“Okay, Elizabeth, all you need to do is relax,” he said in a soft voice. “The first thing we’re going to do is take off the sweater you’re wearing. Okay with you?”
She clenched her fists and nodded. “Okay.” What a trouper. Like I said, the bravest kid I know.
Ever so slowly, Keller unzipped the rest of Elizabeth ’s green sweater, past the little embroidered flower and all the way to the bottom. The farther down he went, the more I had to stifle my urge to gasp at all the wires – and the bomb attached to them.
“You’re doing great, Elizabeth, really great. This should be no problem at all,” said Keller. He wasn’t about to scare her any more than she already was, but I could tell from his face that the “no problem” talk was just that. Talk. Probably to keep Elizabeth ’s and his mind off what was actually happening.
Of course, the one thing he hadn’t factored in was Elizabeth ’s amazing sense of smell. As in, she could smell bullshit from a mile away. Even more so when the person was right in front of her.
“It’s worse than you thought, isn’t it?” she finally asked.
“Not necessarily,” said Keller, peeling the sweater off her shoulders. Then he pushed around a few of the wires for a better look at the explosives. They literally crisscrossed the front of Elizabeth ’s undershirt like an X.
“Are you sure you should be doing this?” I asked.
Keller kept poking and prodding while answering me, as if to make his point. “This C-4 stuff is as stable as it comes. You could shoot it with a gun and it wouldn’t explode.”
You learn something new every day. Even when it could be your last.
“So, what does make it explode?” I asked.
“A shock wave combined with extreme heat,” said Keller, “created by triggering these wires connected to the detonators imbedded in C-4.”
“Couldn’t we just slip everything off her? Right up over her head?”
“That’s what I’m checking to see,” he said as he continued to poke and prod. “The way whoever built this has it configured, though, I’m not sure -”
Keller suddenly stopped cold, and he looked as if he’d seen a ghost.
“What is it?” I asked. “Tell me.”
Instead, he showed me. He pulled me closer and pointed at it, clear as could be.
It was worse than a ghost, actually.
It was a timer – ticking backwards.
Chapter 99
“UNCLE NICK? WHAT’S happening? What’s going on? Why aren’t either of you talking?”
Elizabeth reached out for me, her pale, slender hands waving helplessly in the air. She started to move toward me but Keller held her back.
“Nick, come hold Elizabeth,” he said. “Can you do that? Keep her hands up.”
I swung around behind Elizabeth, doing exactly as Keller said. “Don’t move,” I whispered in her ear. “I’m right here with you.”
Over her shoulder I could still see the timer, a cheap plastic stopwatch that was taped to the cell phone behind one of the blocks of C-4.
Fifty-four seconds!
And heading in the wrong direction…
Keller had no time to think. He was winging it, fast and furious. Then, like a switchboard operator on speed, he began pulling out the detonator wires one by one.
“How much time?” he asked.
“Forty seconds!” I said.
He pulled out another wire. There were three to go. Then two. My eyes were pinballing back and forth between the timer and his hands.
“Talk to me,” he said.
“Thirty seconds!”
Keller was down to the last wire. “Just one more,” he said under his breath. “C’mon, now…”
He gripped the C-4 to hold it steady. All he had to do now was pull on the wire and ease it out like he’d done with all the others.
“Shit!” said Keller.
The wire wasn’t moving.
“Pull harder!” I yelled.
“I am!” he yelled back. “He must have glued it.”
Twenty-five seconds!
Keller looked at me and then out the door of the train. I saw the spark of an idea light his face. A last-gasp idea? Probably.
“Wait! Where are you going?” I said.
He was already sprinting toward the front of the car, heading for the engineer’s cabin. Seconds later, the train jerked and sputtered. It was moving along the track again.
“Pick her up!” he barked, running back toward us.
“What?”
“Lift her off the ground! Do it! Right now!”
“Please do it!” Elizabeth joined in.
