Detective Cross
- Автор: Паттерсон Джеймс
- Серия: Alex Cross #24
- Год: 2017
- Язык: английский
- Год: BookShots / Little, Brown and Company
- ISBN: 978-0-316-46976-0
- Жанр: Триллеры
Электронная книга - «Detective Cross». Краткое содержание книги:
The kid locked up for two long beats, before turning fully toward her. He looked past her, over his shoulder to me. In a split second I saw recognition, fear, and resolution in his expression. This was our guy. But he’s just a kid, I thought.
Twisting away from us, he lurched to his feet and stepped onto his seat, holding his cell phone high overhead.
“I’m wearing a bomb vest!” he shouted. “Do what I say, or everyone dies!”
Chapter 31
Passengers began to scream and scramble away from Mickey.
“Shut up and don’t move!” the teen yelled, shaking the cell phone at them. “Everyone shut up and sit down, or I will kill us all right now!”
The few passengers on their feet slowly sank into seats, and the bus quieted, save for a few frightened whimpers.
“Good,” the teenager said, and then called to Gordon Light. “No more stops, driver. Straight south now.”
I wished I had a gun. Lacking that, I eased my phone from my coat pocket.
“Where are we going?” Kate Williams said.
“You’ll see,” Mickey said, his head swiveling all around.
He looked at me, then back toward the front. When he did, I moved my hands and phone forward toward the back of his seat where I hoped he couldn’t see them. The second time his head swung away from me, I glanced down to text Bree and Mahoney: Bomber taken D-8 bus hostage. Headed south on—
“What are you doing?” Mickey yelled.
I looked up to see him glaring at me.
Unzipping his jacket and hoodie, he exposed the vest, festooned with wires leading into opaque green blocks of C-4 bulging from pocket sleeves.
“Do you think I’m kidding here?” he shrieked.
“Why are you doing this, Mickey?” I said, thumbing Send.
“You’ll see why,” he shouted. “Have a little patience. And keep your hands where I can see them.”
I palmed my phone and rested my hands on my thighs. “Your game, Mickey.”
Gordon Light yelled, “Almost to Union Station.”
“Keep going,” Mickey directed. “Take a left on Mass Ave.”
He looked back at me. I said, “Pretty difficult to get old Yugoslavian C-4, Mickey.”
He smiled. “Sometimes you just get lucky, Dr. Cross.”
We reached Mass Ave, and Light took the left. Kate was studying Mickey intently. I looked out the windows, searching for the flashing lights and sirens I hoped would somehow appear. If Bree or Mahoney got the text, they knew we were on the Hospital Center Line heading south. Metrobus had GPS trackers on them, didn’t they?
But other than the rain and the nearly deserted sidewalks, it looked like any other evening in the District of Columbia.
Mickey stepped over onto the seat in front of him, then jumped down in the aisle with his back to me. “Take a right!”
I punched 911 into my phone.
“I can’t!” Gordon yelled. “It’s one way there!”
“Do it, or your bus blows up!”
“911, what is your emergency?” I heard the woman say.
The driver slammed on his brakes and cut right through a small parking area off Mass Ave. The bus hit a curb with a jolt. People screamed. My chin hit the back of Kate’s seat and I dropped my phone, which went skittering across the floor before the bus smashed down onto Northwest Drive along the boundary of the Capitol’s grounds.
I was dazed for a moment, hearing cars honking and swerving to get out of the way of the bus, which went careening uphill. As I shook off the daze, Mickey moved forward toward Gordon Light, his cell phone held high.
Passengers shrank from him as he advanced, yelling, “Turn on the lights in here. Open your window. And take the next right, Driver. Go right on up to the barrier!”
“The next right? I can’t! It’s—”
“Do it!”
Mickey ran up beside the driver. Light glanced at the cell phone Mickey held before pressing a button that opened his window, and another that lit up the interior of the bus. He downshifted and swung the bus right, following the curve of a short spur road that led to a bunker-like guard shack and a solid-steel gate.
Ahead, through the windshield, I could see the lights of satellite media trucks blazing across the small plaza in front of the steps of the Senate. A Capitol Hill Police officer armed with an H&K submachine gun stepped out of the shack.
“What the hell are you doing!” she shouted at Gordon. “Back the hell up! This is a restricted—”
“I’m wearing a bomb!” Mickey Hawkes yelled. “And I’m going to explode it and kill you and all these people unless I get to talk to those senators. Right here. Right now.”
Chapter 32
I recognized the officer — her last name was Larson. She hesitated until Mickey exposed the bomb vest again.
“Do it,” Mickey said. “Call in there. And don’t even think of trying to shoot me.
“I drop this phone, the IED goes off.”
Officer Larson blinked and said, “Let’s calm down a second here, son. I can’t just call into the Senate. I wouldn’t even know how.”
“Bullshit.”
“She’s right, Mickey Hawkes,” I called loudly, and got up.
He looked at me as I started past Kate. “Sit down, man.”
I hesitated. Kate tugged on my pants leg. I looked down at her, and saw she wanted to tell me something.
“What?”
She glanced at Mickey and said, “Nothing.”
Mickey had turned to the Capitol Hill cop. “Call your boss, lady. Or call his boss. I’m sure one of them knows how to contact the senators blocking the vets’ bill.”
“Is that what this is about?” I said, moving up the aisle.
“Sit down, or I blow this now!” he shouted at me.
I sat down seven rows from the front with my hands up.
Mickey looked back at Officer Larson, who hadn’t moved.
“Call now!” he yelled. “Or do you want to explain how you could have stopped the bloodbath that’s about to happen?”
Larson held up a hand, said, “Calm down, and I’ll try to make the call.”
I said, “Mickey, how about letting some of these people go while she tries?”
He glared at me. “Why would I do that?”
“To show your goodwill.”
“There’s no such thing as goodwill,” Mickey said. “Why do you think I’m here?”
Larson backed through the door into the guard shack.
I said, “Mickey, why are you here?”
“I’ll tell those senators.”
“You could start with us,” I said. “Convince us, maybe you convince them.”
The teenager didn’t look at me, but I could see him struggle. He said, “I’m saying this once, my way.”
“You could—”
“Shut up, Dr. Cross!” he shouted. “I know what you’re trying to do! I’ve seen what all you goddamned shrinks try to do!”
Officer Larson emerged from the security bunker. I looked out the windows and saw the silhouettes of armed officers racing from all directions to surround the bus.
She said, “Mickey, I can’t call the senators.”
“You can’t?” he screamed. “Or you won’t?”
Larson said, “I don’t make these kinds of calls, Mickey. But there’s no way we’re going to let a senator anywhere near you and your bomb.”
His jaw clenched. He looked out the windshield, and back at the cop.
“Get them on the Senate steps then. And give me a bullhorn.”
Larson started to shake her head, but I yelled, “Call, Officer. See if it’s possible.”
I was standing again. Larson could see me through the windows. She hesitated, but then nodded. “I’ll ask, Dr. Cross.”
When she disappeared back inside the bunker, I said, “If you get your chance to talk to them, Mickey, you’ll let us go?”