Return of the Spider, page 16
part #33 of Alex Cross Series
We climbed into the building, the gunfire outside now echoing behind us. In the far distance, the first sirens wailed.
Dodging pallets of concrete mix stacked on both sides of the inner dock, we went to a set of double doors and looked through a porthole window into a large, high-ceilinged space filled with towering steel shelves, some heavily loaded, some empty.
“We’ve got company in here,” I whispered. “Hooded dude went in the first dock chasing Prince and Rodolpho.”
“I think the cousins are going for Donovan,” Sampson said.
A figure sprinted toward us from the stacks. We both stepped back and to either side of the double doors.
When the man, one of Prince’s armed guards, barged through, he found the muzzles of two shotguns pressed to the back of his head.
“Police,” Sampson said. “Drop the gun.”
He dropped his weapon.
“Where’s the woman?” I said. “The one they just brought in here.”
He said nothing.
“Tell us,” Sampson said. “She’s a cop. If he kills her, you’ll go down for it too.”
The man answered in a thick Haitian accent, his voice shaking. “Other side of the warehouse. Prince’s office.”
“Who’s attacking?”
“No idea. Prince, he got many enemies.”
Sampson spun his shotgun and clipped the guy right behind the ear with the side of the stock, knocking him out cold. He dropped in his tracks.
“No time for niceties,” he said to me. He kicked open the double doors and entered the warehouse.
CHAPTER 56
I’D KNOWN JOHN SAMPSON since elementary school. I’d met him shortly after I moved to Washington, DC, to live with my grandmother.
As we grew older, I’d seen him handle himself remarkably well in a couple of fights. And I was well aware of his training with the U.S. Army and of the years he spent on patrol with Metro before becoming a detective.
But I had never seen the man who blew through those doors, intent on rescuing Officer Nancy Donovan. Low, aware, with his attention sweeping three hundred degrees left and right, he raced forward into the relative protection of the stacks. I was right behind him.
Sampson slowed to a stop, held up his hand, and listened. We could still hear shooting outside, but it was distant and sporadic.
Then, far ahead of us and to our left, toward the northeast corner of the building, we heard muffled, frantic voices. Sampson nodded to me, gestured in that direction, then turned into a stalker.
He moved quickly through the stacks, staying right in our aisle, and slowed again when we could see the far wall. Then he stopped and listened once more.
We could hear male voices arguing in Haitian Creole. They were closer and almost directly ahead of us now.
Sampson slipped off his shoes. I did the same, and we crept in the direction of the voices, shotguns shouldered, ready.
When we were some fifty yards away, we heard the argument growing more intense. There were at least three male voices. And then we heard Nancy Donovan.
“You do this, Patrice, and you are guaranteeing yourself a death sentence,” she said.
A slap. “Shut up, bitch,” Prince said. “We have other things to think about.”
We crossed another aisle in the stacks of shelves. They were no more than three aisles away now, to our two o’clock.
A young male voice said, “We need to leave, Patrice. Back door. Cops are coming.”
“Cops are here!” Sampson roared, stepping out to face Prince and the younger man, who were a good twenty yards away. They stood on either side of Officer Donovan, who was in a chair by a desk, still blindfolded, her wrists tied behind her. “Drop your weapons! Now!”
Both men were armed with pistols. Prince let his go. It clattered onto the floor.
When the second guy dropped his gun, John moved forward with me right behind him. “Step away from her and get down on your bellies,” he told them.
They complied. The sirens outside were close now and the shooting was dying down.
Sampson and I were almost to Donovan and the crisis was almost over when Rodolpho appeared from the shadows at our five o’clock with an automatic weapon aimed at our heads.
“Drop your guns!” he shouted. “Or Valentine kills you now!”
CHAPTER 57
VALENTINE RODOLPHO HAD US.
We had no choice but to set the shotguns down on the concrete floor. He limped around in front of us, slowly waving the barrel of his weapon in our faces.
