Blackjack: A Cross Novel Part 11

"Not house cats," Tiger told him. "Maybe a jungle cat, we couldn't say for sure. But we found plenty of bodies with regular cats around them ... and the cats were still alive."

"That's the hook," Cross said. "They don't care about-"

"Who?" Percy leaned forward.

"Cats. Cats don't bond to humans the way dogs do. Whoever they are, they only hunt humans. In at least some of all those other kills you told me about, dogs were hacked too. The killers came for the humans and the dogs tried to protect them. Nothing personal to the killers-the dogs just got in the way."

"Silent whistle," Tiger said, almost to herself.

"Hearing range, yeah," Cross picked up her thread. "I don't know about cats, but dogs, no question they can hear harmonics humans can't."

"Dogs can hear them coming?" Percy asked, as if the whole picture was finally snapping into focus.

Cross shrugged. "It'd fit, right? The dogs hear ... whatever this thing is. Or maybe they smell it. Either way, they go right into protection mode. But the humans they're trying to protect wouldn't get that message-they'd think the dogs were snarling at shadows."

"That is why our people always had dogs," Tracker confirmed. "But the ... Simbas, if that's who they are ... there's still something almost ... clean about what they do. It is as if they only hunt hunters."

"Or they only kill killers," Cross narrowed it down.

"What about this one, then?" Percy challenged, pulling out an eight-by-ten photo of a signature-kill corpse hanging from a jungle gym in a kid's playground. "This guy wasn't even armed."

Cross picked up the photo and studied the scene. Flipped it over, read the ID information on the back. "There's info here," he said. "Can any of you except Blondie's girlfriend work that computer?"

Tiger shook her head. Tracker's answer was silence.

"I can't make it sing and dance the way that slope b.i.t.c.h does," Percy said, "but I can get some basic stuff out of it. What do you want?"

"A BCI?"

"Can do," Percy responded, planting his heavyweight body on Wanda's stool. He started banging away immediately, jeopardizing the keyboard with vicious two-finger blasts.

Cross lit a cigarette. So did Tracker.

Tiger said nothing. And missed nothing.

They waited.

"Son of a b.i.t.c.h!" Percy said, staring at the screen. "He was a G.o.dd.a.m.ned pedophile."

"A what?" from Tiger.

"Baby-raper," Cross told her. "That's what he was doing in that playground. Hunting. Stalking the ground, picking out a target. You understand?"

She nodded, a warrior's stony mask dropping over her gorgeous features.

"And now all of us do," Tracker added grimly.

THE BLOND man and Wanda entered the War Room together. Wanda sniffed at the smell of smoke. But her annoyance instantly vanished at the far worse violation she detected: in her absence, someone had dared to touch her computer. Her dark eyes whipped around the van. Only Tiger reacted ... with a fake-seductive wink.

"Learn anything?" the blond man asked.

n.o.body answered.

"You know what we want," the blond said to Cross. "And you want to see a grant of immunity all typed out and signed, with a blank s.p.a.ce where the crime should be. With the same exact computer, printer, and paper that was originally used, so you end up with a perfect match. Okay, you've got it."

"Sure I do."

"What kind of proof could we possibly give you?"

Cross put two fingers against his jawline, as if he was thinking it through. The blond man kept a barely veiled smug look on his fox-face.

Cross snapped his fingers with an "I've got it!" expression on his face. "If you're really all that connected, you should be able to tell me where this guy is," Cross said, pulling an old mug shot out of his coat.

"Who's this?" Blondie asked.

"A baby-killer," Cross told him. "A baby-killer with real immunity. New face, new name. He's doing lightweight time ... somewhere."

The blond man handed the mug shot behind him, without looking. "Wanda ..."

Wanda s.n.a.t.c.hed the mug shot and placed it on a photoimage enhancer. She pixilated it carefully, then used a digital scanner to break the face into tiny components, each with its own number/letter series. She was playing her keyboard like a first-chair cellist, her face glowing with the joy of the chase.

As she worked, her movements told Cross that this genre of hunting was Wanda's raison d'etre. As each new piece of information came up on her screen, she reacted in a distinct but subtle parallel to a woman being worked up to o.r.g.a.s.m.

NAME/NATAL/GIVEN: SLOc.u.m, LINDSAY, NMI.

NAME/CODE: INSIDER-KP.

NAME/CURRENT: FELTON, REGINALD D. (ANIEL).

The same process occurred, much more dramatically, with the face itself. Cross watched as it progressed from the original through the various stages of plastic surgery to its current configuration, which bore no resemblance to the original mug shot.

At Wanda's touch, information continued to play across the screen: LOCATION/U.S. INSTILLED. #11-C.

SECURITY LEVEL - 1.

Wanda hit a final b.u.t.ton and a printout flowed into her hands. She handed it over to the blond man, who, in turn, pa.s.sed it to Cross.

"Satisfied now?"

"You got yourself a deal," Cross replied.

"What does that mean, exactly?"

"It means that I'm gonna do what you want done," Cross promised. "But I got other business first. Now, what else have you got on this freak?"

"The priority-"

"Two things," Cross said, his voice as deceptively transparent as an ice cube. "One, your priority doesn't mean a thing to me. Two, as it turns out, I have to do this other business to get something I need to do the work you want done."

