Criss Cross (Alex Cross #27)(21)

“You’re lying, Mr. Jenkins.”

“No, I—”

A different voice came over the phone, one that was not distorted. Diane Jenkins began to scream in agony. “No! No! Melvin! What have you done?”

There was a weird heavy noise, like something slamming, and then we couldn’t hear her anymore.

“That was your wife’s wedding and engagement rings coming off, Mr. Jenkins. Along with her finger.”

The horror on Jenkins’s face was complete.

“But I have the money!” he cried. “The Ethereum. Isn’t that what you wanted? Please, just tell me where you want me to send it. Give me the account number.”

Several seconds passed and then M said, “Dr. Cross? You’re there, aren’t you?”

I shut my eyes a moment. After twelve years, he was talking to me directly. I knew I wasn’t hearing his true voice, but before I answered I prayed I could hear his soul.

“I’m here, M.”

We all heard a sigh of pleasure. “I thought so.”

I said nothing.

He laughed. “It’s rather funny, isn’t it? After all these years, you and me? Like pen pals who’ve never met but are profoundly connected. Am I right, Alex?”

“It’s been a one-way conversation so far.”

“Certain things are worth waiting for. And planning for. And anticipating. And now here we are. Talking. At last.”

“Mr. Jenkins has the ransom money. Do you want it or not?”

“Oh, I want it,” he said. “So here are the rules. If you’ve bugged the transfers, Cross, debug them. Now. I will know if the transaction is being traced. Once I’ve received the money, I’ll tell Jenkins where he can find his wife.”

Then he rattled off a sixteen-character code of letters, numbers, and symbols.

“Send the crypto to that account at the Kraken exchange within the hour. If the Ethereum is not in that account by ten p.m. eastern, well, until next time, Dr. Cross. And I’m sorry for your loss, Mr. Jenkins.”

The line died.

We all looked at Rawlins, whose eyes were darting from screen to screen.

“Well?” Mahoney said. “Did you get him?”

“I’m stripping out the obvious bugs,” he said.

“I knew you wouldn’t catch him local,” Batra said.

There was an audible ding from the laptop closest to me. Rawlins finished typing, glanced at that screen, and started clapping.

“And yet, Batra, I did just catch him local,” he said.





CHAPTER 25





THE NINETY-ACRE SCHULTE FARM sat half a mile off Mennonite Road, just shy of Mantua, Ohio, which was no more than twenty miles east of where Diane Jenkins had vanished. M had stayed on the line toying with me long enough for Rawlins to get a fix on the burn cell somewhere on that farm.

Mahoney and I had left Special Agent Batra to oversee the transfer of the cryptocurrency and sped toward the farmhouse. We’d called for more agents, hoping to surround the place, but they were still a solid thirty minutes away when we pulled over on the shoulder of Mennonite Road and killed the lights.

I checked my watch. It was 9:44 p.m. Sixteen minutes to go.

Mahoney called Batra and put her on speakerphone.

“How long do you want me to wait to make the transfer?” she asked.

“Till two minutes to ten,” he said.

We climbed out of the vehicle, got tactical vests, semiautomatic rifles, and night-vision goggles from the trunk, then set off toward what had been an active dairy farm up until three years ago. The owner had died, and the surviving Schulte children did not wish to milk cows for a living.

The homestead had been platted for a subdivision, put up for sale at an astronomical sum, and empty ever since. At least, that’s what we’d gleaned from looking at the property on Zillow.com.

“Perfect for him,” I said. “They have to keep the heat and electricity on for prospective buyers, and it’s remote enough no one’s going to hear Diane screaming.”

“He’s no dummy,” Mahoney said, climbing over the steel gate that blocked the dirt road into the farm.

I did the same and then tugged on the infrared goggles. Instantly the drive was lit up brighter than twilight. We went fast to the clearing. The house was dark.

“Money just moved,” Batra said over the earbuds we wore.

“Which means he’s going to move soon,” Mahoney said.

But we stood there watching the farmhouse for twenty minutes before Batra said, “He’s got the five million, and Rawlins says it’s already been split and transferred on. The good news is he’s staying with it.”

“Let’s go,” Mahoney said.

Guns up, we ran to the front door of the farmhouse, turned the handle, and found it unlocked. I pushed the door open and eased inside. There was furniture covered in plastic in rooms off a central hallway, and a kitchen that was bare.

Thinking about that heavy slamming noise we’d heard on the phone, we considered the possibility that he had her in a basement room or out in the barn. We checked both but found nothing.

We didn’t figure out why until we discovered a small device with a blinking light plugged into a socket in the main bedroom. Rawlins informed us we were looking at a repeater.