by Mark Alpert
“Well, it’s almost six o’clock now. Do you want to—”
“What did you say?” He looked at her, alarmed, his eyes wide open. “Almost six?”
Jenna nodded, pointing at the sunflower clock on the wall. “Is something wrong? You look worried.”
He stared at the clock, as if in disbelief. “God, I didn’t realize it was so late!” He got up from the couch, banging his knees against the coffee table. “We have to get out of here!”
“Why? What’s going on?” Jenna stood up too, her legs trembling.
Abbu grabbed her elbow and started pulling her across the living room. “That was one of Raza’s instructions! He said we had to leave the building by six. No later!”
She stopped, digging the heels of her sneakers into the living-room carpet. “You heard Raza say this? Inside your head?”
“Please, Jenna!” He got a better grip on her arm and tried to drag her toward the apartment’s front door. “The soldiers are coming!”
Carlos dashed out of the kitchen to see what the trouble was. Hector followed at a more leisurely pace and grinned as he approached Jenna’s father. “Señor, where are you going? You just got here.”
Abbu turned toward the Latin Kings and pointed out the window. “The FSU is going to raid the building! They’ll be here any minute!”
Hector kept grinning. “Calm down, Señor. I always take precautions. Two of my friends are on the rooftop, keeping an eye on everything. They’ll warn us if any Federales come near.”
Abbu shook his head. “No, we’re going!” He looked over his shoulder at Jenna. “Just trust me, okay? Can you do that? Please?”
She glanced at Hector and Carlos, then turned back to her father. He was acting like a madman, feverish and unhinged. She wanted to tell him to go back to the couch and relax, maybe lie down for a few hours. But Abbu’s gaze was so desperate. He was pleading with her, begging to be believed. And because he was her father, Jenna was willing to at least pretend to believe him. She owed him that much.
She took his hand and headed for the apartment’s door. “All right, where do you want to go?”
“Just away from here. Far away.” He ran ahead, opened the door, and stepped into the corridor. “We’ll figure out the rest later.”
Hector and Carlos followed them out of the apartment. It was on the building’s ground floor, so within fifteen seconds all of them marched down the corridor and rushed through the lobby. Abbu hesitated for a moment after they stepped outside, and then he started walking south. He pulled Jenna along, striding across the playground that lay in the shadows of the housing project’s buildings.
Hector caught up to them and walked beside Jenna. He was still grinning. “I admire you, chica. You have great respect for your father, and that’s very rare. But we’re not in any danger right now. Here, I’ll prove it to you.”
He turned around to face the building they’d just exited and looked up at its roof, sixteen stories above them. Then he inserted his thumb and middle finger into his mouth and let out a piercing whistle. “Hey, Luis! Manuel! I need a status report! Do you see any—”
Jenna heard the crack of a gunshot, distant but unmistakable. She looked up and saw a boy in a black-and-gold tracksuit on the roof, running with his head down. A moment later, another gunshot resounded overhead, and the boy staggered toward the southern end of the rooftop. Reeling and lurching, he banged into the low parapet at the edge of the roof and tumbled over it.
In horror, Jenna watched him plummet sixteen stories down.
Then she heard the rumble of armored vehicles speeding toward them.
TWENTY-SIX
Frazier shot the lookouts himself. He took aim from a sniper’s nest he’d improvised on the Triborough Bridge, at the top of a steel-gray bridge tower that rose two hundred feet above the Harlem River. From there, Frazier had an excellent view of the northern half of the housing project, including the roof of the apartment building where the Latin Kings were.
Both of the gangbangers on the roof wore gold bandannas. They were five hundred yards away, and the wind was strong at this height, but Frazier’s enhanced eyesight made the targeting easy. First he picked off the taller boy, the one in the tank top. The other gangbanger started to run, heading for the building’s stairway, but Frazier lined up his rifle’s telescopic sight with the bandanna. The bullet drilled into the punk’s skull, and he took a swan dive off the roof.
