Page 107 of The House of Cross

Bean swerved off at John’s cover fire. So did the janitor.

Bree finally got up onto the packed trail and shot at Bean from a hundred yards away. The former SAS operator ducked and stopped his machine behind some bushes.

Bree jumped on, yelled, “Wait, Alex, we’ve got to give John cover!”

I looked over my shoulder, saw Sampson running from the scattered trees toward the idling sled and us; he was no more than forty yards away.

Bree twisted and shot at Toomey, who was arcing his sled at us, just out of range.

“Go!” Sampson yelled when he was twenty yards from the other sled.

“Once more at Bean!” Bree said, twisting again to shoot at him.

But the Maestro operator had left his sled and moved to his right. He was on his knees when he pulled the trigger.

Sampson shuddered, spun ninety degrees, fell onto the side of the sled, and crumpled beside it in the snow twenty feet from us.

“Go!”John gasped into the mic, talking over the helmet radio.“Go!”

CHAPTER 82

LEAVING MY BEST FRIENDwho’d been hit hard like that went against every instinct I had. But Bree shouted, “The medical kit, Alex! It’s his only chance!”

I twisted the throttle. We lurched forward, gained traction, and began to accelerate. Bree opened fire on Bean, forcing him to take cover once more.

I could not lower the visor because I could barely see through the cracks and bullet holes. I had to leave it pushed up while I got low behind the windshield.

We hit thirty miles an hour in seconds. I blinked back tears at the wind getting around the shield as Toomey’s voice crackled on the radio: “Maintaining contact off their eastern flank, M.”

I glanced right and saw the janitor there about one hundredyards out, paralleling us in deeper snow, which forced him to keep both hands on his handlebars. Bree swung on him and fired a quick burst that slowed Toomey down again.

Malcomb said, “Bean? I’m having trouble with your camera. Update.”

“I just put lead in Sampson, M. On my sled now, closing ground on their western flank. We’ve got—”

“Come back?”

“I just realized they took helmets off my men. I think they can hear what you’re saying. Or Cross can.”

For a moment, Malcomb said nothing.

“Is that true, Dr. Cross?”

He sounded amused. I don’t know exactly why that made me want to attack him, throw him off balance, but it did.

“Dr. Cross? Can you hear me?”

I reached up, turned on the mic. “So loud and clear, I can hear the Sean Malcomb Wallace in your voice,” I said.

For several moments as we sped toward that snag on the rise in the far trees, all I could hear over the radio was M’s tortured breathing. I’d hit a nerve.

“I have told you—I am not my brother.”

I purposely laughed and decided to bait him as we got within a quarter mile of the trees and the low ridge at the north end of the meadow.

“Whatever your supposed noble purpose or thinking, you are no different than Sean,” I said. “How could you be different? You’re twins. And I don’t believe your story about your parents’ murder. You were twins. I think you both went in naked through the basement window. You’re deluding yourself, Malcomb. The two of you evil bastards were born of the same bad seed. Face it. You’re as defective in mind as your evil—”

Malcomb thundered over the radio, cutting me off. “You want to see the Sean in me, do you? Fine. Bean? Toomey?”

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