"Perhaps we could-"

"Shut up and let the man do his job," Percy cut the blond man off.

Tracker and Tiger were silent. That frightened the blond man a lot more than Percy's growling. And he was truly terrified of Percy.

"NO WAY I can interview him?"

"Not a chance," the blond told the man at the other end of a phone conversation. "We came to him, not the other way around. But we do have video of him interacting with us, if that would be any help."

"All right, partner," the consultant said. "Send what you've got over that special little modem of yours-I've got the one you gave me all hooked in. Not just the video, now-everything you put together before you decided he was the man for the job."

"How fast can you-?"

"I'll call you when I've got something to say," the consultant answered, a split second before he pushed the "end" b.u.t.ton on his cell phone.

CROSS STEPPED off a commuter flight, picked up the rental car waiting for him, and drove straight to a p.a.w.nshop that was on the permanent Watch List for local law enforcement.

His hair was a tangle of blond curls, and he sported a prominent beauty mark on his cheek. An earring dangled from his right ear on a long chain. Anyone who looked closely enough would see the "ball and chain" symbol for a submissive in a "collared" relations.h.i.+p.

Cross exchanged only a few words with the proprietor. They entered a back room. When Cross left the p.a.w.nshop, he was carrying a small suitcase.

A no-tell motel took his cash. Cross changed his clothes, then re-entered the rental car. First, he plugged a memory stick into the car's data-port, disabling its GPS. Then he drove for a little less than two hours, totally fixed on his objective, never noticing the urban grit give way to a scenic countryside.

He arrived at what looked like a college campus. A closer look would reveal it to be a minimum-security prison. Cross, now dressed in a conservative suit, with the fool-the-eye disguise removed, entered the prison, carrying an attache case. He was processed through, enduring only a scanner-no pat-down searches were required at this security level.

Next stop, the Visiting Room. It was an open plan, no barriers between visitors and convicts. Lots of people were visiting, children playing with their sort-of-incarcerated parents; unarmed guards in neat uniforms circled quietly, observant but lacking the hyper-alertness of security staff in real prisons.

Cross was directed to a corner table. He waited patiently until an inmate walked over to him. The man was tall, slender, handsome to the verge of "pretty," with a pencil mustache highlighted against his cafe-au-lait skin.

The two men's heads moved very close together; they spoke in barely audible whispers.

"Just get him out to the South Yard anytime after two-thirty tomorrow afternoon," Cross said.

"Man, I don't know if I can do that. It ain't like we tight or nothing-I don't hardly know the dude."

"Save it, Maurice. One, you owe me. Two, talking people into things is your game. And, three, I'll make it worth your while."

"Look here, bro...."

"Wait. There's still a number four."

"Which is ...?"

"You remember your old pal Ace? He told me to give you a message: You don't get this guy out into that South Yard tomorrow afternoon, you better lock up. For the whole rest of your bit, understand? You can't do that here, so you'll need a transfer. And you'd better tell the Parole Board you'd rather do more time, too. The longer you stay Inside, the safer you'll be."

Maurice nodded, not happy about it, but resigned to the realities of his life ... one of which was men like Cross.

CROSS WAS in full camo gear, which covered not just his body but his head and hands as well. He worked his way through the hills surrounding the inst.i.tution he had visited the day before. A quick glance at his watch-13:56-confirmed he still had plenty of time.

Methodically, he set up a sniper's roost. Next, he removed a rifle from its case, found a comfortable p.r.o.ne position, and dropped the heavy barrel's bipod to steady the scope.

A thin smile cracked his masklike face when he saw Maurice on the yard. The pimp was talking earnestly to a white male, gesturing wildly with his hands to emphasize whatever he was saying.

Cross dialed in the man's face, then slowed his breathing. When certain he could get off a round between heartbeats, he slowly squeezed the trigger.

The target's head exploded, followed immediately by the cccccrack! of a high-power cartridge.

Cross carefully disa.s.sembled his sniper's rig and repacked everything, working quickly but unhurriedly.

Then he made a careful retreat through the wooded hills. He stopped near a big tree marked by a freshly dug trench in the ground, lined with some sort of metallic cloth.

His camo gear came off first. By the numbers. When everything was stowed away, including the sniper rifle, Cross dressed himself in conventional hiker's clothing.

A piece of polished steel confirmed his restored appearance. Cross then removed a pair of large gla.s.s-stoppered bottles from behind the tree. As he poured the contents of each bottle into the trench, they formed a new substance, which immediately went to work. Cross watched as everything inside began to liquefy, then carefully resealed the metallic cloth with his gloved hands.

It only took minutes for Cross to replace the divot, check the scene to make certain he'd left no trace of his presence, and move out.

"I CAN'T believe it," the young cop said. "I mean, how could a sniper pick him off at that distance? That's almost half a mile."

"I guess when they say 'low security' that about covers it," McNamara replied.

"That man you sent-"

"I don't know what you're talking about," McNamara answered, using the cold voice he saved for special occasions. Professional occasions. "And neither do you."

"Okay," the young cop replied, his eyes wet. "But I'll never forget it, anyway. And if he ever-"

The young cop stopped himself from saying anything more. The man he had been talking to was already gone.