by Blake Banner
The massive hall was packed with what looked like thousands of people. There was a hum of voices that echoed overhead almost like a cathedral. Behind me, the doors hissed open to the sound of the downpour, then closed, leaving only the smell and the shiver of the damp. Everywhere there were wet coats, closed, dripping umbrellas, plastic macs, red, blue, yellow and transparent, milling, swilling, jostling, pushing, pulling and carrying luggage of every shape and size.
I said to Dehan, “You find the Delta check in desks. See if he’s in the line or if he’s checked in. I’m going to Departures. See if he’s there or if he’s gone through.”
“K!”
She moved off through the crowd and I half ran, pushing through the seething, wet bodies toward Departures, scanning the crowds as I went. I knew the inspector had contacted airport security, but that was no guarantee that Lenny would be seen, recognized or stopped. It takes time to set up something like that and make everybody aware of a particular face and name—a face and name that gets added to a hundred other faces and names to be on the lookout for. It would be enough for him to be wearing a hat, or glasses, for him to go through unnoticed.
I approached the long, curling line of bodies that was snaking its way through security into the departure lounge. There must have been two or three hundred of them, shuffling one by one through passport control and moving on toward the scanners.
I ducked under the tape and started making my way toward the passport control desks. A big, burly guy from Airport Security started moving toward me. I showed him my badge and he frowned. “Anything I can help with?”
I shook my head. “Not right now. I need to talk to the CBP officers.”
I kept moving as I spoke, scanning the lines moving past each desk. And then, three desks down, the fifth man in the line made me look twice. It wasn’t him, he had a mustache, a tweed cap and heavy glasses. But something in the way he was moving: he was too tense, looking too fixedly ahead, the rise and fall of his chest was just a little too rapid. I pushed through the next line, making toward him, mentally removing the cap, the glasses and the moustache. He must have seen me coming, he couldn’t have missed me, I was fifteen feet away and closing, but he just stared hard at the floor ahead. I shouted, “Lenny!” I raised my badge over my head, pushed through the next line and shouted again, “Lenny!”
Everyone was staring except him. The guys on the passport desks were looking over. The security guard was coming up behind me, talking on his radio. I pushed through the next line and he was just six feet away and I knew it was him. He turned to face me, removed the phony glasses and as he did it, he pulled his piece from his holster and pointed it at me. His hand was steady and his voice was calm.
“Don’t come any closer, Stone.”
At first, nobody reacted. Then a woman saw the gun and screamed. It only takes one to seed panic. Next thing, everybody was shouting and screaming and running, but Lenny had collared the young man in front of him and had him in an arm lock, with his automatic at the back of his blond head. The guy’s eyes were wide with terror. His skin was sickly pale. The CBP officers were on their feet with their weapons trained on Lenny, as was the guy who had been following me.
I put my hands up. I still had my badge in my left. I spoke loudly so the security guards and passport control could hear me. “NYPD! This man is also a police officer. He is wanted for questioning. Hold your fire.”
Lenny shook his head. “I’m not coming with you, Stone. I’m walking out of here with this hostage.”
The hostage made an inarticulate noise.
I said: “Come on, Lenny! You’re a cop. You know how it works. There are only two ways this can end. You leave here with me, or you leave in a body bag. Let the man go. Put your gun down. Let me cuff you and take you back to your family.”
He had started backing up toward the exit doors. He was nodding. “Sure! Sure! Back to my family. Like that is ever going to happen! You think I don’t know what’s waiting for me?”
There was the tramp of running boots. Armed cops were approaching from both directions with hand guns and automatic rifles. Lenny shouted:
“Back off! Back off! I don’t want to see a single armed cop! I don’t want to see a Home Guard! I don’t want to see any security personnel! I don’t want to see a single damned gun in this damned airport! Or this man gets it in the head! Understood?”
There was a muffled scream from the hostage. The radios were crackling and somewhere I heard somebody shout, “Who the hell is in charge here? Get the head of security down here, for Christ’s sake!” I ignored them and kept pace with Lenny as he backed slowly toward the exit.
