Джеймс Паттерсон - Ambush

Alex realized she was barking at the model next to Chaz when he got too close. It was like having a Matt Groening character pop up in a Renoir.

The top of this building in the Morrisania neighborhood of the Bronx provided an interesting urban backdrop and conveniently put her in position for another assignment. Photographing nearly naked models was fun, but it didn’t pay the bills.

This wasn’t a coincidence. Alex had planned the photo session to the last detail, including the location. Just as she did everything else.

She checked her watch. They’d been at it for more than two hours, but she could wrap it up just about any time she wanted. That was the advantage of being prepared: you usually got the shots you needed quickly.

Then she heard it. A couple of pops, seeming to come from the next block.

The models craned their necks, looked over the side of the building in the direction of the sound. She could look down on 161st Street and see the front of the building the gunfire was coming from.

She turned away from her crew as a smile crept onto her face. It was even more gunfire than she’d anticipated. Michael Bennett had been executed.

Antrole and I crouched low. Gunfire had a way of triggering the instinct to ball yourself up as small as possible. The ambushers kept firing high, as if they expected us to still be standing. It was a classic mistake. The holes along the door and the wall gave me an idea of where the shooters were in the room.

Both Antrole and I started to return fire with our Glocks. The shooters had lost the element of surprise, and our police training and tactics gave us the upper hand now. I saw a shadow move near the door and peppered it with.40-caliber rounds. Splinters and debris filled the open doorway.

A bullet pinged off a metal door frame across from me. It struck a Pokémon sticker between the eyes. I hoped the shooter wasn’t a good enough shot to have aimed for it.

A splinter the size of a toothpick lodged in my left hand. Pain shot up my arm, and blood spread across my fingers.

Now I could hear the shouts and cries from people in the other apartments, which distracted me from whoever was shooting at us. But only for a moment. A door opened a crack, and a head popped out. All I could see was gray hair.

Antrole shouted, “Police! Get back inside.”

Someone yanked the old man back into the apartment.

Antrole backed against the far wall of the hallway and scooted to my side of the door just as a wave of shots hit the spot where he had been crouched. Shouting at the civilian had given away his position.

He hunkered down next to me with his pistol up, and I felt the tide turning. All we had to do was move down the hallway and wait for the cavalry to arrive. Calls to 911 had to be flooding in about now. Time was on our side.

Then a shotgun blast blew a hand-size hole just above my head. Jesus Christ. It felt like it had come from a bazooka. I choked on some of the drywall dust launched into the air and blinked to clear it out of my eyes. Sweat gathered on my forehead, and I felt myself pant.

The shotgun racked on the other side of the wall. The shooter would fire again at any second.

Antrole yelled, “Clip.”

He was reloading, so I needed to keep my gun up. Our training would save us.

I saw a shadow pass the hole in the wall where the shotgun had done its work and fired twice as Antrole opened up on the doorway again. Someone hit the floor hard on the other side of the wall.

Bullets hit the wall all around us after Antrole fired. He stumbled awkwardly onto the floor.

I looked down and saw that Antrole had been hit in the leg. Blood was pumping out onto the cheap carpet, making the washed-out colors in the fabric come alive with red.

I leaned in close and said, “Can you walk?”

“If it will get us away from here, hell, yes.”

It felt like maybe the gunfight was over. No one was shooting, a welcome change.

Something flew out the door and bounced back off the wall. It made an odd thumping sound on the floor right in front of the door. I saw it roll around in odd arcs on the ground.

Too late I realized it was a hand grenade.

My eyes focused on the old-style army pineapple grenade, almost hypnotized.

Instinctively, I reached down and grabbed Antrole by the collar. He raised his pistol and fired at whoever had tossed the hand grenade from the other side of the door. It was tough pulling 180 pounds across the rough, cheap carpet, an exercise in physics and friction.

I couldn’t tell how many shooters were left inside the apartment, but Antrole was laying down fire to keep their heads down. At least one of them was still active. I could hear him scuttling around the apartment, then he fired a round through the wall.

Someone at the other end of the hallway popped out of an apartment and started to run. A young man in a white T-shirt disappeared down the stairwell. It distracted the shooter in the apartment, too. For an instant, everything went quiet.

When I had dragged Antrole a few feet down the hallway, his collar gave way and ripped completely from his coat. I tumbled backward onto the floor and felt a sting of pain, a finger on my left hand turned awkwardly. I desperately reached out to grab my partner again. It felt like I had dropped him down a well. I shouted something, but by now my ears were ringing so badly I don’t even know what I said.

That’s when it happened. The grenade detonated.

A giant wave of light and heat. I don’t know that I’d ever experienced anything close to it. I couldn’t even say it made a sound, my ears shut down so fast.

I felt pain on my forehead, but only for a moment.

Then everything went cloudy.

Then it went dark.

Alex stood with the nearly naked men on the edge of the building, looking toward the sound of the gunfire. She casually raised her camera and focused it. She knew exactly which building the sound was coming from.

She knew which building it was because she had chosen it. Just as she’d set up this photo shoot.

It was one of several contracts she had taken here in New York City for a Mexican drug cartel. Fashion photography provided her with a cover for the way she made her real income.

Alex snapped photo after photo, watching the flash of the explosion through her lens almost a second before the sound of it reached her ears. It was a low, hollow thump. But first she saw the windows blow out and a burst of flame shoot into the air. It was spectacular.

She heard Chaz say, “Damn, did you see that?” A smile crept across her face again. An explosion like that would solve a lot of problems. No loose ends. In her business, there was nothing worse than a loose end.

Things were hazy, as if I’d walked into fog. I felt like I was in a tunnel, with sound echoing everywhere. Then I heard voices. They sounded distant, until I saw a face right above me.

It was a uniformed patrol officer, a woman with short brown hair. She was helping someone near me, a paramedic. I couldn’t follow what they were doing.

The paramedic had sweat dripping from his long nose as he looked down at me. I felt pressure on my forehead. He looked down and said something comforting, or at least I thought so.

I tried to ask about Antrole and warn them about the shooters, but when I attempted to speak, nothing came out.

The paramedic patted my chest. It looked like he said, “Relax — it will be fine.”

The young patrol officer couldn’t mask her emotions as well. She looked worried. Even scared.

Then I faded out again.

The second time I opened my eyes, things were much sharper. There was a bright light above my head, and I was lying flat on my back. I heard the sounds of normal life around me. Someone walking in a hallway. A quiet discussion in the corner. Nothing frightening, like screaming or angels singing.