Triple Cross (Alex Cross #30)(94)

“Okay. On another note, does he have a nickname, by any chance?”

“A nickname? Uh, yeah, I guess. Why?”





CHAPTER 107


AT SEVEN THIRTY THAT evening I stood in the grand hall of Union Station watching travelers exit the tunnel from the Acela tracks. I spotted Bree, her arm in a sling.

We hadn’t seen each other in four days, and I grinned until I realized she wasn’t smiling back at me. My poor wife looked dazed and confused.

“Are you all right?” I said, giving her a hug. I took her bag.

“I don’t know, Alex,” she said in a quiet voice. “I just …”

“Just what?” I said, growing concerned. This was not like Bree at all.

“Nothing physical. It’s complicated. Hard to explain. And I don’t know if I’m right.”

“Give it a try.”

We started walking to the Massachusetts Avenue exit. When we got outside, dusk was falling and the air was thicker, the first hint of the summer heat and humidity to come.

“Get an Uber?”

“Let’s walk,” Bree said, still pensive. “Remember Volkov said M hired him to kill Frances Duchaine?”

“How could I forget?” I said as we crossed Massachusetts and began to climb toward the Senate side of Capitol Hill.

“Stop a sec. I want you to listen to something I recorded at Theresa May Alcott’s the other day.”

Bree played the section of the recording she’d made in the billionaire’s library: “This is Terri … Give me a minute, will you, Emma, dear?”

“Who’s Emma?”

“She’s not saying ‘Emma,’” Bree said. “Listen again. She’s saying ‘em, uh.’”

She played it once more.

“I hear it now,” I said. “But I don’t get the significance.”

“She’s on the phone with Paladin,” Bree said. “She’s talking to Ryan Malcomb.”

“Malcomb? Are you sure?”

“Positive,” Bree said. “Theresa May Alcott’s his aunt, and she was guardian to him and his twin brother after their parents’ death.”

“Still,” I said. “I’m not getting where this is—”

My wife cut me off, insistent. “Malcomb has a nickname, Alex. People close to him call him M.”

I stared at her in the gloaming. “Is that true?”

“A woman who used to work for Frances Duchaine and has been to Paladin’s headquarters many times says it’s absolutely true. Think about it, Alex. You always said M had to be incredibly wealthy. Malcomb is rich in his own right and might have his aunt’s billions at his disposal. And think about this: Sampson has always said that M had to be someone affiliated with the NSA, someone who could listen in on devices.”

I said, “But Malcomb can’t. Paladin only has authorization to mine the data it is given by law enforcement or intelligence groups.”

Bree raised an eyebrow. “Who told you that?”

I thought about it. “Ryan Malcomb.”

“And M was sure as hell listening in on you and John last year before you went to Montana. He was anticipating your moves. Remember?”

I nodded and looked at our phones, which we changed constantly because of our concern about being hacked. Now, once again, I felt weirdly violated.

“You don’t think Malcomb’s listening to us right now, do you?”





CHAPTER 108




Haverhill, Massachusetts


IN THE SECRET DEEP operations center below Paladin’s headquarters, Ryan Malcomb stared at the huge screen in the front of the amphitheater where a fuzzy feed from a Washington, DC, CCTV camera showed Alex Cross and Bree Stone standing on a sidewalk in Lower Senate Park at the base of Capitol Hill.

Malcomb and everyone else in the room heard Cross say, “You don’t think Malcomb’s listening to us right now, do you?”

Stone said, “He sure could be, Alex.”

Cross tapped his phone and said, “Well, if he is … if you are M, Mr. Malcomb, and you are listening, here’s a heads-up: We are going to come for you and everyone else in Maestro. You will face justice for what you’ve done.”

Malcomb’s features hardened. He felt the attention of everyone in the room on him and knew he was now facing the biggest threat of his life and theirs.

He smiled at his comrades and said, “No worries, Maestro. We’ve prepared for this moment, haven’t we?”

Edith Walton, Malcomb’s longtime deep ops director, nodded. “We have, M,” she said. “In fine detail.”

Malcomb looked over at his partner, Steve Vance, who’d gone ashen and grim.

“Your call,” Vance said.

The founder of Paladin took a long, deep breath, let it out, and said, “Initiate bugout procedures, Maestro. Erase everything. Take this op to the ground where no one can find it.”

Without hesitation, Vance, Walton, and the other people in the deep ops center turned to their consoles and keyboards and began typing.

Malcomb waited until the feed on the big screen died and turned his wheelchair toward the door. “I have things to attend to in my office, Edith.”