The Defense: A Novel

by Steve Cavanagh

  Benny shook his head and patted his pockets. The guard escorting him drew his gun and aimed it at Little Benny. Drawing his own weapon on Benny, Kennedy began shouting instructions. “Lie down! Down on the floor!”

  Little Benny stood openmouthed, confused, as he patted his pockets and then, in his left-hand jacket pocket, he felt something that shouldn’t have been there. As his hand stopped on the unfamiliar bulge, his expression turned to fear and he began to tremble. With one hand held up in surrender, he could not resist checking what was in his pocket, and as he drew out the fake detonator, his eyes found me and he made the connection. He held the fake detonator that Volchek had given to me in the conference booth, the same detonator that I’d broken open in that room and then sealed back together with a sliver of duct tape from the MP5’s magazine, the same detonator that I’d planted on Benny when he’d pushed me from the witness box only moments ago.

  Benny’s surprise and sudden realization froze his body like a liquid nitrogen shower. The immediate, visceral beat of the alarm seemed to quicken again in that moment of shock and fatal hesitation. Volchek knew law-enforcement protocols as well as I did—when a suspect holds a detonator in his hand, you take that man down with immediate lethal force.

  Kennedy opened fire, the guard a half second later, and Little Benny died with his eyes wide and confused.

  Any chance of Volchek being retried for murder died along with Witness X. It was as good as an acquittal, and the only deal that I could’ve made with Volchek in return for my daughter’s life. I heard a guttural roar from behind me. I didn’t need to turn to know that it came from Arturas.

  I spun around in time to see Volchek running for the door. Halfway up the aisle, he stopped and watched the remaining Russians pull on their coveralls and grab the MP5s from the case. Arturas was too busy with the large RC unit that I’d seen in the case. He had switched it on, hit a few controls, then dumped the remote control on the ground. Volchek wasn’t about to wait around. He had his victory. He turned and fled. When Arturas stood to look for Volchek, the head of the Bratva was already gone.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

  “Guns!” I cried and dove for cover behind the defense table. I leaned out a little, just enough to see that Gregor and Victor were wearing their coveralls and staring at the empty rifle magazines. The ammunition for each assault weapon lay underneath papers in the young lawyer’s briefcase, which he’d abandoned in the conference room. Volchek and I had shredded each bullet from each and every magazine before repacking the case.

  “Drop your weapons and get on the ground,” shouted Kennedy, who’d seen the Russians trying to gear up. Agent Coulson joined him, his Glock trained on Gregor and Victor. There were no fresh cries from the crowd; the last of them had already fled through the doors.

  The guard who had been security for Benny moved toward the Russians, his weapon extended.

  My heart hammered in my chest as I tried calling Jimmy. He didn’t pick up. I lifted my head, but I was too late to shout a warning.

  “Don’t move,” said Levine.

  He stood behind Kennedy and Coulson, his gun tracking both men. Kennedy and the younger agent froze. Shaking his head, Kennedy closed his eyes, lowered his head, and swore.

  “Put the gun down or they’re dead,” cried Levine, shouting over the alarm at the security guard, who could barely hold his gun he was breathing so hard, terrified and full of adrenaline at having fired his weapon moments ago and killed for the first time.

  “Levine, don’t do this,” said Kennedy, lowering his pistol.

  “I’d prefer not to have to pull the trigger, Bill. I just hit start on two devices in the basement, and in twelve minutes this building will be rubble. If a rescue team ever does find your body, I’d prefer it didn’t have bullet wounds. Drop your guns and tell the guard to do the same.”

  The FBI men slowly lowered their weapons to the floor. Dropping the useless MP5, Gregor marched over to the security guard and snapped the Beretta from his hand.

  Footsteps beside me. I heard the metallic rattle from the harness around his waist—Arturas.

  He picked me up by my collar and threw me down in front of the judge’s bench.

  “On your knees, hands behind your back,” said Levine, and both Kennedy and Coulson obliged.

