I was drenched when I ran back up the front steps to my home. Inside, I didn’t bother taking off my jacket or watch cap; I just went straight to the kitchen and punched Redial on my cell.
“C’mon, Ned,” I said. “Pick up.”
I’d tried to call Mahoney six or seven times on the run home, but every call to his personal phone immediately jumped to voice mail. And every call to his work phone ended with a federal robot telling me his voice mail was not yet set up.
That was impossible. Mahoney had had the same work number for eight years. We talked all the time on the work phone.
Five assassins, I thought as I started making coffee. No, three. If Thomas was an assassin, he was a dead one. So was Romero.
Were there more than the three left?
It could have been just the three at that point, but that seemed unlikely to me. If there were three, there could be four or five or even six.
Five or six. I knew those numbers were a pure guess, but that didn’t matter. A prudent man should assume the worst and prepare for it.
Was five or six the worst-case scenario? Or were there even more than that?
Or was I just imagining this? A tired, frazzled brain searching for answers?
Pouring myself a cup of coffee, I decided to go with my instincts because I did not have enough facts. After trying both of Ned’s phones again, I poured coffee into a second cup and took it and mine upstairs to our bedroom, where I flipped on the lights.
Shutting the door, I said, “Bree, wake up.”
She groaned and pulled the pillow over her head. “Go away. I need to sleep.”
I walked over and grabbed the pillow away.
“Alex!” she shouted angrily. “Bree needs to—”
“I know Bree needs to sleep,” I said. “But I need to talk to Chief Stone. Or do you want me to leave you out of the loop and go straight to Chief Michaels?”
Her brow knitted and she squinted at me and some of the stiffness in her shoulders eased. “What time is it?” she grumbled.
“Just after five,” I said.
“You’ve been out running already?”
I put her coffee on the night table. “Couldn’t sleep, figured I’d go for a run and think some things through.”
Bree yawned and struggled to sit up. “Okay?”
“I think there’s a conspiracy going on,” I said. “A conspiracy of assassins.”
She sipped the coffee, listening and saying nothing as I tried to explain the fractured logic of my theory.
“Something bad is about to happen. I know this doesn’t sound like me, but I can feel it.”
Bree was quiet for several moments before saying, “This doesn’t sound like you at all, Alex. Seeing riderless horses. How much sleep have you been getting?”
“This has nothing to do with sleep, and I didn’t see the horse. I just remembered it. This really has to do with Senator Walker getting killed, probably by Thomas, who was then killed either by Varjan or whoever beat Sergeant Moon to death.”
“Alex, there’s a lot of conjecture in what you’re saying. Especially the idea that there are more assassins than we know about.”
“I’m saying we should be proceeding based on that assumption. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong. But I don’t think I am.”
Bree was quiet again but studying me. “What do you think these assassins are going to do?”
“I…I don’t know. But if they were part of a plot that begins with the killing of a sitting U.S. senator, draw your own conclusions.”
“I can’t draw any conclusions,” she said. “We don’t have enough facts.”
“I’m telling you, something brutal is going to happen in the District, maybe today.”
I could see her getting more frustrated by the moment. “What do you want me to do? Put all my detectives on the streets? Ask Michaels to double the shift? Put every cop on patrol because your gut says so?”
“That would be a start,” I said.
She threw up her hands. “Well, I’m not in a position to do that.”
“You should at least tell Michaels.”
“Tell him what? That a consultant to the department wants a small army to take over the District of Columbia because of a gut feeling?”
I could see I was getting nowhere fast. “Okay,” I said, heading toward the door.
“Where are you going?”
“To my office to see what patients I can cancel and then to find Mahoney to see if he can understand what I’m saying.”
“Alex,” Bree said as I opened the door. “Just because I don’t agree with you doesn’t mean I don’t love you.”
I felt the skin around my temples relax. “I know. I love you too. Go back to sleep.”
“That’s not happening,” she said ruefully, and she took another sip of coffee.
I went out the door and back down the stairs, feeling confused and wondering whether this was just a theory cooked up by my tired mind. But by the time I reached the kitchen, I was certain again that I was right.
After pouring another cup of coffee, I went down the stairs, hitting Redial on my cell. Again I heard that infuriating recording about the voice mail not being set up.
I reached the bottom of the stairs and I was about to dial Ned’s personal phone again when I noticed an envelope on the floor below the mail slot. I picked it up, saw my name and address and a stamp but no postmark and no return address.
I slit the envelope open as I walked to my office. There was a single piece of white paper inside. Across the page, scrawled in lurid red crayon, it said:
Stop Me Please, Alex Cross