Stalin's Final Sting

by Andrew Turpin

  “Yes, makes sense,” Dave said. “My thinking exactly.”

  Johnson refrained from giving the thin smile he felt tempted by as Dave called up Dover and outlined the plan, which his boss agreed to immediately.

  As he spoke, Dave navigated the Suburban down the off-ramp and along Hamilton Avenue, then cut left, doing a zigzag route through downtown Brooklyn and onto Fourth Avenue.

  A few minutes later, the radio burst into life again. It was Dover to say that there had been a bomb scare at Union Street subway and that it had been closed. All passengers had been evacuated and NYPD were dealing with it. “So go straight to Atlantic Avenue instead,” Dover said. “If that’s a blank, then head to Hoyt-Schermerhorn or Hoyt Street subways. I’m still trying to get the subway trains stopped.”

  As Dave drove farther north up Fourth Avenue, Johnson could see the flashing blue and red lights outside the row of delis, pizzerias, and discount stores next to the subway entrances on both sides of the street. There were several police cars, two fire engines, and two ambulances. Dover had gotten that correct.

  Dave cut across onto Fifth Avenue for two blocks to avoid the chaos and then continued up to the new entrance to Atlantic Avenue subway station outside the Barclays Center indoor arena.

  “Stop outside the station,” Johnson said.

  He glanced at his watch. There was no way Watson would have been able to dump the car, take a bus, and get into the subway already.

  “Turn your lights and siren off,” Johnson said. “He won’t be in there yet. I don’t want to alert him.”

  “Yeah, sensible,” Dave said, glancing at Ben, who flicked off the emergency lights.

  The Suburban braked sharply to a halt next to a row of steel barriers next to the futuristic, brownstone-colored Barclays Center arena building. In the middle of the entrance plaza was a steel and glass subway entrance, its rust-brown facade matching the color and design of the neighboring arena that dwarfed it. There were only a handful of people on the plaza. It was a quiet time of the day.

  As the vehicle stopped, a thought crossed Johnson’s mind. “Do you two guys have arrest authority?”

  The two men in the front looked at each other momentarily. “No,” said Dave. “We’re surveillance. But don’t worry, we can get special agents here in no time. Or the NYPD would light up the whole area if needed.”

  Johnson looked at the heavens. He hoped they were correct. It would probably take Watson five seconds to work out whether they could officially hold him or not.

  He let the Suburban’s window down, leaned out, and looked behind. He could see a bus stop behind them and three buses in a line heading along Atlantic Avenue toward it.

  As the three men exited the vehicle and walked back along the sidewalk toward the subway entrance, the three buses all began to disgorge passengers onto the plaza. Johnson scrutinized them carefully. There were teenagers with headphones clamped to their ears, grannies shuffling and carrying plastic shopping bags, professional types in suits, and mothers with toddlers. But none of them were tall with mops of white hair.

  “Do all the buses stop here?” Johnson asked. He removed his black cap from his back pocket and put it back on.

  “Mostly. Some stop across there,” Ben said, pointing to Flatbush Avenue, the street that ran down the other side of the plaza and the Barclays Center at forty-five degrees to Atlantic Avenue. “There’s a sixty-three, arriving now.”

  Sure enough, a bus coming from Pier Six was pulling into a stop where Ben was indicating. Again the three men scrutinized the passengers getting off, but none of them remotely matched Watson’s profile.

  “Why don’t we wait and observe for a few minutes,” Johnson said. “What about the outdoor table at Starbucks there? We don’t have to order.” He pointed toward an empty table on the plaza, in front of the coffee shop.

  Dave nodded, and the three of them walked over and sat down. There were a few empty coffee cups from the previous occupants of the table, which made it look as though they had been there for some time.

  “You got a MetroCard?” Ben asked Johnson.

  Johnson nodded, patting his wallet in his pocket. “Yes.” He had bought a seven-day pass for the New York transit network on arrival.