  “You believe me now, asshole?” I said, but Kennedy couldn’t meet my gaze. His eyes were locked on his weapon, sitting two feet from him on the marble floor.

  Arturas backed away from me and pulled the detonator from his left pocket.

  “You piece of shit. You made a deal with Olek. Don’t worry. We’ll find him. You’re going to die today, lawyer. That’s the price you pay.”

  He backed off farther, out of the kill zone.

  For a few moments, everything seemed to happen in slow motion. My body felt electrified, hypervigilant, alert, and yet my movements were slow; my head pounded along with the rhythm of the alarm.

  Gregor tucked the young security guard’s gun into his belt, then casually broke the kid’s neck with his huge hands.

  The dirty fed, Levine, slammed the butt of his gun into Coulson’s head and watched with some amusement as his partner keeled over.

  Victor picked up Coulson’s weapon and walked slowly toward the doors, making sure the room was clean.

  That mortuary smile appeared on Arturas’s lips as he watched me crawl farther and farther away from him.

  He hit the detonator for the bomb that I’d carried on my back for a day and a half. Nothing happened.

  That second of hesitation broke his smile. He hit the detonator again. The detonator that Harry had picked up last night.

  Nothing.

  “Kill them all,” he said.

  Instead of bringing the Beretta down on Kennedy’s skull, Levine swept the weapon down and fired two rounds into his boss before taking aim at my chest.

  I closed my eyes and saw my daughter lying in the grass in Prospect Park on a warm summer’s day.

  A shot.

  I felt no pain, no warmth, no cold, nothing.

  I opened my eyes and saw Levine standing still, the gun falling from his hands as a red mist evaporated beside his head. He fell forward, bullet wound in his neck, and behind him I saw the Lizard.

  Instantly, the Russians ducked for cover.

  At the back of the courtroom, the Lizard took aim at Victor with the Beretta that I’d left in the basement trash can. The blond giant didn’t react quickly enough. His shots were wild, and the Lizard was deadly accurate.

  The window behind me exploded. Shards of mahogany leaped from the prosecution table, three feet away, and I realized Gregor was unloading the security guard’s gun in my direction. Scrambling to my feet, I turned and ran. Another shot hit the prosecution table, sending dust and splinters into my face.

  There was no cover.

  Nowhere to go.

  I heard another gun kicking back, but I didn’t dare stop.

  My jacket got whipped around from a bullet tearing through the lining. The window was coming up fast. I sprinted the last five feet to the broken fourteenth-floor window and leaped through the last shards of glass only to be engulfed in cold New York air.

  As I watched the breadth of the whole city come up beneath me, I prayed that I was one smart son of a bitch.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

  I screamed.

  Some of the remaining shards of glass that clung to the frame cracked and splintered from the gunshots before they were swallowed by the endless sky.

  And I fell.

  For a moment all I could see was the top of the building and clear blue sky above as I dropped backward, my ass hurtling toward the concrete a quarter mile below. It seemed a lifetime that I fell, but it was probably two, maybe three seconds before my left shoulder exploded with pain as I hit the stage and my head smacked against the steel floor. White droplets of light seemed to appear and pop in front of my eyes.

  The hanging scaffolding that held me had been sp
ecially constructed for the exterior refurb of the courthouse. It was one of the longest in the city, forty feet long and six feet wide. The steel cables that anchored the stage to the roof were as thick as my wrist and ran all the way to the ground. I’d remembered seeing the workmen on this stage before I’d entered the court yesterday and again this morning. I’d also remembered the coveralls with the built-in harnesses and the large remote control hidden in the Samsonite.

  This was the Russians’ escape route. While the NYPD cordoned off the courthouse and the street on the west side entrance, the Russians planned to quietly slip down the east side of the building on the steel stage in their rigger outfits, step into a car, and go, without anyone realizing they’d ever left the building. The cops and the feds would believe them dead, buried under the building when it blew. They would run and hide and take over Volchek’s operation from afar. And no one would come looking for them.

