Killer Instinct

by Patterson, James

  It was a safe bet I would’ve gone my entire life without asking this question, let alone to a bunch of strangers. “Does anyone have a tampon?” I yelled.

  I kept yelling it until finally a young woman in a jean jacket stopped. I could see her eyes dart back and forth between Eli and me before landing on the blood seeping between my fingers as I continued applying pressure against the wound.

  With a quick nod, she dug into her purse and handed me a sealed tampon.

  “What else can I do?” she asked.

  “An ambulance,” I said. “First one you see.”

  She took off as I tore open the wrapper and lodged the tampon into the bullet hole as tightly as I could. Eli winced from the pain but still managed a slight smile. “Smart,” he said. “Now go help the girl.”

  “Not yet,” I said.

  Elizabeth was being so stubborn, so reckless. If the Mudir didn’t kill her, I was going to.

  “There!” I heard across the street. “They’re over there!”

  The young woman in the jean jacket was screaming and pointing with a couple of EMTs in tow. As soon as they saw Eli, they began to sprint.

  I wanted to get the woman’s name, get her number, and get the mayor to give her a key to the city and a ticker-tape parade. But all I had time for as the EMTs swooped in to treat Eli was a quick hug and a thanks. Superheroes don’t always wear capes. Sometimes they wear a jean jacket.

  I took off down the sidewalk, running as fast as I could to find Elizabeth. The closer I got, the more I could feel it. Not my legs aching. Not my lungs burning. It was the sense of dread, that something terrible had already happened.

  I would’ve given anything to be wrong. Anything.

  But I wasn’t.

  CHAPTER 116

  I SAW the car first. Up ahead, glimpses of white in between an endless stream of bodies passing in front of it. People running. Scrambling. Then, a few people not moving at all.

  A cop had his gun drawn by the driver’s side door. He was young. Even from a distance he looked nervous. He kept shifting his feet.

  I followed his aim, my eyes darting to the back of the car. Suddenly, I had a clear view.

  The Mudir. He had her. One arm wrapped around Elizabeth’s neck in a choke hold. The other arm raised up to her head, the barrel jammed against her temple.

  “Let her go!” I yelled.

  The Mudir yanked Elizabeth like a rag doll as he turned to see me walking toward him with my Glock leveled right between his eyes.

  He smiled. He’d known I was coming. “What took you so long?” he asked.

  “You don’t want her,” I said. “You want me.”

  I glanced over to see the cop’s head on a swivel, back and forth from the Mudir to me. His forehead was scrunched. He couldn’t stop blinking. It was bad enough he was nervous. Now throw in heavily confused. “Who the hell are you?” he asked me.

  “Yes,” said the Mudir. “Tell him who you really are, Professor.”

  Only I didn’t have to. The cop heard Professor, and it suddenly clicked for him. “You’re that guy with the book,” he said. “The one the serial killer used.”

  “Yeah, that’s me,” I said. “Now I need you to lower your gun.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we don’t want any accidents,” I said.

  The cop shook his head. “I hear you, but I can’t do that.”

  “Sure you can,” said the Mudir. “Tell him, Agent Needham. We don’t want any accidents.”

  Elizabeth winced in pain as the Mudir pressed his gun even harder against her head. “Please,” she told the cop. “Just do it.”

  I kept watching the cop from the corner of my eye, his feet continuing to shift back and forth. It was a dance of indecision. Finally he lowered his gun, moving to the front of the car for cover. Perfect.

  The Mudir and I now had each other’s undivided attention.

  “What’s your plan, Professor?” he asked.

  “That depends,” I said. “What’s yours?”

  “I’m getting in that car with Agent Needham, and no one’s going to follow us,” he said.

  I shook him off like a pitcher on the mound. “Not quite. You’re getting in the car with me, not her.”

  Elizabeth wasn’t buying either plan. She was scared. But she was also angry. “Take the shot, Dylan,” she said. “Take it!”

  She was serious. The Mudir knew it, too. He altered his stance a bit, tucking his head a little more behind hers.

