Storm Front: A Derrick Storm Thriller

by Richard Castle

  Somewhere below him, a train was coming. Storm could feel the warm air rushing up the shaft toward him as he continued down, one rung at a time.

  Finally, he reached the end of the shaft, some sixty feet down. There was still a faint light coming from the street. The tunnel itself was not lit. Storm peered down. In the dimness, he could only barely make out the track, perhaps fifteen feet below. He saw that the ladder continued down the side of the tunnel. So he could keep descending the slow way. Or he could just make the drop.

  He chose the drop. He pulled his gun, then let go of the ladder.

  Storm hit the ground and rolled, as he had been trained to do. He immediately swung his weapon up, ready to fire at anything larger than a rat, at any small glint of light, at anything that so much as trickled. But he had the tunnel to himself. Behind him was only blackness. Ahead, there was a faint light as the tunnel bent around to the right.

  Storm started running along the tracks toward the light. If Volkov was lying in wait for him around the next turn, so be it. Thanks to his suit, he was a mostly black target against a mostly black background. He’d take his chances with being ambushed.

  More than likely, he knew, Volkov was trying to scramble away like the cockroach he was. Storm quickened his pace, keeping his knees high so he’d be less likely to stumble.

  He rounded the next corner. Still no Volkov.

  But there was something else. The number 2 train was coming from behind him.

  Storm was unconcerned. He had noted that the tunnel had cutouts, places where workers could dive in and wait out the passing of a train. He passed by one, confident he’d be able to reach the next in time, wanting to gain as much ground on Volkov as possible.

  The train was bearing down on him. He had veered over to the right side of the track. He saw a cutout on the left side but was already past it before he could react. He could feel the rush of air from the train getting closer. There was still no cutout on the right.

  He was already sprinting, but he willed himself to go faster. Storm had once been timed in the 100-meter dash at 10.2 seconds, just off world-class pace. But it still wasn’t a match for a hard-charging subway train.

  The train’s lights illuminated Storm from behind, casting a shadow in front of him that was growing shorter in a hurry. The engineer must have spotted Storm, because the train’s horn blared. Storm pumped his arms and legs. He could imagine few more ignominious endings: steamrolled by the number 2.

  At the last nanosecond, a cutout emerged on the right side. He flattened himself into it, digging his feet into the gravel along the tracks to avoid being sucked inward. The engine ripped past with inches to spare, its passengers unaware of the man panting just off their starboard side.

  The moment the train passed, Storm resumed his dash. He heard the train slowing as it approached the station, applying its brakes with a squeal. Then another sound overwhelmed it.

  Pop. Pop. Pop.

  Gunfire. The large-caliber kind.

  Storm willed himself to go faster. There were screams coming from the subway platform. Then more gunfire. Storm lost count of the number of shots. He prayed some of the reverberations were Ling Xi Bang answering. And hitting. But he wasn’t hearing her gun.

  He reached the back of the train, which had stopped at the station. There was no room on either side for him to vault up to the platform. Storm swore but did not break stride. He leaped up onto the last car and opened the back door.

  Inside the subway car, there were riders lying on the floor, huddled under the benches. Seeing a man with a gun made them only shrink back further. There was no blood that he could see. No one here had been hit. Storm passed quickly through the car’s open side doors, gun raised.

  Out on the platform, it was bedlam. The gunfire had stopped, but the screaming had not. There were commuters splayed in every direction, hiding behind every bench, sign, and bit of shelter they could find. Some of them were groaning and clutching at parts of their bodies. At least three were prone and either dead or dying.

  Storm’s eyes were just starting to make sense of it when Volkov tackled him from the side.

  Storm’s legs automatically braced against the hit. Volkov had tried to take him too high. Storm dipped slightly, then straightened, sending Volkov flying to the side. Storm whirled, ready to put a bullet in his attacker and end this thing.

  Then he saw it wasn’t Volkov. It was some bald, middle-aged white man in a suit, trying to play hero. The man flinched even as Storm lowered his gun.

