Along Came a Spider (Alex Cross #1)(29)

“I hope not,” he said and made a tsking sound. He shook his head back and forth. “That would be a serious breach of etiquette.”

Whoever he was, he was unnaturally cool under fire. Had he done this before? I wondered. It seemed to me that we were headed back in the direction of the rows of orange trams. One of the trams would take us back out to the parking area again. Was that the plan?

The man was too heavyset to be Soneji, I thought. Unless he had on some kind of brilliant disguise and lots of padding. The actor angle came to mind again. I hoped to God he wasn’t an impostor. Someone who’d found out what was going on in Florida, then contacted us to go for the ransom. It wouldn’t be the first time that had happened in a kidnapping case.

“Federal Bureau! Hands high!” I heard suddenly. It all happened gunshot-quick. My heart went up into my throat. What the hell were they doing? What were they thinking?

“Federal Bureau!”

Half-a-dozen agents had us surrounded in the parking lot. They had their revolvers out. At least one rifle was aimed at the contact man, and therefore at me.

Agent Bill Thompson was there with the others. We only want to get the girl back, he’d said to me just moments ago.

“Back away! Back off!” I lost it and yelled at them. “Get the hell away from us! Get out of here!”

I looked directly at Brimmed Hat now. It couldn’t be Gary Soneji. I was almost certain of that. Whoever it was didn’t care if he was recognized or even photographed in Orlando.

Why was that? How could this guy be so cool?

“If you take me, the girl’s dead,” he said to the FBI agents surrounding us. He was stone-cold. His eyes looked dead. “There’s nothing that’ll stop it from happening. I can’t do a thing. Neither can you. She’s dead meat.”

“Is she alive now?” Thompson took a step toward the man. He looked as if he might hit him, which was what we all wanted to do.

“She’s alive. I saw her about two hours ago. She was home free unless you fucked this up. Which you’re doing big time. Now back off, just like the detective said. Back the fuck off, man.”

“How do we know you’re partners with Soneji?” Thompson asked.

“One. Ten million. Two. Disney World, Orlando—The Magic Kingdom. Three. Park at Pluto 24.” He reeled off the exact wording from the ransom message.

Thompson stood his ground. “We’ll negotiate for the girl’s release. Negotiate. You do it our way.”

“What? And kill the girl?” Jezzie Flanagan had come up directly behind Thompson and the rest of the FBI posse.

“Put your guns down,” she said firmly. “Let Detective Cross make the exchange. If you do it your way and the girl dies, I’ll tell every reporter in the country. I swear I will, Thompson. I swear to God I will.”

“So will I,” I said to the FBI special agent. “You have my word on it.”

“This isn’t him. It isn’t Soneji,” Thompson finally said. He looked at Agent Scorse and shook his head in disgust. “Let them go,” he ordered. “Cross and the ransom go to Soneji. That’s the decision.”

The icy contact man and I started to walk again—I was shaking. People were staring at us as we continued our trip toward the orange motor-trams. I felt completely unreal. Moments later we were inside one of the trams. We both sat down.

“Assholes,” the contact man muttered. It was his first sign of any emotion. “They almost blew everything.”

We stopped at a new Nissan Z in Section Donald, row 6. The car was dark blue, with tinted gray glass. No one was inside the sports car.

Brimmed Hat started the car, and we made our way out toward I-4 again. Traffic leaving the park at noon was almost nonexistent. A day at the beach, he’d said. We headed back in the direction of Orlando International. Due east. I tried to get him to talk, but he had nothing to say to me.

Maybe he wasn’t so cool and collected. Maybe he’d been scared shitless back there, too. The Bureau had almost blown everything; it wouldn’t be the first time. Actually, the move at the park was probably no more than a bluff. As I thought about it, I realized it was their last chance to negotiate for the release of Maggie Rose Dunne.

A little more than half an hour had passed before we entered a private-plane annex a few miles beyond Orlando’s main terminal. It was past one-thirty now. The exchange wasn’t going to be in Disney World.

“The note promised this would be over by one-fifteen,” I said as we climbed out of the Nissan. A warm tropical breeze blew at us across the airfield. The smells of diesel fuel and baking macadam were thick.

“The note lied,” he said. He was as cold as ice again. “That’s our plane. It’s just you and me now. Try to be smarter than the FBI, Alex. It shouldn’t be too hard.”





CHAPTER 24


SIT BACK, relax, enjoy the ride,” he said once we were on board. “Seems like I’m your friendly pilot, too. Well, maybe not so friendly.”

He handcuffed me to an armrest of one of the plane’s four passenger seats. Another hostage taken, I thought. Maybe I could jerk the armrest out. It was metal and plastic. Flimsy enough.

The contact man was definitely the plane’s pilot. He got clearance, and then the Cessna bumped on down the runway, gathering speed slowly. Finally it lifted off and was airborne, banking to the southeast, drifting out over the eastern section of Orlando and St. Petersburg. I was sure we were under surveillance thus far. From here on, though, everything depended on the contact man. And on Soneji’s master plan.