The People vs. Alex Cross (Alex Cross #25)(81)

We came over a rise in the road and saw a huge, black, six-wheel-drive armored FBI truck roll to the gate. I expected the guards to immediately stand down, but instead there were flashes from behind the gate and reports of gunfire over the radio.

“Take it down,” Mahoney said.

The big armored rig backed up and then sped at the steel gate and blew it off its hinges. Agents inside the truck fired from portholes at the guards, who’d retreated up the hill into the trees toward the compound. Mahoney followed the armored truck, driving across the downed gate, with us trailing.

“HRT?” Mahoney said.

“Two hundred yards out, SAC,” came the reply. “No visuals on the shed yet, but you have lights going on up the hill.”

The breaching rig sped up on that news, disappeared around a curve in the long serpentine driveway. By the time we reached the edge of the compound, spotlights were blazing on the courtyard between the main house, the carriage house, and the barn.

Ten FBI agents in full SWAT gear poured out of the armored vehicle, divided into teams of two, and fanned out toward the mansion, a modern building made of stone, redwood, and glass.

The doors of the carriage house at the far side of the yard were up. The interior wasn’t lit, but there was enough light from the exterior spotlights to reveal a white Range Rover and a black pickup truck in the first two bays and several ATVs and dirt bikes in the third.

Black pickup truck, I thought. Bet it has a window with a bullet hole or two in it.

In front of us, Mahoney got out of the Tahoe. Caught in Batra’s headlights, he blinked, held up a hand, and signaled for her to shut them off. Bree and Sampson got out. The radio chatter from the raiding team and the HRT forces started coming nonstop. I got whining feedback in my headset for a moment.

Four agents went to the front door, used a battering ram to break it open, and then vanished inside.

In the woods to our north, the HRT unit had the plywood-faced building surrounded. Thermals showed the four people were still inside, still lying flat or curled up. That didn’t seem right to me; they should have been sitting or standing. But maybe they hadn’t heard the gunfire? Or maybe they were restrained?

“HRT, go in and get them out,” Mahoney said over my headset. “Now.”

“Lower front hall clear,” said an agent inside the house.

“Walkout basement clear,” said another.

“Where is he?” Rawlins said from the front seat of Batra’s car. “Don’t tell me Edgars isn’t here.”

Even with the windows up, even with the heater going and the radio chatter in our ears, we all heard the first explosion.





CHAPTER


104


“HRT AGENT DOWN,” the rescue commander said. “Repeat, HRT agent down. The place is booby-trapped.”

“Back out and contain,” Mahoney said. “How bad?”

“We’ll need Life Flight ASAP.”

“Calling now.”

On the radio, the search commander inside Edgars’s mansion said, “Watch for booby traps, gentlemen.”

“Kitchen clear,” said another.

“Home theater clear,” said a third.

“All first-floor closets and bathrooms clear,” said a fourth. “First floor cleared in full,” the commander said.

Bree and Sampson left Mahoney and started toward the mansion. I got anxious, felt claustrophobic, and opened the car door.

“You’re to remain in the car, Dr. Cross,” Batra said.

“I’m going to stand outside.” I got out and shut the door.

My wife and my partner entered Edgars’s house with the FBI agents inside already moving to clear the second story. Mahoney told the HRT commander that Life Flight was eleven minutes out and then he headed inside as well.

I caught some of the communications between the hostage-rescue commander and the incoming Life Flight medic. The agent had opened a door to the building and triggered a small explosive. He had shrapnel in his right thigh and a severed femoral artery. They’d applied direct pressure to the wound so he wouldn’t bleed out and were preparing to move him from the woods to the county road for pickup.

“Roger that,” the medic replied. “We are seven minutes out.”

An agent in the house said, “Second-floor landing and hallway clear.”

“All bedrooms cleared,” another said. “Place is empty, Cap.”

A high-pitched tone screeched through the headset, so loud I thought my eardrums would burst. I tore the headset off, stuck it in my pocket.

The dark second-floor windows facing the courtyard suddenly flashed as automatic-weapon fire broke out inside the house. Two guns, three, maybe more.

I took several limping steps toward the courtyard and the mansion, wanting to see Bree, Sampson, and Mahoney retreat out the front door. But they didn’t, and the shooting went on in bursts and waves, and—

“Dr. Cross!” Agent Batra yelled behind me.

I ignored her, pulled toward the violence, wanting to end it. But the gunfire stopped as I passed Mahoney’s Tahoe and entered the courtyard. I caught a flicker of motion in the third bay of the carriage house just before a second bomb exploded, much closer, on the other side of the mansion.

At the blast, the spotlights flickered and died. The shooting stopped too.