  “Stay down, damn it,” Storm snarled. “And get off me. I’m the good guy.”

  Storm advanced farther onto the platform, bringing Dirty Harry back up and swiveling it across a landscape of bleeding, dying, and dead New Yorkers. There were more than a dozen of them, in varying states of distress.

  Then he saw one who looked achingly familiar.

  It was Ling Xi Bang. She was down on one knee, clutching her stomach, trying to raise herself. Storm rushed to her side.

  “Are you hit?” Storm asked. But he already knew the answer. He could see the slick stain of wetness on her black dress.

  “It’s nothing,” she said through gritted teeth.

  “Lie down. Don’t fight it.”

  “Just help me stand,” she said. “He went up the steps. We can still catch him.”

  Storm had been around enough gunshot wounds to know Xi Bang’s was serious. He had been shot in the gut himself. The pain was like nothing he could describe. He could see the agony on Xi Bang’s face.

  “Actually, forget about me. I’ll only slow you down. Just get Volkov,” she said, still struggling to get her other leg under her. She attempted to push him away, but there was no strength in her.

  Storm knew that if he abandoned Xi Bang and gave chase there was a chance he could catch up to Volkov. The bastard had perhaps a minute lead, but he was on an island with only so many means of escape. Storm could hunt him down, then put him down.

  That’s when he saw that Xi Bang’s leg had been hit, too. It was why she couldn’t get back on her feet. There was a pool of red underneath her, and it was spreading fast.

  “You’re losing too much blood,” Storm said, keeping his tone measured, trying to keep the panic out of his voice. “We need to stop the bleeding.”

  “Just leave me.”

  “That’s not going to happen,” Storm said. He had already put one arm around her shoulder. He slid his other arm under her legs, cradled her for a moment, then gently laid her flat.

  Moving quickly, he removed his jacket, then his shirt, tearing off a strip with one powerful jerk. He located the wound on Xi Bang’s leg. It was just above the knee, on the inner part of the thigh. That explained all the blood. The femoral artery ran along that side. The bullet must have hit it. Storm tied a tourniquet midway up the thigh, tying it as tight as his considerable strength would allow.

  “I couldn’t take the shot,” she was saying, half in a whisper, half in a moan. “There was a woman behind him. She had a child. I would have hit…”

  “Shhh,” he said. “I know.”

  “He grabbed this old lady and—” She interrupted the sentence with a small howl of pain. “He was using her as a shield.”

  Storm tore off another strip of his shirt, then folded the remainder into a makeshift pad. He secured the pad with the strip. It was the best he could do until professionals arrived.

  Then he moved on to the stomach wound. The bullet had left a neat hole in the dress. He needed to assess what was underneath. Working as gingerly as he could, he began tearing the dress from the hem up.

  “Hey,” she said, weakly.

  “Stop being fresh.”

  “Some guys will do anything for a little peep show,” he said.

  When he finally reached her abdomen, he was glad that she was looking up at the ceiling and not at his face. Otherwise, she would have seen the grim expression that came over him. Her stomach was bad. Worse than he’d thought. The bullet had torn
into her and expanded on impact. The wound was a gaping hole that revealed her shredded insides. Storm could barely even identify the organs whose mangled remains he was seeing. Even if she were on the operating table in the most state-of-the-art hospital room in the world, with a team of the best surgeons ready to dive in, Storm wasn’t sure if she could be saved.

  On the floor of the Wall Street subway stop, it was hopeless. The only question was how many minutes of suffering she had left. Maybe ten. If she was unlucky.

  “I’m cold,” she said.

  “I know,” Storm said, grabbing his suit jacket and wrapping it around her as a blanket.

  He slid his right arm underneath her, cradling her in his arms. All he could do now was try to make her feel comfortable.

  “Is this what dying feels like?” she asked.

  “Shhh…,” he said. “Just relax. You’re not going to die.”

