Pop Goes the Weasel (33 page)

I nodded my head. “I agree,” I said, “with everything you just said. But especially the homicidal-maniac part.”

SHAFER WAS TALKING TO HIMSELF again that night. He couldn’t help it, and the more he tried to stop, the worse it became; the
more he fretted, the more he talked to himself.

“They can all bugger off—Jones, Cross, Lucy and the kids, Boo Cassady the other spineless players. Screw them all. There
was a reason behind the Four Horsemen. It wasn’t just a game. There was more to it than simple horseplay.”

The house at Kalorama was empty, much too quiet at night. It was huge and ridiculous as only an American house can be. The
“original” architectural detail, the double living room, the six fireplaces, the long-ago dead flowers from Aster florist,
the unread books in gold and brown leather bindings, Lucy’s marmite. It was driving him up the twelve-foot-high walls.

He spent the next hour or so trying to convince himself that he wasn’t crazy—more specifically, that he wasn’t an addict.
Recently, he’d added another doctor in Maryland to his sources for the drugs. Unfortunately, the illegal prescriptions cost
him a fortune. He couldn’t keep it up forever. The lithium and Haldol were to control his mood swings, which were very real.
The Thorazine was for acute anxiety, which was fucking bloody real as well. The Narcan had also been prescribed for his mood
swings. The multiple injections of Loradol were for something else, some pain from he couldn’t remember when. He knew there
were good reasons, too, for the Xanax, the Compazine, the Benadryl.

Lucy had already fled home to London, and she’d taken the traitorous children with her. They’d left exactly one week after
the trial ended. Her father was the real cause. He’d come to Washington and spoken to Lucy for less than an hour, and she’d
packed up and left like the Goody Two-shoes she’d always been. Before she departed, Lucy had the nerve to tell Shafer she’d
stood by him for the sake of the children and her father, but now her “duty” was over. She didn’t believe he was a murderer,
as her father did, but she knew he was an adulterer, and that, she couldn’t take for one moment longer.

God, how he despised his little wifey. Before Lucy left,
he
made it clear to
her
that the real reason she’d performed her “duty” was so he wouldn’t reveal her unsavory drug habit to the press, which he
would
have done and still might do, anyway.

At eleven o’clock he had to go out for a drive, his nightly “constitutional.” He was feeling unbearably jittery and claustrophobic.
He wondered if he could control himself for another night, another minute. His skin was crawling, and he had dozens of irritating
little tics. He couldn’t stop tapping his goddamn foot!

The dice were burning a bloody hole in his trouser pocket. His mind was racing in a dozen haphazard directions, all of them
very bad. He wanted to, needed to, kill somebody. It had been this way with him for a long time, and that had been his dirty
little secret. The other Horsemen knew the story; they even knew how it had begun. Shafer had been a decent English soldier,
but ultimately too ambitious to remain in the army. He had transferred into MI6 with the help of Lucy’s father. He thought
there would be more room for advancement in MI6.

His first posting was Bangkok, which was where he met James Whitehead, George Bayer, and eventually Oliver Highsmith. Whitehead
and Bayer spent several weeks working on Shafer, recruiting him for a specialized job: he would be an assassin, their own
personal hit man for the worst sort of wet work. Over the next two years, he did three sanctions in Asia, and found that he
truly loved the feeling of power that killing gave him. Oliver Highsmith, who ran both Bayer and Whitehead from London, once
told him to depersonalize the act, to think of it as a game, and that was what he did. He had never stopped being an assassin.

Shafer turned on the CD in the Jag.
Loud
, to drown out the multiple voices raging in his head. The old-age-home rockers Jimmy Page and Robert Plant began a duet inside
the cockpit of his car.

He backed out of the drive and headed down Tracy Place. He gunned the car and had it up close to sixty in the block between
his house and Twenty-fourth Street.
Time for another suicidal drive?
he wondered.

Red lights flashed on the side of Twenty-fourth Street. Shafer cursed as a D.C. police patrol car eased down the street toward
him.
Goddamn it!

He pulled the Jag over to the curb and waited. His brain was screaming. “Assholes. Bloody impertinent assholes! And you’re
an asshole, too!” he told himself in a loud whisper. “Show some self-control, Geoff. Get yourself under control. Shape up.
Right now!”

