Raging Heat

by Richard Castle

  Heat appraised him and said, “How old are you?”

  “Go ahead, hate me for my highly visual imagination.”

  On Beaver Street the power was still on when Nikki parked, but the streetlights didn’t keep her from bumping the curb with her front tire because it was submerged. She checked her mirrors and gave the block a full rotation. All the retail shops were closed, as was the Delmonico’s restaurant on the corner. Nobody was out driving, and the only vehicles on the street were parked cars and a UPS truck, all of which were empty. “I’m not seeing our boys.”

  “Bet they got slowed by the storm.”

  Detective Ochoa confirmed over his cell that the Roach Coach had indeed fallen victim to a road closure. “The FDR and Henry Hudson are both NG,” he said. “High water was supposed to be ten-to-twelve, but now they say it’s rising over a foot above that. Rhymer and Feller are tailing us, but, with the streets like they are, I can’t see us there for maybe an hour.” All Heat could imagine was her suspect up there in his apartment making his escape out some back way.

  “You up for this?” she asked Rook.

  “What? You’re not ordering me to stay behind in the car for once?”

  “No,” she said with a sly grin. “You’re going to give me a pony ride to the door so I don’t wreck my shoes.”

  He actually offered to do that, even came around to the driver’s-side door and crouched for her to hop on. She gave his ass a swat and he gave up that notion. They slogged ankle-deep to the front of the apartment building, a prewar terra-cotta, twelve stories tall. Heat shielded her eyes from the whipping wind and rain and tilted her head back. The penthouse lights were lit.

  “NYPD, open up.” Detective Heat banged once more and listened. She heard movement inside and stepped back, then launched herself forward to deliver a kick to the sweet spot of the door. In the blink before it landed, the dead bolt slid and it started to open. Her momentum carried her sole into the wood and the door flew about six inches before it slammed into someone behind it who cried out.

  She came in with her gun drawn and took position over the man cringing on the floor. She handed Rook the Beretta from her ankle holster and told him to hold it on him while she checked the other rooms. “It’s wet,” he said.

  “Don’t worry, it’ll still fire.” When she came back a moment later, she holstered and came around to cuff the attorney.

  Reese Cristóbal wept. Sitting cross-legged in his foyer, blood streaming from his split lip onto his champagne carpet, the Gateway Lawyer blubbered like a toddler. Heat tried to raise her detectives, but cellular service had gone funky, either through excess call volume or equipment damage. Nikki decided to give them ten more minutes. She turned to her prisoner. “So how low are you? Putting yourself out there like some community asset, saying you’re placing immigrants in jobs and smoothing the transition for them, and all the time it’s a cover for your ID theft ring. No, forget that. It’s more than a cover; your position guaranteed you a ready supply of slave labor to pick through the trash and gather your stolen documents.” At first it looked like he was nodding agreement, but the man rocked back and forth, keening and moaning.

  “Welcome to your reality, counselor. You are cooked; you know that, right? You are not only going down for human trafficking and every related civil rights and abuse charge we can throw at you, plus ID theft and bank fraud.…” His sobs grew louder so she spoke up to drown them. “…I am going to see you tried as an accessory in the attempted murder of Fabian Beauvais by one of your bulls. And who knows? Maybe you had something to do with his killing, too.”

  “No!”

  “And his fiancée, too. Wasn’t Jeanne Capois also enslaved in your shred operation? Maybe you’ll also go down for her.”

  Cristóbal’s whining mixed in perfect pitch with the eighty-mile-per-hour winds roaring between the buildings in the Financial District. “No, no, I’ll cut a deal.”

  “That’s not your choice.”

  “I know things.” He finally brought his gaze to hers. “Things you want.”

  Was he acting, or was this the break Nikki had hoped for—if not the smoking gun, at least the hot trail? She tested him. “Tell me about Beauvais.”

  “I know all about Beauvais.”

  “What did he steal from you that was so dangerous?” When he didn’t answer, she asked, “What about Keith Gilbert? What’s his connection to all this?”

  He licked his mouth and smiled broadly, and when he did, his lip parted again and blood dripped off his chin. With the wind and rain and flashes of lightning, he could have been Dracula. “Deal first,” he said.