“Lenny, I just came from your house. Your wife is out of her mind with worry.”
He pointed the gun at me. “You! Come closer. Come right up close. Keep pace with me. We’re going out of here.” His face suddenly flushed and he screamed at the airport cops. “I’m gonna count to three! If on three I see one damned uniform, I’m putting this cop down! Now back up!”
Behind me, I heard a voice snap, “Fall back!”
I walked toward him as he had instructed me. With my hands up, at a steady, slow pace, talking quietly all the while. “What are your kids going to think, Lenny? You think they’ll see this on the news?”
“One!”
“Is this how you want them to remember you?”
“Two!”
“You want them to be ashamed of you for the rest of their lives?”
“Three!”
I braced myself. I knew he would do it. I saw the muzzle of the gun point at my chest. Then there was a roar, like the roar of a lion, only it was a woman’s voice bellowing, “Back up! Now! On the double! Fall back! Who is in charge here?”
I smiled and thanked whatever gods choose cops’ partners for giving me Dehan. I saw Lenny swallow and we continued to back toward the exit. “You stay close, Stone, and if you try anything, I swear to God I will kill this man and I’ll kill you too. You know I’ll do it…”
We were twelve feet from the automatic doors. Outside, in the rain, I could see antiterrorist troops in fatigues taking up positions. I wondered if Dehan was liaising with the head of airport security yet. I kept talking. “It’s not too late, Lenny. You’re in trouble. You’re in pretty big trouble. But if you stop now, it’s not too late. Your wife really loves you. Your kids love you. You don’t need to lose all that.”
He was shaking his head. “Shut up, Stone. You want to pin Celeste’s murder on me, and that ain’t gonna happen. I ain’t taking the fall for that.”
“You got it wrong, Lenny. We just need to talk to you, find out what happened.”
He glanced over his shoulder and saw the troops. Cop cars were arriving with their lights flashing, reflecting red and blue off the wet sidewalks and the asphalt. Uniforms were running, cordoning off the area.
“Call your bitch of a wife over here.”
“No.”
“This schmuck gets it!”
I saw the man’s eyes go wide with terror. I stared Lenny in the eyes. “It’s a line I won’t cross. Shoot him and before he hits the floor, you’ll be dead. Shoot me if you want. I’m not calling Dehan over here.”
His tongue flicked over his dry lips. “Tell her to call off these troops out here. I want a car, with the key in the ignition, and the engine running, full gas tank. You’re coming with me.”
“OK, we can do that, just let this man go.”
“Uh-uh, tell her, then I let him go.”
I turned my back on him. Dehan was fifteen or twenty paces away, watching me. Another fifteen paces behind her was an army of uniformed cops in dark blue with body armor, and a similar number of troops in battle dress. I called to her.
“Call off the guys outside. We need a car, full gas tank, key in the ignition and engine running. I’m going as hostage. He’s letting this guy go.”
I turned and took a step toward him. I was maybe five feet away now. I could see sweat on his face. He had the g
un pressed to the back of the man’s head again. I said, “OK, Lenny. I did what you said. Now let the man go.”
“Uh-uh.” He shook his head again. “I want you in cuffs, and I wanna see all those troops moved. The minute I let this guy go, they’ll put a bullet through my skull.”
“Not if you put your weapon down. You made a big mistake doing this, Lenny. Now you need to come back from the edge and we can work something out. Just lay down the weapon, and let the man go.”
“Take a hike, Stone.” He looked over his shoulder, out at the cops and the troops ranging around the exit. They were beginning to move back.
I inched forward. “You promised to let him go, Lenny. If you don’t let him go, there will be no more concessions. They won’t trust you. Let him go.”
“Where’s the car? When I have the car, I’ll let him go.”
“Have you thought this through, Lenny? For crying out loud, you’re a cop! How many hostage situations have you seen where the hostage taker gets away? It doesn’t happen. You know that.”
He screamed suddenly, “Shut up! I said shut up!”
“OK, I’ll shut up, but I wish you’d think of your kids. You want them to see you get shot on TV?”
