Cross Country (24 page)

F
ROM THERE, THE day got stranger and stranger for me.

A case officer from the National Clandestine Service named Merrill Snyder greeted me with a firm handshake and the unpromising line "Thanks for coming to see us, Dr. Cross."

"Can we start?" I asked him.

"We're just waiting for one more," Snyder said. "There's coffee, soft drinks."

"Where's Eric Dana?" I asked, remembering the leader's name from the last time I'd been out to Langley.

"He's on vacation. The man we're waiting on is his superior. Sure you don't want some coffee?"

"No, I'm fine. I don't need any more caffeine this morning, trust me."

"I understand. You still haven't heard from whoever abducted your family?" Snyder asked. "No communication?"

Before I could answer him, the door to the conference room swung wide open. A tall, dark-haired man in his early forties, wearing a gray suit and silver-and-red-striped tie, entered. He carried himself like someone important, which he probably was.

And right behind him came… Ian Flaherty.

T
HE MAN EVERYONE had been waiting for introduced himself as Steven Millard. He said he was with National Clandestine Service but gave no rank. I remembered now that Al Tunney had mentioned his name before I went to Africa. Millard was the group chief, who'd been involved from the start.

"Has there been any word about your family?" Millard wanted to know right off.

Snyder cut in. "No word so far. They haven't contacted him."

"There are cops from Metro at my house now," I told them.

"They'll answer my phone and call me."

"That's good. About all you can do," said Millard. I couldn't figure out what to make of him. I was sure he knew about my meeting with Eric Dana before I'd left for Africa, but how much more did Millard know?

"I need whatever help you can give me," I finally said. "I really need some help."

"You can count on it," said Millard. "But I have a couple of questions you might be able to help us out with first. Detective Cross, why did you go to Africa in the first place?"

"A friend of mine and her entire family were killed. I had a lead that the killer fled to Lagos. It was my homicide case."

Millard nodded and seemed to understand. "Tell me this, then, what did you learn in Africa? Something useful, I assume? Otherwise, why would this professional killer want to come after you and your family in Washington?"

"I was hoping maybe you could help me out with that. What's going on in Nigeria and here in Washington too? Can you tell me?"

Millard clasped, then unclasped, his hands. "Did you see anything unusual or unsettling in Nigeria? We need to figure out why this killer would want to come after you here. You're a well-known police officer. This Tiger, or whoever it is, wouldn't want to take the risk unless he had to. I can't imagine that he would. Unless you really pissed him off."

"You know it's him, then?"

"No, no, I don't know for sure. It just makes sense. Ian agrees. So what do you know, Dr. Cross?"

I looked at Flaherty, then back at Millard. "You're not going to help me find my family, are you? You just want to pump me for information again?"

Millard sighed, took a beat and then said, "Dr. Cross, regretfully, we think your family is dead."

I stood up much too quickly from my chair, almost tipping it over.

"How can you say that? What do you know? What aren't you telling me? Why would they call me all night if my family's dead?"

Millard stared into my eyes, then rose from his seat too. "You were advised not to get involved in this. I'm sorry for your loss. We'll help if we possibly can."

Then he felt compelled to add, "We're not the bad guys here, Detective. There is no big conspiracy at work."

If that was true, why did everybody have to keep saying it?

T
HOSE CIA BASTARDS! Even though they had been a little more human this time, I knew they were hiding something.

And Flaherty? After the meeting, he had gone to Langley for a "previously scheduled series of meetings." No way that was the whole truth, or anything close to it. At least I didn't think so.

That night, I went home to an empty house. I'd told Bree that it might be better if I was in the house alone. I was so desperate, I was ready to try anything now.

Millard's words kept coming back. Dr. Cross, regretfully, we think your family is dead.

I fixed a sandwich but only nibbled the corners away. Then I watched the news stations —
CNN, CNBC, FOX
— but there was almost nothing about the civil war in the Delta.

Unbelievable. A Hollywood actress had killed herself in LA, and that was the big story; it was being covered on every station — almost as if they all had the same news source and used the same journalists.

Finally, I switched the story about the dead actress off, and the silence wasn't a good thing either. I was nearly overwhelmed by sadness and fear that I had lost Nana, Ali, and Jannie.

For a long time I stayed in the kitchen, holding my head in my arms and hands. I remembered certain images, and feelings, and sensations from the past: Ali, just a little boy, and such a sweetheart; Jannie, still my "Velcro" girl, my living memory of her mother; Nana, who had saved me so many times since I'd come to DC at ten after both my parents had died.

I didn't see how I could continue to live without them. Could I?

The phone began to ring again and I snatched up the receiver. I hoped it was the Tiger, wanting something, wanting me.

But it wasn't.

"It's Ian Flaherty. I just wanted to check on you. See if you're all right. See if you remembered anything that could help."

"Help you?" I said in a tight voice. "My family's been taken. My family. Do you have any idea what that's like?"

"I think I do. We want to help you, Dr. Cross. Just tell us what you know."

"Or what, Flaherty? What else can they do to me?"

"The proper question is… what can they do to your family?"

Flaherty left me a number where I could reach him at any time of the day or night.

At least the bastard was staying up late too.

T
HE SOUND OF a ringing telephone woke me from a shallow snooze on the living room couch. I picked the phone up, still half asleep, my extremities tingling.

