James Patterson - Kill Me If You Can

Even as he spoke, three men in dark suits walked through the Vanderbilt entrance and down the stairs. One of them pointed to the three spots we had targeted on the map, and each headed for his assigned place.

I tried to process the new information. Chukov was outside the terminal. His men were taking their positions inside. I was trying to make sense of it all when my cell rang.

It was Chukov.

“So, Mr. Bannon,” he said. “Do I have your attention?”

“Undivided,” I said.

“It’s painful when you think that something you love is gone forever, isn’t it?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “That’s how I felt when you ran off with my diamonds. You have experienced only a moment of pain, but I have the power to make your pain last a lifetime. Do you understand?”

“Perfectly,” I said. “I want to see Katherine.”

“And I want to run my blade from her perky little nipples to her creamy white thighs. Let’s see which one of us gets what he wants. Where are my diamonds?”

“Right here in my hand,” I said. “I didn’t sell them.”

“I didn’t think you did,” Chukov said. “I don’t think you could. You know why? Because you don’t have the brains and you don’t have the balls. Where are you now, Bannon?”

I gave him my exact location.

He hung up.

A few seconds later, Adam reported in.

“The Russian just got out of the Benz. The back doors are both opening. People are getting out. One man…a second man…”

I held my breath.

Finally Adam came back on. “And a woman. Matt, it’s Katherine. She’s headed your way.”

I exhaled and gave the command I had been waiting to give all night. “Dispatch to all cabs — go to Position Bravo right now. Let’s do this.”

THE NEXT THING I saw made me want to throw up.

Vadim Chukov — the short, fat, tattooed, asthmatic turd who had sat naked, sweating, and in total fear for his life that morning in the Russian and Turkish Baths — was walking down the wide marble passageway from 42nd Street. He was brimming with confidence, and he was arm in arm with Katherine.

I’d always told her that it was impossible for her to look anything but beautiful. Even when she wakes up with bedhead and no makeup, she exudes a beauty that comes from her soul.

But now that soul was badly damaged. I wanted to blame it all on the fat bastard at her side, but I knew the truth. It had started with me. First I brought Katherine into my life; then I dragged her into my world.

Chukov and Katherine stopped at the foot of the passageway. Two more Russian punks stood behind them. High above them was Old Glory — the giant American flag that had been suspended from the ceiling in those dark hours following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

Chukov spotted me instantly. Then he looked up at the vast expanse of stars and stripes — the flag I had fought for, the colors so many of my fellow Americans had laid down their lives for — and the Russian son of a bitch slowly extended his middle finger.

He looked back across the vast cavern of Grand Central and threw me a mock salute.

He took his phone from his pocket and dialed. Seconds later, my cell rang.

“I’m ready to do business,” he said. “Bring the diamonds here.”

“Send Katherine over here,” I said. “I’ll put the diamonds down and we’ll leave quietly.”

“ Nyet . She’s not going anywhere until I see them,” Chukov said. “Start walking toward me. Nice and easy. I’ve got three guns pointed at you and three on her.”

I muted my cell.

“Ready to tango, boys?” I said softly.

Ty’s voice came back first. “In Position Bravo, dancing shoes on.”

Then Adam. “I was ready to stomp all over him as soon as he gave the flag the finger.”

Then Zach. “The rabbit and I are hopping mad. Let’s kick some Russian ass.”

There were about two hundred feet between Chukov and me. I started walking toward him. Operation Nighthawks was under way.

The city that never sleeps was living up to its name. Even though the crowds had thinned, there were still hundreds of people all around us — some chattering away upstairs in the restaurant, some waiting for a late-night Metro North commuter train, and a steady stream of straphangers on their way to catch a Lexington Avenue subway or the shuttle to Times Square.

“Lots of foot traffic,” Adam said.

“We’ve got a pair of eyes on the Vanderbilt balcony checking out the main floor,” Zach said. “A cop. I can’t tell if he’s focused on you or just staring into space.”

I was halfway there, a hundred feet to go. I didn’t look up at the cop. I just kept walking.

I could see Katherine clearly now. Her tan pants were stained with dirt and grease, her hair was matted from sweat, and her eyes were red, puffy, and filled with dread.

When I got thirty feet away, I stopped and unmuted my cell phone. “This is as far as I go, Chukov,” I said.

I put the phone down, unlatched the medical bag, tipped it forward, scooped up a fistful of rhinestones, and let them trickle through my fingers and run back into the bag.

A smile spread across his jowly mug, and I knew that the worthless glass had passed for the real thing. I closed the bag and picked up the phone.

“You wanted to see them?” I said. “You’ve seen them. Now send one of your men over here with Katherine and he can have the diamonds.”

Chukov hesitated.

“Don’t take too long,” I said. “There’s a cop on the west balcony who is starting to get interested in this little tableau, and I think we all should get out of here before he decides to ask embarrassing questions.”

Chukov looked up at the cop who was standing on the balcony. He turned to one of his men: a big, burly, stoop-shouldered Eastern European.

“Grigor,” he said. That was all I understood. The rest was in Russian.

Chukov let go of Katherine’s arm. Grigor stepped in, gently tapped her shoulder, and said, “We go. Please.”

They walked toward me and stopped less than two feet away. I could feel the fear coming off Katherine’s body.

“Take the bag,” I said to Grigor. “Take it back to Chukov and get the hell out of our lives.”

I waited for him to bend down and pick it up. He didn’t. Instead, he nudged it into position with his foot, then kicked it hard. It skittered across the floor and stopped directly at Chukov’s feet.

It would take Chukov less than ten seconds to open the bag and realize the diamonds were fake. Grigor stood silently, one hand on his gun, the other on Katherine.

I tilted my head down toward my lapel.

“Release the rabbit,” I said.

THE BEST WAY to get a greyhound to race around a track is to give him a mechanical rabbit to chase.

Our rabbit was an olive-drab rucksack packed with smoke grenades like the ones I had thrown the night I found the diamonds. As soon as Zach pushed the remote detonator, it exploded outside the prestigious Yale Club at 50 Vanderbilt Avenue, across the street from the terminal.

Our mission was to create chaos outside Grand Central before all hell broke loose inside.

It worked like gangbusters.

The explosion was not much more than noise and smoke, but the earsplitting boom was enough to cause a coronary a block away, and the billowing acrid cloud of smoke could have blanketed a football field.

The blast was far enough away that down on the main concourse it sounded like a muffled car backfiring. Those who heard it waved it off — a classic case of This is New York. I have my own problems. That noise ain’t one of them.

Not so with the cops at the door. For them, standing around hour after hour, day after day, night after night, this was a holy shit moment. The shoe they had been waiting to hear drop.