“Shut up!”
He thrust the gun at me. It was what I had been hoping he would do. I had closed the distance and I was slightly more than three feet away, so the gun was right in my face. It was all or nothing, right then.
I stepped forward with my left foot, taking myself out of his line of fire. Simultaneously I slammed my left hand hard down on his wrist and seized the barrel of the gun hard in my right, levering up as I did so. There was a loud report and a shot went off, up into the vault above. I tore the gun from his hand, I heard his hostage scream and his legs started kicking. I knew as long as Lenny had hold of this guy I couldn’t point a gun at him. So I heaved my two hundred and twenty pounds at them both, unbalancing them and making them both stagger backward. At the last second, as they were falling, I grabbed the hostage by the scruff of his neck and heaved him back toward me. The whole thing took no more than a couple of seconds. But as I pulled the man back, he clutched at my arm with frantic fingers, screaming hysterically as he did it. I hurled him away, trying to free my arm. The barrel of the gun caught in his jacket and his flailing arms knocked it out of my hands. I shoved him again and as he fell back, his foot kicked the pistol away from me.
Lenny was sprawled on his back. I made for him, but he was already scrambling to his feet, reaching for the weapon. I pulled mine from my holster. Behind me, I could hear boots running. I knew Dehan was coming up fast. I shouted, “Stay back! He is armed! Stay back!”
He fired two shots wildly and ran for the sliding doors. I shot at his legs as he ran, but I was off balance and he was moving fast. I missed. Then I ran, too. Outside it was still raining hard. He was drenched in seconds, but he was fit, light on his feet and fast. I went after him, shouting for him to stop, but I was hampered by my coat, which was heavy and wet. He was getting away from me, and up ahead I could see where the cops had made a barrier with their cruisers. The lights were flashing red and blue and the officers were using the roofs and hoods to steady their aim. I shouted at them, waving my arms, “Hold your fire! Hold your fire!” And then, “Lenny, for God’s sake, they’re going to shoot you!”
Next thing, he had veered sharply left and was running for the edge of the road, where it was a sheer drop down to the next level, forty or fifty feet below. I bellowed at him to stop. He fired wildly at me again and I dropped to the road for cover. Then he was running again and I was going after him. I saw that several of the cops had broken from their barricade and were sprinting toward us.
I clambered to my feet again and went after him. I saw him step over the barrier. I screamed at him to stop. Then he jumped.
My stomach lurched and I went cold inside. The rain was lashing my face. I wiped my eyes with my hands to clear my vision as I went to the ledge where he had jumped. I could feel the water squelching my shoes and running down the back of my neck. I peered over, expecting to see his broken body on the wet asphalt below. Instead, I saw the roof of a covered walkway that stretched across the parking lot, and Lenny running unsteadily, slipping and sliding toward the far end. I turned and bellowed at the approaching cops. “Seal the exits to the parking lot! He’s in the parking lot! Seal the damned exits!”
They turned and began scrambling back toward their vehicles, hollering instructions to each other. I stepped over the barrier and heard, dimly, Dehan’s voice calling to me. I didn’t wait to hear what she was saying. I jumped and landed in a slipping, sprawling mess on the steel roof. It hurt. I got unsteadily to my feet and ran, trying to ignore the pain, sliding and falling as I went. He was fifty or sixty yards ahead of me and not making much better progress than I was. The rain was coming down hard, kicking up a mist off the blacktop and getting in my eyes. Visibility was poor and I was trying to keep my eye on him as well as run as fast as I dared.
Then I saw his arms go up in the air suddenly and he vanished. I accelerated my pace, thinking maybe he had been shot. I slipped and staggered and fell several times, cutting my hand on the wet steel. And as I approached the spot where he had been, I realized there was a drop of about six feet, to a lower level. I jumped down, then lowered myself to the ground and looked around. There was no sign of him. All I could see was an ocean of wet cars, and in the distance the flashing lights of the patrol cars approaching to seal off the exits. On foot, there was nothing to stop him gaining access to any of the other parking lots, roads or even the freeway. I swore violently under my breath. Then up ahead, twenty or thirty yards away, through the cold sheets of gray rain, I saw the headlamps come on. And the big Dodge Ram accelerated straight at me.