  The gunshots from the courtroom stopped.

  I got up tentatively. The fall had caused the stage to shudder, and it began rocking gently. Holding the safety rail on either side, I got to my feet. The controls for the stage were locked, a key needed to operate the system. The stage wouldn’t move. I’d guessed that the radio control that Arturas had briefly operated in court controlled the stage remotely.

  I heard a shot blow out the window behind me; one of the four arched sandglass windows that had been in the courthouse from day one. I walked along the full length of the platform toward the broken window. A figure appeared on the window ledge.

  He was breathing heavily as he threw a chair behind him. The same chair that he’d used to break the window. His robes were white with plaster dust. He coughed and almost fell.

  It was Harry. He’d come back for me.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

  “Careful,” I said.

  Harry wobbled and then gripped the ornamental masonry as the height hit him. I stepped onto the rails of the stage to boost myself onto the ledge. The gunfire in the courtroom started up anew.

  The stage shook and juddered as Arturas landed on the steel platform at the opposite end. Arturas had leaped from the same window that I’d come through. He snapped his lifeline onto the platform’s safety rail. The line extended from the waist and bolted on to a thick leather three-way harness sewn into the coveralls. Kneeling down, he put the remote control for the stage on the floor, slid back his false heel, and removed his knife.

  “Take my hand, Eddie,” said Harry.

  “Lawyer,” cried Arturas.

  He smiled just like he had the day before, when we’d first met in the bathroom of Ted’s Diner. That jagged scar that seemed to reach for his upturned mouth took on a pinkish hue in the cold air. He looked different, no longer the coolheaded killer. His eyes held a pain and longing for revenge. My head still rang from the fall. Blood trickled down my neck from a head wound, and I thought my shoulder and back would be bruised for a month.

  “It’s over, lawyer,” said Arturas.

  I backed away quickly as far as I could go, Harry’s outstretched hand just within touching distance. Arturas stood maybe twenty feet away.

  “I bet those coveralls are real heavy.”

  Arturas didn’t acknowledge me. He began to move forward.

  “I bet those suits are so heavy you wouldn’t notice a couple of extra pounds.”

  He froze and slowly dipped his head.

  His hands moved over his chest, his back, and then stopped when they reached the large pocket on his right thigh. Both Volchek and I had figured the large-sized suit for Arturas. I’d hidden the bomb in those coveralls as soon as I’d made the deal with Volchek.

  I took the real detonator from my pants pocket, held it up for him to see, and said, “Smile at this, asshole.” I grasped Harry’s hand, leaped for the window ledge, and hit the detonator.

  The ex–army captain pulled me up just as the stage fell. The blast cut Arturas in half, blew the shit out of the control panel, and then the stage bucked and shot toward the ground. As I got my knee onto the ledge and pulled myself to safety, I heard the groan of tumbling steel as it accelerated toward the empty pavement below. Thank God NYPD evacuated the block, I thought. The sound of the stage hitting the earth seemed to vibrate into my teeth, a terrible wrenching and crashing as the stage bounced and snapped.

  “A little help here?” I turned from the window at the sound of Coulson’s voice. He was carrying Kennedy’s semiconscious body over his shoulder. Kennedy was breathing, barely, and it looked as though a vest had taken at least one of the shots. Tucking the Beretta into his pants, the Lizard jogged toward us and took the bleeding Kennedy from Coulson. The young agent looked a little unsteady on his feet.

  “The big Russian’s dead. He was the last,” said the Lizard.

  “Let’s move,” said Harry.

  Everything had happened so fast, but even so, I guessed that at best we had six, maybe seven minutes to clear the building before the vans blew.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY

  The elevator plummeted toward the ground floor. We didn’t have time to take the stairs.

  The alarm seemed to mark the passing of every second with increasing urgency.

  Shifting his feet to find a steady base, the Lizard hefted Kennedy so that the injured man’s weight spread evenly across his shoulders. I couldn’t control my breathing—a mixture of panic and sheer exhaustion. Coulson was still holding his head. Only Harry appeared calm, but I could tell he was really boiling with fear. His eyes never left the floor readout at the top of the control panel.