  “Good. Don’t want to have to announce ourselves at the subway barriers if we need to go in.”

  Realistically, what were the chances of Watson using this station? Johnson asked himself. Where else would he go? His conviction that Watson would have dumped the Golf and taken a bus had hardened. So if he didn’t head to this subway, then it would be another, most likely.

  After he and Johnson had eyeballed each other, Watson must have known that every police car in the borough would be on the lookout for him.

  Monday, June 10, 2013

  Brooklyn, New York

  Watson waited until the number sixty-three bus was within a couple of blocks of the Barclays Center, then got off at a stop on the corner of Third Avenue. The last thing he wanted was to be dumped right outside the subway station only to find himself in the middle of a bunch of NYPD officers and cars.

  If, as he assumed, Joe Johnson had informed the FBI and police about his getaway in the Golf, they would most likely be targeting all transit stations in the vicinity on the assumption that he would bail out of the vehicle sooner rather than later.

  So he wanted to approach Atlantic Avenue cautiously on foot. But to do that, he needed to do something else first.

  Watson stood on the sidewalk and looked around. Immediately he saw what he required: Hank’s Saloon, said the sign on the wall, with flames painted around it. It looked rough as hell from the outside, but his long experience in New York bars told Watson it would probably be characterful inside.

  He pushed open the door and, lowering his head to avoid colliding with the low black-painted ceiling, made his way past a heavy, battered old wooden bar where drinkers were sitting on a row of red stools. The clock read ten minutes past seven. It was indeed very characterful and also very dark. The posters advertising various upcoming shows told Watson it was a beer-and-a-shot music joint.

  Watson made his way straight to the bathroom, where he removed his cap and glasses, took out the razor from his pocket, and proceeded to shave his head. Three other drinkers came in while he was doing it. Two ignored him completely; the other, a stocky man in his thirties, stood staring after he had finished using the urinal.

  “I lost a bet,” Watson said. “Can you just check the back to make sure it looks okay?”

  “Sure, buddy,” the guy said, examining it. “Looks good to me. Nice job.” He walked out, and Watson cleared up the clumps of white hair in the sink and on the floor and threw it all in the trash can.

  He replaced the glasses and Washington Nationals cap on his now shaven head and headed out the door. It wasn’t exactly a foolproof disguise but probably the best he could do in the circumstances.

  Watson took a right out of the bar along Atlantic Avenue and walked past an old post office building and a series of food shops until he was drawing near to the distinctive brown and green shape of the Barclays Center ahead of him.

  As he walked past an electronics superstore, Watson slowed down, scanning the sidewalks and the traffic methodically. There were no flashing lights ahead near the subway entrance, no sirens, and no obvious sign of a police lockdown. The only thing that rang an alarm bell was a black Suburban parked about sixty or seventy yards past the subway entrance, against the curb. Watson looked at it carefully for several moments. Was it a federal vehicle? It was difficult to tell from this distance, but there certainly weren’t any officers near it.

  Pulling his cap lower, he went over the crosswalk at the forty-five degree corner of Atlantic Avenue and Flatbush Avenue and sat on a concrete seat next to a pickup zone, positioning himself so he could continue to monitor the Suburban. However, the subway station entrance with its grass-covered roof and the much larger arena building behind it were the main point of his focus. The
re were a few people on the plaza, mainly in groups, and some others were sitting at the tables in front of Starbucks, but all of them looked like casual customers.

  Everything looked good. But Watson wanted to wait until there were more people on the plaza before heading down to the platforms. It didn’t take long. After a few minutes, two buses drew up on the Atlantic Avenue side of the arena building, followed by another two on the Flatbush Avenue side. Within thirty seconds, the plaza was swarming with scores of people, most of them heading for the subway.

  Watson stood. Now was the time to make his move.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Monday, June 10, 2013

  Brooklyn, New York

  From behind the empty take-out Starbucks cup, Johnson was keeping a close eye on the ebb and flow of people moving across the Barclays Center plaza. There was no event currently being staged at the arena, so the vast majority were either getting off buses and heading into the subway or vice versa.