  But I wasn’t taking the shot. I was doing the opposite. I was laying down my weapon.

  “I told you,” I said, kneeling. “You don’t want her, you want me.”

  Slowly, I placed my gun on the pavement. Elizabeth screamed. “No! Don’t do it!”

  “It’s okay,” I said. Trust me.

  Hatred is a human flaw unlike any other. It will make you do the unthinkable. Even worse, it will make you not think at all. My plan had been to outsmart the Mudir. But sometimes the only way to outsmart someone is to convince him that you’re a fool.

  I stood up and spread my arms wide. There was no way I could hurt him. “Now let her go and take me instead,” I said.

  The Mudir smiled again. I’d just committed suicide. He was sure of it.

  So sure that as he pulled his gun away from Elizabeth’s head in order to kill me, it never even occurred to him. He’d just made the biggest mistake of his soon-to-be-over life.

  Take the shot, Dad.

  My father fired from his perch in the scaffolding above the Duane Reade drugstore twenty yards away. As the blast echoed up and down the street, the Mudir’s lifeless body collapsed to the ground.

  Elizabeth had no idea she had backup. No one else would either. The .44-caliber bullet that exploded through the Mudir’s brain would be as untraceable as the triggerman himself. This was old school. Off the books. The stuff that only ends up in one of those files stamped TOP SECRET.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  Elizabeth stood frozen for a few seconds with the Mudir at her feet, his blood fanning out across the asphalt. She didn’t answer. Instead, she walked over and hugged me tighter than anyone ever has.

  I took that as a yes.

  EPILOGUE

  IT GOES ON

  CHAPTER 117

  I’VE NEVER been a big fan of the expression It could’ve been a lot worse. But I understand why people say it. It’s one of the ways we deal with grief. A coping mechanism. We can better process a tragedy if we allow ourselves to think—to believe—that, yes, it could’ve been a lot worse.

  Had it played out as planned, hundreds would’ve died in Grand Central Station that morning. Instead, the attack was thwarted and the thirteen terrorists, including the Mudir, were killed—but not before they took the lives of eight innocent people while firing back at agents. So, yeah, it could’ve been a lot worse. But I highly doubt the families of those eight who perished will ever see much of a silver lining. For them, that day was as bad as it gets.

  I made a point of mentioning those thoughts in the email I ultimately wrote to the students in my Abnormal Behavioral Analysis class. They hadn’t heard from their professor since their final exam was abruptly cut short. I owed them closure, as well as some perspective.

  They thought it was unfair that they couldn’t prepare for their exam. Then the real world interceded and taught them a lesson better than I ever could. No matter how prepared we strive to be, life is always there to remind us that we’re all sort of just winging it. On that note, I announced what I’d always intended—that they were each getting an A on the final exam. Even if that hadn’t been my intention, I still would’ve done it. They had enough to worry about. We all did.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked.

  Sadira smiled from her hospital bed. “I feel like I was tied up, thrown in the back of a van, and then the van flipped over three times at a hundred miles an hour.”

  “I think it was actually four times,” I said. “But who
’s counting, right?”

  “So was it your idea?” she asked. “This so-called deal?”

  “That depends. Did you accept it?”

  “I told him I wanted to talk to you first,” she said.

  Yes, the deal was my idea. Landon Foxx was skeptical, right up until the intelligence report came in regarding the missing Pu-239, weapons-grade plutonium, from a nuclear power plant in Iran. Viktor Alexandrov’s apartment had been turned upside down twice over in an effort to find out what package the Mudir had been expecting, but nothing had been found. Might it have been the plutonium? There was no way of knowing for sure.

  But there was Sadira.

  “You don’t have to help us,” I told her.

  “Just like your Agency doesn’t have to help me,” she said. “At least, that’s what your friend was suggesting.”

  It was somewhat jarring to hear her refer to Foxx as my friend. “He’s bluffing,” I said. “Trying you for murder requires too much discovery and cross-examination, two things the CIA avoid like the plague. Besides, the exculpatory evidence alone would probably get you a hung jury.”

