Kill Alex Cross

“Hala?” Behind her on the bed, Tariq stirred. “Ha-laa. Turn it off. It only upsets you.”

“It’s always the same,” she said. “Every single channel. The same babble, the same video.”

“I know,” he said. “That’s why you should turn it off. Leave it off, my darling.”

She reached up to do it, but then stopped short when the light from the screen caught something on the floor. It was a glossy piece of paper, or a brochure of some kind.

Someone had slipped a note under the door in the night.

Even before she knew what it was, Hala’s pulse began to race faster.

“What is it?” Tariq asked. “When did it come? Who delivered it?”

“It’s from the Smithsonian,” she said, bringing it for a better look under the bedside lamp. “The Museum of Natural History. I’m sure it wasn’t there before.”

They unfolded it on the bed.

Inside, the brochure showed a map of the museum’s galleries and current exhibits, but it was nothing more than any ordinary tourist might pick up. There were no instructions or additional markings of any kind. And yet, wasn’t that exactly what she and Tariq were meant to be here — just any tourists?

“It says they open at ten,” she read off the page.

For Hala, the implication was clear. First contact had finally been made.

THIS WAS IT, then. Their mission had begun. Something involving the president’s missing children? That could very well be.

It was odd that they would be as much in the dark as everyone else in Washington. Odd, but also brilliant, wasn’t it? The Family gave them only as much information as they would need to fulfill their obligations — no more, no less.

At nine thirty, the Al Dossaris left their hotel and walked the glass and concrete canyon of Twelfth Street all the way down to the National Mall. They passed through the high-columned entrance of the Museum of Natural History just minutes after it opened, blending easily into the crowd of international tourists and school groups already clogging the galleries.

This was it.

But it wasn’t.

For the next two hours, they wandered in a perpetual state of anxiety and frustration. Hala passed by glass cases of preserved sea creatures, and fossilized remains, and African artifacts, never quite seeing any of it. She focused on the faces of the people instead, scanning for anything that might tell them why they were here. The waiting, the suspense, was becoming excruciating, almost impossible to bear.

It wasn’t until their fifth or sixth pass through the museum’s central rotunda that something finally happened.

A dark-eyed young woman with an ornate neck tattoo caught Hala’s gaze from across the room. She held it for several seconds and then looked away, ostensibly taking in the enormous bull elephant that dominated the space between them.

Hala stopped to regard the display, then looked back. Again, the girl was staring. Was she from The Family? Or was this just Hala’s imagination working too hard?

“Tariq?” she said.

“I see her,” he said. “Go. I think she wants to talk.”

He kept his position while his wife worked her way slowly around the room, never losing sight of the stranger. She was Saudi, presumably, but dressed like an American college student. Ripped jeans, a peasant blouse, scuffed clogs. On her shoulder she carried a brightly colored Guatemalan bag. It appeared to be full. With books? Or maybe a bomb? For here? For now?

As Hala reached the back of the gallery, the girl came over and spoke to her.

“Excuse me,” she said. “Do you know where the reptile hall is?”

Her perfect American accent was a surprise. Had this one been recruited stateside? Or, Hala suddenly wondered, was this maybe not what she’d thought? Was this girl with the police?

“I’m sorry,” she answered. “I don’t know. I’m not from here.”

“Maybe I could take a look at your map?”

When the girl pointed at the brochure Hala had carried from the hotel, any last doubts left her. “Of course,” she said, and handed it over.

The girl unfolded it on top of her bag and studied it for several seconds while a stream of waist-high children in school uniforms ran past, squealing out ridiculous laughter having something to do with the elephant’s tusks.

“Here it is,” she said finally. “Reptiles. This is what I want to know more about.”

When she refolded the map and handed it back, something flat and hard was inside that hadn’t been there before. Hala looked down to see the silver edge of a disk tucked into the folds of laminated paper. It sent a quickening sensation up her spine.

“Thanksalot,” the girl said in a familiar American singsong style. She smiled vacantly, then turned and walked away without once looking back.