Cross Fire - James Patterson [78]
A few minutes later, I was coming out on top of the Midlands. It was a strange déjà vu — a lot like the other night at the museum.
I swept my Glock left and right — nothing. No one behind the door either.
I’d come out through a utility room, and the walls were blocking my view of the Twelfth Street side of the building. That’s where Hennessey would have been shooting from if he was here.
Sirens were wailing in the distance; with any luck, they were headed my way.
I pressed my back against the wall and moved slowly to the corner, weapon first.
The street side of the roof, though dimly lit, looked deserted to me. There were a couple of folding lawn chairs and a steel barrel lying on its side.
No sign of Hennessey, though.
I came to the edge and looked out. Twelfth Street was quiet down below. Other than the Bureau car with its doors open and a patch of broken glass on the ground, there wasn’t any indication of what had just happened.
A few people were even walking by, oblivious to the damage.
Then, as I leaned out for a better look, my foot hit something that made a small, metallic clinking sound. I took out my Maglite and pointed it at the ground to see what it was.
Shell casings. Several of them.
My pulse spiked, and I turned around — right into the barrel of a Walther nine millimeter.
The man with his finger on the trigger, presumably Steven Hennessey, held the pistol up about an inch from my forehead.
“Don’t move,” he said. “Not a goddamn muscle. I won’t miss from this distance.”
Chapter 106
HE’D DONE A pretty good job of changing his appearance — glasses, dark hair, clean-shaven. Enough to let him move around the city anyway.
And probably enough to walk away from here unrecognized, too, I realized. It was all starting to fall into place.
“Hennessey?”
“Depends who you ask,” he answered.
“You left that anonymous tip at the Bureau yourself, didn’t you?” I said. This whole thing was a setup, I felt sure, and we’d given him exactly what he wanted — a quiet surveillance detail by the people who knew the most about him. Whether he’d been trying to kill us in the car or draw us closer, I still didn’t know.
“And look what I caught,” he said. “Now, I want you to reach back slowly and drop that Glock right off the roof.”
I shook my head. “I’ll throw it over there. I can’t put this thing in the street.”
“Sure you can,” he said. The tip of his Walther was cool when he pressed it into my forehead. Presumably he’d been using something bigger a few minutes ago.
I reached back and let the Glock fall. When it smacked onto the concrete below, my stomach clenched.
He took a step back then, out of arm’s reach.
“To tell you the truth, I just wanted you dead and out of the way. But now that you’re here, I’m giving you thirty seconds to tell me what you’ve got on me,” he said. “And I’m not talking about what’s already in the papers.”
“No, I don’t imagine you are,” I said. “You want to know how deep you need to go before you can disappear again.”
“Twenty seconds,” he said. “I might even let you live. Talk to me.”
“You’re Steven Hennessey, aka Frances Moulton, aka Denny Humboldt,” I said. “You were with U.S. Army Special Forces until two thousand two, most recently in Afghanistan. There’s a grave in Kentucky with your name on it, and I’m assuming you’ve been running freelance off the radar since then.”
“What about the Bureau?” he said. “Where else are they looking for me?”
“Everywhere,” I said.
He adjusted his grip and locked his elbows. “I know who you are, too, Cross. You live on Fifth Street. No reason I can’t make a stop there tonight, too. Understand?”
I felt a rush of anger. “I’m not messing with you. We’ve been grasping at straws. Why do you think we don’t have a whole team here?”
“Not yet you don’t,” he said. The sirens were definitely getting closer, though. “What else? You’re still alive. Keep talking.”
“You killed your partner, Mitch.”
“Not what I’m asking about. Give me something I can use,” he said. “Last chance, or you won’t