Then Frazier shouted, “Go!” into his radio, and the assault began. Three Stryker vehicles barreled down the bridge’s exit ramp and veered left toward the Triborough Houses.
He smiled. The operation was going well. There were a few missteps at the start; an hour ago, when Frazier’s team raided the apartment on Prospect Park West, they’d found no one at home. But they did find Jenna Khan’s nightshirt in a laundry basket, proving she’d been there. And when they put out an alert for the apartment’s occupant, Tamara Carter, they learned she was a mayoral aide who’d been killed at Gracie Mansion the night before. If Jenna had gone into Manhattan with Tamara, she could’ve rendezvoused with her friends in the Latin Kings, whose headquarters was relatively close to the mansion. And maybe her father and Weinberg were there too. It was far from a sure thing, but Frazier felt it was worth checking out.
Now he looked down at the Triborough Houses and watched the Strykers jump the curb and pull up in front of the apartment building. Half of the FSU officers rushed into the building’s lobby while the other half fanned out across the housing project, chasing the drug dealers who’d started running from the assault team. Frazier assumed that if the Latin Kings were harboring the escapees, they’d be in one of the gang’s apartments, and he also assumed they’d put up a fight. But the FSU had more and better guns. If they got into a shoot-out, it would be over soon.
As Frazier eyeballed the fleeing drug dealers, though, he spotted a group of Latin Kings sprinting across a playground. It looked like several gangbangers had gathered in a protective cluster around their leader, a tall, skinny punk in a black T-shirt. Running alongside him were two smaller figures: a balding, brown-skinned man in a polo shirt and a pretty, short-haired woman in jeans.
They were Hamid and Jenna Khan. There was no sign of Weinberg, but he probably wasn’t far.
Frazier raised his rifle, but the Khans ran behind another of the project’s buildings before he could take a shot. They were headed south, and that was bad for targeting—his line of sight to that part of the project was blocked, there were too many buildings in the way. But Frazier didn’t get upset. This time the Khan bitch had no hope of escaping him. And he’d rather take her alive anyway.
He slung his rifle over his shoulder and left the sniper’s nest. Moving quickly, he climbed down the access ladder to the bridge’s roadway, where another Stryker was idling. He didn’t want to miss this.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Jenna had only one thought: Save Abbu. Now that she’d finally found her father, she didn’t intend to lose him again.
She gripped his arm above the elbow as they ran across the housing project, racing down an asphalt pathway between the identical redbrick apartment buildings. Hector ran beside them and shouted orders in Spanish to half a dozen Latin Kings, who’d flocked around him like Secret Service agents, each man willing to take a bullet for his commander. Carlos ran ahead of the pack, leading them past a playground and a community garden, and more gangbangers emerged from the lobbies of the project’s buildings. There was a minimum of panic, and each Latin King seemed to know what to do. Jenna got the feeling that they’d practiced this escape plan, readying themselves for the day when the Feds would attack.
Then the FSU officers opened fire behind them, and the orderly plan fell apart.
The bullets struck two of the teenagers running to Jenna’s left. Both were big, brawny kids in sleeveless gold shirts, but they fell instantly and slid across the asphalt. The bullets also hit an old woman standing by the garden fence and a toddler skipping through the
playground. Windows shattered on the ground floors of the buildings around them, and screams rose from all over the project. But the soldiers behind them kept firing.
Hector leapt forward and nudged Carlos to the right. “That way!” Without breaking stride, he pointed at another playground up ahead. Then he looked over his shoulder. “Vámanos, muchachos! Fast as you can!”
They swerved to the right, but the next round of bullets struck down two more Latin Kings. One was the tall boy in the tracksuit who’d rescued Jenna in Central Park. The bullet plunged into his back and exploded out of his chest. Blood splattered on the pathway in front of him, and he collapsed face-first into the mess.
