Джеймс Паттерсон - NYPD Red 3

“For God’s sake, Zach, lighten up. And how about you focus on the fact that I am focusing on my driving?”

To her credit, she was. The snow, light and feathery a few hours ago, was now wet and nasty. Patches of black ice collected on the roadway like so many land mines, but for once Kylie was managing to keep her Smokey and the Bandit gene under control.

She stopped for a red light at 79th Street and Madison. “Taking one car was stupid,” she said. “Did you think about how we’re going to get back from Alden’s house?”

“I’m a policeman,” I said. “I’ll call 911. I’m riding with you because I had visions of you pulling into the garage, shutting the door, and ransacking the place while I’m outside in the chase car kicking myself for trusting you.”

“You really think I’d do that?”

“Not usually, but I know you, Kylie. Right now you’ve got this case between your teeth like a dog on a porterhouse, and you’re already on shaky ground with Cates. I’m just trying to protect you from yourself.”

The light turned green. She drove to 81st Street, turned left, and stopped a few doors away from Alden’s town house.

“Which one of these buttons do you think opens the garage door?” she said, looking up at a control panel above the rearview mirror.

Before I could say “I have no idea,” the garage door started to go up. “You got it,” I said.

“What do you mean ‘You got it’? I haven’t pushed anything yet.”

The garage door opened wide, and light flooded the interior.

“Holy shit,” Kylie said.

“Holy shit” was an understatement. There, sitting in the spot reserved for Alden’s dream car, was a beat-up old clunker, a blue van — the blue van. And standing behind it, lashing the rear doors together with a bungee cord, was our kidnapper-killer, Ryan Madison.

I bolted from the car, drew my gun, and started running toward him, yelling as loud as I could. “NYP—” Before I could get to the “D,” my left foot hit metal. Maybe a manhole, maybe a road plate — all I know is it was as slick as a brass fire pole, and half a second later I was on my ass in a pile of snow and road grime.

It may have been the luckiest accident of my life, because as soon as I hit the ground, Madison fired a shot directly at where I had been standing.

I crawled through the slush and got behind a parked car. My gun was in my hand, and I could see Madison standing in a pool of light, but I knew better than to fire. One mistake and the first question they’d ask at the inquiry would be, “Why would you discharge your weapon at a private home in a howling snowstorm?”

Kylie was out of the car and crouched behind the open door. She also had a gun in her hand that I knew she was too smart to use. “NYPD,” she yelled. “You’re surrounded. Don’t move.”

He moved. Fast.

He scrambled into the van, threw it in reverse, and skidded onto the street. He turned the wheel hard, hit the gas again, bounced off a parked car, and fishtailed toward Fifth Avenue.

“Get in,” Kylie screamed, diving behind the wheel. I slogged my way back into the Maybach.

“Hang on,” she said, giving it gas. The tires spun, then caught, and we pitched forward. The van turned left on Fifth Avenue just as the light went from yellow to red.

Kylie hit the horn, ran the light, skidded into the turn, and managed to get the car under control just before we hopped the curb and plowed into the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

“This is definitely not an all-weather car,” she said. “Don’t worry. I’ll get the hang of it.”

I grabbed my radio. “This is Detective Zach Jordan. My partner and I just took fire from a private residence at Two Eight East Eight One. Send units to secure the building. Shooter is on the run in a blue Dodge van heading south on Fifth Avenue at Eight Zero Street. Need all available units to cut him off south- and eastbound. Advise responders that officers in pursuit of shooter are in a civilian vehicle, a black limo.”

“Damn it, Zach,” Kylie said. “Why did you have to call it in so fast?”

“If we’re lucky, there’s a unit that can stop him before he gets to the transverse. Why wouldn’t I call it in?”

“Because the last thing we need is a bunch of cowboys in blue uniforms slipping and sliding all over the place like they’re chasing O.J. down the 405. We’ll be lucky if they don’t all pile up like a demolition derby at a county fair.”

“I’m soaking wet from my ass to my elbow, and the last thing I need is a partner who wants to do it all on her own and second-guesses every goddamn decision I make. So why don’t you back off and take out some of that pent-up hostility on the son of a bitch who just tried to kill me?”

“Sorry,” she mumbled. And even though I could barely hear it, I was pretty sure she meant it.

She gunned the engine, and the custom-built limo lurched forward in hot pursuit of the junkyard van.

Smokey and the Bandit rides again.

“This beast is like the world’s most expensive toboggan,” Kylie yelled as we went slip-sliding through one of the most expensive zip codes in the city. “For a million bucks you’d think they’d include four-wheel drive.”

We were less than a block behind the van, but I could barely make out the taillights through the snow. And then at 76th Street they disappeared.

“Son of a bitch killed his lights and pulled in front of that bus,” Kylie said.

“Get in front of him,” I said. “Cut him off.”

“This damn car doesn’t have lights or sirens either,” Kylie said. She sped up to pass the bus and leaned on the horn. Big mistake. New York City bus drivers don’t appreciate horn blowers — especially assholes driving limos.

The bus went faster, and the driver looked down and gave us the finger. We were side by side, and I rolled down my window to flash my badge. But it’s hard to imagine that the maniac in the rich-boy car is a cop, and the driver must have figured I was going to reciprocate with my own finger, so he steered the bus into our lane.

Kylie pulled to the left, and just as we sailed past the intersection of 72nd and Fifth, we heard the crash. It took only a second to process that it wasn’t us, and it wasn’t the bus. It was the van.

Madison had turned right, smashed through a sawhorse, and was heading west through Central Park.

Kylie hit the brakes, and the car did a complete 360. She threw it in reverse, backed up half a block, and barreled through the 72nd Street Inventor’s Gate entrance to the park, maneuvering around the chunks of sawhorse that were scattered across the roadway.

The van was still moving, but the bungee cord hadn’t survived the crash through the barrier. The rear doors were open.

With our high beams on, all we could see in front of us were the two doors swinging wildly in the swirling snow. Then Kylie dimmed the lights, and we had a clear view inside the van. Tripp Alden, arms and legs tied, was struggling to work his way to the open doors.

She moved into the left lane and pulled alongside the van.

“What are you doing?” I said.

“I was going to ram him from behind,” she said, “but if the kid falls out, I’ll run right over him.”

We took the curve onto the East Drive, and we were only inches from the van when Madison pulled his wheel to the left and smashed into the Maybach’s right fender.

“Back off him,” I yelled as Kylie managed to steer through the impact. “I’m calling it in. We can have every exit to the park shut down in thirty seconds.”

“You can close off the vehicle exits,” she said, “but if we lose him, he’ll abandon the car and hop over any wall from here to 110th Street.”