Andrew Britton Bundle

by Andrew Britton

  “Don’t even think about it,” he said. Smiling, he gestured for her to stand. “On your feet, Naomi. We’re going for a little ride.”

  The six-minute drive from the warehouse to the intersection of Forty-eighth and Seventh was the longest of Ryan Kealey’s life. He was caught up in a surge of emotions: rage that he’d missed Will Vanderveen yet again, sympathy for Naomi and what she had yet to endure, and building despair over the death of Samantha Crane. He hadn’t known her, but she had been innocent of this whole mess and, from what he could tell, a good agent, despite the fact that she’d been blindsided by Rudaki and Matt Foster, her own partner. He couldn’t really fault her for not seeing the truth earlier; he had been similarly betrayed in the past, and he hadn’t seen it coming, either. He only wished he had been able to get to Naomi first; if he’d been able to warn her, Crane would almost certainly still be alive. In truth, he was as much to blame as she was.

  He had found the lights shortly after making the turn onto Eighth Avenue, and the siren soon after that. As the Bureau sedan swept toward Times Square, he was scanning the surrounding traffic, as well as the cars lined up at the curb, searching for any sign of a white Isuzu truck. He saw a few possibilities, but he didn’t have time to check them. At this point, his only chance at stopping Nazeri would be to get to the target as fast as possible. The only thing he couldn’t understand was why he had not heard the blast. It should have happened at least ten minutes ago. He kept waiting for the rising plume of shattered cement and dust, as well as the thunderous explosion, signifying the death of thousands of people, but it never came, not on West Thirty-seventh Street, not on Eighth Avenue, and not as the Crown Vic he had borrowed squealed to a halt at the intersection of West Forty-eighth and Seventh Avenue.

  He’d cut the lights and the siren a few blocks earlier, not wanting to warn Nazeri if the other man had already reached his destination. Now he got out of the car and looked around, searching frantically for the truck that Naomi had described. Not seeing it, he took a second to scope out his surroundings. The Renaissance Hotel was on his right, twenty-six stories of black glass and steel. From where he was standing, he could reach out and touch the gleaming façade. Above his head was a huge sign edged in gold filigree, at least six stories in height, with a large, circular clock on top. He checked the time and saw that the General Assembly was not set to convene for another three hours. In other words, at least thirty members of the United Iraqi Alliance were inside the hotel at that very moment, along with several hundred businessmen, conventioneers, and tourists, all of whom were blissfully unaware of the looming threat.

  In the distance was the narrow northern face of the world-famous One Times Square, the Bertelsmann Building off to the left. Times Square Tower rose behind all of it, glistening like a vertical wall of blue-green water in the midday sun. In between, passenger cars flashed back and forth on the through streets, along with dozens of buses and what seemed like hundreds of yellow cabs, though the actual number was far less. The traffic on Seventh Avenue was southbound in four narrow lanes, hurtling toward One Times Square and the intersection with Broadway, the view partially obscured by towering columns of steam, which seemed to gather in ominous clouds in the cool air.

  People were everywhere, choking the sidewalks, dressed for the weather in long-sleeve shirts and light sweaters. The temperature was about 65 degrees, much warmer than it had been in Washington the previous night, but still fairly brisk for September. Kealey automatically started looking for police officers and was momentarily shocked when he didn’t see any. Then he remembered that half the force—and 90 percent of the Manhattan Patrol Borough South—was conducting crowd control at the UN enclave a few blocks to the east. He wondered why the crowd didn’t extend to this area, then recalled that the demonstration stretched north on Second Avenue, from Fifty-first to Fifty-fifth. In other words, this was the perfect place to strike: for the moment, the hotel was completely unprotected. Completely vulnerable.