  Behind them, a giant video screen that was visible to all in the plaza was running footage of the Brooklyn Nets, the National Basketball Association team based at the arena.

  Dave and Ben had temporarily turned off their radios, not wanting hisses, crackles, and squelch breaks to give them away and attract the attention of passersby.

  “How long do we give it here?” Ben asked.

  “A little longer,” Johnson said, glancing at his watch. It was a quarter to eight. “Dover’s got cover at the other subways nearby, hasn’t he?”

  “Yep,” Dave said, scrolling down a text message on his phone. “He has, and he’s just messaged me saying there’s three NYPD cars heading here right now. So that takes care of the arrest authority.”

  Two buses drew up at the Atlantic Avenue side of the arena, one following the other as if somehow joined together. At the same time, another two pulled up at the bus stop across the other side of Flatbush Avenue. A large crowd of passengers was disgorged from all four vehicles, jostling and jockeying for position in the rush to get through the subway entrance and down to the trains.

  Clearly Dover’s efforts to have the subway closed had not yet borne fruit.

  Again Johnson watched carefully as the crowds crossed the plaza. There were a couple of men with white hair among the throng, but the body shapes and the gaits were all wrong. A man with iron gray hair ran awkwardly from the second bus on the Flatbush Avenue side toward the subway. And another tall man wearing a blue cap and glasses appeared from behind the station entrance building and made his way around to the front.

  Johnson scratched the old bullet wound on his ear. His eyes flicked from one person to the next. His attention was grabbed by a group of young kids who ran out from the station entrance, forcing the tall man with the blue cap to stop in his tracks. Then he resumed his onward path.

  As the man walked, Johnson watched. His cap appeared to be resting on a bald head, as far as Johnson could make out. But then, as the man drew nearer to the escalators, Johnson’s attention was caught by something else. It was the angular shape of the man’s shoulders and his limp.

  It was Robert Watson. He was certain of it.

  Johnson jerked to his feet. “That’s him, walking in now. Let’s move.”

  The two FBI men stood as one, and the three of them ran across the plaza, just as Watson disappeared from sight.

  While they were running, three NYPD cars, their sirens turned off, braked to a halt on the Atlantic Avenue side of the arena.

  “Don’t stop, they can catch up,” Dave said, without breaking his stride.

  As they reached the entrance, Johnson caught a glimpse of Watson in the entrance hall below, going through the row of turnstiles.

  The three men, seeing the escalators crowded with people, diverted at the last second down the stairs instead.

  As he descended, Johnson could see Watson striding at surprising speed down the left side of the hall, following the signs for trains toward Manhattan and the Bronx.

  Johnson took the steps two at a time, keeping to the left side, hoping he wouldn’t slip. To his right, three tattooed men climbing the stairs stopped dead, blocking the FBI duo, who were forced to dodge around them.

  Johnson, now several yards ahead of Ben and Dave, grabbed his MetroCard from his pocket, swiped it, and pushed through the barrier just in time to see the blue cap disappear around the corner into a tunnel at the bottom of a ramp. Watson was heading toward the center platforms for lines four and five, the express services running north into Manhattan and south to New Lots Avenue and Flatbush Avenue.

  He was certain he saw Watson breaking into a run just as he rounded the corner and moved out of Johnson’s line of sight.

  Johnson sprinted down the ramp, lined by white-tiled walls with maroon stripes, catching a glimpse in his peripheral vision of Dave and Ben behind him, their footsteps thudding.

  He rounded the left-hand bend at the bottom of the ramp into the tunnel, almost slipping as he sidestepped to narrowly avoid an old lady carrying shopping bags. Two teenagers, earphones clamped to their ears and walking side by side, reactively parted at the last second to let Johnson through between them.

