Free Cross Fire by James Patterson Page A

people from FBI, ATF, Capitol Police — just about everyone was dialed into this case by now.
    Reporting in, we had Cailin Jerger, from the Forensic Analysis Branch at the FBI lab in Quantico, and Alison Steedman, who was with their Firearms-Toolmarks Unit.
    After a few quick introductions, I handed the call over to them.
    “Based on fragments in all three victims’ skulls, I can tell you conclusively that the same weapon was used every time,” Jerger told the group. I’d gotten most of this in the morning, but it was news to almost everyone else on the call. “A 7.62 caliber can trace back to dozens of weapons, but given the nature and distance of these shots, we believe we’re looking at a high-grade sniper system. That brings it down to seven possibilities.”
    “And it gets better from there,” Agent Steedman joined in. “Four of those seven are bolt-action rifles. By all accounts, the first two victims, Vinton and Pilkey, went down within two seconds of each other. That’s too fast for bolt-action, which leaves three semiautomatic possibilities — the M21, the M25, and the newer M110, which is state of the art. We can’t rule any of those out, but these shots were all taken at night into variable lighting conditions, and the M110 comes with a thermal optical site, standard.”
    “All of which is to say that your shooter is likely to be very well equipped,” Jerger said.
    “How hard is it to put your hands on an M110?” I recognized Jim Heekin’s voice from the Directorate of Intelligence.
    “They’re made in only one place,” Steedman told us. “Knight’s Armament Company in Titusville, Florida.”
    I’d already been tracking this, so I spoke up here.
    “So far, all of Knight’s stock is accounted for,” I said. “But once these systems hit the field, mostly in Iraq and Afghanistan, they can and do go missing. Souvenirs from the war, that kind of thing. So they’re pretty much impossible to trace.”
    “Detective Cross, this is Captain Oliverez at Capitol Police. Didn’t your report say the fingerprints you found on Eighteenth Street were
nonmilitary?
”
    “Yes,” I said. “But we’re not ready to rule out a military connection, in terms of how the weapon might have been procured and how it’s been used. In fact, that brings up another point.” I’d been sitting on this one for half a day, but really it made no sense not to share it with the group now.
    “Let me stress something here,” I said. “I want to keep this out of the press until we have some kind of proof either way. I know it’s like herding cats — there’s a lot of us on this call — but I’m counting on your discretion across the board here.”
    “Whatever happens in Vegas…,” someone joked, and there were a few soft laughs.
    “The point is this,” I said. “All of these systems we’re talking about are crew-served weapons. The military model is one shooter and one spotter in the field.” I could hear people on the line mumbling to one another in their various conference rooms. “So you can see where I’m going here. It could be shades of two thousand two all over again. We’re probably not looking for a single shooter anymore. Most likely, we’re looking for a two-man team.”

Chapter 30

    AS SAMPSON AND I came out of the conference room, we found Joyce Catalone from our Communications Office standing outside the door.
    “I was just going to pull you out,” she said. “I’m glad I didn’t have to.”
    I looked at my watch — four forty-five. That meant at least three dozen reporters were downstairs, waiting to grill me for their five and six o’clock news cycles. Damn it — it was time to feed the beast.
    Joyce and Sampson walked down with me. We took the stairs so she could run through a few things for me to consider on the way.
    “Keisha Samuels from the
Post
wants to do a profile for the Sunday magazine.”
    “No,” I told her. “I like Keisha, she’s smart and she’s fair, but