Jenna stumbled and almost lost her balance, overcome by the screaming and gore. But she stayed on her feet and squeezed her father’s arm and pulled him toward the second playground, which was larger than the one they’d just passed. All the kids and parents had already fled the sandbox and the jungle gym, but a couple of old men in gym shorts stood on the handball court, looking stupefied. They’d dropped the ball they’d been playing with a few seconds ago, and now it rolled across the court and bounced against the high concrete wall behind them.
Hector waved his arms at them. “Señores! Don’t just stand there! Take cover!”
After a moment of paralysis, the old men scurried around the edge of the wall and dove behind it. Jenna followed them, dragging her father, who dropped to his knees as soon as he was safely behind cover. Hector and Carlos and the other Latin Kings skidded to a halt beside them, breathing hard and clutching their chests. The FSU fired another fusillade at them, but the bullets slammed into the wall. They pocked the concrete slab but couldn’t penetrate it.
Hector stepped toward Jenna and her dad. “Are you all right, chica? Señor? You can rest here for a moment, okay?”
Jenna glared at him. “We can’t rest. The soldiers are coming!”
“Don’t worry. My boys will slow them down.” He raised his arm and pointed at the upper floors of the apartment buildings. “Watch.”
She looked up. Several windows were open on the fifteenth and sixteenth floors of the project’s buildings. Hector slipped two fingers into his mouth, just like he’d done a minute ago, and let out another whistle, which was a signal to his men in those apartments. All at once, they pointed their handguns out the windows and fired on the FSU officers below.
Jenna couldn’t see the soldiers—the wall was in the way, and she didn’t dare peek around its edge—but she heard them yelling and running for cover. It was like the night of her arrest, when her neighbors in Brighton Beach took potshots at the officers in the street, but this was a hundred times worse. The soldiers fired back at the Latin Kings in the apartments, shattering dozens of windows. Then Jenna heard the rumble of the armored vehicles again, and the gunfire got louder. The FSU men inside the Strykers aimed the vehicles’ machine guns at the apartments. The bullets blasted the redbrick buildings, and powdery cascades of debris rained down.
Hector leaned toward Jenna, bringing his lips close to her ear so she could hear him over the noise. “Now the Federales are busy, so we can slip away. Come on.”
He placed a hand on her back and turned her around. Just fifty feet from the handball court was East 120th Street, the southern edge of the Triborough Houses. It was a relatively wide crosstown street, with three traffic lanes and a line of cars parked by the curb. Carlos had already run ahead and opened the driver-side door of a dirty gray Kia. It was a beater of a car, scraped and dented and at least ten years old. Jenna pointed at the thing. “That’s our getaway car?”
Hector led her and her father toward the Kia. “Beggars can’t be choosers, princesa. Get in the backseat with your papi and keep your heads down, okay?”
Jenna got in the car and pulled Abbu into the seat beside her. He was gasping and wheezing, scared out of his mind. She patted his knee, trying to calm him, and helped him put on his seat belt.
Meanwhile, Hector jumped into the front passenger seat and looked at Carlos, who’d just started the engine. “Let’s roll, amigo. Turn around and go to Second Avenue. We’ll head downtown to 110th and then—”
A familiar rumble interrupted him. Hector looked over his shoulder and stared through the car’s rear window at a fast-approaching Stryker. The armored vehicle charged down Second Avenue, then slowed to make a left turn on 120th Street. It was only a hundred yards behind.
“Change of plans!” Hector pointed forward. “Go to First Avenue!”
Carlos pulled away from the curb and gunned the Kia’s engine. The rear tires squealed, and in four and a half seconds they reached the corner of 120th and First. But another Stryker was dead ahead, and a third was two blocks to the north, racing down First Avenue. Carlos hit the brakes and turned to Hector. “What do I do?”
“Turn right!” Hector’s eyes gleamed. To Jenna’s surprise, he didn’t look worried. His face was mad, ecstatic. “Just do it!”
They had no choice. Carlos peeled out and turned south on First Avenue, even though it put them against the one-way traffic. He jammed his palm against the Kia’s horn, blaring a warning. The oncoming cars swerved out of the Kia’s path, careening to the left and right.
