Cross the Line (Alex Cross #24)(69)

Based on an aerial view of the compound from Google Earth, Mahoney gave out assignments. Five agents would loop into the woods behind the property to stop any runners. The rest of us were going in the front gate.

“Pretty swank neighborhood,” Bree said, seeing the mansions. “I thought where Vivian McGrath lived was big money.”

“She’s in the millionaires’ club,” Sampson said. “This is strictly billionaires.”

Mahoney stopped a quarter of a mile from the club and watched five FBI agents head up the driveway of a big Tudor estate and then disappear into the woods.

“Here we go,” Mahoney said into his radio, and he put the car back in gear.

He drove us to the entrance and up the long drive. As we caught sight of the gate, it started to swing open to let a white Range Rover exit.

Mahoney blocked the way. The window of the luxury SUV rolled down and a guy with slicked-back hair wearing five-hundred-dollar sunglasses and a five-thousand-dollar suit yelled, “Move, for God’s sake. I’m late for a very important meeting at the Pentagon.”

“Tell it to someone who cares,” Mahoney said, climbing out of the car, hand on his pistol.

“I’m a goddamned founding member of this club!” the man shouted.

“And I’m an FBI agent,” Mahoney said, and then he called back to his men, “Detain him for questioning.”

“What? No!” the man said, no longer belligerent but terrified as the same guard Sampson and I had seen on our previous visit appeared from the shack.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“I have a federal warrant to search the premises,” Mahoney said, wielding a sheaf of papers.

“You can’t just go in there,” the guard said, agitated. “It’s private.”

“Not anymore,” Mahoney said and he signaled his team to move forward.

The slick-haired suit in the Range Rover used the moment to spring from his car and start running back up the hill. Sampson thundered after him and caught him by the collar halfway up the inner drive.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Sampson demanded.

“Please,” he said in a whine. “I’ll help you. Anything you want, but my name cannot be associated with this place.”

“If I were you, Mr. Founding Member, I’d shut the hell up,” Sampson said, cuffing him.

Bree, Mahoney, and I kept going up the drive, past flowering gardens and trees. We rounded a corner and saw the clubhouse, a sprawling, two-story place that suggested an inn in the south of France in its design and muted colors. There were tennis courts on our right. To the left, a high whitewashed picket fence enclosed a pool and side yard. A hedge about four feet high ran out from the fence to the drive and continued on to the woods on the other side of it, effectively cutting the front yard in two, an outer manicured lawn and an inner yard of blooming gardens surrounding the clubhouse. Piano music and the sound of people laughing drifted from the pool area.

“Looks like we may be interrupting a party,” I said, stepping through a gap in the hedge.

Shots rang out. Bullets slapped the pavement at our feet.





CHAPTER


84


I SPUN AROUND, tackled Bree, and drove her down behind the hedge before another round of shots came from the house. We landed hard. Bree had the wind knocked out of her, but we were alive. So were Sampson and Mahoney, who were returning fire from behind the hedge on the other side of the drive.

I scrambled up to my knees and called to them, “Where are they?”

“Second floor!” Sampson called back.

People were screaming by the pool.

“We have multiple runners,” an FBI agent said through our earbuds. “Women in bikinis and bare-chested guys with white towels around their waists.”

What the hell was this place?

“Shoot them if they’re armed, stop them if they’re not,” Mahoney said.

Ten seconds passed. Then twenty. Bree caught her breath and sat up beside me. The panic continued in the pool yard, but no more shots were fired from the clubhouse. Why? The gunmen had to know where we were hiding. They had to have seen us take cover.

Something felt strange. We’d been in the wide open in that gap between the hedges. If they’d wanted to kill us, they could have, and yet …

I thought about the layout of the property and the satellite photo we’d seen of the place. I dug in my pocket and called it up on my iPhone. Only one way in, which meant only one way out. Right?

I was about to put the phone away when I noticed something. Beyond the north security wall a good hundred feet, a stubby spur of pavement appeared out of the woods, curved, and met the driveway of the adjoining mansion. I magnified the image, looked right where the spur disappeared into the trees, and saw a thick, dark smudge about the width of the pavement.

“It was a diversion,” I said, jumping to my feet.

“Alex!” Bree said.

“They’ve got an underground escape route,” I said, and I sprinted back down the driveway, Sampson, Mahoney, and Bree behind me.

“Hey!” the suit in the cuffs said when I ran by. “I want witness protection.”

“Lot of good it will do you,” Sampson said as I dodged by the Range Rover and Mahoney’s car.