Cat and Mouse

a view of the Sorbonne.
    Well, the golden boy of L’Ecole Pratique de Médecine had finally gotten a bad break. Yes, things had suddenly gotten very bleak for Dr. Abel Sante.
    “Nothing, no sign of a struggle?” Faulks asked the closest flic as he entered the apartment.
    “Not a trace, just like the others. The poor rich bastard is gone, though. He’s disappeared, and Mr. Smith has him.”
    “He’s probably in Smith’s space capsule,” another flic said, a youngish man with longish red hair and trendy sunglasses.
    Faulks turned brusquely.
“You!
Get the hell out of here! Go out on the street with the rest of the madmen and the goddamned pigeons! I would hope Mr. Smith might take
you
for his
space capsule
but, unfortunately, I suspect his standards are too high.”
    Having said his piece and banished the offending police officer, the inspector went to examine the handiwork of Mr. Smith. He had a
procès-verbal
to write up. He had to make some sense out of the madness somehow. All of France, all of Europe, waited to hear the latest news.

Chapter 80

    F BI HEADQUARTERS in Washington is located on Pennsylvania Avenue between Ninth and Tenth Streets. I spent from four until almost seven in a BOGSAAT with a half dozen special agents, including Kyle Craig, BOGSAAT is a
bunch of guys sitting around a table.
Inside a Strategic Ops Center conference room, we vigorously discussed the Cross attack.
    At seven that night, we learned that Alex Cross had made it through the first round of surgery. A cheer went up around the table. I told Kyle that I wanted to go back to St. Anthony’s Hospital.
    “I need to see Alex Cross,” I told him. “I really do need to see him, even if he can’t talk. No matter what condition he’s in.”
    Twenty minutes later, I was in an elevator headed to the sixth floor of St. Anthony’s. It was quieter there than the rest of the building. The high floor was a little spooky, especially under the circumstances.
    I entered a private recovery room near the center of the semidarkened floor. I was too late. Someone was already in there with Cross.
    Detective John Sampson was standing vigil by the bed of his friend. Sampson was tall and powerful, at least six foot six, but he looked incredibly weary, as if he were ready to fall over from exhaustion and the long day’s stress.
    Sampson finally looked at me, nodded slightly, then turned his attention back to Dr. Cross. His eyes were a strange mixture of anger and sadness. I sensed that he knew what was going to happen here.
    Alex Cross was hooked up to so many machines it was a visceral shock to see him. I knew that he was in his early forties. He looked younger than his age. That was the only good news.
    I studied the charts at the base of the bed. He had suffered severe-to-moderate blood loss secondary to the tearing of the radial artery. He had a collapsed lung, numerous contusions, hematomas, and lacerations. The left wrist had been injured. There was blood poisoning, and the morbidity of the injuries put him on the “could be about to check out” list.
    Alex Cross was conscious, and I stared into his brown eyes for a long time. What secrets were hidden there? What did he know? Had he actually seen the face of his assailant?
who did this to you? Not Soneji Who dared to go into your bedroom?
    He couldn’t talk and I could see nothing in his eyes. No awareness that I was there with Detective Sampson. He didn’t seem to recognize Sampson either. Sad.
    Dr. Cross was getting excellent care at St. Anthony’s. The hospital bed had a Stryker frame attached to it. The injured wrist was encased in an elastoplast cast and the arm was anchored to a trapeze bar. He was receiving oxygen through a clear tube that ran into an outlet in the wall. A fancy monitor called a Slave scope was providing pulse, temp, blood pressure, and EKG readings.
    “Why don’t you leave him alone?” Sampson finally spoke after a few minutes. “Why don’t you leave both of us. You can’t help here. Please, go.”
    I nodded, but continued to look into the eyes of Alex Cross for a few more seconds. Unfortunately, he had nothing to tell me.
    I finally left Cross and Sampson alone. I wondered if I would ever see Alex Cross again. I doubted that I would. I didn’t believe in miracles anymore.

Chapter 81

    T HAT NIGHT, I couldn’t get Mr. Smith out of my head, as usual, and now Alex Cross and his family were residing there as well. I kept revisiting different scenes from