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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 DC
police patrol car eased down the street toward him. God damn 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-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 7-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 bastard. 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. 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.
Chapter One Hundred and Five
Page 166
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Andrew Jones sat in the quiet, semi-darkened front seat of the Porsche with
me. 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 his face in the darkness, but I could almost feel the heat
rising from the top of his head. I knew he was crazed. The phrase 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 murder, several of them.
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
couldn t 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, his children, the
game he lives for. Worst of all, his freedom to come and go has been
curtailed. Shafer doesn t like 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; 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 petty theft. Mostly, though, the people
in the neighborhood watch over St Anthony s.
A couple of worshipers were inside the candlelit church around midnight, when
I arrived. There usually are 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-and-gold 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, some way, she might
still be alive. It didn t seem likely. My memory of her was fading a little
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