Cross Country (21 page)

H
E HAD FIRED a police service revolver close to her head. Twice. He missed on purpose, and he laughed merrily at the prank.

She didn't answer, but she spit at him. "Murderer," she said.

"One of the best — and proud of my accomplishments."

Then he fired a third shot, right between Adanne's eyes. Her body lurched forward, and she landed facedown on the ground. Her arms spread out like wings. Adanne didn't move.

As fast as that, as insane, she was gone. Adanne was dead in this horrid jail cell, murdered by the Tiger as the police looked on and did nothing to stop him.

Rage poured out of me. There were no words for what I was feeling. A cord tightened around my throat, another around my forehead.

Don't worry about me, Adanne had said. She knew they were going to kill her; she knew it all the time.

Her killer stood over her and he watched me. Then he grinned. He dropped his trousers, went down on his knees, and committed his final outrage against Adanne.

"Pretty girl," he growled. "You did this to her. Never forget that, Detective. Never."

A
LEX, DON'T WORRY about me.

Don't worry.

Night had become morning somehow, and I was still alive. I could see that it was light through the black fabric of a hood they made me wear. What's more, I was being moved.

The neck cord kept me oxygen hungry and weak as they dragged me outside. They threw me like cargo into the backseat of a truck or van, a vehicle with a high step and a diesel engine.

Then we drove for a long time. I kept my eyes open inside the hood. Still, all I could see in my mind was the last moment when Adanne was alive, and then…

The Tiger had killed her, and worse. He thought I was a joke. He said I was no threat to him. Just another policeman. We'd see.

If I lived through the next few hours or so.

As the ride continued, I prayed for Adanne and for her family. I told them, in my own way, that this wasn't over yet. Not that it mattered to them. But it did to me. I wondered why I was still alive. It made no sense to me. Another mystery.

When we finally stopped, car doors opened on either side of me. Now what?

Somebody shoved my head down into the seat. The cuffs were roughly removed. Powerful hands pressed into the small of my back and pushed hard. "You go home now. Go.'"

I went flying through the air — but only for a few seconds of uncertainty and terror.

Then I landed on stone or cement. By the time I'd gotten up and untied the hood, they were gone, out of sight, whoever had brought me here.

They had dropped me on a side street next to an official-looking building, the sort of white stone box you might find in downtown DC.

I could see through an iron fence and across a manicured front lawn to a gatehouse out front.

An American flag flew above it, flapping in a light breeze.

This was the American consulate. Had to be. The embassy was in Abuja. That must be where I was now.

But why?

S
OMETHING WAS GOING on here at the consulate. Something big. And dangerous-looking. Hundreds of people were gathered in the streets outside the front gates. Actually, it looked like there were two separate crowds. Half of them were lined up like they were waiting to get in. The other half, on the opposite side of a concrete barrier, were demonstrating against the United States.

Even from a distance, I could tell it was the kind of scene that could turn ugly, or violent, at any time. I didn't wait around for that to happen.

I walked around the corner, and leading with my good shoulder, I started pushing through the crowd. People on both sides grabbed at me, either because I was cutting in line or, maybe, because I looked like an American. The shouting on the street side blocked out any other noise around me.

One guy got hold of my shirt. He ripped it all the way down the back before I knocked his arm away.

The shirt didn't matter to me. Nothing did anymore. Once again I wondered why I was still alive. Because they thought I was CIA? Because I had friends in Washington? Or maybe because they finally believed I was a cop?

I made my way to the main gate. Standing there, filthy and barefoot, with no passport to show, I told the double-chinned marine who got in my face that my name was Alex Cross, I was an American police officer, and I had to speak with the ambassador right away.

The marine didn't want to hear it, not a word.

"I was kidnapped. I'm an American cop," I told him. "I just witnessed a murder."

Out of the side of his mouth the marine muttered, "Take a number."

I
WAS GOING more than a little crazy now, but I had to hold my emotions in. I had stories to tell someone, information to give, Adanne's secrets to share with someone who could make a difference.

The consulate lobby, with its metal detectors and bulletproof glass on all the windows, felt like an urban police station. People were lined up at every desk and window, most of them clearly agitated, waiting to be seen.

All the American accents — and a portrait of Condoleezza Rice presiding over the room — played tricks with my mind about where I was, and exactly how I had gotten here.

Once inside, I was met by a nonmilitary escort in an off-white suit. He was "Mr. Collins," a Nigerian of some unspecified position here.

Unlike the marine who'd brought me this far, Collins was friendly and animatedly answered a few questions as we walked.

"There's been at least one rebel attack in Rivers State today," he explained, gesticulating the whole time. "Much bigger than we've seen before. The government won't admit to it, but the independent media is calling it the beginning of a civil war."

The populist buzz on the first floor gave way to crisp officiousness and hushed conversations on the second.

I was taken straight to the ambassador's consular suite, where I waited outside his office for several minutes — until a dozen men, black, white, and four who looked Chinese, walked out all at once. Each of them appeared somber and nervous. No one met my gaze, or perhaps no one was in the least interested that I was sitting there barefoot and in rags.

Mr. Collins politely held the door for me, and then he closed it from the outside.

A
MBASSADOR ROBERT OWELEEN was tall and willowy, almost too thin, a silver-haired man of maybe sixty. He stood behind his large antique desk flanked by American and Nigerian flags. Two aides stayed where they were, on a small couch in an alcove off to one side.