I grabbed Elizabeth by the elbows and hoisted her up. Suddenly Keller pulled the bomb over her waist and down her legs, sliding it off her feet.
Damn it! I couldn’t see the timer anymore. All I could see was Keller pointing out the door of the train at the green of trees. The train was gaining speed.
“Jump!” he yelled. “Jump now!”
I scooped up Elizabeth, cradling her in my arms as I turned toward the door – and then leaped through the air after him.
There was no tuck and roll, only a thud – my feet barely hitting the ground before I fell onto my back to shield Elizabeth. The snap! I heard was another one of my ribs, the pain shooting through my body like an angry rocket.
Still cradling Elizabeth in my arms, I turned to watch the train zoom by us, the head car that was carrying the bomb getting smaller and smaller. But not small enough.
“Get up!” barked Keller. “Run!”
I scrambled to my feet with Elizabeth as Keller grabbed my arm to lead the way. We raced along the tracks, putting as much distance as we could between us and the -
BOOM!
Chapter 100
“DARK SIDE OF the Moon or Wish You Were Here?” asked Anne Gram, one of the two surgical technologists prepping the OR at Jacobi Medical Center. She was cueing up the iPod of Dr. Al Sassoon, the attending surgeon – and massive Pink Floyd fan – who was still scrubbing.
Ruth Kreindler, the frick to Anne’s frack, looked up from the sterile surgical drape she was laying over Joseph D’zorio’s groin area. It was the only part of the guy that wasn’t broken, punctured, lacerated, or ruptured.
“The way this is shaping up,” said Ruth, shaking her head, “we’ll hear both albums and some of The Wall as well. Al and his Pink Floyd.”
“Hey – he’s good, and he’s fun to work with.”
The two women, both in their early forties, were done with their pre-op checklist, even twice testing the suction machines as they’d been clogging as of late. All in all, it was business as usual, although they both knew that the man on the table, unconscious and breathing oxygen, was no ordinary patient.
“Do you believe all people deserve to be saved?” Anne finally asked.
Ruth looked over her shoulder to make sure the two of them were still alone with the infamous mob boss. They were. “Are you speaking medically or spiritually?” she asked. “It might make a difference in my answer.”
Anne shrugged. “Medically, I suppose.”
“I know what you’re saying, but a hospital isn’t a court-room. Know what I mean?”
“I do. Still.”
Ruth glanced down at D’zorio. “I’ll put it to you this way,” she said. “A guy like this puts my faith to the test. It’s righteous anger versus forgiveness.”
“Who wins?” asked Anne.
“Forgiveness, I suppose. Spiritually, all people can be saved.”
Anne nodded but there was little belief in her eyes. She could never say it out loud, but she was secretly hoping that Dr. Sassoon would have an off day, or at least not bring his “A” game to the table.
“What did you say?” asked Ruth.
Anne hadn’t said anything. She was too busy envisioning Dr. Sassoon “accidentally” leaving a sponge in D’zorio’s chest.
But she’d heard it, too. Someone had said something in the operating room.
/> Simultaneously, they both looked down at D’zorio on the table. His thin, bluish lips were moving. He was mumbling.
“What did he say?” asked Anne.
“I’m not sure,” said Ruth, leaning down toward his mouth. Anne joined her.
“Sorr -” said D’zorio, his voice barely above a whisper. “Sorry.”
At least, that’s what the two heard.
“He’s confessing his sins,” said Anne.
“Or trying to,” said Ruth, walking over to the phone on the wall.
She called down to the staff chaplain’s office to see if D’zorio’s priest had arrived yet. They had been told he was on his way to administer the anointing of the sick, otherwise known as the mob boss’s last rites.
Apparently, D’zorio was starting without him.
Ruth was still waiting for someone in the chaplain’s office to pick up when the heart monitor alarm sounded.
“Oh, Christ!” said Anne, back at the table with D’zorio. “He’s flatlining!”
