Kill Alex Cross - James Patterson [6]
The ambulance was here now and two EMTs were at my shoulder, trying to push me out of the way. I wasn’t moving anywhere.
I heard a hydraulic motor fire up somewhere behind me, too. That was for the spreader tool — the Jaws of Life — and this guy was definitely going to need it. But not until I got my answer.
“What do you know?” I said. “Are you working for someone? Just tell me where the kids are!”
Something in the driver’s face changed then. His breath was still shallow, but the corners of his mouth turned up and his eyes crinkled, like someone had told him a joke no one else could hear or maybe understand. When he finally spit out an answer, a spray of blood came with it, all over the mangled steering wheel and column.
“What kids, man?” he said.
THE RESCUE TEAM used a hurst tool to cut the posts flanking the van’s windshield and door, then a halogen bar to peel the roof back like a can of sardines. It’s amazing to watch, but usually you’re rooting for the person trapped inside. Not so much this time. Actually, not at all.
While they lowered in a chain to pull back the engine and get our empty-eyed friend out of there, I tried to get a quick lowdown from the Secret Service agent I’d been speaking with, Clay Findlay.
“So, who are these missing kids?” I asked him, but he just shook his head. He wasn’t going to tell me, was he? What was that about? “Listen,” I said. “I’ve had experience on this kind of thing —”
“I know who you are,” he said, cutting me off again. “You’re Alex Cross. You’re MPD.”
My reputation precedes me more and more these days, but that can cut both ways. It didn’t seem to be helping right now.
“We’ve already got all MPD units on alert,” Findlay said, “so why don’t you go check in with your lieutenant. See where he could use you? Obviously, I’ve got my hands full here. I’ve had some experience in these quarters, too, Detective.”
I didn’t like the brush-off. It was a mistake for somebody who claimed to have experience. Every passing minute meant those kids were a little farther out of our reach. Findlay should have known that. Even worse, maybe he did.
“You see that guy?” I said. I pointed over at the driver. They had a protective collar around his neck and were finally making some headway getting him out. “That’s an MPD arrest. You understand me? I’m going to talk to him as soon as I can, with or without your involvement. If you want to wait your turn, fine, but just so you know — once they get him to the ER, he’s going to be sedated and tubed up for God knows how long. So it might be a while before you get your interview.”
Findlay stared hard at me. I watched his jaw work back and forth, heard a cracking noise. He knew I had jurisdiction here, that I had him if I wanted to go that way.
“It’s Zoe and Ethan Coyle,” he said finally. “You’ll hear about it soon enough. They disappeared from the Branaff School about twenty minutes ago.”
I was stunned into silence. Knocked back on my heels. The enormity of this — the implications — started to fall on me at once. “What else is happening on your end?” I asked in a lowered voice.
“The school’s locked down,” Findlay said. “Every available Secret Service agent is either there or on the way.”
“Could they still turn up over there?” I asked.
He shook his head. “We’d have found them by now. No way they’re still on the campus.”
“Any idea how someone could have gotten them out of there?”
Again, he paused. I got the impression he was editing himself as he went forward. The other thing I didn’t know yet was that Findlay was lead agent on Ethan and Zoe’s protective detail. This was all on his head. The president’s children.
“Not really. It just happened,” he answered. “There’s an underground passage. Used to connect the main house with some of the service buildings. Way back when it was the Branaff Estate. We keep it all closed off now, but kids still break in there sometimes. Smoke a cigarette, grope each other. Believe me, if Ethan and Zoe were in that tunnel before, they aren’t anymore.”
The van driver was out on a gurney now, hooked