James Patterson - Tick Tock

"Well, from the sophistication of the bombs, we're not dealing with dummies," I said as I fumbled my grip on my phone. I was just able to catch it against my chest.

When I looked back up, I immediately stopped thinking about the case. In fact, my entire brain stopped functioning. Then my lungs.

Because around a curve in the expressway, being approached at roughly the speed of light, were three packed lanes of dead-stopped traffic.

For a few precious fractions of a second, I did nothing but gape at the frozen red wall of brake lights.

Then I did four things pretty much simultaneously. I screamed, released the phone, let off the gas, and slammed on the brakes.

Nothing happened. In fact, the brakes felt suddenly looser than normal. Were they broken? I thought, pissed. Or possibly cut? I knew the car had ABS. It was perhaps the only thing on my shock-scrambled mind as I hurtled toward the rapidly approaching rear of a Peter Pan tour bus.

I wondered in my panic if I was doing it right. Was I supposed to pump or hold the brakes? I couldn't remember. My fear-locked leg decided for me, keeping the pedal down as far as it would go.

The brake pedal gave a couple of hard jerks under my foot and then felt even looser. The line had snapped under the strain, I decided. The massive steel wall of bus in my windshield got larger and closer by the millisecond.

It was over, I decided. I was going to hit it head-on, and it was going to be very bad.

That's when a slow-motion, life-flashing-before-your-eyes sensation kicked in. I glanced to my right as I lasered past a white Volkswagen Jetta. The pretty young brunette behind the wheel was putting on mascara. Turning back toward the rear of the bus that I was about to become part of, I wondered if she was the last human face I would ever see.

My last thought as I braced my arms against the steering wheel was of my kids. How hard and royally shitty it was going to be for them to lose not just their biological parents, not just their adoptive mother, but now their careless adoptive father as well.

I closed my eyes.

And the car just stopped.

No skidding. No warning. There was a brief scream of rubber, and it was like God slipped his hand between my car and the bus, and I went from sixty to zero in zero point zero seconds.

Too bad I was still moving. My sternum felt like it was hit with an ax handle as I chest-bumped my locked shoulder belt. My dropped BlackBerry catapulted off the passenger seat like an F-14 off a carrier. It ricocheted off the glove box and whizzed past my ear like a bullet.

Guess I should have bought that merchandise insurance after all, I thought, as I sat blinking and shuddering behind the wheel.

Was I still alive?

I decided to check. I took a sweet drink of oxygen and, like magic, turned it into carbon dioxide. Then I did it again. My heart was still beating, too. Actually, it felt like it was trying to tear itself out of my chest, but that was neither here nor there. Being alive was fun, I decided.

I waited a few more seconds to see if St. Peter was going to show. When he didn't, I backed away from the rear of the idling bus. Ignoring the dumbstruck looks from my fellow motorists in the other lanes, I reached into the back of the car and retrieved my phone. The battery cover was shot, but the phone was actually still working. Miracles were abounding this morning.

Since traffic was at a standstill, I decided to call Emily back.

"Mike, what happened?" Emily said when I got her on the line.

"Oh, nothing," I said, wiping cold sweat out of my eyes with my free palm. I was going to leave it at that, but then the fear and adrenaline caught up with me, and my hands started to shake so badly, I had to lay the phone down and put it on speaker.

"Actually, I almost just killed myself, Emily," I said. "I was flying back into Manhattan and turned a corner and came within an inch or two of embedding myself in the rear end of a tour bus. Who needs coffee?"

"My God! Are you okay?"

"My hands won't stop shaking," I said. "I thought I'd bought it there for a second, Emily."

"Pull over and take some deep breaths, Mike. I'm right here with you."

I followed her advice. It wasn't just what she said but the way she said it. Emily really was a supportive person. I remembered her on our previous case together. How caring she was with one of the young kidnapping victims. She knew when to push and when to hold back. She was a terrific agent and a deeply caring person. She was good-looking, too. We kind of fell for each other during the case. Well, I know I fell for her.

"Mike? You still there?"

"Barely," I said.

She laughed.

"Well, I, for one, am glad your head's still attached to your shoulders, Mike. I like the way it thinks. The way it looks isn't half bad, either."

What did she say? I thought, squinting at the phone.

"Ah, you're just saying that to keep me from going into shock," I said.

"That's what friends are for," Emily said. "Actually, they want to send someone from our team up to New York to help you guys out, Mike. I was wondering if you thought it was a good idea if I volunteered?"

I thought about that. It went without saying that her expertise on the case would be invaluable. And it really would be awesome to see her. We had definitely made a connection, something special.

Then I suddenly remembered Mary Catherine, and how things were going on that front.

I must have still been loopy with shock, because the next thing I said surprised me.

"Come up. We need all the help we can get. We need the best people on this. Besides, it would be great to see you."

"Really?" she said.

"Really," I said, not knowing what the hell I was doing or saying. "Call me as soon as you get up here."

I somehow managed to complete the rest of my commute safely and arrived at the closest bombing scene, at 59th Street and Fifth Avenue, around nine thirty a.m.

The area across from the Plaza Hotel and Central Park was usually packed with rich ladies who lunch and tourists looking for overpriced horse-and-buggy rides. Now an occupying force of assault rifle-strapping Emergency Service Unit storm troopers had cordoned off the corner, and instead of Chipoos peeking from Fendi clutches, bomb-sniffing Labradors were sweeping both sides of the street.

I noticed an aggravating CBS News camera aimed directly between my eyes as I came under the crime scene tape in front of the GM Building. I guess I couldn't complain that the media had already gotten here, since, including ABC and NBC, they seemed to be the targets.

As if Tiffany's and the network studios weren't high-profile enough, the world-famous FAO Schwarz toy store sat on the other side of the outdoor space, as well as the funky transparent glass cube of the wild Fifth Avenue sunken Apple store.

I found the Bomb Squad's second in command, Brian Dunning, chewing gum as he knelt on the intersection's southeast corner in front of a blast-blackened streetlight. At the Grand Central scene, Cell had told me that the blond pock-faced tech was fresh from Iraq, where he'd been part of a very busy army EOD team. Since it seemed New York was currently at war as well, I was glad he was on our side.

The toppled garbage can beside him had a hole in its steel mesh the size of a grapefruit. What looked like tiny pieces of confetti were scattered on the sidewalk and street beside it. It reminded me of firecracker paper on the day after the Fourth of July. I scooped some of it up to get a better look.

"It's cardboard," Dunning said, standing. "From a coffee cup, is my guess. Which would blend in perfectly in a garbage can. You want an IED to appear totally innocuous."