Cross the Line (Alex Cross #24)(78)

Mahoney came to my window, said, “They’re in position. No activity in the yard. The powwow looks to be inside the house.”

“You trace the license plates we gave you?” Sampson asked, getting back in the driver’s seat.

The FBI agent nodded. “A few. The black Suburban? Hobbes. The Range Rover? Fender, who is a scary SOB.”

“So we heard,” I said. “When do I call?”

“Now,” Mahoney said.

I punched in the number of Colonel Whitaker’s cell, courtesy of the Naval Academy, and put the phone on speaker. He answered on the second ring.

“Whitaker.”

“This is Alex Cross, Colonel.”

There was a long pause before he said, “Yes. How can I help, Dr. Cross?”

“You can give yourself up, you and your followers, the Regulators.”

After another, longer pause, Whitaker chuckled softly and said, “Now, why would we ever do such a cowardly thing?”

“Because you’re surrounded, and we want to avoid unnecessary bloodshed,” I said.

“Always the noble one, aren’t you, Dr. Cross?” Whitaker said. “Well, the Regulators are not surrendering. We are prepared to fight to the last man.”

“Why?” I said.

“Ask John Brown,” Whitaker said. “His goals are our goals.”

“You’re wanted for murder and treason, Colonel. The arrest warrants have already been written and are ready to be served. It doesn’t have to end in a firefight.”

“Ah, but it does, Dr. Cross,” Whitaker said. “A fight to the death is how all slave rebellions begin.”

He ended the call.

Mahoney picked up a radio and ordered his tactical team to move closer, probe for booby traps, and try to get infrared on the house. Five minutes later, the same report came back from all sides of Whitaker’s home: The lights were on, but the shades and drapes were drawn. Infrared showed fifteen people in the house, fourteen sitting around the living room and one up front talking.

“No one’s moving inside and no one’s posted outside,” the tactical agent in charge said over the radio.

“All in one room,” Mahoney said. “Take them before they fan out.”

“Roger that. We are go.”

Mahoney’s blue sedan soon squealed out of the barnyard with us behind, tearing up the country road toward Whitaker’s place. We stopped in front of the driveway, barring any exit, and got out, drawing guns even as the first flash-bang grenades went off.

Sampson said, “I promised Billie I wouldn’t play cowboy.”

“And you’re not,” I said. “We’re doing the rational thing, letting the pros handle the rough stuff.”

We trotted down the driveway expecting World War III to erupt at any moment, but all we heard after the grenades was doors and windows breaking and voices calling “Clear.”

The wind had picked up again, and it was starting to rain as we followed Mahoney up into the house and saw the fifteen mannequins arranged around the room in various poses.

Every one of them was connected to electrical lines through sockets embedded in their heels. Their plastic skin was warm to the touch.





CHAPTER


97


A RAPID SEARCH of the house revealed a fully equipped gunsmith operation in the basement, empty crates of ammunition, empty cardboard boxes for AR-rifle components, and the empty gun racks of a formidable arsenal.

Outside, in the building wind and rain, we figured out how they’d escaped. Whitaker’s fishing boat was still up on its lift when we went down by the dock, but in the barn we found large, empty raft trailers and empty ten-gallon gasoline cans.

“They went to the waiting rafts the second they got here,” I said.

Sampson nodded. “And they trolled out of here, probably by quiet electric motor and then by heavy outboard. They were probably out on the Chesapeake before the Coast Guard was even notified.”

“Where the hell do they think they’re going?” Mahoney said. “I mean, we’ll have Whitaker’s face everywhere within hours. He will be spotted. They can’t escape.”

“Maybe they don’t mean to escape,” I said. “Maybe we should take the colonel at his word: A fight to the death is how all slave rebellions begin.”

“Then why didn’t he stand his ground here?” Mahoney asked.

“He wants the fight to be somewhere else,” I said.

“What I don’t get is why,” Sampson said. “What did Whitaker say on the phone, Alex? About John Brown?”

“That they had the same goals.”

“Freeing slaves?” Mahoney said.

I thought about that and then did a quick Google search on my phone. After scanning the site that came up first, I said, “Brown was an abolitionist, a radical one who believed the slaves could be freed only through armed insurrection. He attacked a U.S. military arsenal in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, trying to steal thousands of guns he planned to give to the slaves so they could start the rebellion.”

“So, what,” Sampson said. “Was Whitaker telling you he’s going to attack a military installation, steal guns, and give them away?”

“They already built enough guns for a small army,” Mahoney said.