Rick Mofina - Full Tilt

Kate had regarded his victims as young, inexperienced, vulnerable, easy prey, like Vanessa. Now, he proved that none of Kate’s street smarts or her gut instincts mattered.

Think! You have to think!

She still had her phone, her lifeline. She forced herself to be calm.

“Okay,” she said. “I’m sorry. Maybe you know a better way. Guess I’m tense today.”

Her hand trembled as secretly she reached for her phone. Fearing he’d hear the emergency dispatcher, Kate started to text an emergency message to Nancy to call 911. But her blood turned to ice.

Her phone was dead.

She met Zurrn’s eyes in the rearview mirror.

“You’re fluttering, Kate.”

Zurrn held up his phone.

“As a collector, I took care of everything. I hacked your phone long ago. I just fried it.”

The saliva in Kate’s mouth evaporated.

“You told everyone it was over for me, didn’t you?” he said. “I had astounding plans, but you destroyed them! You exhumed the name I buried and shamed me! Now I have nothing- except you !”

Kate tried her door handle.

It was gone, so was the other one. There was no escape.

She tried waving to people in other cars for help.

Zurrn activated the siren and emergency lights, to insure she looked like a disturbed person under arrest.

“We’ll start over, together!” he said. “You’re a magnificent specimen! The rarest, most glorious! No one will ever find you! And you can’t conceive of the wonders I will show you- of what I’m going to do to you !”

Kate undid her seat belt, repositioned her body and began kicking at the rear windshield.

“Beautiful,” Zurrn said as he reached for something. “Flutter away, Kate. You know-” Zurrn strained, now gripping something that looked like a large electric razor “-in time, you’ll come to love me.”

He quickly lifted himself, extended his reach and pressed the device against Kate’s neck. It crackled, instantly overwhelming her neuromuscular system, disorienting her until she collapsed.

New York City

At that moment, in a loft in the Midtown neighborhood of Hell’s Kitchen, a distinct alarm sounded on one of Erich’s computers.

The trip wire! Kate’s in trouble. Her phone suddenly went dead.

Immediately he rushed to his desk and began entering commands, taking him to the surveillance security cameras of the store across the street that also captured the entrance to Kate’s building. Erich had breached the feed. With rapid stop-action, he reversed footage until Kate emerged, stepping into a vehicle.

Holy cow, that has to be him!

Erich made a screen grab photo of the suspect, then the vehicle, an older Chevy Impala, the kind used as unmarked cars by the NYPD.

I knew he’d try something.

In his gut, Erich had feared Zurrn would come for Kate.

Her increasingly high profile, her public anger toward Zurrn, had concerned Erich. He’d secretly cloned Kate’s phone and replaced it unnoticed when she’d dropped her bag in the restaurant after her Today show appearance. He’d installed in Kate’s phone new ultrasecret “infect” software developed for the NSA and CIA. The software instantly infiltrated and tracked any phone that attempted to hack or destroy a protected phone, in this case: Kate’s. The software first defeated, without detection, any security installed on the intruder’s phone, then infected it with a stealth tracking program. The instant Zurrn killed Kate’s phone, he’d triggered Erich’s trip wire alarm, allowing him to instantly pinpoint Zurrn’s phone and track his location without his knowledge.

“Gotcha!” Erich said aloud to his computers.

With a few key strokes he was looking at a geo-map showing the location, direction and speed of Zurrn’s vehicle.

Erich called 911.

The emergency operator passed Erich’s call to the NYPD’s Real Time Crime Center at One Police Plaza in Lower Manhattan.

Immediately, crime analysts at the center, working at rows of computers before a large two-story array of flat video panels known as the data wall, used every high-tech resource they had. They tapped into large displays of detailed city maps and live feeds of surveillance cameras throughout the city.

Within ninety seconds of Erich’s call they’d located Zurrn’s car.

“He’s leaving 125th and is starting southbound on FDR Drive,” one analyst told the responding team.

“Keep this off the air!” Lieutenant Walt Mercer, the center’s duty commander, had taken charge of the unfolding situation. “Get all available unmarked units into position. No lights, no sirens!”

The analysts used one of the center’s geocode maps to locate on-duty unmarked units in precincts along FDR south, the 25th, the 23rd, the 19th and 17th.

Dispatchers made urgent cell-phone calls and sent encrypted messages to detectives and officers whose units were closest. Several unmarked cruisers began roaring toward the expressway.

In the Upper East Side, Detective Vinnie Cerito, of the 19th Precinct, had completed a burglary beef at a clothing store near E 63rd Street and 1st Avenue.

He was working alone. Ruiz, his temporary partner, had booked off with a toothache. Cerito didn’t care. It was better when he was alone because he was on edge. It’d been a month since he’d returned to duty from stress leave.

Maybe it’s too early after what happened to Quinn. But I couldn’t take another minute sitting at home watching TV, picking at the scab of my life.

Cerito had believed that being an NYPD detective was the best a cop could ask for. He and Quinn had lived the job, they’d put in the time. They’d climbed a million stairs, knocked on a million doors, dealt with every terrified, arrogant, snotty, idiotic citizen and criminal that dwelled here, only to see the courts let evildoers go; only to see that no one cared and good cops ended up like Quinn: shot in the head.

It was a night like this five months ago. They pull over an SUV wanted in a domestic and-bam-the driver shoots Quinn in the head. He dies on the street in Cerito’s arms. The suspect gets away, leaving Cerito to question everything.

To hell with it. Cerito had to keep going, had to push it aside tonight.

Now, he considered picking up some Chinese takeout when he got a message on his phone.

A dangerous homicide suspect abducted a woman after posing as a detective, is driving a black 2012 Chevy Impala, southbound on FDR. Take a position on the eastbound on-ramp to the 59th Street Bridge and await further instructions. No siren, no lights.

Cerito wheeled his Ford to the bridge, three blocks away, his stomach churning as he bit back on his rising anger. This call tore at his wound.

Whoever this A-hole is, he better pray he doesn’t come my way.

Kate lay on the backseat, every muscle vibrating.

The initial pain of her body stiffening was wearing off, but she was still quivering.

Watching lights streak by, she struggled to grasp what had transpired…Detective Morello had come to drive her to the hospital…no, not Morello…not a detective… Zurrn!

Fear billowed in her.

He’d shocked her with a stun gun…she remembered…she was in Zurrn’s car now, sensing they were still in the city speeding along an expressway, but she didn’t know where.

Oh, God, think. Think!

She considered sitting up and looking but rejected the idea.

Better to remain quiet, let him think that she was still unconscious.

It gave her the advantage of surprise.

She looked at the plastic dividing shield. The sliding portion for the gap remained open.