Cross Fire

well.
    The apartment in question was on the eighth of ten floors, with two large windows facing the street. They were both dark when we got there. Max and I settled in for the long haul.
    Once we’d said everything there was to say about the case, it got a little awkward — long silences set in. Eventually, though, the conversation loosened back up. Siegel threw me a softball, the kind of thing Bureau guys ask when they don’t have something better to say.
    “So, why’d you get into law enforcement?” he asked. “If you don’t mind my asking.”
    I smiled into my lap. If anything, he was trying too hard to do the buddy-buddy thing.
    “Hollywood just didn’t work out. Neither did the NBA,” I deadpanned. “What about you?”
    “You know. The exotic travel. The great hours.”
    For once, he got a laugh out of me. I’d decided before coming that I wasn’t going to just sit there and hate him all night. That would have been like torture.
    “I’ll tell you this much,” he said. “If things had gone differently? I think I could have been a pretty good bad guy, too.”
    “Let me guess,” I said. “You have the perfect murder in your head.”
    “Don’t you?” Siegel said.
    “No comment.” I popped the lid on my second coffee. “Most cops do, though. Perfect crime anyway.”
    After another long pause, he said, “How about this: if you could take someone out — someone who really deserved it — and you knew you could get away with it, would you be torn?”
    “No,” I said. “That’s too slippery a slope for me. I’ve thought about it.”
    “Come on.” Siegel laughed and leaned back on the car door to look at me. “Say it’s just you and Kyle Craig alone in some dark alley. No witnesses. He’s all out of ammo and you’ve still got your Glock. You’re telling me you don’t pull the trigger now and ask questions later?”
    “That’s right,” I said. The Kyle reference was a little weird, but I let it slide. “I might want to, but I wouldn’t do it. I’d take him in. I’d like to bring him back to ADX Florence.”
    He looked at me, grinning as if he were waiting for me to break.
    “Seriously?” he said.
    “Seriously.”
    “I don’t know if I believe you.”
    I shrugged. “What do you want me to say?”
    “That you’re a human being. Come on, Alex. You can’t get by in this business without at least a little walk on the dark side.”
    “Absolutely,” I said. “Been there, done that. I’m just saying, I wouldn’t pull the trigger.” Whether or not it was true, I really wasn’t sure. I just didn’t want to go there with Siegel.
    “Interesting,” he said, and turned back to face the front door of the Midlands. “Very interesting.”

Chapter 103

    ALEX WAS LYING through his teeth. He was a good liar, but he
was
lying. If he had any idea he was sitting across from Kyle Craig right now, that Glock would be out in a heartbeat, and one round shy a second later.
    But that was the whole point, wasn’t it? Cross didn’t have a clue. Any doubts about that were well behind them. This couldn’t possibly be more delicious, could it? No, it could not.
    Kyle sipped his coffee and went on. “That’s what this is all about, isn’t it?” he said offhandedly.
Interesting
— Siegel’s speech and inflection were now more natural to him than his own.
    “What do you mean?” Cross asked.
    “The whole ‘foxes in the henhouse’ thing. The good guys and the bad guys, all mixed in together. The line between good and evil isn’t so clear anymore.”
    “That’s true,” Cross said. “More for the Bureau than the PD, though.”
    “I mean everywhere,” Kyle said. “The crooked congressman. The greedy son of a bitch CEO who just can’t get by on that first ten million. Hell, embedded terror cells. What’s the difference? They’re all out there, right under our noses, living next door. It’s as if the world used to be black and white, and now it’s all just gray, if you squint a little.”
    Alex was staring now. Right into his eyes. Was he finally tuning in?
    “Max, are you talking about Steven Hennessey here? Or yourself?”
    “Huh-oh,” Kyle-Max answered, and shook a finger at him. “I didn’t even see you switch hats. Very slick, Dr. Cross.”
    And Alex just laughed. It was amazing, really. Kyle had managed to make Cross hate Max Siegel, and now, with the turn of a few screws, Kyle was well on his way to making Alex into a true-blue fan of the smart but obnoxious