I stopped again, then went on. “By the CIA, maybe. The oil companies? By someone from here. Adanne wrote that, and she told another writer, named Ellie Cox. She was killed because of what she knew.
“That’s what I know. That’s what Adanne found out. That’s all of it.”
I stopped again. There was still no response, not a word from the interrogator.
I waited.
I waited.
I waited.
Chapter 151
YOU THINK YOU know what’s going to happen in life. But you never do. And usually the surprises aren’t good ones either.
No one spoke to me for a long time, and I kept waiting for somebody to put a gun to my head, to finally pull the trigger.
Hours after I was interrogated, I heard footsteps in the room where I was being kept. More than one person. At least two.
I pulled myself away from the wall and moved forward. I stumbled and fell to my knees. I pushed myself back up and somebody grabbed my arm.
“Fucker can’t even walk by himself.”
I heard a door being slid open and then I felt cool air hit my face. I was pulled forward and then shoved inside some kind of van or truck.
“Let’s go!” said someone in the front. “We don’t have much time for this.”
For what?
What was happening now?
I had no idea where I was going now, but I knew the chances were good that I was going to die. At certain times in the past, I’d been pleasantly surprised that I’d lasted as long as I had. Still, it felt unreal that I would probably die in the next few minutes. I prayed for my family; and then I said a prayer for myself.
Good, moderately lapsed Christian that I am, I even said a prayer of contrition.
Then the van pulled to a stop. This was it. “End of the line!” I heard one of the bastards say.
I was pushed out and landed hard on the street, and then I heard the vehicle drive away, gravel crunching under spinning tires.
I crawled up and over a curb and then just lay there, partly on grass, partly on a sidewalk or walkway.
They hadn’t killed me.
I was still alive.
Finally—I slept.
Chapter 152
THEN I WAS awake; at least I thought I was.
“I’m Officer Maise, with the DC Metro police. Are you all right, sir?” The patrolman spoke to me even as he lifted the hood that covered my head.
“Why are your hands tied? What happened to you?” he asked next.
“I’m Alex Cross. I’m a detective with Major Crimes. . . . I was kidnapped.”
He had the hood all the way off now, but I couldn’t see much of anything yet, not even his face. My eyes were slow to adjust to the light—to the streetlights mostly. It was dark outside. Night.