  It was a lie. He knew it. He sensed she did, too.

  “I love you,” she said.

  “I know. I love you, too.”

  Even though he said it mainly to comfort her, it was not without feeling. Somewhere, in the back of his heart, in the part that had resisted hardening through all the missions and all the years, he knew that it might even be true.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Shh.”

  Storm could hear the beating of helicopter rotors coming from the street. Was it a Medevac landing? No. Not possible. Helicopters weren’t permitted in this part of New York City. Besides, there were enough hospitals within a short ambulance ride that Medevacs were unnecessary. Why would a helicopter be landing on the streets of Manhattan? Storm pondered it for a brief moment, until he became aware that Xi Bang was talking.

  “You’re going to get him, right?” she was saying.

  “You’re going to get Volkov.”

  “Yes, honey. Of course.”

  “Promise me.”

  “I promise.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she said again, more weakly. Her body was starting to convulse. The wound on her leg had already soaked Storm’s makeshift field dressing. It was now a race to see which would kill her first: blood loss or multiple organ failure.

  “That night in Paris,” he said. “Dancing in the street with you. I was serious when I said we would dance to that song at our wedding.”

  “Mmm…” was all she could say.

  But he could see that it had brought a smile to her face. And so, as the last embers of life flickered out of Ling Xi Bang, Derrick Storm held her tightly in his arms and sang her “The Vienna Waltz.”

  It had been their first dance. And now it would be their last.

  CHAPTER 26

  LANGLEY, Virginia

  Jedediah Jones would have been pulling his hair out, if only he had any to pull.

  As it was, he looked like a cross between a stressed-out CFO and an irate customer service representative. He was talking on a wireless telephone headset—an ergonomics expert at the CIA said it was better for his neck—at a volume that was seriously threatening nearby ear drums.

  As he ranted, he paced around the cubby, pounding on any table that didn’t hold a quarter-million-dollar piece of spy equipment. The nerds were keeping their attention buried in their computer terminals. Eye contact might provoke him further.

  “Eighteen dead,” he shouted. “Eighty-seven wounded. A hundred seventy people hospitalized. I don’t even want to know how many millions in damage. Do you have any regard for private property at all?”

  The man on the other end of the line said nothing. Derrick Storm had watched Ling Xi Bang’s body get loaded into a New York City medical examiner’s truck a mere half hour before. He was not in the mood to answer rhetorical questions.

  “On top of that, I’ve got a propane company saying one of our agents blew up their truck. Do you want to explain to me why that was tactically necessary?”

  Still nothing from Storm. Rodriguez and Bryan kept trying to dodge Jones as he rampaged around. Occasionally, they would hand him a piece of paper that he would look at then throw on the floor—which was already littered with things he had spiked.

  “I’ve got the NY goddamn PD saying it’s going to send me a bill for a crane to get a motorcycle out of a traffic light,” he continued. “A crane! How did a motorcycle get in a goddamn traffic light?”

  Jones stooped down and picked up something he had previously discarded.

  “Then I’ve got the NYPD asking me why I brought a helicopter into restricted airspace so close to the Freedom Tower. I would have told them I didn’t know, except I was worried that would make me sound like even more of an idiot than I already did.”

  The helicopter. Storm finally figured it out: That must have been how Volkov made his exit.

  “A carjacking… a firefight in the streets of Manhattan… a subway platform full of shot-up civilians… all this and Volkov got away? Storm, what the hell happened this morning?”

  Storm was sitting on a bench in a park in lower Manhattan. He was still wearing a good portion of the fluid that Xi Bang had bled out on him. It had started to dry and congeal, making his pants rigid. His hands and face were a mess of blood smears; some of it was hers, some his, from the glass cuts he had suffered. To anyone passing by, he must have looked like a deranged killer. It had not occurred to him to let any of this bother him yet. At the moment Jones had called, Storm had been looking at a tree, wondering how it was that the tree—a stupid, nonsentient piece of greenery—was allowed to still be alive and photosynthesizing while Ling Xi Bang was dead.

