Double Cross

“No questions. Just go. Hurry! Time’s running out.” I heard the crunch of our cells as I backed out over them.

“Fuck,” Bree muttered. She wasn’t angry about the phones, just that we were following his orders.

We had barely hit the street when Bree scribbled something and held it down low for me to see. Black Highlander, DC plates. Female. Two cars behind.

I saw the Highlander and the woman driver in my rearview mirror. Long, dark hair. Sunglasses. I couldn’t tell much of anything else.

“Who’s the tail, Bell? Is that my friend from Baltimore?”

There was a sickening thud on the line, and I heard Sampson moan loudly.

“That’s what questions get you from here on out. Got any more?”

I didn’t answer.

“Good thinking. Now take a left at the next light and keep your fucking mouths shut unless I ask for your opinion.”

Chapter 115

I WOULD HAVE PROBABLY suspended another officer for doing what we were doing, but with Sampson’s life in jeopardy, I didn’t see how there was any choice. For the next few minutes, Bree and I stuck to hand gestures and notes while DCAK barked out directions.

The black Highlander with the woman driver stayed right with us, never getting more than a couple of car lengths behind.

Bree scribbled, Idea where we’re going?

I shook my head. Just enough for her to see.

How do we turn this thing around?

Another subtle head shake.

Weapons in the car?

I sighed, then shook my head again.

We had traveled to Montana without them. Maybe Tyler Bell guessed as much; there had been no mention of them when we ditched our phones.

He navigated us back into Washington. Eventually onto Massachusetts Avenue and then Seventh Street, moving away from Capitol Hill.

My mind raced in a dozen different directions during the stretches of silence. Where the hell was he taking us? And what would happen when we got there?

Seventh turned into Georgia; then we passed the Howard University campus and kept going. Why this part of town? Why was any of this happening?

Somewhere between Columbia Heights and Petworth, we came into a low-grade retail stretch with half a dozen fast-food and car-repair joints. Bell told me to slow down now and pay close attention.

“Trust me, I’m paying attention.”

I watched the numbers as we passed a Jamaican patty stand, a nail salon, a gas station, a pawnshop, and then one of several empty storefronts.

“Number three three three seven,” Bell said. “See it?” I sure did. An orange RENTED banner was pasted over the original FOR RENT sign in the window.

“Take the next alleyway, and come into the building from the side,” Bell told me. “No cheap tricks. I can’t promise the same.”

Chapter 116

I PULLED DOWN a narrow single lane to a small parking area in back, with room for maybe three vehicles. When we got out, I saw the black Highlander blocking the alley entrance-or exit, depending on how you looked at it.

The driver watched us from behind the wheel, looking both mysterious and threatening. I was almost certain it was a woman, but so far not everything had been as it seemed.

Bree and I moved toward the building. We found a battered green steel door, propped open with half of a brick. Inside, there was an enclosed cement stairwell. It felt a little like a Saw movie set.

“Go down the stairs,” said Tyler Bell. “Go ahead. Bite the bullet.”

An oddly brilliant strip of light showed under another door at the bottom of the stairs.

“ Bell, what’s down there?” I asked him. “Where are we going?”

He answered, “Close the door behind you when you come in. And do come in. Or else there will be a terrible accident momentarily-involving your friend.”

Bree and I looked at each other. This was the time to turn around, if any. And that wasn’t going to happen, at least not for me.

“We don’t have any choice,” Bree said. “Let’s go. We get any chance, we take it.”

I went down first.

The walls were rough cinder block, with no rail. There was a vague sulfuric smell that I could taste on the tip of my tongue. When we got to the door at the bottom of the stairs, I grabbed a rusted knob that wouldn’t turn. So I pushed instead-and it swung open.

And then -

A spotlight hit my eyes! I focused as best I could and saw it was one of several on tripod stands, illuminating every corner of an otherwise dank basement.

“There’s your boy!” said Bell.

Sampson sat tied to a chair with his hands behind his back. A band of silver tape was stretched over his eyes. When he turned toward the sound of the door, I saw the terrible gash on his face, still wet. What was worse, his blood had been used to smear the letters DCAK on the wall behind him. Lots of blood.

Two empty chairs stood to Sampson’s right, each with a coil of rope on the floor next to it.

Somebody, presumably Tyler Bell, stood off to one side. He had a video camera in one hand and a gun in the other, both pointed our way. His face was still in shadows, always the mystery man to this point. But that was going to end now, wasn’t it?

A cable snaked out of the camera, over to a sawhorse and a plank table full of equipment. I spotted a laptop, open to Bell ’s familiar home page, but with a difference. Where he’d once had an image of a static-filled television, now there was a live shot of Bree and me standing there, looking at ourselves.

Bell ’s head slowly moved from the camera viewfinder up to our faces. When he saw me watching him, he said, “Welcome to my studio.”

Chapter 117

“SAMPSON, YOU OKAY?” I asked. “John? John?”

Finally he gave a weak nod. “Couldn’t be better.” He didn’t look it. He was hunched over severely, with dark stains down his gray T-shirt and sweats.

“Well said, Detective Sampson,” Bell cracked. “It would appear that I’m not the only skilled thespian in the room.”