The Metro patrol car pulled up behind him, almost door to door. He could see two cops lurking inside.

One of them got out slowly and walked over to the Jag’s driver’s-side window. The cop swaggered like a hot-shit all-American
cinema hero. Shafer wanted to blow him away. Knew he could do it. He had a hot semiautomatic under the seat. He touched the
grip, and God, it felt good.

“License and registration, sir,” the cop said, looking unbearably smug. A distorted voice inside Shafer’s head screeched,
Shoot him now. It will blow everybody’s mind if you kill another policeman
.

He handed over the requested identification, though, and managed a wanker’s sheepish grin. “We’re out of Pampers at home.
Trip to the Seven-Eleven was in order. I know I was going too fast, and I’m sorry, Officer. Blame it on baby-brain. You have
any kids?”

The patrolman didn’t say a word; not an ounce of civility in the prick. He wrote out a speeding ticket. Took his sweet time
about it.

“There you go, Mr. Shafer.” The patrol officer handed him the speeding ticket and said, “Oh, and by the way, we’re watching
you, shithead. We’re all over you, man. You didn’t get away with murdering Patsy Hampton. You just
think
you did.”

A set of car lights blinked on and off, on and off, on the side street where the patrol car had been sitting a few moments
earlier.

Shafer stared, squinted back into the darkness. He recognized the car, a black Porsche.

Cross was there, watching. Alex Cross wouldn’t go away.

ANDREW JONES SAT NEXT TO ME in the quiet, semi-darkened cockpit of the Porsche. We’d been working closely together for almost
two weeks. Jones and the Security Service were intent on stopping Shafer before he committed another murder. They were also
tracking War, Famine, and Conqueror.

We watched silently as Geoffrey Shafer slowly turned the Jaguar around and drove back toward his house.

“He saw us. He knows my car,” I said. “Good.”

I couldn’t see Shafer’s face in the darkness, but I could almost feel the heat rising from the top of his head. I knew he
was crazed. The words “homicidal maniac” kept drifting through my mind. Jones and I were looking at one, and he was still
running free. He’d already gotten away with one murder—
several
murders.

“Alex, aren’t you concerned about possibly putting him into a rage state?” Jones asked as the Jaguar eased to a stop in front
of the Georgian-style house. There were no lights on in the driveway area, so we wouldn’t be able to see Geoffrey Shafer for
the next few seconds. We couldn’t tell if he’d gone inside.

“He’s already in a rage state. He’s lost his job, his wife, the children, the game he lives for. Worst of all, his freedom
to come and go has been curtailed. Shafer doesn’t like having limitations put on him, hates to be boxed in. He can’t stand
to lose.”

“So you think he’ll do something rash.”

“Not rash, he’s too clever. But he’ll make a move. It’s how the game is played.”

“And then we’ll mess with his head yet again?”

“Yes, we will. Absolutely.”

Late that night, as I was driving home, I decided to stop at St. Anthony’s. The church is unusual in this day and age in that
it’s open at night. Monsignor John Kelliher believes that’s the way it should be, and he’s willing to live with the vandalism
and the petty theft. Mostly, though, the people in the neighborhood watch over St. Anthony’s.

A couple of worshipers were inside the candlelit church when I entered, around midnight. There are usually a few “parishioners”
inside. Homeless people aren’t allowed to sleep there, but they wander in and out all through the night.

I sat watching the familiar red votive lamps flicker and blink. I sucked in the thick smell of incense from Benediction. I
stared up at the large gold-plated crucifix and the beautiful stained-glass windows that I’ve loved since I was a boy.

I lit a candle for Christine, and I hoped that somehow, someway, she might still be alive. It didn’t seem likely. My memory
of her was fading a little bit, and I hated that. A column of pain went from my stomach to my chest, making it hard for me
to breathe. It has been this way since the night she’d disappeared, almost a year ago.

And then, for the first time, I admitted to myself that she was gone. I would never see her again. The thought caught like
a shard of glass in my throat. Tears welled in my eyes. “I love you,” I whispered to no one. “I love you so much, and I miss
you terribly.”