“We should kill them and go out the back door,” Rodolpho said to his cousin. “All three of them, Patrice.”
I spoke to Prince. “Kill three cops? I’m sorry, but any way you look at that, it is a bad, bad, bad idea.”
“Three cops gets you a one-way ticket to the gas chamber,” Sampson said.
“They’re right, Patrice!” Donovan said.
Outside, sirens were drowning out the sporadic shooting. The head of LMC 51 turned his head a split second before four quick, brilliant flashes and flat cracks came from somewhere deep in the stacks.
The first round hit Rodolpho, shattering his right wrist. He let go of his AR and spun around as it clattered to the floor, grabbing wildly at his wrist and screaming.
The second shot caught the Haitian gangbanger guarding Nancy Donovan between the eyes. He crumpled.
Prince almost got his own pistol up before the third round hit him in the front of his thigh. He howled and grabbed for his leg, then went down hard.
The fourth and last round hit Rodolpho in the buttocks and he fell over, screaming gibberish.
“What’s happening?” blindfolded Officer Donovan yelled as Sampson started to reach for his shotgun and Prince tried to raise his pistol.
The buff dude in the body armor and black hood stepped into the space, shouldering an automatic rifle.
“Toss the gun, Prince!” he shouted. “And don’t do it, Detective. I do not miss.”
Prince slid the gun away. Sampson straightened up, raised his arms.
Outside, the shooting had all but stopped, but the symphony of sirens and bullhorns was building.
“You’re surrounded,” I said to the hooded man.
“That’s fine,” he said, his attention sweeping from me to Valentine, who was panting and heaving with pain, and then to Prince, who had taken off his belt and was shaking as he tried to wrap it around his upper thigh.
“Stop,” the gunman said.
“I bleed. I feel it.”
“Why would I care?” the man said.
He pulled off his hood. The Haitian gang leader stared in surprise and then open hatred at Guillermo Costa, disgraced Marine, former leader of Los Lobos, ex-con who’d supposedly learned his lesson and gone straight.
Costa said, “Who did that to my nephew Shay Mansion? Who strung him up like that?”
Prince shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re—”
Costa shot. Donovan jerked in her chair. The round pinged off the concrete next to the Haitian, who looked terrified as he raised his hands.
“Next one takes off your cojones,” Costa said. “Who did that to Shay?”
Prince swallowed and gestured with his head toward his cousin. “Valentine. It was his idea. He saw it through.”
“Wait!” Rodolpho screamed and put up his hands when Costa stepped his way, aiming at point-blank range.
“You killed my nephew and destroyed my cousin,” Costa said. He shot Rodolpho dead and swung his attention and weapon back to Prince, who had gotten the belt around his upper thigh and was tightening it.
Costa nodded at us. “Tell them where the heroin is, Patrice. They’ll find it anyway.”
The Haitian frowned.
“Your cojones?”
Prince angrily gestured with his chin. “South side of the warehouse. The blue fifty-five-gallon drums marked ‘Dust-Control Liquids.’”
“And the other kid?” Sampson said. “Tony Miller?”
The Haitian looked puzzled.
I said, “The kid who was tipping off our narcotics division about the location of your street sellers.”
Sampson said, “The kid who was stabbed multiple times and tossed in the Potomac.”
Prince hesitated as if considering his options, then relaxed and pointed at his cousin’s corpse. “Valentine’s idea too.”
“I don’t believe you,” Costa growled. “And even if it was his idea, you damn sure brought in the heroin that killed Shay’s father, my cousin’s husband. In every way, the world will be a better place without you, Patrice.”
Prince had a moment of panic, a moment to shrink from his fate. Costa showed no mercy and shot him in the heart, then stood there, watching impassively, as the Haitian gang leader slumped and died, his eyes dulling.
It had all unfolded so fast, I did not realize how deep into fight-or-flight I was until Costa dropped the clip on his rifle, cleared the bullet in the chamber, and put everything down on the floor. He stepped over Rodolpho’s body and took a seat on a folding chair by Officer Donovan, who was bent over, weeping.
