“I’m sorry. The mailbox is full and cannot accept any messages at this time. To leave a call back number press–”
Utterly devastated, Shelley pulled the phone from her ear just as the light changed.
Walk.
The Suburban started moving as she did, going parallel with her. The subway station sign was ahead.
But without warning, she heard sirens scream mere blocks away and the Suburban sped up, disappearing around the corner. Her eyes brightened. Were they really giving up the chase?
She quickened her pace, afraid to hope.
Reaching the subway stairs, she hastened down them, half-scared that she was going to trip and fall on her gown; it was a long way to the cement bottom. She took hold of the cold metal handrail to steady herself.
But upon nearing the landing, she had the sudden feeling she was being followed. Chancing it, she looked behind her, hoping Zach had gotten her text message saying she’d be taking the train and came after her.
But it wasn’t him.
She walked as fast as her legs could carry her and her heels would allow.
Fumbling with her subway pass, she had to swipe it twice before it let her through the metal bars. Lots of people milled everywhere, going in all directions. Multiple platforms. She looked around for a train she could take, but the first one she went to shut its doors just as she got there.
She ran to the next platform to wait for the next subway, checking behind her.
Two men in suits and trenchcoats seemed to be focused on her, striding towards her with purpose. From the Suburban? Stop it, Shelley! But she couldn’t stem the tide of mutiny within her. The crippling feeling of being hunted. And the trains… they weren’t coming fast enough.
She glanced at all the tickers scrolling arrival times. Scarcely did she read much less process which lines were scheduled at this late hour. A. B. C. It was all the same to her. Muddled. She couldn’t process any of it.
Blindly, she scurried and weaved her way towards the platform with the most people gathered in front. It was also loudest here. Reggae musicians performed their own beat, a group of college students made a ruckus, and a carpetbagger loudly spewing incoherent garbage.
She waited, breath hitching. One second stretched into two. No trains.
Slowly, she turned her head and strained her peripheral vision.
The men. Still coming.
Eyes wide with fright, she gasped for oxygen.
The crowd rumbled with obligatory applause as the quartet ended their number. But her focus stayed wholly on the dark tunnel, waiting for that train. A hand pawed at her. She recoiled violently.
It was the fast-talking homeless man. He beamed a crooked, gapped smile at her. “That’s a pretty coat. Are ya taking the ‘A’ train? Ya know where the ‘A’ train goes? I do. I know. I know where all the trains go. Straight to–”
BANG!
The burst of sound ricocheted and echoed through the tunnel. Gunshot. Swiftly, applause broadened into chaos.
Shelley’s heart careened.
The homeless man dropped to the ground, holding his head. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry!” He grabbed the hem of her long coat desperately.
Another shot. Closer this time.
Prompted by fear, she yanked herself out of the man’s bony grip and backed up as people pushed to get away.
But as her gaze swam across the fray, looking for the shooters, she lost her footing. The ground poured away like grains of sand. And her stomach plunged, insides lurching desperately, arms reaching forward, grasping at formless air.
Silence roared in her ears. She was falling. Falling six feet into the track.
She hit the hard rails and pain tore through her left side. Something cut into her upper back, near her neck, despite her coat. She emitted a sharp but muted scream.
A distant screech, faint though it was, drew her attention. And her head whipped to the left end of the tunnel.
She could see the lights in the distance. The train was coming.
46
Zach saw her go down. His world went down with her.
Approaching one of the two suited guns from behind, Zach hammered the grip of his Glock down hard onto the man’s skull with brute force. Despite the hysterical screams of people, the cascades of echoing footsteps, and blaring of a subway announcement, he heard the bone chilling crack and then saw the body go limp.
He let the man drop to the platform, gun lose in his dead grasp.
Another gunman, whom Zach had just shot in self-defense, was lying somewhere in a pool of stagnant water.
Amidst the compounding cacophony of floundering, frantic passengers exiting another train behind him, his ears latched onto the faint screech coming from the left end of the tunnel in front of him. And alien fear gripped him.
God, no.
Running to the end of the platform, he jumped down. A sharp surge of pain gutted through his left knee. The ACL again. He cursed his old gridiron injury and expunged an angry cry.
A train. He could feel its vibrations. It was no more than two hundred feet away.
Quickly, he hobbled to her, pushing through the pain.
He beheld the terror on her face. It mirrored his own. At first, he thought she must have broken something, but then he saw it. Her coat had hooked onto the second rail.
“I can’t move,” she screamed.
“Take it off!”
Her frozen fingers fumbled with the buttons.
The silver serpent blared at them to move. Brakes screeched. There wasn’t enough track for it to stop before it would hit them!
Finally, in one powerful motion, Zach ripped the coat open and grabbed her body. He pulled her to her feet, her arms coming out of the white wool.
The train’s angry glare struck them with the force of a thousand spotlights.
Zach dragged her to the furthest end of the platform where the ladder was. He almost pushed her in front of him, but knowing he would climb faster than she, he rushed up.
The platform quaked with the arriving train. It was nearly upon them!
