Merry Christmas, Alex Cross Part 27

TRAGEDY STRIKES PRIVATE'S BERLIN OFFICE-AND EXPOSES A HIDDEN PAST.

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At ten o'clock on a moonless September evening, Chris Schneider slipped toward a long abandoned building on the eastern outskirts of Berlin, his mind whirling with shady images and old vows.

Late thirties, and dressed in dark clothes, Schneider drew out a .40 Glock pistol and eased forward, alert to the dry rustle of the thorn bushes and goldenrod and the vines that engulfed the place.

He hesitated, staring at the silhouette of the building, recalling some of the horror that he'd felt coming here for the first time, and realizing that he'd been waiting almost three decades for this moment.

Indeed, for ten years he'd trained his mind and body.

For ten years after that he'd actively sought revenge, but to no avail.

In the past decade, Schneider had come to believe it might never happen, that his past had not only disappeared, it had died, and with it the chance to exact true payback for himself and the others.

But here was his chance to be the avenging angel they'd all believed in.

Schneider heard voices in his mind, all shrieking at him to go forward and put a just ending to their story.

At their calling, Schneider felt himself harden inside. They deserved a just ending. He intended to give it to them.

By now he'd reached the steps of the building. The chain hung from the barn doors, which stood ajar. He stared at the darkness, feeling his gut hollow and his knees weaken.

You've waited a lifetime, Schneider told himself. Finish it. Now.

For all of us.

Schneider toed open the door. He stepped inside, smelling traces of stale urine, burnt copper, and something dead.

His mind flashed with the image of a door swinging shut and locking, and for a moment that alone threatened to cripple him completely.

But then Schneider felt righteous vengeance ignite inside him. He pressed the safety lever on the trigger, readying it to fire. He flicked on the flashlight taped to the gun, giving him a soft red beam with which to dissect the place.

Boot prints marred the dust.

Schneider's heart pounded as he followed them. Cement rooms, more like stalls really, stood to either side of the pa.s.sage. Even though the footprints went straight ahead, he searched the rooms one by one. In the last, he stopped and stared, seeing a horror film playing behind his eyes.

He tore his attention away, but noticed his gun hand was trembling.

The hallway met a second set of barn doors. The lock hung loose in the hasp. The doors were parted a foot, leading into a cavernous s.p.a.ce.

He heard fluttering, stepped inside, and aimed his light and pistol into the rafters, seeing pigeons blinking in their roost.

The smell of death was worse here. Schneider swung his light all around, looking for the source. Large rusted bolts jutted from the floor. Girders and trusses overhead supported a track that ran the length of the s.p.a.ce.

Corroded hooks hung on chains from the track.

The footprints cut diagonally left away from the doorway. He followed, aware of those bolts in the floor and not wanting to trip.

Schneider meant to look into the girders again, but was distracted by something scampering ahead of him. He crouched, aiming the gun and light toward the noise.

A line of rats scurried into a gaping hole in the floor on the far side of the room. The boot prints went straight to the hole and disappeared. He heard rats squealing and hissing the closer he got.

To the left of the hole stood a metal tube of a slightly smaller diameter than the hole. Atop it lay a sewer grate. To the right of the hole was a small gas blower, the kind used to get leaves off walkways.

Schneider stepped to the hole and s.h.i.+ned the light into a shaft of corrugated steel. Ten feet down, the shaft ended in s.p.a.ce. Four feet below that lay a gravel floor.

A female corpse was sprawled on the gravel. Rats were swarming her.

Schneider knew her nonetheless.

He'd been searching for her all over Berlin and Germany, hoping against hope that she was alive.

But he was far, far too late.

The desire for vengeance that had been a low flame inside Schneider fueled and exploded through him now. He wanted to shoot at anything that moved. He wanted to scream into the hole and call out her killer to receive his just due.

But then Schneider's colder, rational side took over.

This was bigger than him now, bigger than all of us. It wasn't about revenge anymore. It was about bringing someone heinous into the harsh light, exposing him for what he was and what he had been.

Go outside, he thought. Call the Kripo. Get them involved. Now.

Schneider turned and, sweeping the room behind him with the light, started back toward the hallway. He had taken six or seven steps when he heard what sounded like a very large bird fluttering.

He tried to react, tried to get his gun moving up toward the sound.

But the dark figure was already dropping from his hiding spot in the deep shadows above the rusted overhead track.

Boots struck Schneider's collarbones. He collapsed backward and landed on one of those bolts sticking up from the floor.

The bolt impaled him, broke his spine, and paralyzed him.

The Glock clattered away.

There was so much fiery pain Schneider could not speak, let alone scream. The silhouette of a man appeared above him. The man aimed his flashlight at his own upper body, revealing a black mask that covered his nose, cheeks, and forehead.

The masked man began to speak, and Schneider knew him instantly, as if twenty-eight years had pa.s.sed in a day.

"You thought you were prepared for this, Chris, hmmm?" the masked man asked, amused. He made a clicking noise in his throat. "You were never prepared for this, no matter what you may have told yourself all those years ago."

A knife appeared in the masked man's other hand. He squatted by Schneider, and touched the blade to his throat.

"My friends will come quicker if I bleed you," he said. "A few hours in their care, and your mask will be gone, Chris. No one would ever recognize you then, not even your own dear, sweet mother, hmmm?"

DETECTIVE ALEX CROSS HUNTS THREE SERIAL KILLERS-BUT IS SOMEONE ELSE HUNTING HIM?