  “For a professor, you sure do sound a lot like a lawyer.”

  “I should,” I said. “I’m married to one, after all.”

  “Wait. You’re married?” Sadira feigned heartbreak. “I thought you said you weren’t before our first date.”

  “I know. It was all a ruse. Can you believe it?”

  “Clearly, I did,” she said. “So you have a wife, huh?”

  I laughed. “Not exactly.”

  I told her about Tracy, as well as Annabelle.

  “Sounds like you’re a lucky man, Dylan Reinhart.”

  “I was,” I said. “But then I blew it.”

  CHAPTER 118

  THE VIDEO surfaced two days later. I should’ve known.

  Among the slew of people escaping Grand Central Station, one of them managed to stop and film the Mudir after he’d taken Elizabeth hostage.

  While the recording thankfully didn’t capture the Mudir’s head getting blown off, the shot from the “unknown gunman” at the precise moment I laid down my own gun raised a fair amount of questions among the news media. As they did with Elizabeth, they staked out where I lived in the hope of getting some answers. And as Elizabeth did, I stayed as far away from where I lived as possible.

  But while the press didn’t know how to find me, someone else who saw the video did.

  The call came right after another hospital visit, this one to Eli. After two hours of surgery and one slug of lead removed from his abdomen, he continued to be recovering nicely.

  “Give my regards to Eagle,” he told me with a wink. He never asked if it was my father who delivered the kill shot to the Mudir. Nor did he have to.

  “Is that really you?” I asked, answering the phone. It was Tracy calling.

  “Meet me in the park in an hour,” he said. “You know where.”

  I did. I knew exactly where.

  An hour later, I arrived at Cleopatra’s Needle in Central Park, Tracy’s favorite place to think. He hugged me, but there was no smile.

  “Where’s Annabelle?” I asked.

  “I dropped her off at Lucinda’s,” he said.

  As much as I missed our little girl and was desperate to see her, I understood why Tracy had asked our babysitter to watch her while we talked.

  “So you saw the video, huh?”

  “Yes, and I read the Grimes article, too,” he said. “If you’re not careful, you’re going to win that guy a Pulitzer.”

  I’d promised Allen Grimes that he’d look like a hero. Not only did he get to break the story of the bomb scare at Penn Station, he was able to detail his “patriotic role” in originally keeping the story under wraps. Forget the Pulitzer, though. If I knew Grimes, he was angling for his own cable show. Grimes on Crimes, only now on TV.

  “When did you get back?” I asked Tracy.

  I assumed he’d left the city with Annabelle, and I was right. He’d gone to visit his sister in Providence. I assumed, as well, that what brought him back was the video. But I was wrong.

  “Before I left I checked the mail. There was a letter from Mosa,” he said. “I took it with me, but I only just opened it yesterday.”

  The adoption agency had originally advised us not to be in contact with Annabelle’s mother in South Africa, but Tracy and I thought otherwise. Mosa should know that her daughter was well taken care of and loved, and that her decision to give Annabelle up for adoption, so she might have a better life, should never be regretted. Exchanging letters every few months was our way of doing that.

  “What did she write?” I asked.

  Tracy stared up for a moment at the large obelisk towering over us. “It’s what she didn’t write,” he said. “It’s what she never writes. Mosa never complains or even mentions how hard she has it. She’s always just thankful that Annabelle is with us in America.”

  Tracy looked at me. I knew what he was trying to say.

  “You had every right to be mad as hell at me,” I said.

  “Maybe at first. But without sounding too corny, I didn’t stop to think about the danger you were obviously in, and how you weren’t doing it for yourself. For that alone, I’m a fool if I can’t forgive you.”

  I hugged Tracy. He was smiling now. “Thank you,” I said.

  “Shall we go get our daughter?”

  “Absolutely.”

