James Patterson: Kill Me If You Can

He closed his eyes and buried his head in his hands.

“And the second guy?” the cop said.

“He started running. The train had slowed down to four miles an hour. He could have made it, but he fell. It wasn’t my fault.”

Five cops came bounding down the stairs. One was a sergeant.

“Sarge,” the cop said. “We have two civilians under the train. The motorman is in shock. I told the conductor to keep the doors closed until I can get someone here for crowd control.”

“Any witnesses?” the sergeant said.

“That woman,” she said, pointing at Katherine.

By now a dozen passengers had moved forward to the front car. One started pounding on the window and yelling, “Let us off. Let us off.” The others immediately picked it up.

“Keep her on ice,” the sergeant said. “Let me deal with the passengers first.”

“I’ll wait with her,” Adam said and put his arm around Katherine.

“We have to get you out of here,” he said in a whisper. “ Now. While the cops are still busy.”

“I can’t,” she whimpered. “Matthew’s still down there. His body’s there.”

“Katherine, you don’t want to see him,” Zach said.

“He’s gone,” Adam said. “We can’t do anything for the captain. He wanted us to keep you safe. That’s what we’re going to do.”

He tried to move Katherine toward the stairs.

But she dropped to her knees. “Matthew. I love you so much. I love you,” she said, sobbing. “And I forgive you.”

A faint voice came from under the train. “If you can find someone who can get this train off me, you can tell me in person. I love you, too.”

I WAS LYING right under the second car, maybe twenty feet from Katherine. I had managed to fall flat into the track bed. Forty-odd tons of the 6 train had passed over me before it finally came to a stop.

I don’t know how long I was unconscious. Between losing blood and whacking my head when I fell, I was out of it for a while probably. But when I came to and heard Katherine saying she loved me and forgave me, I had another reason to get out of there.

Up on the platform, I could hear Katherine crying and my guys laughing and screaming and then orders from someone in charge.

“Don’t move,” the voice said.

“Don’t worry,” I responded. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Matt!” It was Adam. “You okay?”

“No,” I said. “You know how disgusting it is on these tracks? I’ll probably die from being facedown in subway grunge.”

I heard Ty next. “At least we know his sense of humor is still awful.”

It took half an hour before the power to the third rail was turned off so the fire department guys could pull me out. EMTs laid me on a stretcher on the platform. I looked up, and the next person I saw was Katherine. “Nice shot with that trash can,” I said.

She knelt down and pressed against my filthy, foul-smelling, bloody body. She kissed my face a dozen times before the EMT guys pried her off.

“Ma’am, we’ve got to get him to the hospital. You can ride with us.”

Four firefighters and two EMTs lifted the stretcher, and we headed for the stairs.

“Wait. I have to talk to him. That guy there. ”

It was the motorman. He came forward and stood over me. His face was ashen; he was crying. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t see you till it was too late. I’m so sorry.”

I was the one who should have apologized. It was I who had left Chukov gasping for air on the tracks and made this poor man feel like an executioner.

“Don’t apologize,” I said. “That guy on the tracks — he was evil. He tried to kill this beautiful woman, Katherine. He was on the tracks trying to kill me. You saved both of us. Thank you.”

He nodded, but his expression didn’t change, and I knew his life would never be the same.

He was a killer now, too.

THEY TOOK ME to Bellevue Hospital, where the ER docs removed the bullet from my shoulder, gave me a blood transfusion, and told me that my broken nose and three cracked ribs would heal on their own in about six weeks.

Then they pumped me full of painkillers and let me sleep. Katherine slept in the chair in my room, and my three buddies spent the night in the hospital, taking turns standing guard at the door.

At four in the afternoon, I had my first visitors. Detectives Steve Garber and Nathan Watt, NYPD.

“We’re trying to piece together what happened last night,” Watt said. “Do you mind if I ask you both a few questions?”

“It’s all a blur,” I said. “This crazy man attacked me and my girlfriend. I tried to fend him off, but the New York subway finished the fight.”

Katherine nodded in total agreement.

“Did either of you know this guy?” Watt said.

“No.”

Watt smiled. “Vadim Chukov. He had a record on two continents. Smuggling, arson, robbery, murder — the list goes on — but this is the first time he ever tried to pick a fight with an innocent young couple waiting for the subway. Are you sure you didn’t know him?”

“I don’t know anyone like that,” I said. “I’m just a struggling art student.”

“A struggling art student and a war-hero Marine who served in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Garber said.

“My Marine days are over,” I said.

“Were you aware that Chukov and five of his men launched some kind of terrorist attack in Grand Central Terminal earlier last night?” Garber asked.

“It was in the paper this morning,” Katherine said.

“Was anybody hurt?” I asked.

“Counting Chukov, there are six dead. All bad guys. It seems like somebody knew they were coming and cleaned up the mess without any help from the cops.”

“Good Samaritans, I guess,” I said.

“But you weren’t there,” Watt said.

“No,” I said.

“It’s easy enough to check,” Watt said. “They have the whole incident on video.”

Katherine’s eyes opened wide, and she squeezed my hand.

“Oh, crap, I just remembered,” Garber said. “The terminal is not our jurisdiction. That’s MTA — the state cops.”

“Then I guess there’s no sense in looking at the tapes,” Watt said. “We’re just here to ask questions about the incident down in the subway. Does either of you have anything else to add?”

“No, sir,” I said.

“Then I think we’ve got it all,” Watt said. “Detective Garber, why don’t we let this young war hero and his girlfriend get some rest.”

They headed to the door. Watt stopped and turned around.

“Mr. Bannon, I have to take issue with just one thing you told us.”

“What’s that?”

“You said your Marine days were over,” Watt said.

“Yes, sir.”

“They’re never over. My partner and I both served in Desert Storm.” He grinned. “Semper fi, bro.”

He threw me a wink and a salute, and the two of them walked out the door and never came back.

WE FLEW TO Paris and rented a funky studio on the fourth floor of an art deco building in the Quartier Saint-Germain-des-Prés. The mattress was too soft and the toilet was temperamental, but the northern light that streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows made it an artist’s dream. My broken nose healed. My cracked ribs healed. And three months after that night in the subway tunnel, my relationship with Katherine was also mending rather nicely. She had told me she loved me in the heat of the moment, but I wanted to make sure that she could forgive me for the life I had led and for dragging her into it.

It was a Sunday morning in September. I woke to the aroma of fresh-brewed french roast, the sounds of Coldplay on the stereo, and the sight of Katherine in jeans and a paint-spattered tank top, sitting on the sofa. There was sunlight on her bare shoulders, and my cat, Hopper, was curled on her lap, purring gratefully.