  Heat checked her watch. Nearly an hour had passed, and still no backup. She checked the window. Water had risen to the chassis of her undercover. Any higher, she might not be able to start the engine. Cristóbal was scum. Heat needed to get him to swear a statement before he lost his fear and did too much thinking.

  She turned to Rook. “Let’s get him to the First Precinct.”

  There were whitecaps on Beaver Street as they crossed to the car and got him into the backseat. Relieved when the ignition fired up, Nikki said to Rook, “Change of plan. It’s worse than I thought out here. In all this, Ericsson Place is too far to go. I’m thinking One PP is closer.”

  “You’re the skipper. Want to cast off?”

  The car filled with high beams from behind. She checked her mirror and made out the form of a black armored vehicle pulling up. “May be our lucky day. Looks like we’ve got backup, after all.”

  But when Heat registered that the BearCat drawing alongside did not have NYPD or National Guard markings, instinct took over. She threw the transmission in low gear and floored it. Her tires spun until they made purchase, and the car slogged forward, churning water. “Down, down,” she yelled just as the rear windows shattered with automatic rifle fire.

  Heat jerked the wheel and made a sharp right up William Street. Too busy driving, Nikki couldn’t turn to see, but she knew Reese Cristóbal had to be dead. She reached for the two-way and keyed the mic, “One-Lincoln-Forty, ten-thirteen, officer needs help.” She released the button. After the squelch came a blizzard of radio calls stepping on each other. “You hit?” she asked Rook?

  “No.” The car filled with light again as the BearCat followed in pursuit. He twisted in his seat for a rear view. “Shit.”

  “One-Lincoln-Forty. Ten-thirteen, officer pursued by heavily armed suspects in armored vehicle. Moving north on William, passing—” She called over the wind to Rook, “What’s our cross?”

  “Wall Street—No, Pine, Pine.”

  A short burst of automatic gunfire flashed from the passenger side of the assault truck and took Heat’s side mirror clean off. She steered sharply to the right, then left, then right again to become a weaving target. “You hit?”

  “Stop asking me. I’ll let you know.”

  Back on the two-way. “One Lincoln-Forty, taking automatic fire. Ten-thirteen, William and Pine. Do you read?” Nothing but garble. She might be getting heard, but there was no way to know. Heat ditched the mic and said, “Hang on.”

  A restaurant-linen-and-uniform delivery truck started to inch into the road across their path with its flashers flashing, driven by someone who must not have been able to see in the cyclone. Nikki whipped the wheel to the left and her vehicle responded, clearing the front of the truck, with Rook’s door taking a mean, shrieking scrape as she passed. Behind her, through the gale, she heard the throaty blast of the BearCat’s horn as it got blocked.

  “Ha-ha, denied,” said Rook. “Where now?”

  “We keep going to One PP. When we reach Fulton, I can cut up to—forget that.” Ahead of her, a car had struck a light pole that toppled and jutted across the intersection, barring the street.

  “Can you squeeze by on the sidewalk?”

  “Not sure,” she said, squinting t
hrough the sideways rain. “Don’t want to get wedged.”

  “I dunno, might make it.”

  “And also might get wedged.” They both made another rear check and saw no headlights. “Plan B.” Heat turned a right down Platt.

  “Whoa, check it out.” A small car floated sideways past Rook’s window. “Now there’s something you don’t see every day.”

  “Not liking this, Rook,” she said in a low voice. “Not liking this.” The tide had risen significantly, coming up the top of her wheels.

  “Maybe we should have risked the wedge instead of driving where? Toward the river?”

  “Um, not helpful?”

  “Just observing.”

  “Just driving.” The engine became swamped and died.

  “Not anymore.” While she tried to restart, the sky to the north lit up with a huge blue flash followed by another. “Lightning?”

  One second later, the entire block fell into pitch darkness. The two-way crackled with multiple calls about an explosion at the Con Ed station on Fourteenth and advisories that all of Manhattan was blacked out south of Grand Central. Rook said helpfully, “I have a little squeezy flashlight on my key ring.” He indicated the backseat. “I’m thinking Mr. Cristóbal won’t miss us if we get out and walk to—” He stopped short as the car blazed with daylight.