Hector let out a whoop. “That’s it, Carlos! Cruise right on through. Show them who’s boss!”
Jenna stretched one arm in front of Abbu to brace him and reached toward Carlos with the other. “Stop, you’re gonna kill us! Turn right at the next corner!”
But when they reached the intersection of First Avenue and 119th, they saw more Strykers. The armored vehicles barreled down Second Avenue to the west and Pleasant Avenue to the east, keeping pace with them on both sides. The only option was to keep driving south against the traffic. There were four lanes on First Avenue, giving Carlos some room to maneuver, but it was still a suicidal ride. Jenna stared in horror at the taxis and trucks up ahead, which blared their own horns as they sped closer.
For fifteen blocks, Carlos dodged the oncoming vehicles, which skidded and fishtailed and sideswiped each other as they steered around the Kia. But the Stryker chasing them down First Avenue simply knocked the cars aside and accelerated down the street, coming closer every second. And then, as they approached 105th Street, Jenna spotted an armored vehicle up ahead. One of the Strykers had looped around to cut off their escape. It was just two blocks away and closing in fast.
Jenna turned away from the windshield and looked at her father. He hadn’t said a word since the raid began. He just sat there, terrified, staring straight ahead. She wanted to reassure him, to say something hopeful and comforting before the soldiers stopped their car and arrested them, but she was just as frightened as he was. It would be better if the FSU killed them, she thought. Better if the soldiers opened fire on the Kia and slaughtered them all. Although her father had said little about Rikers, Jenna suspected it had become a concentration camp. What happened to you there, Abbu? What did they do to you and Raza?
She shook her head, angry and desperate. But then Jenna remembered something else her father had said. He’d mentioned it ten minutes ago, back in Carlos’s grandmother’s apartment.
Something about a bridge.
“Carlos, turn left! Left!”
The boy reacted at once, steering the Kia so sharply that it almost spun out of control. They sped east on 105th Street, which dead-ended a block away.
Hector turned around in his seat and scowled at her. “Why’d you do that?” He pointed at the concrete barrier at the end of the street. “Now we’re trapped!”
Jenna ignored him. She kept her eyes on Carlos. “Stop the car right here!”
He stopped the Kia about twenty feet from the dead end. On the other side of the barrier was the FDR Drive, and beyond the highway was the Harlem River. To the right was another housing project full of redbrick apartment buildings, and extending east from the project was a slender steel walkway that arched over the highway and the river. It was the 103rd Street pedestrian bridge, the one her father had
mentioned, which led to Randalls Island.
Jenna opened the Kia’s rear door, stepped to the curb, and pulled Abbu out of the backseat. “Come on!”
Hector was furious. He opened his own door and rushed toward her. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“There’s no checkpoint on the footbridge.” She pointed at the walkway, which was painted an awful shade of green. “We can get out of Manhattan and go to Randalls.”
“And what then? We’ll be trapped there too.”
Hector seemed ready to keep arguing, but Carlos cut him off. The kid jumped out of the Kia and grabbed Hector’s arm. “Please, let’s go!” He looked down the street at the convoy of Stryker vehicles hurtling toward them. “They’re coming!”
Jenna dashed toward the footbridge, running as fast as she could while pulling her father along. Hector and Carlos followed them, sprinting on the sidewalk that ran between the barrier and the apartment buildings. Luckily, the path was too narrow for the Strykers, which halted on the street behind the Kia. But a moment later, the soldiers poured out of the armored vehicles and came after them.
There was a concrete ramp sloping up to the bridge, and in less than a minute Jenna was dragging Abbu up the incline. He kept looking over his shoulder at the officers in black uniforms, who jogged in neat rows on the sidewalk, cradling their assault rifles. They were less than a hundred yards behind, but they didn’t raise their guns. Someone had clearly ordered them to hold their fire and capture the fugitives alive. As Jenna stared at the soldiers she glimpsed a tall FSU officer marching behind them and shouting something into his radio. He had a thick, muscled neck and a blond buzz cut.