  Kealey swung around and looked north, scanning the approaching traffic. If Nazeri was coming, he guessed it would be from this direction, not from the west. Involuntarily, his right hand drifted down to his hip, where the Beretta was holstered. The butt was covered by the lower edge of his T-shirt. A magazine was loaded, of course, 14 rounds plus one in the chamber, and he had two spare mags as backup. He suspected he might well need them; 15 rounds might not be enough to take out Nazeri, Vanderveen, and the truck. Once he saw the vehicle approach, he’d have to fire through the windshield as fast as possible. It wasn’t an ideal scenario, but at this point, he had little other choice. What worried him most were the police officers in the area. He hadn’t seen any, but he knew they were there. The minute he pulled the gun, he’d become a target, but there was no way he could explain the situation in time. He had no proof of anything he had to tell them, and the first thing they would do is take his gun and hold him for questioning. Bringing them into the loop simply wasn’t an option.

  Just as he was trying to figure out his next move, two things happened at once. His cell phone rang, and he spotted the top of a white Isuzu truck approaching from the north, moving at a slower rate than the surrounding traffic. As he watched, it shuddered to a halt at the light at Fifty-first and Seventh, two cars back from the light itself. Never moving his gaze from the vehicle, he reached into his right pocket and withdrew his phone, flipping it open to answer the call. “Kealey.”

  “Ryan? Is that you?”

  He froze, unsure he had heard correctly. Sensing his shock, Vanderveen laughed and said, “How have you been?”

  “You fucking bastard. Where are—”

  “Easy,” Vanderveen said, a warning note creeping into his voice. “That’s no way to talk to a man who’s holding a gun on your girlfriend.”

  “You…” Kealey was left speechless, his heart pounding against his ribs, every nerve ending seared by anger and fear. He should never have left her alone…It just didn’t seem real. “Put her on.”

  “Just for a minute, then.” There was a pause, a few mumbled words, and then a sharp, defiant refusal. Kealey heard what could only be a slap, the sound of flesh hitting flesh. He knew that the other man had just hit her, and he was filled with a white-hot rage, his hand gripping the phone so tight the plastic was starting to crack. Up ahead, the light at Fifty-first turned green, and the Isuzu rolled forward. Kealey squinted through the glare of the pale afternoon sun but couldn’t see the man behind the wheel.

  “Ryan?” Naomi’s voice came over the phone, filling him with dread and despair. She sounded scared as hell, but he could also detect a strange determination. When she spoke, the words came out in a rush. “Don’t worry about me. Just stop the bomb, okay? Just—”

  She had spoken as fast as she could, but she was quickly cut off by another audible slap. Vanderveen came back on the line right away. “See? I’m a man of my word. Not very good at protecting your women, are you?” The other man’s voice was filled with a kind of amusement, which bordered on outright glee. “If I hadn’t been distracted earlier, I would have left you a little message to that effect. By which I mean a message carved into her face. Looks like I might still have the chance.”

  “You son of a bitch,” Kealey managed. His eyes were glued on the Isuzu. It was approaching fast now, not more than a few hundred feet away. He quickly searched again for police officers, but if they were there, they had lost themselves in the crowd. “If you touch her, I swear to God, I’ll—”

  “Let it go,” Vanderveen said, his voice low and strangely hypnotic. “Just let it go off. Let it do what it was meant to do. If you stop it, she dies in the worst way possible. Just like Katie.”

  Kealey closed his eyes, aware of a crushing despair. The image came back in an instant: he could see her lying on the kitchen floor, bleeding out from the wound in her neck, begging him for help with those frightened blue eyes. The thought of Naomi enduring the same was just too much, but there was no way to stop it. Vanderveen would
kill her anyway, and besides, he couldn’t put her life ahead of the thousands of innocent people in the surrounding buildings. He had already risked too much time in the warehouse by trying to shield her from blame in Crane’s death. There was nothing more he could do for her; he’d just have to prove her wrong.

  You’ve never let me down, Ryan, and I know you never will. I trust you completely.

  Vanderveen was clearly waiting for his reply. Kealey took a deep breath, then made the hardest choice of his life.

  He disconnected the call and dropped the phone.

