Джеймс Паттерсон - Killer Instinct

In the blink of an eye, faster than the beat of a heart. That’s all it took.

The guy now had his own window.

Literally.

Chapter 61

THE COPS, the two detectives, the EMTs—they all kept referring to him as the deceased since there was no ID to be had on his half burned, fully mangled body, which had literally cracked the sidewalk in half outside my apartment building thirty stories below. No surprise the guy would end up being a John Doe. I could’ve told them as much.

Then again, I was too busy having to tell them everything else.

“Wait, let me just repeat that back,” said the junior of the two detectives, who had introduced himself to my father and me as simply Miller . Not Joe or Bob Miller or even Detective Miller. Just Miller. “So after getting shot, the deceased sprang up and proceeded to run at the window glass, shatter it, and then jump to his death. Is that right?”

“It was actually more of a leap,” said my father. “A swan dive, really.”

My father was now going on twenty-four straight hours without sleep and was officially beyond punchy. Miller was barely even acknowledging him at this point, content instead to look only at me or down at his notepad. He was taking a lot of notes.

“Yes, that’s what happened,” I told him.

As for why it happened, I kept that to myself. The police didn’t need to know, at least not yet, that the guy pancaked on the sidewalk with his entrails splattered was part of a terrorist cell. Point being, his getting caught was absolutely, positively not an option.

I glanced at my watch. This was taking too long. The news vans were beginning to line up along the curb. My father and I needed to exit stage left in a hurry.

“Just a few more questions,” said Miller.

“Actually, no more questions,” he was told instead.

I turned—we all turned—to see Elizabeth flash her badge to Miller, who seemingly could not have cared less.

“You can have Dr. Reinhart when I’m done with him,” the detective told her, almost shooing Elizabeth away with the back of his hand.

The poor guy. I almost felt sorry for him as Elizabeth blinked in disbelief. She was about to give him a quick refresher about the pecking order among badges, and while she had her subtle moments from time to time, I knew immediately this wasn’t going to be one of them. Sure enough, she grabbed the notepad right out of Miller’s hand and heaved it to the other side of the street.

“Congratulations. You’re now done with Dr. Reinhart,” she said.

With that, my father and I followed her inside my apartment building, never once looking back.

“I like her already,” my father said as we walked.

He knew of Elizabeth from what I’d told him back when she and I were hunting the serial killer the Dealer, but this was the first time they were meeting face-to-face. I made the formal introduction in the lobby.

“Normally, I’d ask what brings you down to Manhattan,” she said, shaking my father’s hand.

“Normally, I’d tell you,” replied my father.

Enough said, at least about my father’s former life as an operative.

I was prepared to tell Elizabeth all about my morning. Meeting Eli. The fact that I now had a target on my back courtesy of some very impolite terrorists. But first there was something I needed to know.

“What are you even doing here?” I asked her. “You’re supposed to be out following—”

“Yes, I know,” said Elizabeth. “I was supposed to learn her entire routine. Everything she does. Everywhere she goes.”

“In other words,” I said, “tailing her for days .”

“Or maybe just hours,” she said. “I found out everything you need to know about Sadira Yavari. But we don’t have much time.”

Chapter 62

ELIZABETH WAS right, twice over. A beautiful little thing called serendipity had intervened in her reconnaissance mission. I no longer needed to know Professor Sadira Yavari’s daily routine, what her regular haunts were, or the particular park bench where she liked to go to read. Engineering my “chance” meeting with her had already been taken care of courtesy of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. In short, Sadira had jury duty.

Right now.

There was barely any time for the things I needed to do, let alone wanted to do. I wanted to head back up to the apartment, pack a suitcase, and say good-bye to the place. I’d be back, but I’d never live there again—not as long as the Mudir, or whoever was posing as Benjamin Al-Kazaz, knew the address. Can those two guys be one and the same? It definitely feels like it.

I also wanted to visit Irma in the hospital, whichever one the ambulance had taken her to. I think she was more shaken up than actually hurt, but the EMTs had wisely decided to play it safe. A night of observation made even more sense given her apartment was currently a crime scene, not to mention a complete shambles.

I had to put a pin in all those plans. Everything that could wait had to wait. Instead, I had to get downtown to the courthouse on Pearl Street and join the jury pool.

“How do you know Yavari’s name hasn’t been called yet?” I asked.

“It hasn’t,” said Elizabeth. “And it won’t be. I’ve made sure of it.”

“So you were actually there? At the courthouse?”

“Yeah. She’s wearing a white blouse with a gray skirt. Reading a book.”

“What’s the book?”

“I didn’t get that close to her,” said Elizabeth. “Forget about her book. More importantly, what’s your plan?”

I didn’t have one. Not yet. “Charm and charisma?” I offered.

“In that case, we’re doomed,” said my father, chiming in.

That got a chuckle out of Elizabeth. “I just got a glimpse into your childhood.”

“Yeah, nothing’s changed,” I said.

“If this Yavari woman is who you say she is, she’s hardly going to cozy up to any stranger,” said my father. “You need a Tebow.”

“Did you say a T-bone?” asked Elizabeth. “Like the steak?”

“No. Like the football player,” I said.

“Tim Tebow,” said my father, which did nothing to help Elizabeth. She looked at me, lost.

“A distraction,” I said. “Tim Tebow probably could’ve played a few more years in the NFL as a backup quarterback, but he was too much of a media distraction for teams, so they didn’t bother.” I turned to my father. “And I don’t need a Tebow.”

Elizabeth, who only ten seconds earlier didn’t even know what the hell my father was talking about, suddenly seemed intrigued. “What do you have in mind, Mr. Reinhart?” she asked.

“Please, call me Max,” said my father. Josiah Maxwell Reinhart never did like the shortened Joe for Josiah. Come to think of it, he didn’t much like Josiah either. He always thought it made him sound like a character in a Mark Twain novel.

“Okay,” said Elizabeth, obliging him. “What did you have in mind, Max?”

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“How fast we can get our hands on a flask, a flannel shirt, and a pocket copy of the Constitution,” he said.

Chapter 63

IT WAS like Renée Zellweger to Tom Cruise at the end of Jerry Maguire.

“You had me at flask,” said Elizabeth.

Even I had to admit, it was all just crazy enough to work.

The second I gave my blessing, Elizabeth was on the phone to a staffer at the JTTF named Freddie. She told him he had forty-five minutes to hit a Barnes & Noble and an REI store or “any other flannel-and-flask-loving outdoorsy place” to gather the necessary props and meet us at the courthouse. JTTF staffers aren’t accustomed to questioning their marching orders, but surely Freddie had to be wondering what on earth he was doing and why.