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“Ja, ja,” he said and chuckled. “Tull left Ava the day after Frommer was convicted, and still she defends him every chance she gets. Tull will do the same with you this time. Has he become sleeping partners with anyone on the case yet?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“This is surprising,” the retired commissioner said. “But give him time and—”

I could hear a woman talking in the background.

“Ja, ja,” he said. “I am sorry, Dr. Cross, but my wife reminds me I must go to the dentist. Can I give you my e-mail? You’ll tell me what you find out about Tull?”

“I will,” I said.

CHAPTER 73

AFTER MY LATE-NIGHT conversation with retired Hauptkommissar Martel, I tried to read more of Noon in Berlin, but I soon got drowsy and stumbled over to the old couch to shut my eyes.

Less than two hours later, when I was dead asleep, my cell phone started ringing and buzzing. It startled me awake; I had no idea where I was for several seconds, then I stumbled to my phone on the desk.

“Cross,” I said.

“Sampson’s on the line as well,” Mahoney said. “I’m in Baltimore and can’t get there fast. But Family Man has made a mistake. We got a report from a residential security company that a silent alarm has gone off in the home of the Allison family in Falls Church, near Lake Barcroft. There is an intruder in the house as we speak. He is armed and wearing night-vision goggles.”

“How do you know that? Where’s the family?”

“In a safe room,” Mahoney said. “They’re watching the son of a bitch on a closed-circuit system.”

“Get police there. And a chopper overhead. Surround the place. I’m on my way.”

“Already gone,” Sampson said.

I bolted out of the attic and down the stairs; grabbed my coat, service weapon, and the keys to the car. I put the address into my Waze app. Metro had given me a bubble that I could use in rare circumstances. This felt like one of those times, so I rolled down the window and slapped it on the roof.

It was two thirty-five in the morning when I squealed away from my house. With the early hour and the bubble, which let me run the red lights, I set some kind of land-speed record between Southeast DC and the wooded Lake Barcroft area, where I spotted a Fairfax County sheriff’s cruiser parked sideways across the mouth of Dockser Terrace, its lights dark.

I pulled over behind him and got out, holding up my IDs and credentials. “FBI and DC Metro,” I said. “When did you arrive, Deputy …”

“Conrad, and not five minutes ago, sir.”

“Are we in contact with the family?”

“Yes, sir. I mean, I think so, sir.”

“Let me talk to your dispatch.”

He handed me a walkie-talkie. I took it and called for dispatch. A woman named Helena Rodriguez came on. I identified myself and asked about communications with the family.

“I was talking to Mr. Allison until four minutes ago, when his comm cut out.”

Sampson pulled up and jumped from his car.

“I’m borrowing your radio, Deputy,” I said. I looked at John. “We’ve lost contact with the family.”

We both started to run toward the Allisons’ house, which was on the left side of the road where Dockser Terrace split and looped back on itself.

“No way out of here in a car,” Sampson said.

“Do you have eyes overhead?” I barked into the radio.

“Negative, Dr. Cross,” Rodriguez said. “It’s refueling. Two minutes to takeoff. Six minutes to you.”

That made us run faster.

“I need two uniforms in the trees watching the back of the Allisons’ house. Have them come in through the woods from the far side of the loop.”

“Roger that.”

We were less than two hundred yards from the Allisons’ home by then, a big gray Colonial set back among pines and oaks. Even in the moonlight, it was one of the bigger structures in the neighborhood. The lights were off outside and in.

I slowed and stopped at the bottom of the driveway, gasping. “He’s in there, John. He may have found the family already.”

“How would he get into a safe room?” Sampson said, drawing his weapon.

“We’re about to find out,” I said, drawing mine as well, and we started to move forward, only to stop again.

A middle-aged man came jogging around the corner ahead of us on the opposite side of the street. He wore running pants, a white windbreaker, a headlamp, and a bright green reflective vest over a small knapsack with a water hose coming out of the top. A small red light blinked at his waist. A little dog on a leash ran at his side.

We went at him, guns drawn. The Jack Russell terrier growled.

Seeing us, he stopped and threw up his hands, frightened. “What is this?”

“Metropolitan Police,” Sampson said. “Who are you? Why are you here?”

“Tim Boulter. I’m out for a run?”

“At three in the morning?”

“I own a bakery,” Boulter said. “This is my six a.m.”

“How did you get by the police cruiser blocking the road?” I demanded.

“I didn’t see a cruiser. I came on the trail that comes into the far side of Dockser Terrace from closer to the lake. What’s happening?”

“Where do you live?”

“Arcadia Road. Two miles from here.”