  We walked away from Cleopatra’s Needle, the sun high over a beautiful June day. Our city had been rocked, once again the target of terrorism. People were on edge, fearful that there were more attacks to come. But no one was hiding. The park was bustling. There were joggers, bikers, sunbathers, couples on benches, parents and kids—anyone and everyone. They were all enjoying themselves. They were all busy living. Because that’s what we do.

  In three words, I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.

  Well put, Robert Frost.

  “It’s pretty cool, in a way,” said Tracy as we continued to walk.

  “What is?”

  “That I’m married to someone who once worked for the CIA. I mean, it sounds so wild. My husband, the ex-CIA guy.”

  Oh, boy. Here we go again. About that ex part …

  “Funny you should mention that,” I said.

  Read on for a sneak preview of the next thrilling

  instalment in the Women’s Murder Club series

  Coming October 2019

  JULIAN LAMBERT was an ex-con in his midthirties, sweet faced, with thinning, light-colored hair, wearing a red down jacket.

  As he sat on a bench in Union Square waiting for his phone call, he took in the view of the Christmas tree at the center of the square. The tree was really something: an eighty-three-foottall cone of green lights with a star on top, ringed by pots of pointy red flowers, surrounded by a red-painted picket fence.

  That tree was secure. It wasn’t going anywhere.

  It was lunchtime, and all around him consumers hurried out of stores weighed down with shopping bags, evidence of money pissed away in an orgy of spending. Julian wondered idly how these dummies were going to pay for their commercially fabricated gifting spree. Almost catching him by surprise, Julian’s phone vibrated.

  He fished it out of his pocket, connected, and said his name, and Mr. Loman, the boss, said, “Hello.”

  Julian knew that he was meant only to listen, and that was fine with him. He felt both excited and soothed as Loman explained just enough of the plan to allow Julian to salivate at the possibilities.

  A heist.

  A huge one.

  The plan had many moving parts, Loman said, but if it went off as designed, by this time next year Julian would be living in the Caribbean, or Medellín, or Saint-Tropez. He was picturing a life of blue skies and sunshine, with a side of leggy young things in string bikinis, when Loman asked if he had any questions.

  “I’m good to go, boss.”

  “Then ge
t moving. No slipups.”

  “You can bank on me,” said Julian, glad that Loman barked back, “Twenty-two fake dive, slot right long, on one.”

  Julian cracked up. He had played ball in college, a very long time ago, but he still had moves. He clicked off the call, sized up the vehicular and foot traffic, and chose his route.

  It was go time.

  JULIAN SAW his run as a punt return.

  He charged into an elderly man in a shearling coat, sending the man sprawling. He snatched up the old guy’s shopping bag, saying, “Thanks very much, knucklehead.”

  What counted was that he had the ball.

  With the bag tucked under his arm, Julian ran across Geary, dodging and weaving through the crowd, heading toward the intersection at Stockton. He waited for a break in traffic at the red light, and when it came, he sprinted across the street and charged along the broad, windowed side of Neiman Marcus. Revolving glass doors split a crowd of shoppers into long lines of colorful dots filing out onto the sidewalk, accompanied by Christmas music: “I played my drum for him, pa-rum-pumpum-pum.” It was all so crazy.

  Julian was still running.

  He yelled, “Coming through! No brakes!” He wove around the merry shoppers, sideswiped the UPS man loading his truck, and, with knees and elbows pumping, bag secured under his arm, dashed up the Geary Street straightaway and veered left to cross again.

  Another crowd of shoppers spilled out of Valentino, and Julian shot out his left hand to stiff-arm a young dude, who fell against a woman in a fur coat. Bags and packages clattered to the sidewalk. Julian high-stepped around and over the obstacles, then broke back again into a sprint, turning left on Grant Avenue.

  He chortled as oncoming pedestrians scattered. Giving the finger to someone who yelled at him, knocking slowpokes out of his way, Julian shouted, “Merry fucking Christmas, everybody!”

  God, this was fun. He couldn’t see the goalposts, but he knew that he was scoring, big-time.

  Julian ate up the pavement with his long strides as he listened for sirens. He glanced behind him and saw, finally, two people who looked like cops running up from the rear.