He looked at us. “Sorry about all this, Detectives. It had to happen. You just got in Costa’s way.”
Costa patted Donovan on the shoulder and said softly, “You’re going to be okay, lady, whoever you are. Let’s get you free.”
CHAPTER 58
BY NINE TEN ON Monday evening, Gary Soneji had Bunny Maddox in the van, liquored up, doped up, and bound with duct tape. He was driving northeast by nine fifteen.
On an ordinary day, the trip from Richmond to the Pine Barrens might have taken him five hours, tops. But shortly after he got back on I-95 north heading toward the nation’s capital, he heard on the radio that a massive three-way gunfight was going on between police and two warring gangs in Davidsonville, Maryland, and roadblocks were being set up there and on the Beltway to prevent participants from escaping.
To give the area a wide berth, Soneji drove for hours through thick fog, sticking to state highways and dark county roads. It was shortly before dawn when he finally reached his isolated cabin. He pulled the van forward to the mouth of an old logging road that wound toward the rear of his property and the boundary with the state forest.
When he got out, a cold wind gnawed at him. He went around the back and opened the van. Bunny Maddox lay on her side in the trash and the leaves, eyes closed, wrists, ankles, and mouth duct-taped.
He shook the bottom of one red Chuck Taylor sneaker.
Bunny’s eyelids fluttered. She groaned, tried to sit up, but couldn’t; she closed her eyes again, probably still high from the barbiturates and vodka he’d made her ingest before putting her in restraints.
“C’mon, Bunny,” he said. “Time to wake up, my friend.”
Bunny opened her eyes groggily and made confused whining noises when he pulled her toward him by the ankles. She shrank when he reached for the tape across her mouth.
“Do you want to be able to speak or not?” Soneji asked.
The stripper stared at him, still dazed, puzzled. Then she nodded, shivering.
Soneji slowly peeled the tape off her mouth.
“There now,” he said. “Let’s get you inside by a nice warm fire. Poor thing. Scooch forward a little more so I can undo your ankles.”
He knew what he was doing. He’d read about how captives’ minds could be turned, controlled even.
Bunny’s teeth were starting to chatter when she slid toward him through the leaves and trash. He tore the tape from her ankles and wrists and supported her by the elbow when she tried to stand up.
“Easy,” he said. “I think someone overserved you last night.”
Soneji led her toward the cabin. Bunny blinked slowly, as if trying to remember something. As they neared the porch, she slurred, “Where are we?”
“My cabin,” Soneji said. “I told you all about it, Bunny. You said you wanted to see it. Don’t you remember?”
She shook her head, yawning, but continued to shuffle along as he led her up to the porch. “Tired.”
“I’m sure you are,” he said, fishing in his pocket for the key. He slid it in the lock, opened the door, and brought her inside. “But then again, I told you about this place more than two years ago. It’s no wonder you forgot.”
She looked bewildered as he brought her to a couch. It was then he took note of the sleek ring she wore on her left fourth finger, two small rectangular diamonds flanking a larger emerald-cut diamond in an unusual setting.
“You engaged, Bunny?” he asked after she plopped down on the couch.
“Yeah. Billy’s at sea.”
“Nice ring.”
“Isn’t it something? Billy says it’s art deco style or something like that. Diamonds are real. Platinum is too. His grandmother got it made in the 1920s.”
“Real nice,” he said. “Billy a navy man, then?”
“No,” she said, still sounding dazed. “Merchant marine. I gotta pee.”
“Oh, of course,” he said. He led her through the kitchen and out the back door to the outhouse. “I’ll wait right here for you.”
After a moment, she opened the door to the outhouse and went in. Soneji kept it spotless. He knew she’d approve.
But when she came back out a few minutes later, she gazed at him with eyes that were less confused than they’d been before.
“Why am I here?”
“You wanted to see my place,” he said.
“No, you put a gun to my head in my driveway. You made me eat those pills and drink the rest of that bottle.”