I said a few more prayers, then I finally rose from the long wooden pew and silently made my way toward the doors of the vestibule.
I didn’t see the woman crouching in a side row. She startled me with a sudden movement.

I recognized her from the soup kitchen. Her name was Magnolia. That was all I knew about her, just an odd first name, maybe
a made-up one. She called out to me in a loud voice, “Hey Peanut Butter Man, now you know what it’s like.”

JONES AND SANDY GREENBERG from Interpol had helped get the other three Horsemen under surveillance. The net being cast was
large, as the catch could be if we succeeded.

The huge potential scandal in England was being carefully watched and monitored by the Security Service. If four English agents
turned out to be murderers involved in a bizarre “game,” the fallout would be widespread and devastating for the intelligence
community.

Shafer dutifully went to the embassy on Wednesday and Thursday. He arrived just before nine and left promptly at five. Once
inside, he stayed out of sight in his small office, not even venturing out for lunch. He spent hours on America Online, which
we monitored.

Both days, he wore the same gray slacks and a double-breasted blue blazer. His clothes were uncharacteristically wrinkled
and unkempt. His thick blond hair was combed back; it looked dirty and greasy, and resisted the high winds flowing through
Washington. He looked pale, seemed nervous and fidgety.

Was he going to crash?

After dinner on Friday night, Nana and I sat out in back of the house on Fifth Street. We were spending more time together
than we had in years. I knew she was concerned about me, and I let her help as much as she wanted. For both our sakes.

Jannie and Damon were washing the dishes inside and managing not to squabble too much. Damon washed while Jannie dried. Damon’s
tape deck played the beautiful score from the movie
Beloved
.

“Most families have a dishwasher and drier these days,” Nana said, after she’d taken a sip of her tea. “Slavery has ended
in America, Alex. Did you happen to hear about that?”

“We have a dishwasher and drier, too. Sounds like they’re in good working order. Low maintenance, low cost. Hard to beat.”

Nana clucked. “See how long it lasts.”

“If you want a dishwasher, we can buy one—or are you just practicing the fine art of being argumentative before you launch
into something more deserving of your talents? As I remember, you are a fan of Demosthenes and Cicero.”

She nudged me with her elbow. “Wiseapple,” she said. “Think you’re so smart.”

I shook my head. “Not really, Nana. That’s never been one of my big problems.”

“No, I suppose not. You’re right, you don’t have a big head about yourself.” Nana stared into my eyes. I could almost feel
her peering into my soul. She has an ability to look very deeply into things that really matter. “You ever going to stop blaming
yourself?” she asked me. “You look just terrible.”

“Thank you. Are you ever going to stop nagging me?” I asked, smiling at her. Nana could always bring me out of the doldrums,
in her own special way.

She nodded her small head. “Of course I will. I’ll stop one day. Nobody lives forever, Grannyson.”

I laughed. “You probably will, though. Live longer than me or the kids.”

Nana showed lots of teeth—her own, too. “I
do
feel pretty good, considering everything,” she said. “You’re still chasing him, aren’t you? That’s what you’re doing nights.
You and John Sampson, that Englishman Andrew Jones.”

I sighed. “Yeah, I am. And we’re going to get him. There may be four men involved in a series of murders. Here and in Asia,
Jamaica, London.”

She beckoned to me with a bent, crabbed forefinger. “Come closer now.”

I grinned at her. She’s such a soft touch, really, such a sweetie, but such a hard-ass, too. “You want me to sit down on your
lap, old woman? You sure about that?”

“Good Lord, no. Don’t sit on me, Alex. Just lean over and show some respect for my age and wisdom. Give me a big hug while
you’re at it.”

I did as I was told, and I noticed there wasn’t any fuss or clatter coming from the kitchen anymore.

I glanced at the screen door and saw that my two little busy-bodies were watching, their faces pressed against the mesh wire.
I waved them away from the door, and their faces disappeared.

“I want you to be so very, very careful,” Nana whispered as I held her gently. “But I want you to get him somehow, someway.
That man is the worst of all of them. Geoffrey Shafer is the worst, Alex, the most evil.”