  Watson was nowhere in sight: he must have already gone up the stairs to the express train platforms.

  Johnson reached the bottom of the staircase just in time to see Watson clear the top step. He could hear the rumble of an approaching train on the platforms above.

  The old bastard’s fitter than I expected, Johnson thought.

  He took the stairs two at a time, knees now twinging, and reached the top, heading onto the eastern end of the platform just as a silver steel Manhattan-bound train pulled into the station alongside him, a couple of yards to his right. The train, its twin headlamps beaming bright in the gloom, was slowing quickly but still traveling with some momentum as it continued toward the far western end of the platform.

  Now Watson was visible well ahead of him, running along the platform at a speed that belied his age, the train coming up behind him.

  “This is an Express Five train. The next stop is Nevins Street . . . ” boomed the automated public address system.

  While the Barclays Center entrance to the subway, opened only the previous year, was sparkling new, the platforms below were part of the much older original station, dating to 1908. Archaic, chunky square green supporting pillars ran down both sides of the central island platform, a few yards apart and close to the edge of the platform.

  As Watson continued running, Johnson could see a fat man in a brown leather jacket, who was focusing intently on his cell phone screen, meandering toward him, not looking where he was going. He veered to his left just as Watson drew level, forcing Watson to try to sidestep to avoid him.

  But Watson barged hard into the man’s left shoulder, causing the CIA veteran to lose his balance and lurch to his right, where he crashed with some force into one of the green pillars.

  Watson bounced off the pillar and went sprawling headfirst to the ground. Johnson could see he was trying desperately to recover himself, both arms flailing, but in a flash, he tumbled over the yellow hazard markings and fell off the edge of the platform into the path of the number five express train that was approaching behind him.

  Instantaneously there came an ear-piercing screech of steel on steel as the train conductor slammed on his brakes. The squealing continued as the train slowed, but it was still sliding onward toward Watson, who Johnson knew must be on the tracks right in front of it.

  Johnson continued running at full tilt, although he knew it was too late to do anything. A group of teenage girls standing near a stairwell down to the lower level platforms, just a few yards from the impact, began screaming and wailing, as did two older women waiting with young children.

  Finally, the teeth-jarring noise stopped as the train came to a halt. It was only when Johnson finally overtook the driver’s cab that he saw Watson’s body sprawled at the front of the train, his head lying at an odd angle over the rail nearest to
the platform.

  The disgraced former CIA veteran wasn’t moving.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Monday, June 10, 2013

  Brooklyn, New York

  The three paramedics finally picked up the aluminum stretcher on which Watson was lying. His body was secured by three orange safety straps, his face was still contorted with pain, and there was a bloodstain on the white sheet beneath his hip. His shaven head and face had a distinctly gray, slightly unreal pallor.

  As the stretcher rose, Johnson caught Watson’s eye. His former boss lifted his head a little and turned it to look fully at Johnson.

  “You stupid asshole,” the ex-intelligence chief groaned. “You don’t know what you’re doing. You never did.” His head sank back onto the stretcher again. Watson had a broken shoulder, a broken femur, a deep hip wound that had required the paramedics to insert emergency stitches right there on the platform, extensive bruising and a large gash on his temple. But despite the injuries, there was no mistaking the look of hatred on his face.

  Johnson folded his arms and stared at Watson. “It’s been a long time coming, Robert,” he said. “You’ve deserved what’s coming to you. You’re a disgrace to your country and yourself.”

  He would have said a lot more, but the paramedics carrying the stretcher set off past Johnson and along the island platform back toward the eastern end of the Atlantic Avenue station. A powerful emergency police floodlight cast an eerie deep shadow ahead of the stretcher as it moved.

  The three NYPD officers, who had been supervising proceedings and who had formally arrested Watson as soon as he had been stabilized, followed the stretcher. The FBI duo Dave and Ben tucked in right behind them, and Johnson, together with Vic, who had joined him on the platform, did likewise.