Patterson Array: NYPD Red

I surfaced just in time to see the standoff. Kylie and Benoit, about twenty feet apart, neither of them moving.

And then the river exploded. A heart-stopping, earsplitting volcanic bang shattered the serenity of the Upper Bay and reverberated from Brooklyn to Bayonne. For an instant, the world turned a blinding bright orange. Then a geyser of boiling hot white water shot up, followed by large plumes of thick black smoke that blossomed out across the sky, showering down pieces of flaming Zodiac and human body parts.

Benoit, who had been at the center of the explosion, was vaporized. Kylie was only twenty feet away, and the seismic waves lifted her boat out of the water. One second she had been on her knees drawing a bead on Benoit, and the next her body was arcing through the air.

She hit the water fifty feet away from me and went under.

I called her name and started swimming through the oil slick and burning remnants of the fiberglass hull hissing in the water. I waited for her to pop her head up, but she didn’t, which meant she was either unconscious or worse.

My clothes and my shoes were dragging me down, and I felt like I was swimming in a dream-no matter how hard I pushed myself, I never seemed to get any closer.

When I finally got to the spot where I saw her hit the water, I dove down. It was dark and murky, and the best I could do was search frantically by sweeping my arms in front of me. After a minute, I shot up, gulped down some air, called her name again, and looked in every direction.

Nothing.

And then something broke the surface. A shoe. I dove back underwater and swam toward it. Ten feet. Twenty feet. I had lost all sense of direction. I no longer knew where I was or where Kylie had gone down.

Then I saw it. Swirling in the black water were strands of gold. Blond hair.

I kicked so hard I collided with her, then I grabbed her and pushed my way to the top. I sucked in some air, pressed my mouth to her mouth, and forced whatever oxygen I had in my lungs into hers.

She threw her head back and let out a loud gasp. I held on to her as she coughed up most of the water she had gulped down.

“Breathe,” I said.

She breathed.

“Just keep breathing. Don’t try to talk.”

She talked. “What happened?” she said.

“I saved your life. Second time today.”

“No, with Benoit.

“You blew him out of the water into bite-size chunks.”

“I was only trying to stun him.”

“He must’ve had a pocket full of C4. You couldn’t light it up with a bazooka, but if he had it primed with a blasting cap, all it took was one good Tase.”

I could hear the sirens. Then I saw them coming at us from all angles-Harbor Patrol, fireboats, Coast Guard, and at the front of the pack, Jim Rothlein in the Kristina.

The last traces of sun were disappearing into the water, and there in the distance, wrapped in a purple and pink New York City twilight, I could make out the Statue of Liberty.

“I guess this is how Benoit’s movie ends,” I said.

The water was cold, and Kylie, shivering, pressed her body as close to mine as she could get. “As they say in the biz,” she said, “‘fade to black.’”

I wrapped my arms around her, held her tight, and whispered in her ear, “Roll credits.”

New yorkers love a hero, and when they woke up Thursday morning, they had two new ones. Splashed across the front page of the Daily News was the headline “Dynamic Duo Foils Hollywood Killer.”

Below it was a picture of Spence Harrington in his hospital bed with Kylie sitting at his side.

The headline on page 3 said “Bomber Nails Producer. Producer’s Wife Nails Bomber.” The story was accompanied by a shot of Kylie in an evening gown and Spence in black tie which had been taken just a few days before at Radio City.

There was also an inset photo of me, my official department head shot, captioned “Kylie MacDonald-Harrington’s other partner, Detective Zachary Jordan.”

It was hard to believe. On Monday, I had woken up wondering if teaming up with Kylie MacDonald would be career suicide. By Thursday, she was a hero, and I had become the Other Guy.

I got to the office at 7:30, and Kylie was already there waiting for me.

“Zach, I’m mortified,” she said, holding the paper in her hand.

“Don’t be,” I said. “You took down Lexi, you took down Benoit, you deserve the glory.”

“But you and I are partners. We were in this together. You’ve been with NYPD Red three years. I’m here all of three days. I don’t know what the press was thinking when they spun the story the way they did.”

“They were thinking that you and Spence are a celebrity couple, and that a picture of the two of you on the front page would sell more newspapers than one of me sopping wet, dragging my ass off a police boat.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I can have Spence call the studio publicist and have her get the press to clarify-”

I jumped in fast. “Absolutely not. I’m a cop. I don’t have a publicist, and I don’t want one.”

“Is there anything I can do to make it up to you?” she said.

“Well, yeah, if you don’t mind,” I said.

“Anything.”

“I’d really be honored if you and Spence would autograph my copy of the Daily News. ”

She punched me in the shoulder. “Asshole.”

“Speaking of Spence,” I said, “how is the other half of the Dynamic Duo this morning?”

“He’s on heavy doses of antibiotics, so they’re keeping him in the hospital for a couple more days, but the surgeon says he’ll be fine. He’ll need crutches for a while, but in about six months, it’ll be like nothing ever happened.”

My phone rang. It was Cates.

“You and MacDonald,” she said. “My office. We have some unfinished business.”

It was time to bite the bullet.

“I just watched the mayor’s press conference,” Cates said when we got there. “He blew the usual smoke up Hollywood’s ass. Something on the order of ‘it can get ugly wherever you shoot, but if it happens in New York, you’ll get the fastest, smartest, bravest police force in the world. Nobody backs up the film industry like NYPD Red.’”

“Those are the same exact words Shelley Trager said to him yesterday when the mayor was thinking about canceling the rest of Hollywood on the Hudson week,” Kylie said.

“Nobody ever said our mayor was an original thinker. Anyway, it doesn’t matter what he said. I doubt if it convinced any of the LA crowd to bring more of their business to the city, but I’m sure the sweet tax package Irwin Diamond offered them will work wonders. Bottom line, the mayor is happy. So is the commissioner. He said I should congratulate the two of you on your ‘extraordinary heroism while engaged in personal combat with an armed adversary.’”

“Thank you,” I said.

“His words, not mine,” Cates said. “I, on the other hand, am not happy. I have a problem with cops who work off the reservation. What the hell were you thinking when you blew off my phone call?”

Before I could say a word, Kylie jumped in. “It wasn’t Zach,” she said. “I blew it off.”

“I didn’t call you,” Cates said. “I called Jordan.”

“Yes, but I practically ripped the phone out of his hand,” Kylie said, taking more than her fair share of the heat. “I wasn’t thinking. My husband’s life was on the line, and I was going to save him.”

“And did you think I would have stopped you?” Cates said. “I will back up any detective under my command who operates on guts, instinct, and initiative. You have a lot of authority in this unit, but it’s only because I give it to you. If you ever cut me out of the loop again, I don’t care how many front pages your faces are on, I will transfer your asses right the hell out of NYPD Red. Understood?”