Heart drilling through his chest, Zach leaned over and pulled her up so she wouldn’t have to wrangle the ladder rungs. His muscles strained as he hoisted her light frame on top of him just as the train screamed by, destroying her left-for-dead coat.
But, a shadow eclipsed them where they lay on the platform. He didn’t even have a chance to breathe before a gun filled his vision. Aimed at Shelley.
Reacting on instinct, Zach pushed her to the side behind a wide column, rolled to his feet, and fired his 9mm–
BANG!
The bullet slugged into the man’s sternum. As the shot echoed through the underground, Zach fully processed his target – a cop.
The NYPD officer lost his balance, fell off the platform, and hit all 25,000 volts of the third rail.
Zach gawped, disbelieving at what he’d just done. He doubted anyone had seen the hit. However, he knew there were concealed cameras everywhere. In pipes. On the walls. Electrical conduits. No way for him to hide the deed.
He tore his gaze away from the dead cop as another train blustered through, fanning him with cold and hot air. He noticed Shelley flinch though she kept her eyes unwaveringly focused on the spot where the officer had fallen. But all that could be seen now was silver speeding by.
He scanned the cement grey, fluorescent-lit environs. People moved en masse towards the stairs, trying to get above ground, thinking there was a mad man with a gun. If Kazanov had back-up coming, he didn’t want Shelley to be anywhere in the vicinity. In which case…
He went to the girl; she was curled up against the pillar, shivering. Hair coming out of the barrettes, mascara trickling, smudges on her face, dress crushed though not torn. The necklace was still in place, somehow; diamond glinting like a real tear. A trampled rose.
He stripped off his suit jacket. “Here put this on,” he ordered, pulling her to her feet. He helped her don the Armani, leaving h
er long identifiable locks tucked inside. Then, he produced his handkerchief and pressed it into her hand. “Wipe your face and try to act natural.” Taking her elbow, he led them towards the next platform. His knee painfully protested the recent mistreatment, throbbing, impeding his gait.
Suddenly, his hackles pricked. His steely eyes searched the thinning throng, and he found three men in black leather jackets coming down the stairs, towards the platforms, working against the fleeing crowd. Their heads swiveled this way and that, looking everywhere.
As if the Manhattan Transit Authority wanted them to survive, another train pumped down a tunnel two platforms away. Passengers, who had no idea of what just happened, filed out of the cars, and the men’s attention diverted.
“Move,” he whispered fiercely to Shelley, gripping her arm and herding her towards the ‘A’ train.
They slipped through the first set of doors in the very last car. But he caught the reflection of the men. They were coming.
The car was empty except for him and Shelley. Less than ideal.
He didn’t say anything to her, however; she looked ready to either faint or bolt. “Here. Sit down,” he quietly commanded, steering her towards a row by the windows. He perched next to her, knee screaming as he forced it to bend. But the pain receded to the backdrop.
Peering over his shoulder through the window, he could see down the platform. The men entered a car several down from theirs.
Leaning forward, Zach peered through the doors that adjoined the cars; he knew they’d end up coming this way soon enough.
The doors closed. The train surged forward. He surged with it.
They were all locked in for the ride.
47
Zach’s stomach filled with lead. His throat tightened, keeping all his fears and struggles at bay. “Listen. I need you to stay here, okay?” She didn’t answer. “Shelley, look at me.”
She did.
He grimaced at the scared little girl he beheld. Inwardly, he cursed himself for everything he’d done to pull her into his world. But regardless, she was stuck. Stuck with him.
He gentled, peering into her eyes. “It’s gonna be okay,” he soothed. “Just sit tight.”
“Don’t leave me,” she pleaded in a barely audible voice.
He forced a jaunty smile which didn’t hide the disturbing fire in his gaze. He touched her stained cheek. “I promise. I’ll be right back.”
The bumpy, speeding train pitched sharply as he stood. He hit the vertical metal bar by the doors, bruising his shoulder. But he emitted no sound. A glance through to the next car over told him that the three men were about to reach it.
He stepped through the doors as they parted for him, hoping to cut them off. He readied his gun and steeled his soul because nothing felt right in his overworked body.
There was only one passenger. A sleeping drunk – sprawled out with half his body hanging off a seat, and a definite odor circulating about him.
The doors at the opposite end of the car opened. The men had arrived.
Zach played offense – because he had no choice, because if he hesitated he would be dead, because if he didn’t leave this train alive Shelley would die.
Sweat glistening across his brow, he raised his Glock and squeezed the trigger straight back, anticipating the recoil.
But the electric beast picked that moment to lurch roughly, and his shot ricocheted off a railing. The men scattered, drawing their weapons quickly. Fortunately, the nauseating undulations impeded their return volley.
Zach dropped behind a set of two-seaters just as four bullets came his way. They hit nothing except the chair and the bullet-proof window.
Body aching like it was on fire, Zach rested his barrel on the top of the seat in front of him and ejected several spits, accurately extinguishing two of the three men.
They fell to the ground, one first then the other.
Unfortunately, he had run out of bullets.
The drunk was still asleep.
Ping-ping-ping!
Zach stayed down until the gunfire stopped. Out of bullets too. Screaming at himself to move, he sprang from his defensive position, using all the power he had left.
