Cross Country

that wasn’t a problem. I had vacation time banked with the MPD. Now I just had to convince two of the strongest women I’d ever known that it made sense for me to do this —
Bree tonight, Nana Mama tomorrow
.
    The air, the tension, between Bree and me was as thick as I’d ever felt it.
    “What exactly are you hoping to accomplish over there?” she finally asked me.
    “Ultimately? Use Tunney’s guy to set up some local cooperation. Then steer the killer into custody if I can. I can get this guy, Bree. He’s arrogant, thinks he can’t be caught. That’s his weakness.”
    “Kyle Craig was a lifer, several times over. It’s no guarantee, Alex. That’s
if
you catch him.”
    I allowed myself a sheepish grin. “And yet we keep doing our jobs anyway, don’t we? We keep trying to catch these killers.”
    I finally reached out and took her hand. Then I pulled her over to sit next to me on the bed.
    “I have to go, Bree. He’s already killed more people in Washington than anyone I’ve seen. Eventually he’ll come back and start up again.”
    “And he killed your friend.”
    “Yes, he killed my friend. He killed Ellie Cox
and her entire family
.”
    Finally Bree shrugged. “So, go. Go to Africa, Alex.” And we hugged each other for a long time, and I was reminded again of why I loved her. And maybe why I was running away from her now.

Chapter 26
    HE MET UP with the white devil in a wood-paneled cigar bar just off Pennsylvania Avenue, half a dozen blocks from the White House. They ordered drinks and appetizers, and the white man selected a Partagás cigar.
    “Cigars aren’t a vice of yours?” the white man asked.
    “I have no vices,” said the Tiger. “I am pure of heart.”
    The white man laughed at that.
    “The money has been transferred, three hundred and fifty thousand. You’re going back now?”
    “Yes, later tonight, in fact. I’m looking forward to being home in Nigeria.”
    The man nodded. “Even in such troubled times?”
    “Especially now. There’s lots of work for me. I like being lazy. Oil rich. Getting there anyway. By my standards.”
    The white man clipped his expensive cigar and the Tiger sipped his cognac. He wasn’t certain, but he thought he knew who his employer was. It wouldn’t be the first time. This group’s contractors in Africa weren’t always reliable —
but he was. Always.
    “There’s something else.”
    “There always is,” said the Tiger, “with you people.”
    “You’re being followed by an American policeman.”
    “He won’t go to Africa after me.”
    “Yes, actually he will. You might have to kill him, but we would prefer you didn’t. His name is Alex Cross.”
    “I see. Alex Cross. Not smart to travel all the way to Africa just to die.”
    “No,” said the white man. “Try to remember that yourself.”

Chapter 27
    THE TIGER WAS an enigma in every way, a mystery no one had ever solved. Actually, there were no tigers in Africa, which was how he got his nickname. He was like no other, one of a kind, superior to all the other animals, especially humans.
    Before he went to school in England, the Tiger had lived in France for a couple of years, and he had learned French and English. He discovered he had a gift for languages, and he could remember almost everything he learned or read. His first summer in France, he’d sold mechanical birds to children in the parking areas outside the palace at Versailles. He’d learned a valuable lesson there: to hate the white man, and especially white families.
    This day he had a mission in a city he didn’t much like because the foreigner had left too much of a mark here. The city was Port Harcourt in the Delta region of Nigeria, where most of the oil wells were located.
    The game was on. He had another bounty to collect.
    A black Mercedes was speeding up a steep hill toward the wealthy foreigners’ part of the city — and straight toward the Tiger as well.
    As always, he waited patiently for his prey.
    Then he wandered out into the street like some poor drunkard on a binge. The Mercedes would either have to stop very quickly or strike him head-on.
    Probably because he was so large and might dent the car, at the last possible moment, the chauffeur applied the brakes.
    The Tiger could see the liveried black scum cursing him from behind the spotlessly clean windshield. So he raised his pistol fast and shot the driver and a bodyguard through the glass.
    His boys, wild, were already at both rear doors of