I, Alex Cross

to call Sam Pinkerton at the
Washington Post
.
    Sam and I originally met at the gym where we both work out. He’s more into Shotokan, whereas I’m straight boxing, but we’d spar anyway, and have a drink once in a while too. So it wasn’t completely out of left field for me to call and ask if he felt like grabbing a quick one at Union Pub after work.
    I spent the rest of the afternoon chasing Tony Nicholson’s shadow and pretty much getting nowhere that I hadn’t been before.
    Then, just after five, I walked up Louisiana and along Columbus Circle to meet with Sam.
    Over a beer, we shot the breeze and played catch-up, about how our kids were doing, what we thought of the DC school budget fiasco, even the weather. It felt good to sit and have a seminormal conversation for a little while. My days had been too crowded for regular life lately.
    On the second round, things heated up and got a whole lot more pointed.
    "So what do you have brewing at work these days?" I asked.
    He leaned back in the booth and tilted his head at me. "Did this meeting just start?"
    "Yeah. I’ve got a case going, and I’m trying to take the temperature on a few things out there."
    "As in,
over there?
" He pointed in the general direction of the White House, which was his beat, and only a few blocks from the bar. "Are we talking about legislation or something else? I think I already know the answer."
    "Something else," I said.
    "I assume you don’t mean the president’s sixtieth-birthday thing?"
    "Sam."
    "’Cause I can get you in if you want. The grub’s going to be pretty good. You like Norah Jones? She’ll be performing. And Mary Blige."
    He knew he was doing me a favor, and he wasn’t going to let it go by without busting on me a little.
    "Okay, here’s something," he said. "You know the blog Jenna Knows? I get a call the other day from Jenna herself. Now, you’ve got to consider the source on something like this, but suffice to say she had some pretty wild shit. I can’t go into any detail right now. You might want to buy me another drink in about two days." He drained his glass. "Unless you want to tell me what the hell you’re working on."
    "No comment. Not just yet," I told him. And I also thought,
Mission accomplished
. Whatever else happened, this thing was at least set in motion, with or without me.
    "There is one other thing, though," I said. "It’s a little unconventional."
    "My favorite convention," he said, and spun his finger in the air at the waitress for another round.
    "Off the record. If anything happens to me in the next few days or weeks, I want you to look into it."
    Sam went still and stared at me. "Jesus Christ, Alex."
    "I know it’s a strange thing to say. More than a little, I guess."
    "Don’t you have — I don’t know — an entire police department looking after you?"
    "It depends on how you mean that," I said, as the next round came to the table. "Let’s just say I’m calling for backup."

Chapter 91

    TWO WEEKS AGO, hell,
last
week, Tony Nicholson had been popping five-hundred-dollar bottles of champagne when he was thirsty. Now here he was, huddled in the rain at a filthy I-95 truck stop like some third world alien on the run.
    Mara waited inside, watching through the plate glass window of the Landmark Diner. When he looked back, she tapped her wrist and shrugged, like maybe he’d forgotten they had somewhere else to be.
    He knew, he knew.
    The alternative to this had been no alternative at all — rotting in a cell at the Alexandria Detention Center. At least now there was the promise of passports, plane tickets, and enough cash to get them off this plasticized continent for good.
    But his contact was late, and Nicholson felt a little more paranoid with every passing minute. On top of it all, his bad knee was only getting worse in the rain and cold, and it throbbed like a sonofabitch from standing too long.
    Finally, another five minutes later, there was movement in his line of vision.
    A panel truck of some kind flashed its lights from across the front parking lot. Nicholson looked over, and the driver motioned him to come that way.
    He motioned again — more urgently.
    Nicholson’s heart jumped into his throat.
Something was off
. It was supposed to have been a car, not a truck, and the meeting point was supposed to be right here, where people could see. Where nothing funny could happen.
    Too late. When he looked back at the diner again, Mara was gone. A little boy stood where she’d