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It's not every day that I get a naked girl answering the door that I knock on.

Don't get me wrong-with twenty years of law enforcement under my belt, it's happened. Just not that often.

"Are you the waiters?" this girl asked. There was a bright but empty look in her eyes that said Ecstasy to me, and I could smell weed from inside. The music was thumping too, the kind of relentless techno that would make me want to slit my wrists if I had to listen to it for long.

"No, we're not the waiters," I told her, showing my badge. "Metro police. And you need to put something on, right now."

She wasn't even fazed. "There were supposed to be waiters," she said to no one in particular. It made me sad and disgusted at the same time. This girl didn't look like she was even out of high school yet, and the men we were here to arrest were old enough to be her father.

"Check her clothes before she puts them on," I told one of the female officers on the entry team. Besides myself there were five uniformed cops, a rep from Youth and Family Services, three detectives from the Prost.i.tution Unit, and three more from Second District, including my friend John Sampson.

Second District is Georgetown-not the usual stomping grounds for the Prost.i.tution Unit. The white brick N Street town house where we'd arrived was typical for the neighborhood, probably worth somewhere north of five million. It was a rental property, paid six months in advance by proxy, but the paper trail had led back to Dr. Elijah Creem, one of DC's most in-demand plastic surgeons. As far as we could make out, Creem was funneling funds to pay for these "industry parties," and his partner-in-sc.u.m, Josh Bergman, was providing the eye candy.

Bergman was the owner of Cap City Dolls, a legit modeling agency based out of an M Street office, with a heavily rumored arm in the underground flesh trade. Detectives at the department were pretty sure that while Bergman was running his aboveboard agency, he was also dispatching exotic dancers, overnight escorts, ma.s.seurs, and p.o.r.n "talent." As far as I could tell, the house was filled with "talent" right now, and they all seemed to be about eighteen, more or less. Emphasis on the less.

I couldn't wait to bust these two sc.u.mbags.

Surveillance had put Creem and Bergman downtown at Microbar around seven o'clock that night, and then here at the party house as of nine thirty. Now it was just a game of smoking them out.

Beyond the enclosed foyer, the party was in full swing. The front hall and formal living room were packed. It was all Queen Anne furniture and parquet floors on the one hand, and half-dressed, tweaked-out kids, stomping to the music and drinking out of plastic cups, on the other.

"I want everyone contained in this front room," Sampson shouted at one of the uniforms. "We've got an anytime warrant for this house, so start looking. We're checking for drugs, cash, ledgers, appointment books, cell phones, everything. And get this G.o.dd.a.m.n music off!"

We left half the team to secure the front of the house and took the rest toward the back, where there was more party going on.

In the open kitchen, there seemed to be a big game of strip poker in progress at the large marble-topped island. Half a dozen well-muscled guys and twice as many girls in their underwear were standing around holding cards, drinking, and pa.s.sing a few joints.

Several of them scrambled as we came in. A few of the girls screamed and tried to run out, but we'd already blocked the way.

Finally, somebody cut the music.

"Where are Elijah Creem and Joshua Bergman?" Sampson asked the room. "First one to give me a straight answer gets a free ticket out of here."

A skinny girl in a black lace bra and cutoffs pointed toward the stairs. From the size of her chest in relation to the rest of her, my guess was she'd already gone under the knife with Dr. Creem at least once.

"Up there," she said.

"b.i.t.c.h," someone muttered under his breath.

Sampson hooked a finger at me to follow him, and we headed up.

"Can I go now?" cutoffs girl called after us.

"Let's see how good your word is first," Sampson said.

When we got to the second floor hall, it was empty. The only light was a single electric hurricane lamp on a glossy antique table near the stairs. There were equestrian portraits on the walls and a long Oriental runner that ended in front of a closed double door at the back of the house. Even from here, I could make out more music thumping on the other side. Old-school this time. Talking Heads, "Burning Down the House."

Watch out, you might get what you're after. Watch out, you might get what you're after.Cool babies, strange but not a stranger.

I could hear laughing too, and two different men's voices.

"That's it, sweetheart. A little closer. Now pull down her panties."

"Yeah, that's what you call money in the bank right there."

Sampson gave me a look like he wanted either to puke or to kill someone.

"Let's do this," he said, and we started up the hall.

About the Author

JAMES PATTERSON has created more enduring fictional characters than any other novelist writing today. He is the author of the Alex Cross novels, the most popular detective series of the past twenty-five years, including Kiss the Girls Kiss the Girls and and Along Came a Spider Along Came a Spider. Mr. Patterson also writes the bestselling Women's Murder Club novels, set in San Francisco, and the top-selling New York detective series of all time, featuring Detective Michael Bennett. James Patterson has had more New York Times New York Times bestsellers than any other writer, ever, according to bestsellers than any other writer, ever, according to Guinness World Records. Guinness World Records. Since his first novel won the Edgar Award in 1977, James Patterson's books have sold more than 240 million copies. Since his first novel won the Edgar Award in 1977, James Patterson's books have sold more than 240 million copies.

James Patterson has also written numerous #1 bestsellers for young readers, including the Maximum Ride, Witch & Wizard, and Middle School series. In total, these books have spent more than 220 weeks on national bestseller lists. In 2010, James Patterson was named Author of the Year at the Children's Choice Book Awards.

His lifelong pa.s.sion for books and reading led James Patterson to create the innovative website ReadKiddoRead.com , giving adults an invaluable tool to find the books that get kids reading for life. He writes full-time and lives in Florida with his family.

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