson heard it too, rose up to look, and then ducked down.

“That’s an ATV,” Sampson said. “He’s coming for us. Two hundred yards out. Near the tree line.”

We stared at each other, thinking the same thing: Do we run for the trees and risk getting shot by a world-class sniper? Or—

I pushed myself to my feet, held out my badge, and aimed my pistol at Condon, who was less than a hundred yards away in a green Polaris Ranger. Sampson stood up beside me and did the same.

Condon pulled up at ninety yards, snaked a scoped rifle over the wheel, and shouted, “You trying to get yourselves killed? Didn’t you see the goddamned orange flag in the road?”

“We didn’t know what it meant,” I shouted back. “We’re detectives with Washington Metro Police. We just want to ask you a few questions.”

Condon was hunkered over the rifle, aiming at us through his scope. At ninety yards, any shot we might take with the pistol would be a Hail Mary. But ninety yards with a precision sniper rifle was a chip shot.

I had a funny feeling in my chest, as if he’d put the crosshairs there. Then he lifted his head. “You the Alex Cross? FBI profiler and all that?”

“I was,” I called back. “That’s right.”

That seemed to satisfy Condon because he slipped the rifle into a plastic scabbard mounted to the side of the ATV and started driving toward us.

“How’d he know your name?” Sampson asked.

“I’m thinking he read our credentials through his scope,” I said, lowering my gun but not holstering it.

Condon pulled up about ten yards away. Late thirties and rawboned, he had silver-and-red hair and a matching beard. Both needed cutting.

“Azore,” he said. “Denni.”

Two German shepherds jumped down from the flatbed carrier behind the sniper. They stopped and stood there, panting, at Condon’s side.

“You mind telling us what the hell that was all about?” Sampson asked. “Shooting at us?”

Condon said, “Practicing my trade. You walked into a hot rifle range, my place of business, unannounced and forewarned. That’s what happened.”

I said, “You didn’t see us before you shot?”

He looked at me, blinked, said, “Hell no, I was in the zone. In the whole wide world, there was nothing but the I and the D and the trigger and me.”

“What’s the I and the D?”

He spelled it out. “T-i-d-e.”

“What was in that container?” I asked.

“Tannerite,” he said. “Exploding target material. Shot indicator.”

Sampson said, “You almost killed us with that stuff, which is illegal in Maryland, by the way.”

Ordinarily the mere presence of a pissed-off John Sampson was enough to shake the toughest of criminals. But Condon looked at ease.

“Not for me,” he said. “I have a federal permit through Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. And, like I said, I didn’t know you were there. If I’d wanted to kill you, Detectives, you’d already be dead, and I’d have a shovel-and-shut-up mission on my hands. Know what I mean?”

I did know what the sniper meant and absolutely believed him.