Cross Fire

more careful about who you’re talking to.”
    “Meaning what, exactly?” he said. “I don’t follow.”
    “Meaning, I know Washington better than you do, and I know half of those people out on the curb. Stu Collins? He wants to be the next Woodward
and
Bernstein, and he’s got everything but the talent to do it. He
will
misquote you. And Shelly What’shername, with the big red mike? Slams the Bureau every chance she gets. We’ve had one leak we can’t afford already. I don’t want to run the risk of another, do you?”
    He looked at me as if I’d been speaking Swahili. And then I realized something else.
    “Oh Jesus. Please tell me you’re not the one who talked to the press about those vehicles in Woodley Park.” I stared at him. “Tell me I’m wrong, Siegel.”
    “You’re wrong,” he said right away. He took a step toward me then and lowered his voice. “Don’t accuse me of things you don’t know anything about, Detective. I’m warning you —”
    “Shut the hell up!” I shouted at him as much for the “warning” as the fact that he’d stepped up on me. I’d had enough of his crap for one day.
    Still, I was instantly sorry I’d yelled. The whole press corps was watching us from the sidewalk. I took a breath and tried again.
    “Listen, Max —”
    “Give me a little credit,
Alex,
” he said, and stepped back to put some room between us. “I’m not exactly wet behind the ears. Now, I’ll bear in mind what you said, but you’ve got to let me do my job, just like I let you do yours.”
    He even smiled and put his hand out, as if he were trying to diffuse the situation and not manipulate it. With everyone watching, I went ahead and shook, but my first impressions of Siegel hadn’t changed a bit. This was an agent with a giant ego for a blind spot, and unfortunately there was only so much I could do to rein him in.
    “Just be careful,” I said.
    “I’m always careful,” he said. “Careful’s my middle name.”

Chapter 44

    “YOU SEE THAT GUY over there, Mitchie? The tall brother talking to the suit?”
    “Guy looks like Muhammad Ali?”
    “That’s the cop, Alex Cross. And I think the other one’s FBI. Just a couple of piggies from different farms.”
    “They don’t look too happy to me,” Mitch said.
    “That’s ’cause they’re looking for something they’re never going to find. We’re in the big top now, buddy. Just you and me. There’s nothing gonna touch us anymore.”
    Mitch cracked up, too excited to contain himself.
    “When’s the next hit, Denny?”
    “You’re looking at it. We got to spread the good word, get folks on our side. And then — bam! We’ll surprise them again when the time’s right. That’s what this whole e-mail thing’s all about — getting the word out.”
    Mitch nodded like he understood, but he didn’t try to hide his disappointment either. That wasn’t the kind of mission he meant.
    “Don’t worry,” Denny told him. “We’ll have you back in the saddle before you know it. Meantime — come on. This is gonna be great, trust me.”
    The printers’ truck was just pulling up to the church’s side entrance. Word had gotten around that the new issue — the
big
issue — was going to take another few days, so they’d printed up some of last week’s paper to tide people over. Anyone who helped unload the truck got thirty extra copies to sell for free. That meant sixty bucks between the two of them, and sixty could go a hell of a long way if you wanted it to.
    As they headed over to the truck, a voice exploded out from the churchyard.
    “Shut the hell up!” It was Alex Cross.
    “Huh-oh,” Denny said. “Sounds like trouble in paradise.”
    “You mean
piggy-dise?
” Mitch said, and this time, Denny was the one cracking up.

Chapter 45

    THEY SET UP shop at a construction zone near Logan Circle, and by nightfall, their pockets were bulging with singles and loose change, and their stack of newspapers was gone.
    The extra cash got them a couple of nice cheesesteaks, a fifth of Jim Beam, a pack of ciggies for each, a pair of loose joints from a guy they knew in Farragut Square, and, best of all, a flop for the night at a cheap motel on Rhode Island Avenue.
    Denny brought the old boom box up from the car. It didn’t have any batteries, but they could plug it in here and have some tuneage for their little celebration.
    It was sweet, just to lie back on a real mattress for a change, copping a buzz, with no worries about