  Harry silently mouthed the passing of every floor.

  The alarm continued to thunder.

  The seconds rolled away.

  “Did Jimmy get her?” I said.

  “I don’t know,” said the Lizard.

  I tried calling him again, but there was no signal.

  Please tell me you got her. Please …

  The elevator stopped at the lobby, and we poured out. The entrance doors had been flung open, and I could see the last of the evacuees about two hundred yards away, hurtling toward the police cordon.

  Coulson grabbed Harry’s arm and yelled, “Run.”

  The Lizard flew past Harry. And we followed.

  As we reached the court steps, we heard a voice booming at us through a megaphone. A cop stood maybe five hundred yards in front of us, his head poking around a blast barrier. We ran, slipping, down the steps. Blood from the dying agent soaked the Lizard’s back and his pants, and he began to slide a little from the blood soaking his shoes.

  Harry and Coulson went ahead of me, my pace slowing as I tried Jimmy’s cell again, letting it ring as I sprinted for the barrier.

  My lungs were burning, and even though we were clear of the building, I could still hear the alarm in my head, pounding away time. That relentless beat mixed with the sound of my heels hammering the ground as I ran, and my legs seemed to get slower as time sped up.

  I was almost done, my breath gone, my strength gone. My head was screaming with pain. It took all I had to keep my legs moving, arms pumping—mouth open wide but unable to take in enough air.

  We were close to the cordon now—fifty yards to go. I could make out some faces in the crowd through the gap in the blast barrier that had opened up to let paramedics through to help us. I searched the faces in the crowd, but I didn’t see Amy or Jimmy.

  Up ahead, the Lizard dumped Kennedy onto a waiting gurney that had raced toward him.

  I redialed.

  I was close now.

  Coulson, Harry, and the Lizard reached the barrier and ducked behind it.

  I was almost there when the call connected and I heard Jimmy’s voice. “Eddie I—”

  Then the world caved in.

  The blast instantly deafened me. Like plunging suddenly into dense water. I had the sensation of being airborne, even though I didn’t remember my feet leaving the street. My head hit the pavement, but I didn’t register the pain, only the internal hollow sound o
f flesh and bony skull hitting the paving flags. I felt as though a cloud of foul gas and soil and brick had hit my throat and buried itself in my teeth.

  Lying on the ground, I could see a terrifying cloud of black dust now stood where once there was a courthouse. As the building came down, a terrible roar shook the city, and although I couldn’t hear anything, I felt that ferocious pounding of tons of crumbling brick. A thick smell of burning metal and old wood choked me, and I was engulfed in dirt, stones, and smoke. Before I passed out, I thought I heard Harry calling me over the screaming and the cacophony of a billion pieces of glass churning through the air.

  And I remembered no more.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE

  I felt something warm and wet on my mouth. My lips were dry and the kiss was soothing.

  With effort, I cracked open an eye and saw Christine’s face, inches above my own.

  It took me a second to realize I was in a hospital bed.

  My wife pulled away from me. Her eyes were tinged with red, her face dirty with tears. She covered her mouth as more tears came, her fingers trembling. As she cried, she lashed out, slapping me in the chest and arms. I raised my hands gently, and she stopped and broke down, sobbing as she stepped away from me and shook her head.

  When Christine stepped away, I saw a small figure behind her, someone asleep in the visitor’s chair in my room. I’d never seen midafternoon sun as beautiful as it was that day as it played upon my daughter’s hair. I stared at her for a long time, not knowing if the light came from the sun or from my daughter. She wore her little jacket that was more pins and badges than denim, a Springsteen T-shirt underneath, green jeans, and her oversized boots.

  She looked so peaceful.

  “You son of a bitch,” said Christine softly, not wishing to wake our daughter. “She’s so lucky. She could’ve been killed. You put her life in danger—you and that firm.”