  “Storm, are you going to say anything?” Jones demanded.

  “Mistakes were made,” he said, quietly.

  “You bet your ass mistakes were made. And the first mistake was hiring you. Do you have any explanation for this incompetence?”

  “No.” At least none that he felt like giving Jones.

  “And, I’m sorry, what the hell were you doing in New York City anyway? I thought you were in Iowa.”

  “There was a change of plans.”

  “And when were you going to inform me of this change of plans?”

  “There wasn’t time.”

  “I see. And when were you going to inform me of… Get me that surveillance camera footage again.” Jones interrupted himself to bark at one of the nerds, who complied with his request. “I’ve got some footage here that makes it look like you’re in cahoots with a Chinese agent, the Asian woman you intercepted in Paris. You want to tell me what the hell is going on with that?”

  “No.”

  “You know that’s not our deal. If you need help, you come to me. I’ve got all the manpower we need. I can’t have you triangulating in outside help, especially the Chinese, fer chrissakes. Are you still working with her?”

  Storm was only barely paying attention to his boss. The moment he mentioned the “Asian woman,” Storm’s thoughts went to that moment when he spied Volkov inside the deli. That’s where it all went wrong, and there was no doubt about whose fault it was. She had asked him to wait before charging in. She had told him they should make a plan. Don’t just charge in like an idiot… Derrick, for God’s sake, wait… How long would it have taken for two smart agents to come up with a workable plan? Three minutes? Two?

  Instead, her blood was on his hands literally and figuratively: first, because he hadn’t listened to her very sensible commands, and then because he had placed her directly in the path of a wild sociopath. She had told him she didn’t often do fieldwork. She didn’t have the training to take on a beast like Volkov. He never should have made her do it.

  “Damn it, answer me: Are you still working with her?”

  “It’s a moot point,” Storm said.

  “I don’t even want to know what that means. I probably don’t want to know anything about what happened this morning. But I do have to ask about another report I got, something about you traipsing through a homicide scene? According to one of our station agents, there’s an NYPD detective nam
ed Nikki Heat who thinks you’d make a great suspect if only she could figure out how to make you one. Maybe I should just turn you over to her?”

  Storm had no reply. He was absentmindedly opening and closing his left hand. He had jammed one of the fingers when he made the leap into the parking garage. He was working it to make sure it wasn’t broken. His ribs were also starting to stiffen up from when he slammed into the concrete. It didn’t matter. The physical pain was a distant tickle compared to what he was feeling emotionally.

  “Actually, you want to know what’s a moot point? You and this case,” Jones continued.

  “As of this moment, you’re fired. Go back to snorkeling or knitting or whatever the hell it was you did while you were dead. You’re officially dead again.”

  “What’s going to happen to Whitely Cracker?” Storm asked.

  “That’s none of your concern.”

  Storm sat up, actually engaging in the conversation for the first time. “How can you say it’s none of my concern? I’ve developed rock-solid intelligence that Whitely Cracker has masterminded a plot to engineer a financial catastrophe. First, he bribed a senator to implement a change to Federal Reserve policy, then he unleashed Volkov on six innocent men and their fam—”

  And then Storm stopped himself. The moment he said the name “Whitely Cracker,” Jones should have asked what Whitely Cracker had to do with this. He should have fussed and fumed and acted like Storm was tossing in a random name from some other part of the universe. Storm hadn’t told Jones about Cracker being the money behind Donny Whitmer’s new PAC; nor had Storm told Jones he saw Cracker and Volkov sitting together in the deli. Jones shouldn’t have known the two were connected.

  But he did. Of course he did. Clara Strike had been performing blanket, round-the-clock surveillance on Cracker for two months. She would have told Jones what she saw and heard. Maybe Strike hadn’t put together the bigger picture of what was going on—she wouldn’t have had the context to know the significance of much of it—but Jones had all the information about what was happening.