“A gun?” he said and managed a chuckle. “Me? Not a chance. And I made you? No, you gulped that down all on your own. But you must be hungry, Bunny. Thirsty.”
He could tell she did not want to admit it, but she bobbed her head.
“Then let’s go inside and cook you up some eggs and bacon and toast. Maybe a cup of coffee with a little hair of the dog in it?”
“God, yes,” Bunny said and she let him lead her back inside. He sat her down in front of a Formica table in one of the two ladder-back chairs that still had intact wicker seats.
“Do I need to retape your ankles?” Soneji asked. “I mean, you’re not going to try to run, are you?”
“With my knees?” Bunny said and snorted. “After ten years of field hockey and nine dancing on platforms? You don’t have a cigarette by any chance, do you?”
“Your favorite kind, as a matter of fact,” Soneji said.
He retrieved a fresh pack of Winston menthols from his jacket and a lighter from a drawer by the sink. He opened the pack and slid a cigarette and an ashtray to her across the table, past an antique snow globe. He came around and lit the cigarette, which she held with trembling fingers.
Bunny took a drag, then exhaled, and seemed to swoon a bit. She gestured at the metal and glass snow globe with her cigarette. “That for me too?”
Soneji smiled as he went to the refrigerator. “I remember you collected them.”
He brought out bacon, eggs, and a package of ground coffee. “I’ll get the coffee going first. You look like you could use some.”
Bunny cocked her head, her eyes glassy but focused. “I remember you now.”
“Do you?”
“Yeah. You’re that brainiac guy who used to come to the club and have me dance. Gary, right?”
“I’m flattered you remembered,” Soneji said, knowing that this changed things; sped up timelines, certainly. But he tried not to alter his tone of concern as he said, “How do you like your eggs?”
“Scrambled, like my brain,” she said, and laughed. “You said something about hair of the dog?”
Soneji smiled. “Let me get a pot brewing and I’ll show you what I’ve got on hand.”
Bunny took another deep drag off the cigarette. “That what this is all about? You want me to dance for you in private, Gary?”
“Maybe a little later,” he said, winking as he took the coffeepot off the stove and turned toward the sink to fill it.
Soneji heard her chair squeak and the hush of fabric rustling just before something heavy and hard smashed into the back of his head.
He lurched and heard glass shattering before his left cheek struck the counter edge. He landed on his back, his awareness swirling toward black.
CHAPTER 59
AS GARY SONEJI CAME around, he heard the rear screen door slam shut.
He forced himself over onto his hands and knees, cutting his palms on the shattered glass of the snow globe. More blood dripped from a gash on his left cheek.
His head was pounding, a sound like waves crashing.
“Help!” he heard Bunny scream outside. “Help me!”
The inner voice that had always guided Soneji returned with a vengeance. He’d been sloppy. He’d been an idiot to think he could control her with words alone.
And now all his plans and dreams were threatened.
Rage tried to seize him. But he’d already made too many mistakes to go off half-cocked. Not now. Not when his freedom and his future were at stake.
Soneji lurched to his feet, felt like he was going to vomit, but swallowed against it and went to the broom closet in the corner. He pulled out his uncle’s old loaded .308, ran the bolt action on the rifle, and went outside onto the porch.
It was hunting season. No one would question hearing a shot or two this deep into the Pine Barrens.
“Please!” he heard Bunny shriek from the woods beyond the van. “Help me!”
Realizing she’d mistaken the old logging two-track for the drive out to the county road, Soneji went cold. He’d planned to play with Bunny for several days at least before things came to a head.
But he had no choice now. Feeling clearer, as he hurried past the van he reached up and felt the tender raised bruise where the glass globe had hit him.
“Help!” Bunny yelled, sounding farther away.
Soneji broke into a jog. He wasn’t worried about her screams. She would have to go more than two miles before she’d cross another road, and it was another half mile beyond that to the nearest cabins, summer places on a small lake that were most likely closed up for winter.