Ruth hung up the phone and ran out to where Dr. Sassoon had just finished scrubbing.
But it was too late. There would be no Pink Floyd played in the OR that afternoon. Joseph D’zorio had receded into death.
Like a distant ship’s smoke on the horizon.
Chapter 101
BRUNO TORENZI WAS steamrolling his way through the brush and branches, his hands clearing the way forward while his ears listened for anyone coming up behind him.
He was waiting for the explosion back on the train tracks, and with a quick glance at his watch he knew it wouldn’t be much longer. Any second now, really. It was so close to happening, he could practically hear the entire sequence in his head – a symphony of sounds, from the initial thunderous clap to the seemingly endless echo to the relentless squawking of every bird knocked off its perch within a square mile.
Finally, it came. The bomb, the echo, the birds… everything. Almost exactly as he’d imagined it would be.
But Torenzi didn’t stop and look back, not for a second. He had no interest in taking it all in. He didn’t feel the need.
He didn’t feel anything.
There was no glee, no satisfaction, and certainly no remorse – not even the slightest twinge of guilt over the innocent little girl. She had flushed out her uncle as he’d planned. She’d served her purpose from his viewpoint. That was all there was to it.
As for the Rambo who’d crashed the party on the train, Torenzi still had no idea who he was. In hindsight, though, the guy must have known Daniels was wearing a bulletproof vest. There was no way his aim was that bad, the two shots he tagged Torenzi with being evidence of some skill on his part.
Speaking of not feeling anything…
Torenzi had yanked the black leather belt from his pants, making a tourniquet and cutting off the circulation directly below his shoulder. For now, his arm was as numb as rubber in December. Later, he’d tend to it. He’d dig out the bullets with the stiletto blade he kept strapped to his shin and then stitch himself up with a dime-store needle and thread, leaving two more scars on a body littered with them. No big deal. Just another day at the office.
As Hyman Roth said to Michael Corleone in The Godfather: Part II, “This is the business we’ve chosen.”
Now Torenzi’s business was done. Once again, he had won the game.
Finally, he emerged from the trees and saw the car waiting for him. Perfect timing. Things were going his way again – as they always did.
“Is he dead?” he heard as he approached the white Volvo S40.
Torenzi leaned down into the open window of the front passenger side. He smirked. “What do you think? You heard the explosion, didn’t you?”
Ian LaGrange smiled wide, his overly large mouth almost cartoonish. “Indeed I did,” he said. “Get in.”
The Volvo was parked on a deserted dead-end road, the only sign of life being two half-finished spec homes that were destined to stay that way because the builder had gone belly-up when the housing market had collapsed.
Torenzi yanked open the car door and stepped in. “Let’s go,” he said.
LaGrange motioned to Torenzi’s arm, the belt, and his bloodstained shirt beneath his jacket. “What the hell happened to you?” he asked.
“It’s nothing. There was someone else on the train.”
“Who?”
“Does it matter?”
“I’m the head of the Organized Crime Task Force,” said LaGrange. “What do you think?”
“He was most likely FBI.”
“Did you kill him?”
“No, but the bomb surely did,” said Torenzi. “What about D’zorio?”
“He didn’t make it.”
“Lucky break for you.”
LaGrange chuckled. “Better to be lucky than good.”
“Even better to be both,” said Torenzi, meaning every word of it. “You got the rest of my money?”
“Of course I do. In the trunk,” he answered with a throw of his head. “Gave you a little extra for all your troubles. You did a fine job.”
Torenzi didn’t say thank you. Instead, he was wondering why LaGrange still had the car in park.
“What are we waiting for?” he asked.
“There’s one other piece of business we need to take care of.”
“What’s that?”
“Me,” said the man outside the open car window.
How do you say revenge in Russian?
Chapter 102
BRUNO TORENZI DIDN’T recognize the voice, but there was little doubt about the barrel of a gun jammed against the side of his head.
