Criss Cross (Alex Cross) - James Patterson Page 0,82
said. “Why?”
“Here are Ali’s texts,” Rawlins said. “Last one to this number.
It’s a San Diego area code. Recognize it?”
I shook my head. “What’s it say?”
He highlighted the phone number, clicked it, and the text came up: I’m here. Can’t wait.
“That’s at three thirty-two, five minutes before Ali’s phone goes off,” Sampson said.
“Go backward,” I said. “Open them all up.”
There were twenty-two texts to and from that number. But I didn’t have to read them all to understand who had my son.
The back-and-forth was all about mountain biking and what route should be taken on a ride after school got out. The first text of the day, from the California number, read Captain W here. Change of plans and phone. Got mine drowned and it died. I’m going to take a chance and ride this afternoon. You up for it?
And the day before, Ali had gotten a text from Abrahamsen’s regular number at dinnertime, when Nana Mama was spouting one-liners. I remembered how he had smiled as he read the text.
Yes, I am back from Texas, that text read. Shoulder’s still a little too sore to be riding. Hope you are well, my young friend.
“He’s M?” I said, shaking my head in disbelief. “Former tank commander, now with defense intelligence, U.S. Army captain Arthur Abrahamsen?”
CHAPTER 92
AT FIVE THE NEXT MORNING, the two-story Colonial on the east side of Eaglebrook Court in Fort Hunt, Virginia, was just as dark as it had been when Sampson and I parked a surveillance van down the street shortly after midnight.
There was a large dumpster in the front yard. According to records Rawlins pulled, Abrahamsen had a permit to remodel the house. Beyond the dumpster was that van with the decal wraps of the U.S. Armed Forces bicycle team.
In my mind, I could see Abrahamsen pulling up in front of Ali in that van and my son jumping in.
Mahoney trotted up to the surveillance van, climbed in, shut the door quietly.
“People are going to start waking up and wondering what this van is,” I said.
“Just waiting for a judge to give us the okay,” he said. “I brought an infrared sensor. Should pick up anyone inside.”
The sensor looked like a large, fat gun with a screen attached to the rear. I opened the window, aimed the gun at Abrahamsen’s house, and turned it on.
The screen showed the house radiating massive amounts of heat.
“He must have the furnace turned up to ninety,” Mahoney said. “Can’t make out any heat differentiations in there.”
“Maybe why he’s got the heat cranked up,” Sampson said from the driver’s seat.
Ned’s phone rang. He answered, listened, and said, “ETA?” Then he listened again and hung up.
“Judge is reading our support material,” he said, pulling out an iPad and calling up the Google Earth view of the house. “If we get his signature, they’ll bring the warrant to us. I’m going to have HRT start to filter into position.”
The FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team. The best in the business. I should have been elated that HRT was coming to rescue my son, but the father in me wanted to be the one to lead the charge, knock Abrahamsen silly, and bring Ali home safe and sound.
“What was that?” Sampson said, pointing at Abrahamsen’s house. “I saw something move on the side of the house there.”
I threw up my binoculars and saw nothing in the shadows. Then I pointed the infrared sensor at the house again.
The house was still pulsing heat, especially through the windows and around the doors, which were depicted in red. But the walls were hot too, a deep, undulating orange.
I was about to flip the sensor off when out of the orange on the side of the house, a blob appeared and became the yellow silhouette of a man.
“Unidentified man outside,” I said. “Right there. He’s—”
The silhouette straddled something, then got into a sitting position and rolled out of the sensor’s range.
“He’s on a bike!” I said. “He’s going out the back.”
“Mount Vernon Trail,” Mahoney said, then he snatched up a handheld radio and triggered the mike. “We’ve got a runner.”
CHAPTER 93
SAMPSON STARTED THE ENGINE, threw the van in gear. Part of me wanted to jump out, go straight into Abrahamsen’s house, and find Ali.
But we had no cause yet, at least no warrant with a judge’s signature. And Abrahamsen or M or whoever he was—he was getting away.
The first gray light of morning showed when Sampson took a hard right onto Waynewood Road and accelerated toward the Mount Vernon Trail and