I, Alex Cross

Chapter 88

AFTER THE EMOTIONAL stop at Kinkead's I caught a cab over to Fifth Street, then went upstairs to work. As if things weren't already interesting enough, we had a couple of unwanted visitors at the house that night. It was around eleven when Bree came up to my office in the attic to tell me the news.

"Alex, we've got company outside. Two guys in a Ford Explorer, parked across the street for the last hour. Cups on the dash, no coming and going. Just sitting there, watching the house. Maybe watching you up here."

Bree has the best instincts I know, so I didn't doubt that we had a new problem. I holstered my Glock and slid on a windbreaker over it.

Then I stopped in Damon's room on my way downstairs for his old Louisville Slugger. A good piece of ash, not aluminum.

"Please don't come out," I asked Bree at the front door. "Call dispatch if there's a problem."

"If there's a problem, I'm calling dispatch and I'm coming out," she said. I took off out the front door and down the stoop. The Explorer was parked just past the house on the opposite side. The driver was getting out when I took my first swing and obliterated his left taillight.

"What the fuck are you doing?" he screamed at me. "Are you nuts, man?"

In the streetlight, I could see he was hefty but not fat, with a shaved head and a nose that had been broken a few times. I'd been thinking government, but now that I'd seen him, he looked more like a Yellow Pages PI.

"Why are you here watching my house?" I shouted at him. "Who are you?"

His partner got out on the other side, but they both kept their distance.

"Alex?" I heard Bree coming up behind me. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," I shouted back. " Washington plates, DCY 182."

"Got it," she said.

The bald-headed guy flashed his palms for me. "Seriously, just take it down a notch, man. We know you're a cop."

"I'll take it down when you tell me what you're doing here where I live."

"We're not in for anything heavy, all right? I'm not even wearing a piece." He opened his overshirt to show me. "Somebody hired us to keep an eye on you for a little while. That's all this is."

"On me?" I cocked the Slugger a little higher. "Or me and my family?"

"On you. On you." I didn't know if he was telling me the truth or just what I wanted to hear.

"Who are you working for?" I asked.

"We don't know. Seriously. It's a cash job. All I know is what you look like and where you've been today."

That didn't do much to calm me down. I stepped over and took out another taillight.

"And where have I been?"

"You're working a murder case for Metro. Something to do with a detainee in Alexandria, and for fuck's sake, lay off the car already!"

Something had just flipped about this case. It hit me hard, in a way I couldn't deny. The people I'd been pursuing were starting to pursue me now.

"You know, you should be more careful," the second PI told me.

I took a step in his direction. "Why is that?"

"We're not the ones you need to worry about. Whoever this is, and whatever they don't want you doing – they've got some suction. That's all I'm saying. You can take it for what it's worth."

"Thanks for the warning." I pointed up the street. "You're done here. If I catch either of you in this neighborhood again, I'm going to arrest you and have this car towed, you got it?"

"Arrest us?" Now that he was over the hump, the first guy decided to show a little chin. "What are you going to arrest us for?"

"I'm a cop, remember? I'll think of something."

"What about my car, man? That's like five hundred bucks damage!"

"Charge it to your clients," I told him. "Believe me; they can afford it."

Chapter 89

I GOT CALLED into Ramon Davies's office again the next morning. He even had a desk jockey waiting outside the door to my office when I got there.

"What does he want?" I asked the officer. There were no good possibilities ru

"I don't know, sir. Just to meet with you. That's all I was told."

I've heard that Woody Allen leaves his actors alone when they're doing well and only directs them if there's a problem. Davies is kind of the same way. I hated these walks to his office.

When I got in there, he had someone waiting with him. I recognized the face from the White House but didn't know the name until Davies introduced us.

"Alex Cross, this is Special Agent Dan Cormorant. He's from Secret Service. He'd like to talk to you."

Cormorant was the one who had accompanied President Vance into the chief of staff's office the other day when I visited. I assumed he was here at his boss's behest.

"We've met, sort of," I said, and shook his hand. "I don't suppose you have anything to do with the two PIs outside my house last night?"

"Don't know what you're talking about," he said.

"Imagine that."

"Alex." Ramon cut me off with a raised voice and hand signal. "Be quiet and let's get to this."

Cormorant and I sat down across the desk from him.

"I'm not going to dwell on how we got here right now," Davies said, and the implication was clear. We'd talk about it later, in private. "But I will tell you what's going to happen next. Alex, you're going to make yourself available to Agent Cormorant and provide him with any case-related materials he needs. When that's finished, you're going to report back to me that you're ready for a new assignment. I've got a quad homicide in Cleveland Park with your name written all over it. Big case, serious crime."

I heard the words, but my mind was elsewhere. If I had to guess, I'd say that Ramon was embarrassed at having the Secret Service foisted on him, probably by the chief himself. He'd never spoken to me like this before, but I decided to bite my tongue until I had a chance to see what Cormorant was all about.

The meeting ended pretty soon after that, and I walked out with Cormorant, back toward my office.

"How long have you been with the presidential detail?" I asked him. "That's some rarified air."

"I've been with the Service for eight years," he said, not quite answering my question. "Philadelphia PD before that, and for what it's worth, I know how much you don't want me here."

Rather than getting into it, I asked, "So where are you guys on Tony Nicholson at this point? Where is he now? If I can ask that kind of question."

He smiled. "How much do you already know?"

"That he was in Alexandria until eleven o'clock Friday morning, and now he's nowhere to be found. At least not by Metro."

"Then we've got the same information," Cormorant said. "That's part of why I'm here. This is a big mystery, Detective Cross. And a dangerous one."

He struck me as a little looser than a lot of the guys I knew at the Service, although that's all relative. And the question remained – was he here to legitimately pursue this case or to bury it?

In my office, I took out the latest disk from Nicholson and handed it to him. "Most of the physical evidence is with the Bureau, but this is new."

He turned it over in his hands. "What is it?"

"Is the name Zeus already familiar to you? I'm guessing it is."

He looked at me but wouldn't answer.

"Cormorant, do you want my help or not? I would actually like to help."

"Yes, I've heard the name Zeus," he said.

"Supposedly, this is him. On the disk."

"Supposedly?"

"It's a homicide. White male assailant with a distinctive ring on his right hand. I'm not going to make any assumptions, and you shouldn't either."

It's comments like that last one I should really work a little harder at keeping to myself. I saw Cormorant stiffen right up.