THIRTEEN
The tires spun and screamed on the wet asphalt. Then they gripped and the headlamps glowed and swelled through the mist of rain, heading straight at me. One second of indecision and paralysis is enough to get you killed several times over. One second was how long I stood, staring at the iron beast that was bearing down on me.
I leapt aside when it was just ten feet away. At the same instant, he spun the wheel, aiming to point the nose of the truck toward the gardens that separated the parking lot from the Van Wyck Expressway. The tires screeched, but couldn’t get a grip, and his fishtail turned into a spin. The back end caught me on one of the turns and slammed me against a parked VW. The Dodge wound up on the far side of the covered walkway, facing the wrong way, and I wound up on my back, croaking for breath that I couldn’t get, staring up at the bellying, gray clouds with rain in my eyes and needles of pain shafting through my lungs.
The spasm eased. I managed to drag in air. I heard a powerful engine rev and struggled to lift my head and look. The Dodge Ram was forty feet away. Its headlamps made rivers of light among the spray. I looked behind me and realized that I was lying between the Dodge and the gardens that separated the lot from the expressway. Far off, I could hear sirens through the rain. The Dodge revved, the tires screamed and the truck hurtled toward me. I struggled to one elbow, but my back went into spasm again and pain tore through my lungs. In my head, a voice told me to prepare for death.
Even as I thought it, I saw a shadow, like a ghost, placing itself between me and the truck: a tall silhouette, legs straddled. There was a sound like fireworks cracking. The headlamps loomed around the snaking form. Brakes screeched, the truck careened out of control. I felt its massive form slide past, just feet away, and then there was the shattering noise of steel smashing and tearing into steel, glass shattering and car alarms crying out across the flooded, gray, concrete lot.
And Dehan was kneeling over me. “Are you OK? Tell me you’re OK.”
“Help me get up.”
She hooked her arm under mine and I struggled to my feet. “I’m OK. Check Lenny. Is he alive?”
Her face loomed large in front of me. “Stone! Focus! Look at me!”
I scrunched up m
y eyes, wiped water from them and blinked. She was hazy. “What?”
“Are you OK? Check! Don’t just say yes. Are you OK?”
I scowled. “Yes! Go check on Lenny!”
“Stay there!”
She ran toward the mangled wreckage where the careening Dodge had plowed into three parked cars. I staggered after her, feeling unsteady on my feet, but managing to breathe a little easier. I could see the red and blue flashing lights of patrol cars speeding toward us from the far end of the lot. I could hear another approaching from behind. Dehan, drenched through, with her long hair shining black, wrenched open the driver’s door on the truck and reached in. I leaned against the side and watched her. It was hard to tell her expression, but she wasn’t happy, and she wasn’t talking.
Two patrol cars skidded to a halt a few yards away and officers began to spill out. She strode toward them, holding out her badge. I heard her shout, “NYPD! We need an ambulance and some paramedics—fast!”
She conferred with a sergeant, giving instructions, then signaled to an officer to come with her. Between them, they helped me to the back of one of the patrol cars. A dull, pervasive pain was building throughout my body. She sat next to me and looked into my eyes for a long moment. “You are some piece of work, John Stone.”
“You’re not so bad yourself, standing in front of a charging Dodge Ram.” I pulled out my phone and dialed. “I’m calling the inspector. We need jurisdiction on this. Is Lenny alive?”
While it rang, she said, “Just about. He took two rounds in the chest and one in the face.”
“You only fired four times. Remind me never to get you mad—Sir? Stone here…” She touched my leg, climbed out and, hunching her shoulders, loped away to where I could see an ambulance pulling up beside the crashed Dodge.
“John! What news?”
“We had an incident at the airport, sir. He pulled a gun, Airport Security were involved…”
“Did they shoot him?”
“No, not exactly. He ran, I gave chase, Detective Dehan was close behind…” “Is she OK?”