Cross the Line (Alex Cross 24)

She had the late Terry Howard’s service records up on her computer screen. Four times during Howard’s career, he’d failed his annual shooting qualification test. On his best day, he was evaluated as an average shot.

Hardly the competitor, Bree thought and shut the file.

But lots of police officers did compete. It kept their marksmanship sharp. So she couldn’t discount the possibility of a cop or a former cop or a former military guy, perhaps someone McGrath and Howard knew, being the shooter.

Her desk phone rang.

“Stone,” she said.

“Michaels,” the police chief said. “I’m not happy.”

“Chief?”

“I’m hearing rumors that you’ve reopened the McGrath case.”

“True,” she said, her heart starting to race.

“Goddamn it, Stone, I’m going to get crucified over this. Howard’

s our guy. You said so yourself.”

“I believed it then, Chief,” she said. “But not now.”

She recounted her visit to the FBI lab and finished by saying, “So I think the way we look at this is, we take some lumps for jumping to the wrong conclusion, but we’ll get applauded when it comes out we were dogged enough to recognize our mistake and find the real killer.”

Chief Michaels sighed, said, “I can live with that. Any suspects?”

“Not yet.”

“We’re at square one on a dead cop?”

“Definitely not,” she said. “We’ve got new leads we’re actively working.”

“Keep me posted, will you please?”

“You’ll be the first to know everything, Chief,” she said, and he hung up.

Bree set her phone down, thinking that that had gone smoother than she’d expected. Maybe she was getting better at the job, not as rattled by every crisis.

After Sampson and I got back from talking to Condon, I stuck my head into Bree’s office. “We’ve had a couple of breaks you need to know about.”

Bree smiled. “I could use some good news.”

“Oh, we’ve got lots of news,” Sampson said, coming in behind me. “Can’t figure out if it’s good or bad.”

As we told her about our trip to Nicholas Condon’s place, the planted evidence, and the possibility that the sniper knew two of the vigilantes, I sent two pictures to a screen on Bree’s wall.

One photograph showed a wiry man in a nice suit with a face that was a fusion of Asia and Africa. He had a quarter-inch of beard and was leaning against a car, smoking a cigarette—he looked like the kind of guy who would fit in anywhere. The other picture showed a U.S. Army Green Beret officer with pale skin and a battle-gaunt face.

“The suit is Lester Hobbes, ex-CIA,” Sampson said. “The soldier turned mercenary is Charles Fender.”

Both men had contracted with international security firms operating in Afghanistan early on in Condon’s time there. They hadn’t worked directly with the sniper, but they all knew one another well enough to have a drink or two occasionally. Both Fender and Hobbes were hard-liners who thought the U.S. was bungling foreign policy in the Middle East and going to hell in a handbasket back home.

“Condon says he didn’t see Hobbes or Fender for years,” I said. “Then, after the death of his fiancée, the investigation in Afghanistan, and his exile on the Eastern Shore, Condon gets a call one day from Lester Hobbes.”

Hobbes told Condon he thought he’d gotten a raw deal and offered his condolences. He asked the sniper if he’d be interested in having lunch sometime. Condon agreed. They met one day at a restaurant in Annapolis.

Charles Fender was there too. They all had a few too many beers as they recalled old times, and the talk turned to what was wrong with the U.S.A. Hobbes and Fender had said that people’s lack of conviction and action had allowed new forms of slavery to take hold in the country.