The last man with several white scars bisecting his face charged. Zach’s palm shot out and thrust into his bearded chin, throwing the man’s head backwards. Grabbing his arm, he twisted, pushing against the natural range of motion, until the man had to turn around or have his arm broken.
A string of Slavic curses rented the air.
Zach’s left hand gripped a fist full of short brown hair and smashed the man’s head against a subway pole. Repeatedly. He felt skull contact the metal, and his insides wrenched, teeth clenching ‘til he heard them click.
His features distorted, darkening to red.
Even when the man’s weight went limp, Zach continued until he was sure the man was dead. In the elevator it hadn’t mattered, but here. Now.
Sick to his spirit, he let the guy drop to the floor, blood streaming out of a fissure in his forehead. Stomach cramping, Zach gripped the railing for stability; thunder rolled and crashed in his head. The noise and voices deafened. Fighting the onslaught, he staggered over to the men he’d shot.
One still convulsed, eyes rolling in the back of his head, lids fluttering, mouth moving, uttering inaudible words.
Zach’s breath hitched. He bent and swiped up the fallen man’s gun – a Sig Sauer P226 which was just out of reach. Wishing with every fiber of his being that it didn’t have to be this way, he aimed the barrel downwards.
“Who sent you?” he asked, not even recognizing his own voice. Receiving no response, Zach crouched on his haunches and dug the barrel into the man’s temple. “I won’t ask again.”
Suddenly, the man’s eyes snapped into focus and stared at Zach – flickering, cloudy but coherent. “You can’t protect her forever,” he said, words hoarse but lucid. “Kazanov knows.” He coughed up blood, it dribbled off the edge of his lips. “She’s dead. And so are you.”
A heat of many colors exploded through Zach’s veins. But before he could make his choice, the man lifted his hand and pulled the trigger for him.
Dead.
Blood and brain matter shot out and splattered all over the right side of the car beneath the seats. Red fountained from the sides of his mouth, pooling on the floor.
The hand went limp. His head rolled to the side, eyes wide open as the train rocked him into the hereafter.
Numb yet buzzing through his legs down to his toes, Zach dropped the Sig, stood, and stumbled back the way he came, shaking and feeling sick.
The door wheezed open, and the gun in his hand vanished. He attempted to seem indifferent as he approached her. Still seated exactly where he’d left her, she didn’t even look his way as he neared. He was glad of it. He didn’t think he could take her eyes again.
On the verge of a panic attack, he sat down next to her. “Hey,” he said, sounding relaxed though in his mind he was on the edge of that waterfall again, but the drop was steeper, and if he went over, he felt like he would die.
She didn’t respond.
He put his arm around the back of her seat and nudged her towards him, seemingly offering her support, but in actuality, he needed her badly. Tears stung his eyes. He might as well have been in a cold, black dungeon with fetid pools of water and disease-ridden rats crawling over him.
But as if she sensed his emotional downturn and the spreading venom, she slipped her hand out of the jacket and laid it against his heart as her head settled on his shoulder.
He could feel every one of her slender fingers through his shirt. They were frigid. Like a powerful drug, the thought that she needed him helped to ease him away from the precipice. He took her hand and held it tightly, willing his warmth – whatever he possessed – to saturate her.
The man’s chilling words came back to him, but he told himself he didn’t need to protect her forever. Just until the madness came to an end.
That was the deal.
But they weren’t out of the woods yet.
48
Somehow they’d made it.
Zach urged her into his neglected apartment. She still had his suit jacket on, not that it was doing much. Cheeks still bearing signs of smudged mascara, lips and nose reddened from the cold, she turned her head and studied the dim environs – his native surroundings.
“Here. Sit down,” he said, leading her to his beaten leather sofa. “Try to relax.”
But she didn’t sit. She didn’t breathe. She didn’t stop trembling.
“Can you tell me what happened?” he asked.
Shelley stared blankly at him, tongue suspended in her mouth, lips dry and unable to move. She couldn’t even see the blue eyes gazing back at her.
Knowing she was in shock, he took her frigid hand and warmed it, forcing her to sit with him. The comforting gesture beckoned her from the cold grasp of despair. She blinked, and her chest lifted slightly.
“I was just leaving the club.” She choked on a sob. “I didn’t see anything. But they followed me.”
“Who followed you?”
She shook her head. “It almost hit me. I thought I died.”
He took her face and forced her to look at him. “Did you see who followed you, Shelley?”
“And there was that girl. The one with Ron. At the reception.” Her gaze flicked to him briefly. “She was there. With another man.”
He didn’t want to tell her he knew this already, much less why. Seemed like the wrong thing to admit less than an hour after she’d nearly met her end.
She suddenly straightened and gripped his arm. “Did you hear that?” she asked, peering around anxiously. But then, she shook her head in self-deprecation, tears forming. “I’m sorry, Zach. I’m so sorry. I just can’t stop seeing the train. The men. The guns. You.”
He stared at her, at her hands digging into his flesh. Deliberating. “You’re going to have to stay here tonight.”
To his surprise, she didn’t argue. He doubted she’d even heard.
Crime & Counterpoint Page 22