"A lot. I won't waste your time. I'm here about a man, a killer, known as the Tiger. It's a matter of Nigerian and American security."

He swept my words away in the air. "I know why you're here, Mr. Cross. I've been getting all kinds of pressure from Abu Rock about you."

"Excuse me — Abu Rock?"

"The capital. It seems that the only one who wants you in Nigeria is you. The CIA has actually saved your life here, haven't they?"

Now I was a little dumbstruck, to add to my general numbness and dizziness about what had happened recently. The American ambassador knew about my presence here? Was someone taking out billboards about me or something?

"We're sending you home today," Oweleen continued, with finality in his voice.

I looked at the floor and back at him again, trying to keep it together. "Sir, the man I'm chasing is a mass murderer. He may have government ties here. He's definitely involved with the police in some mysterious way. If I could just have a chance to reach my CIA contact in Lagos—"

He cut me off. "What exactly do you think your authority is, Mr. Cross? You're a visitor in this country, nothing more than that. You can take this up with the State Department if you wish. In Washington."

"He needs to be stopped, sir. Yesterday he murdered a reporter for the
Guardian
named Adanne Tansi. I saw him kill her. He murdered her entire family. He's responsible for at least eight deaths in Washington."

Finally, Oweleen exploded. "Who the hell are you? I never even heard of you until three days ago, and now I'm taking time out for this? Do you have any idea what's going on here?"

He waved his hand at the plasma TV on the wall. "Turn that up."

One of the aides pushed a button on a remote — and then I watched the TV in shocked silence and with dread.

T
HE TV WAS tuned to
CNN
. A British reporter was speaking over an image of an upscale housing complex — white two-story buildings in neat rows, shot from high above.

"Never before have families been taken," the reporter was saying, "and certainly never this number of live hostages. In an e-mail to the international press, People for the Liberation of the Niger Delta now have claimed responsibility for the incident — with these shocking images attached to their message."

The screen switched to grainy infrared video.

Dozens of people sat along the floor of a dark hallway. Their heads were covered and hands tied, but it was easy to tell there were men, women, and children on the film. Some of them were crying, others moaning piteously.

"Those are British and American citizens," Ambassador Oweleen informed me. "Every one of them. Consider yourself lucky to get a flight out of here at all."

"What flight? When?"

He held up a hand, looking back at the TV. "Look at this, will you? Do you see what's happening?" Armed troops were streaming out of a truck single file.

The British reporter went on: "Government forces have established a perimeter around the entire complex, while economic pressure mounts internationally. With more attacks promised, oil-production facilities are shutting down regionwide, approaching an unprecedented seventy percent slowdown, which is considered to be catastrophic. Chinese, French, Dutch, and of course US interests in particular are at stake. Under normal trade conditions, Nigeria provides about twenty percent of American oil."

A phone buzzed on the desk. Ambassador Oweleen picked it up. "Yes?" he said, and then, "Send them in."

"Sir," I tried again. "I'm not asking for much. I just need to make one phone call—"

"We'll get you a shower and some fresh clothes right away. And we'll take care of any immigration issues. We can get you a new passport right away. But then you're gone. Forget about your manhunt. As of right now, it's over."

I finally snapped at him. "I don't need a shower! Or fresh clothes. I need you to listen to me. I just witnessed a reporter named Adanne Tansi being murdered at the Kirikiri Prison. She was writing an important story that has relevance to the violence near the oil fields."

The doors to the office opened, and Oweleen's eyes shifted right past me. It was as though the moment I raised my voice, I'd lost him. He didn't even respond to what I'd said.

He spoke directly to the double marine escort waiting there. "We're all done here. Take Detective Cross downstairs and get him cleaned up for travel back to the US."

T
HE TWO MARINES were polite and respectful enough but very mission oriented as they escorted me to a sub-basement locker room.

One of the marines asked me my trouser, shirt, and shoe size and then left. The other marine told me I had about ten minutes to shower and dress, so I ought to get started. Both of the marines were black — probably no coincidence there.

There were four stalls, each with a curtained changing cubicle in front. I stood inside the last one, my mind racing while the clock ran down on my time in the country.

What was I going to do? There were no windows in the room, and there was only one exit. I turned on the water, just to sound busy.

Then I leaned in and let it pour over my head.

Suddenly my whole body was shaking. I was remembering Adanne, and that had to stop, for now, anyway. A minute later, I heard someone moving around outside. A curtain slid open and closed. One of the other showers was turned on.

Someone was humming that James Blunt ballad that was always on the radio, the one where he keeps repeating the word beautiful.

I took off the remnants of my shirt. Then I stuck my head under the water again, and leaned back out, dripping on the floor.

"Hey, can you get me another towel?" I asked the guard.

I had noticed there were stacks of them by the entrance when we'd come in.

"Why do you need two?" he leaned inside the shower and said.

"Are you kidding? You saw the way I look. And smell."

He shook his head but went to get the extra towel.

"Thanks," I called.

I immediately stepped over to the other cubicle, holding the curtain rings to keep them from singing on the bar.

Whoever was showering next to me had hung his clothes on a hook in the changing stall.

I rifled through the pants pockets and found just what I was hoping for — a cell phone.

Seconds later, I was back in my own stall — just before the marine looped a white terry towel over the top of the bar. "You'd better pick up the pace," he said from outside the curtain.

I turned the shower up as hard — and as loud — as it would go.

Then I dialed Ian Flaherty's number.

He answered himself.