  The BearCat roared back, charging toward them. “Out, out, out,” called Nikki, but the flood had risen halfway up the doors and the resistance from water pressure made them impossible to push open.

  Bang!

  The impact threw them hard against their seat belt straps and deployed both airbags. Still conscious, Nikki wiped a trickle of blood from her nose and shook off the stupor from her face crashing into the inflated sack. Beside her Rook was coming out of it, too. Behind them the three-hundred-horsepower Caterpillar diesel revved. The BearCat rode high enough not to be bothered by the up-tide. Six tires securely gripped the wet pavement and the assault vehicle pushed them forward by its reinforced front-impact grill.

  Helpless to do anything but go along for the ride, Heat pulled the hand brake to no avail. The black machine shoved them slowly but relentlessly off the street and down the ramp of a parking garage. In the fearsome blare of the BearCat’s head lamps, they saw their fate ahead of them. Submerged cars bobbed on the incline. The whole place was inundated by tidewater and filling fast.

  White-water rapids cascaded down from street level into the underground garage, which had already filled enough to swallow the dozen or so cars they could see floating around them. Heat’s plain wrap banged to a stop when it crunched against the tangle of autos blocking the ramp. Still, the BearCat’s engine revved louder and louder, pressing them in place. Their attackers’ strategy was clear and chilling: to brace them there, trapped, to drown in the rising tide.

  It wouldn’t take long. With the back windows blown out, the flow had already begun to gush over the side doors with impunity and both of them sat with water above their laps. “Can you move?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  Nikki undid her seat belt and got on her knees for a quick check of the situation. Because of the incline of the ramp, all she could see of the truck out the rear was the black steel ram on the reinforced front grill, which meant anyone up in the truck would be high enough not to see over it to them. The water had risen even more and Reese Cristóbal’s corpse bobbed up to her seat back. The back half of his head was gone. She fended the body away and said, “Come on, let’s move. We’re going to try an end around.”

  “Problem.” He gave her a wide stare. “Seat belt’s stuck.”

  “Is it your hands? Did you get hurt?”

  “No, it’s the buckle. I keep trying and it won’t unlock.”

  “Move ’em, let me.” Heat had to put her chin in the water to be able to reach the fastener. Somehow it had jammed from the impact or because of all the wet. “Damn.” She brought her face up and the look they shared in one instant spoke volumes about how bad it was—and how little time they had.

  “Can you squirm out?” He tried. Sideways, upward, nothing. “Reach down. Can you put your seat back?”

  Rook leaned down for the release, needing to submerge his right ear to do it. “Fuck me. That’s jammed, too.” He pressed his feet against the fire wall and shoved backward with all he had. Still no good. “You got a knife?” She shook no.

  The car shifted slightly in the flow and more surge rolled in. The swirl was up to his chin now and Heat had to press her head against the roof liner to get air herself. He closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them he said, “Get out while you can.”

  “No.”

  “Don’t be stupid. Why both of us?” He shook his head and made a small wake with his chin. “Stupid. You go. Maybe you can take them out and come back before…” He left it there. They both knew there was no time for that.

  “Try again. Harder.”

  He reached down and did his best. “Not budging.”

  “One more try,” she said, trying not to panic. And he did try.

  He craned his neck to keep his mouth clear and gripped her hand. “I love you, Nikki Heat.”

  “Fuck you,” she shouted. “Fuck you, Rook, you are not dying.” And all the feelings, all the built-up anger—all the rage—her shrink had tried to get her to confront, erupted. Nikki gulped some air and dove under.

  Heat knew it would be pure desperation. But desperation was where they were. In training, she had heard about it. She had even watched a slow-motion demonstration video on the Internet proving it would work. That wasn’t her concern. Nikki wanted only one thing: For it to work now.

  She grabbed the sash just above the buckle with her left hand and tugged it as far away from his body as she could. When she had cleared enough room for it to fit, with her right hand Nikki brought her Sig Sauer down, carefully aimed it away from his thigh, pressed the muzzle against the seat belt—and pulled the trigger.

