Fear No Evil(Alex Cross #29)(3)

“No kidding. It was like the gig was tailor-made for her.”

“Maybe we should think about going into private-sector investigations too.”

“Pay’s better, for sure,” I allowed.

Before he could reply, my seventeen-year-old daughter, Jannie, poked her head in and said, “Nana says your eggs are getting cold.”

I put down my dry bag and went to the kitchen, where I found my youngest child, Ali, already finishing up his plate.

“Morning, sunshine,” I said, giving him a hug. He ignored it, so I tickled him.

“C’mon, Dad!” He laughed, then groaned. “Why can’t I go with you?”

“Because you’re a kid and we don’t know what we’ll be facing.”

“I can do it,” he insisted.

Sampson said, “Ali, let your dad and me scope it out this year. If we think you’re up to it, we’ll bring you along on the next trip. Deal?”

Ali scrunched up his face and shrugged. “I guess. When do you leave?”

“First thing in the—”

My cell phone began to ring at the same time Sampson’s chimed.

“No,” John protested. “Don’t answer that, Alex. We’re supposed to be gone already!”

But when I saw the caller ID, I grimaced and knew I had to answer. “Commissioner Dennison,” I said. “John Sampson and I were just heading out the door on vacation.”

“Cancel it,” said the commissioner of the Metro DC Police Department. “We’ve got a dead female, gunshot wound to the head, dumped in the garage under the International Spy Museum on L’Enfant Plaza. Her ID says she’s—”

“Commissioner, with all due respect,” I said, “we’ve been planning this trip for—”

“I don’t care, Cross,” he snapped. “Her ID says she’s CIA. If you want to continue your contract with Metro, you’ll get down there. And if Sampson wants to keep his job, he’ll be with you.”

I stared at the ceiling a second, looked at John, and shook my head.

“Okay, Commissioner. We’re on our way.”





Chapter





4




Tenth Avenue in Southwest DC goes under L’Enfant Plaza with a turnoff for monthly permit and public parking. The deceased, a big blonde in her late thirties with a gunshot wound to the head, was sitting upright in a corner of the third level of monthly permit parking.

A crude sign that said TRAITOR was hung around her neck.

“Someone had to have seen her get put here,” I said. “Cameras, anyway.”

Sampson nodded. “Maybe we will make our flight tomorrow morning.”

Valerie Jackson, a Metro patrol officer, met us at a band of yellow tape she’d strung around the crime scene. The spy museum’s director had discovered the victim when he arrived shortly after dawn.

“She has a CIA ID?” Sampson asked.

“Photo and everything. It’s still on her lap. Catherine Hingham of the CIA.”

We put on blue shoe covers and latex gloves before crossing to the deceased, who was dressed like a suburban mom out for a lunch date after yoga class. We saw how nasty the exit wound was, but we both noted how little blood there was around and behind her.

“She was moved here,” Sampson said.

“I was just going to say the same thing,” I said. “She was shot elsewhere, cleaned up a little, and put here as a message.”

“To who?”

“Other traitors?”

We saw two black Suburbans drive in and park.

“Who the hell let them in?” Officer Jackson said, moving toward the cars. Six men and women in black windbreakers emerged. One guy with slicked-back blond hair and an attitude came straight to the yellow tape and ducked under it. When Officer Jackson tried to cut him off, he flashed an ID and kept coming.

“Dean Weaver, Detectives,” he said. “Central Intelligence Agency.”

“CIA?” Sampson said, pulling himself up to his full six foot nine inches and getting in the man’s way.

“Good—you can hear, and you understand English,” Weaver said, holding up his identification. “We’ll be taking over the investigation from here. I want any and all evidence left in situ. And I ask that you kindly leave.”

I shook my head. “Not a chance. Federal law prohibits the CIA from running investigations in the United States, so I’ll have to ask you to leave my crime scene.”

“And who are you?”

“Dr. Alex Cross, investigative consultant to Metro PD and the FBI. And if you don’t leave, I’ll be calling my liaison, Supervising Special Agent Ned Mahoney, who I’m sure would be glad to explain how the law works domestically.”

The CIA officer looked ready to pop his cork but he kept it under control. “Catherine Hingham is—was—one of ours, Dr. Cross,” he said with clenched fists. “Can I please at least identify her?”

“After you explain how you found out so fast,” I said.

“I…can’t say. It’s…complicated.”

Sampson smiled. “Must happen like that a lot in the spy business.”

The CIA officer sighed. “You have no idea.”