Kill Alex Cross - James Patterson [5]
Hatfield slammed his brakes and sent his own car into a hard skid. Even then, his eyes never came off the van.
It crashed, head-on at full speed, right into the Neiman Marcus ad on the side of the bus. The front end crumpled like an accordion. Glass flew everywhere and the van’s back wheels lifted a good foot off the ground before the whole mess finally came to a sliding stop.
Hatfield was out of his car right away, with Walsh running up behind him. Miraculously, it looked like the bus had been out of service — nobody but the driver on board. But Washington Circle was a tangle of stopped cars and rear-end collisions.
Within seconds, another half-dozen marked units had converged on the spot.
Uniformed officers were suddenly everywhere, but Hatfield was the first to reach the back door of the van. Its gray metal panels were buckled inward and the chrome handle was smashed to shit.
His heart was still thudding from the chase and he could feel the blood pounding in his ears. This wasn’t over yet. What the hell were they about to find on the other side of that door? Armed gunmen? Dead men?
Even worse — dead kids?
AT THE TIME of the first incident in the chain of events, I didn’t know it was the president’s son and daughter who were missing. All I’d heard on my radio was “possible kidnap.” That’s all any of us knew at that point.
I’d been driving east on K Street at the time and I was off duty. The location given put me less than two blocks from the crash site and I got over to Washington Circle even before the EMTs. I had to help if I could.
I was there in less than sixty seconds. A uniformed cop scurried behind me, unspooling a roll of yellow tape as I headed toward the smashed-up van.
The first thing I noticed was the wide-open back door. Second, that there was no sign of any kidnap victim here at all.
And third — Secret Service were everywhere! Some of them in the usual dark suits, others in preppy blazers, knit ties, dress shirts, and khakis. They looked like schoolteachers, but the corkscrew wires behind their ears told another story.
I badged my way over to the van to see inside for myself. The driver was pinned to his seat where the engine block had come all the way through in the crash. He was covered in blood below some obvious trauma around his midsection. His right arm was sticking up and out in a way that arms weren’t meant to go.
The guy looked to be midthirties, curly black hair, a sketchy beard with soul patch that was as slight and pathetic as he was.
But where was the victim? Had this whole thing been a hoax? An intentional diversion? Already, I was starting to think so, and the possibility sent a rush of adrenaline through me. A diversion from what? What else had happened at that school?
“Is he cogent?” I asked the tweed-clad agent next to me.
“Hard to say,” he answered. “He’s out of it. Maybe shock. We don’t even know if he speaks English.”
“And no sign of the missing kid?” I said.
The agent just shook his head, then held up two fingers. “Two missing kids.”
This was turning into déjà vu for me — the worst kind. Some years back, I’d worked with Secret Service on another double kidnapping, perpetrated by a monster named Gary Soneji. Only one of the two children had survived. In fact, I’d barely made it myself. John Sampson had saved my life.
I flashed my badge some more, then leaned in through the shattered driver’s-side window.
“Police. Where are the kids?” I asked the guy, straight up. By default, I had to assume he knew something. This was no time to equivocate.
He was panting in quick shallow breaths, and his face was blank — like his body knew how much pain he was in, but his brain didn’t exactly get it.
His pupils were huge, too. He had some of the signs of PCP, but this guy had just navigated a high-speed chase through the city. I’d never seen anyone on angel dust who could do that.
When he didn’t answer — not a word or a nod or a grunt — I tried again.
“You hearing me?” I shouted. “Tell me where the two kids are! If you want us to help you out