  Reaching under his shirt, he drew his Beretta and held it down by his side for as long as he could. Then he stepped into Seventh Avenue, narrowly avoiding being hit by a passing bus. As soon as it swept by in a blast of cool air, Kealey took a few more steps, crossing into the second lane. The Isuzu was close now, and judging by the sweaty, agitated look on the driver’s face, he had the right vehicle. He was aware of squealing tires, a cacophony of horns, and the shouts of pedestrians rising up from the sidewalk, but he shut it all out. Lifting the gun in two hands, Kealey set his feet, aimed at the man behind the wheel of the approaching truck, and squeezed the trigger.

  In the passenger seat of the red Mercury Sable, Naomi Kharmai looked down at her balled fists, trying to ignore the stinging pain on the left side of her face. Her wrists were still cuffed; Vanderveen had thrown a sweater over her hands to hide the evidence as he’d hustled her into the car a few minutes earlier. She could taste blood in her mouth, and she felt dizzy from the three blows he had just delivered. After hitting her twice while on the phone with Kealey, he had administered a third, brutal punch to the side of her head, more out of frustration than anything else. At least, that was her guess. Fortunately, the angle had taken away most of his leverage, so the blow hadn’t done nearly as much damage as it should have. Still, she could feel something warm running down past her ear, and looking down, she could see a few spots of blood on her sweater, bright red against the white material.

  After Ryan disconnected the call, Vanderveen had thrown the phone onto the floor by her feet. Then he had lapsed into a barrage of biting profanity. She didn’t dare to look at him, afraid of drawing his wrath. She was intensely aware of the Glock 19 in his left hand, which was resting in his lap and pointed toward her. She had briefly considered throwing open the door and diving out, but she knew she would never get clear in time. At that angle, the bullet would tear right through her abdomen, leaving her with a wound that would almost certainly prove fatal, but only after an hour or so of excruciating pain.

  Far more terrifying than the gun, however, was the knife he’d dropped into his pocket before pushing her out of the warehouse and into the car. It was the same knife he’d threatened her with earlier, and judging by what he’d said to Ryan over the phone, he was anxious to use it. She couldn’t stop thinking about that shiny hooked blade, but the gun was right there, clearly visible, and she knew he wouldn’t hesitate to fire. By the time they crossed West Forty-second Street, she’d decided the best thing to do was to sit still and wait for an opportunity.

  As her mind raced to find one, though, Vanderveen turned the wheel hard to the right. She looked up to see a sign that said WEST 48TH STREET, and she suddenly realized where they were going. The Renaissance Hotel at Forty-Eighth and Seventh.

  They were heading right for ground zero.

  CHAPTER 56

  NEW YORK CITY

  Joseph Ruggeri counted himself a fortunate man, despite being in desperate need of a shower and a month’s worth of sleep, and for one simple reason: he was one of the very few cops in the five boroughs with the rest of the day off. The twenty-six-year-old Ruggeri had just come off a twelve-hour desk shift at the precinct on the corner of West Fifty-fourth and Eighth, the home of the Patrol Borough Manhattan South, and was looking forward to a good meal and a warm bed, preferably his girlfriend’s. The bed would have to wait a little bit longer, but he knew where the meal was coming from, as his uncle co-owned the Stage Deli and Restaurant on Fifty-fourth and Seventh.

  He had changed into street clothes before leaving the precinct: a white T-shirt under a brown canvas jacket, worn Levis, and running shoes. His service weapon, a Smith & Wesson Model 5946, was holstered on his right hip, but he hardly noticed it; he carried the gun almost everywhere and was used to its comforting weight.

  Ruggeri had been on the force for just over four and a half years. Like many men in his age group, he’d felt the need to serve his country following the events of September 11th, 2001, and as with most of his like-minded peers, that meant one of two things: the military or law enforcement. Ruggeri was Brooklyn born and raised; his parents still lived in the same house he’d grown up in, and his six siblings all lived within the five boroughs, except for one sister who’d strayed to Trenton, of all places. Leaving them behind to go to Afghanistan or some other godforsaken place was simply not an option. The idea of crossing the Jersey line filled him with a distinct sense of unease; Afghanistan might as well have been on a different planet. So it was the NYPD, and he’d never regretted it. He enjoyed the work, he loved being able to get a home-cooked meal any day of the week, and he especially loved the nice little jump he had just received on his last paycheck.