  The gun fired.

  Underwater, and in that oscillating light, she couldn’t see if it worked. But she didn’t have to. The belt in her left hand went slack. Heat yanked the fabric loose from the eye of the buckle and felt him rise and float free.

  They crawled out the wide-open back window swimming butterfly strokes across the trunk to keep low enough not to be seen over the hood of the BearCat that loomed over them gunning its engine. Nikki mimed for him to follow her, and she slipped into the water. The current caught her by surprise. Rook snagged her by the collar to keep the jet from propelling her forward into full view of their attackers.

  Heat collected herself, filled her lungs, and submerged. Grabbing hold of the BMW next to them, she pulled herself hand over hand under the width of its bumper until she reached its opposite side. Her searing lungs cried out for oxygen and, when Nikki broke the surface, she inhaled too greedily, choking on briny water. Rook emerged seconds later, also gasping. They signaled each other they were ready, then fought the stream, hauling themselves up the incline, using car-door handles as grips. At one point she caught movement in the passenger window of the truck and saw Zarek Braun staring right at her. He said something to his driver and then brought up his HK assault carbine, swiveling it to the gunport.

  “Gun.” Giving up on stealth, Heat churned her knees against the cascade with Rook hauling it, too, right on her tail. They managed to get far enough behind the vehicle to get in Braun’s blind spot so when the short burst from the automatic weapon came, it only spit lead into the painted brick wall behind them. If they could just reach the sidewalk, they might escape, but the BearCat shifted into reverse backing up the ramp. Soon it would be even with them, making them easy targets or blocking their way out.

  Heat knew there was no point shooting. The truck had ballistic glass windows and steel plating capable of resisting a full AK-47 magazine. Which gave Nikki an idea. She hollered, “Stay close,” and ch
anged course, running right for the BearCat.

  Pilot fish avoided getting bitten by sharks by riding on top of them where they can’t be reached. If bullets from the outside couldn’t pierce the armor, neither could they from the inside. She hopped on the rear bumper and lunged for the roof rack. Heat extended her free hand to Rook, who snatched her forearm so she could lock onto his wrist. His wet shoe slipped on the runner, and the motion of the vehicle nearly pulled them both off. But she held strong until he could get a foot on the metal.

  The side and rear windows still exposed them, in fact, she could see Zarek Braun coming toward them through one of them. “Up top, fast.” Rook grasped the top rail of the metal ladder and climbed up, two steps at a clip. Heat rolled onto the roof beside him just as the truck backed out onto the street.

  It stopped, idling.

  Heat and Rook panted, alive for now, barely hearing their own breaths in the tempest. Sirens in the night offered hope, but that faded as they wailed off into the distance away from them.

  Somewhere beneath them a latch popped. Nikki drew her Sig and put her head on a swivel scanning 360s for movement. “There,” said Rook. A Glock came up from the driver’s side. It fired wildly over their heads and then disappeared. Heat waited. Didn’t take the bait. Held for what she knew would be coming. And when a top slice of Zarek Braun’s head popped up on the passenger side with his assault rifle, she fired. Nikki figured both her shots ended up misses, but it got him to duck and take cover inside.

  She checked her cell phone. Waterlogged. Dead.

  “Mine, too,” said Rook.

  They felt the BearCat jar as the transmission kicked into drive. Heat said, “Get a grip.”

  “Oh, if I had a nickel,” he replied.

  The driver floored it, and the motion forced their bodies backward. But halfway up the block, he slammed the brakes, and momentum carried them the opposite way. Both of them nearly slid off right over the windshield. The truck then lurched into reverse, at speed. The wheelman executed an abrupt turn, which slammed the rear tires against the curb. Heat and Rook both got bounced up and down, but managed to stay on for the next forward acceleration that sped them down the block and into a hairpin right onto the next street. Centripetal force swung Nikki’s legs over the side. Rook let go of the bar with his near hand and clutched her jacket while she swung one knee over the rail and used it to haul herself up and roll flat again beside him on the black steel plate.