“Put your hands on the dashboard,” ordered Ivan Belova. “Slowly. Very, very slowly.”
Torenzi complied with disgust as LaGrange removed the keys from the ignition and opened the driver’s side door. “I’m sorry, Bruno,” he said before stepping out. “Remember the San Sebastian Hotel? You fucked up, you horny bastard.”
Belova, a better-dressed and slimmed-down version of Boris Yeltsin, kept his eyes squarely focused on Torenzi. He had no intention of giving the professional killer any opening. It was a lesson his two sons had learned the hard way at that hotel in Manhattan where they’d tried to run their scam on the Italian.
“Do you know who I am?” he asked in his heavy Russian accent. He was the head of the Belova crime family, that’s who. They were the U.S. arm of Solntsevskaya Bratva, one of the most powerful crime families in Moscow.
“No,” answered Torenzi, who knew enough to keep looking straight ahead out the windshield.
“Those were my boys you killed in that hotel room, my flesh and blood,” he said with equal parts anger and despair. He was his own Molotov cocktail ready to explode.
Belova waited for some type of reaction from Torenzi. A look of surprise, maybe even regret. “Sorry” was a long shot, as was anything else approaching an apology – Belova had no delusions about that. Not that it would’ve made a difference. There was no changing his plans. No chance of mercy for the Italian killer.
Still, Belova never would’ve imagined the response he did get from the man.
“They were punks,” said Torenzi. “They had it coming.”
“Motherfucker!” yelled Belova, pulling back the hammer on his Makarov PM.
“Wait!” yelled LaGrange even louder. He was standing behind Belova.
“What?” asked Belova impatiently over his shoulder. He still wasn’t about to take his eyes off Torenzi. He knew how lethal this man could be.
“For Christ’s sake, not in the car,” said LaGrange. “Not unless you want to clean up afterward.”
Belova reluctantly nodded, reaching out with his free hand. He opened Torenzi’s door and backed up a few steps, just to be safe.
“Get out,” he said.
For the first time, Torenzi turned to Belova. But all he gave him was a quick glance as he stepped out of the car. LaGrange, on the other hand, received a glare that would have made even the devil stutter.
LaGrange didn’t answer. He could only look down at the dirt beneath his feet.
Torenzi stared back at Belova now, unblinking. There was no plea for mercy, no begging for forgiveness.
“Turn around,” ordered Belova. “Let me see the horse’s ass.”
Torenzi shook his head adamantly. “No. You look at me when you do it,” he said.
With that, he linked his hands behind his back and dropped to his knees. As if that weren’t enough, he opened his mouth wide.
Sick and twisted to the bitter end.
Belova stepped forward, shoving the barrel of his Makarov PM straight back to Torenzi’s molars. He was the boss of his family; it had been more than a decade since he’d killed anyone himself. He was far more accustomed to giving the order, not seeing it through.
The result was a split second’s pause. A blink of the eye. The chance Torenzi was banking on, or at least hoping for.
Now!
Torenzi whipped his head to the side, forcing the gun against the inside of his cheek as a startled Belova pulled the trigger. The bullet blew a quarter-size hole in the hit man’s face, but only his flesh went flying, not his brains.
Falling backwards, Torenzi reached under his pant leg for the stiletto strapped to his shin. With the grip clenched in his fingers he lunged for the Russian asshole, stabbing him so deep in his thigh that the tip of the blade struck bone.
Belova screamed in agony as he collapsed to the ground. The gun dropped from his hand. Torenzi scooped it up and fired straight into Belova’s throat before whipping his arm around at LaGrange for his second shot.
But LaGrange had other ideas.
He had already fired his Ruger SR9, the oversize trigger an easy squeeze in his large hands. The round caught Torenzi in the stomach, sending blood spurting out of his mouth as he keeled over on one side.
Stepping forward, LaGrange quickly pumped two more shots into Torenzi’s chest before waiting to see if yet another would be required.
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