"Go to ya moto car now. We watchin' ya house, Cross. Lights on upstairs and in di kitchen. You was sleepin' in living room."

A male speaking. English with a pidgin accent. I'd heard a lot of it in the past few weeks, but I was particularly tuned into it now — every syllable.

"Is my family all right?" I asked. "Where are they? Just tell me that."

"Bring your cell phone wit you. We have numba and we wan ya follow directions. And don't call no one or your family dead. Go now, Cross. Listen up."

I was sitting up now, staring out the window in the living room, sliding my feet into my shoes.

I didn't see anyone outside. No cars or lights were visible from where I was.

"Why should I listen to you?" I asked the caller.

A second voice cut in. "Because I say you should!"

The phone at the other end clicked off. The second voice had been gruff, older than the first. And I recognized it instantly.

The Tiger. He was here in Washington. He had my family.

S
UDDENLY I HAD even more questions.

Not that it was impossible to get — but how had a gang of hoodlums from Nigeria managed to do it?

I wasn't inclined to conspiracy theories, but it was getting harder and harder to deny the obvious. Someone wanted to know what I had found out in Africa. And to shut me up for good.

Maybe a minute after the call ended, I walked out on the front porch, which I'd decided to keep dark for now. I still couldn't see anyone watching on the street.

Were they here? Had they left already? Did they have Nana and the kids in a nearby truck or van?

I didn't want to play the target any longer than I had to.

I hurried down the steps and got into the Mercedes — the family car that I had bought for safety.

I started it up, then began to back out of the driveway, feeling the car's power. I felt like I needed that — the help of some external force.

The cell phone shrilled — and I stopped.

"You continue to be a fool." It was the older male again. I wanted to curse him out, but I said nothing. He might have my family. That was a hard thing to hope for, but I did anyway. I had to hope for something.

He laughed into the phone.

"What's funny?" I asked him.

"You are. Don't you want to know which way to turn out of your driveway?" he asked.

"Which way?"

"Make a left. Then you follow my directions straight to hell."

H
E STAYED ON the line as I drove along Fifth Street but didn't say much of anything — and nothing to help me figure out what I should do next. I was trying to think things through, to make some kind of plan — anything that might work, maybe even a wild hunch.

"Why should I?"

I thought about stepping on the brakes, making a stand here, but he had every advantage right now.

"Which way?" I said.

"Make a right, next corner."

I did as I was told.

"The fight in Africa is not your fight, white man!" I listened to the Tiger spitting rage as I drove along Malcolm X Avenue in Southeast. "You should drive faster," he said, as if he were right there in the front seat, watching me.

He directed me onto I-295 heading south toward Maryland. I'd been on that road countless times before, but it seemed unreal and unfamiliar tonight.

Next, I merged onto 95 and then Route 210 and followed it for nearly fifteen miles, which seemed much farther than that.

Eventually I found myself on 425.

His voice went low. "Let me tell you something that's true. You are only coming to collect the bodies. You want the bodies, don't you?"

"I want my family back," I said. He only laughed at that.

I said little more to the Tiger unless he asked me a direct question, and he didn't seem to care. Maybe he wanted to hear himself talk.

I needed to put the rational part of my mind in another place. So I listened to his threats, his cruel insults, but I just let them flow over me. It wasn't hard, because I was numb anyway. I was here, but I wasn't.

"P
ULL OFF THE road!" he commanded.

There didn't seem to be any other vehicles around. I didn't think I had passed anyone since I'd gotten onto Layloes Nick Road, somewhere in Maryland — around Nanjemoy.

But I wasn't completely sure. How could I be?

I was that out of it. That nervous and afraid, that petrified.

"Take the next right. At the corner. Don't miss the turn. You better hurry now! Hurry!"

I made the turn, then drove straight ahead, as I was told to do. The trees and bushes surrounding the road appeared black and very thick, possibly because my peripheral vision was narrowing in the dark.

Above me was a big sky filled with stars. I was reminded of Jannie, her love of the stars, but then I forced the sentimental thought out of my mind.

Nothing sentimental. Not now.

Maybe never again.

"Stop your motor, get out! Do exactly as I say!"

"That's what I'm doing."

"Y
OU SEE THE farm ahead? Come and get your family. You can collect the bodies now! I know you can't believe it, but it's true. They're all dead, Dr. Cross. Come to the farm and see."

I tried to calm myself by taking slow, deep breaths. Then by not thinking at all. Finally, by gathering my hatred for the Tiger into a small, tight ball that could explode at the proper time.

"You remember how you found the Cox family in Georgetown? This is better," he taunted me. "You made it happen, Detective."

I wanted to tell the rabid monster that my family had done nothing to hurt anybody ever, but I kept it inside. I didn't want to give him anything else. I couldn't stop my brain from working that way, but I was trying to concentrate on the danger and the horrors ahead.

This had to be a trap, I told myself. Somebody wanted me here. They needed to find out what I knew about the war in Nigeria. It didn't matter. I had to be here, no matter what.

"Are you ready, Detective?"

The last sound — his voice — wasn't coming from the cell phone in my hand.

Then the Tiger stepped out from the bushes. "You ready for me?" he asked. "You want the mystery solved?"