  He crossed Fifty-fourth heading south, the colorful façade of the Stage Deli coming up on his right. Just as he started to open the door, a distant popping noise caused him to turn left instead. After twenty-six years in the city and four and a half on the force, he recognized the sound of gun-fire instantly. His hand dropped and slipped under his jacket, finding the butt of his weapon, but his eyes were locked on the scene in the near distance. He had a bad angle—no sign of the shooter—but as he watched in disbelief, a white box truck swung hard to the right on Seventh Avenue, then started to tip.

  Drawing his weapon, he instantly ran forward, doing his best to cover the next seven blocks in the least time possible. At the same time, his left hand dipped into his jacket and found his cell phone. The precinct was on his speed dial, so he hit the number and kept running hard.

  At the intersection of Forty-eighth and Seventh, Kealey was firing as fast as he could into the windshield of the Isuzu, which was still moving toward him. He saw his first shot crater the glass just left of the driver’s head, then adjusted the next three and saw the intended effect. The driver seemed to jerk spasmodically behind the wheel, inadvertently pulling it hard to the right. He fired another three shots as the truck veered sharply toward him. He dived out of the way but wasn’t quite fast enough; the grill caught his left ankle, spinning him around in midair, and he hit the pavement hard, ending up in the next lane. A southbound Lincoln Navigator screeched to a halt, tires smoking, the front wheel less than 3 feet from his head. He had no time to consider this further; behind him, he heard a strange, anticipatory silence, then a loud crunch, glass shattering, the scream of metal sliding across the road.

  He got to his feet, ignoring the crushing pain in his ankle, and turned to see something that chilled his blood: the truck was on its side, sliding across the pavement, throwing up a shower of sparks. Kealey felt everything stop inside his head. He waited for the bright flash, knowing it would be the last thing he’d see in his life, but it never came. As the truck finally came to a halt, everything started to move again, like a tape coming out of slow motion. People were screaming, running north and south on Seventh, and he was aware of distant sirens. But the cops wouldn’t get there in time, and he had to be sure.

  Kealey ran forward, his ankle delivering shivers of pain with every step. His attention was completely focused on the roof of the cab, which was facing back toward the Renaissance Hotel. He lifted the Beretta again, silently adding up the shots in his head. He knew he’d fired at least seven, which left him with more than enough to make sure the driver was dead. Just as he was about to fire through the roof, though, he felt someone hit him hard from behind. His lower back arched painfully, his head whipping back as he pitched forward onto the p
avement, the gun coming loose. The crushing blow nearly left him unconscious, and his back felt as if it had snapped in half. He did his best to sit up, trying to figure out what had happened.

  Looking back, he half expected to see Will Vanderveen, but it was just some guy he’d never seen before, a heavyset man with a thick beard and a look of determination on his face. He wasn’t a cop, Kealey knew, or he would have said something to that effect. And then it hit him; his assailant was just a bystander who didn’t know any better. Kealey briefly considered explaining it to him, but there wasn’t time. Instead, he simply slammed a fist into the man’s throat. The bearded man rolled away instantly, his hands shooting up to his throat, a strangled noise coming out of his mouth. Kealey turned painfully back to the truck and reached for his Beretta.

  In the driver’s seat, Amir Nazeri was hanging on to life by a thread. One of Kealey’s bullets had creased the left side of his skull; another had torn into his chest, just beneath his clavicle; and a third had pierced his face, penetrating the right lateral nasal wall before angling up through his left eye, coming to rest in the orbit. Strangely enough, the pain wasn’t that bad, and he had the strength, in his final moments, to tear the M60 fuse igniter free from the right side of his seat. He’d been wearing his seat belt when the vehicle tipped over, and his body was now dangling to the right, toward the shattered passenger-side window and the pavement. With tremendous effort, he managed to bring his left arm around—it didn’t seem to be working correctly at all—and get one of his fingers inside the pull ring. As he prepared to carry out his final task, he thought of his dead cousin and smiled.

  It was the last act of his life.