Джеймс Паттерсон - Killer Instinct

All right, du verdammtes Arschloch, let’s you and I have a chat…

I knelt down, getting eye to eye with him. The key was letting him think he was in control. I’d ask the questions he’d never answer. He’d get into a rhythm. He’d get comfortable. Then, maybe, he’d get sloppy.

I asked him who he was, who he worked for, what he wanted with Sadira. Everything he expected. Then, out of nowhere, something he didn’t.

“Where’d you get the tattoo?”

The beautiful, crazy, unpredictable thing about the human mind is that…well, it has a mind of its own. No matter how much you try to control your own thoughts and actions, there’s simply no accounting for the occasional impulse or reflex.

It was the quickest of glances, a flinch of the eyeballs toward his right forearm. After his body got banged up in the van, his mind had no problem believing there was a tear in his black sweatshirt, exposing his skin.

Only there wasn’t a tear. The sweatshirt was still intact.

I yanked back the sleeve. He went to stop me, but both cops stopped him even faster. On the inside of his forearm, just above the wrist, was a Jerusalem cross. It wasn’t exactly a résumé, but it gave me something to work with. I suddenly had a hunch.

“You a fan of military history? Of course you are,” I said, sounding as if I were back in my classroom. “You probably know that the Prince of Wales got that same tattoo while visiting the Holy Land in the early 1860s. It was right after your great British field marshal Earl Roberts reportedly said that every officer in the British Army should be tattooed with his regimental crest.” I paused to make sure I had his undivided attention. “But you’re more than British Army these days. So for the last time, who are you?”

And for the first time, he spoke. “Who are you?” he asked. But it wasn’t a question. It was the answer to mine.

My hunch had made no sense and all the sense in the world, all at once. Foxx had only just shared the intel on Sadira with his counterparts at Vauxhall Cross, but our strongest of allies had already succumbed to their distrust. Rank nationalism may play well on our own soil, but it’s a shit show overseas.

Foxx’s driver, Briggs, was still alive because the men who took Sadira had no intention of killing him. They were skilled enough to stop him in his tracks without putting him in his grave. It may be a new world with new rules, but MI6 would never be in the business of killing CIA operatives. No matter who was in the White House.

Foxx returned. “He doesn’t know anything, does he?”

I shook my head. “Nope.”

“He’s MI6, isn’t he?”

“How did you know?”

“I didn’t. But his director just called ours to apologize.” Foxx turned to the agent and promptly made a very special relationship between his fist and the guy’s jaw. “Apology not accepted,” said Foxx, before walking away.

I followed him back to the Expedition for the drive to Grand Central. On the way, I had a call of my own to make.

Elizabeth picked up immediately. She’d been waiting on me.

Chapter 110

“BUCKLE UP, REINHART…”

It was another car chase. Only now against time.

Siren blaring, lights flashing, Foxx gunned it back toward midtown. He was driving the wrong way in the breakdown lane, aiming for the next exit south, while sideswiping any cars edging out to get a peek at what was making them late to work. At over a hundred miles an hour, we were easily the most effective PSA on record for Stay in your lane .

Along the way to Grand Central, we got the next best thing to direct updates from Pritchard. Foxx had a dedicated scanner with the live command channel that Pritchard was using to coordinate FBI, FBI SWAT, NYPD, and his own JTTF field unit. If we were lucky, they’d arrive before the attack. Unlucky? Any other scenario.

We were lucky. At least, so far. Grand Central was quiet. Well, as quiet as can be for a place that had thousands of rush-hour commuters funneling through it at that very moment.

Pritchard now had everyone in place. Within twenty minutes of getting the call from Foxx, and after a mad scramble from Penn Station to Grand Central, it was now a waiting game. Those in uniform, mainly snipers, were in the ceiling and other hidden positions. Everyone undercover blended in throughout both concourses.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” asked Foxx after he pulled up next to a hydrant at 42nd and Madison, a block west of Grand Central. I was halfway out to the curb before he’d even cut the engine.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

Only I knew exactly what he meant. The Mudir knew what I looked like. At this point, my image was probably seared into his brain. We couldn’t risk having him see me. It could blow everything.

“Unless you’ve got a fake mustache and a wig stuffed in your pocket, you’re staying right here,” said Foxx.

“I can at least get closer.”

“To do what?”

Good point. Even more so after he pointed to his scanner. At least I’d be able to hear everything by staying in the car.

“You win,” I said, though I probably shouldn’t have, at least not so quickly. Since when did I ever acquiesce to Foxx?

“I’m serious, Reinhart,” he said, swinging his legs out to the street. He turned back to look me square in the eyes before shutting the door behind him. “Stay in the damn car.”

I pointed to the scanner. “I’ve got the play-by-play right here,” I said. “No reason to go anywhere.”

Foxx took off down 42nd Street, heading over to Grand Central. For the next ten minutes I sat twiddling my thumbs. It felt like an eternity. Pritchard had called for radio silence as everyone waited to see what the Mudir had planned. There was nothing to listen to. Everything was quiet.

Too quiet.

Chapter 111

“SHOTS FIRED!”

It wasn’t Pritchard’s voice, and by the sound of the actual shots, they weren’t anywhere near him either. But they were definitely coming from somewhere inside the terminal. I could hear the echo.

“Move!”

That was Pritchard’s voice for sure, and the second he said it, the echo gave way to a firestorm of shooting and screaming. People were literally running for their lives.

There was no way I was staying put.

I bolted out of my seat and sprinted toward the station without any game plan except getting there. Easier said than done.

Before I could even spot the doors to the station along 42nd Street, I could feel the rumbling beneath my feet. It was like an earthquake, the sidewalk shifting and sliding from the mass exodus. Faster, I told myself. Run faster!

Reaching the corner across from the station, I saw the pandemonium spilling out into the street. Every face had the same look. The wide eyes, the open mouths. Sheer terror. There was still gunfire behind them. Nothing was over.

Like a salmon with a death wish, I made my way against the current. There was no clear path; people were coming at me in droves.

Finally I reached the doors to the station, immediately cutting sideways to hug the wall. I was still fifty yards from the main concourse, but I could move quicker, free of the stampede. Amid the pounding of feet and continued screams, I didn’t realize right away that the shooting had actually stopped.

The main concourse was up ahead and to the right, along with the ramp to the lower level. I hadn’t seen any casualties, no lifeless bodies among the crowd, but I couldn’t help the awful thought that everything was about to change when I made the turn. It was all I could see in my mind.

Maybe that’s why I didn’t spot him at first, even as he walked right past me only twenty feet away.