Chukov spotted me instantly. Then he looked up at the vast expanse of stars and stripes — the flag I had fought for, the colors so many of my fellow Americans had laid down their lives for — and the Russian son of a bitch slowly extended his middle finger.
He looked back across the vast cavern of Grand Central and threw me a mock salute.
He took his phone from his pocket and dialed. Seconds later, my cell rang.
“I’m ready to do business,” he said. “Bring the diamonds here.”
“Send Katherine over here,” I said. “I’ll put the diamonds down and we’ll leave quietly.”
“Nyet. She’s not going anywhere until I see them,” Chukov said. “Start walking toward me. Nice and easy. I’ve got three guns pointed at you and three on her.”
I muted my cell.
“Ready to tango, boys?” I said softly.
Ty’s voice came back first. “In Position Bravo, dancing shoes on.”
Then Adam. “I was ready to stomp all over him as soon as he gave the flag the finger.”
Then Zach. “The rabbit and I are hopping mad. Let’s kick some Russian ass.”
There were about two hundred feet between Chukov and me. I started walking toward him. Operation Nighthawks was under way.
The city that never sleeps was living up to its name. Even though the crowds had thinned, there were still hundreds of people all around us — some chattering away upstairs in the restaurant, some waiting for a late-night Metro North commuter train, and a steady stream of straphangers on their way to catch a Lexington Avenue subway or the shuttle to Times Square.
“Lots of foot traffic,” Adam said.
“We’ve got a pair of eyes on the Vanderbilt balcony checking out the main floor,” Zach said. “A cop. I can’t tell if he’s focused on you or just staring into space.”
I was halfway there, a hundred feet to go. I didn’t look up at the cop. I just kept walking.
I could see Katherine clearly now. Her tan pants were stained with dirt and grease, her hair was matted from sweat, and her eyes were red, puffy, and filled with dread.
When I got thirty feet away, I stopped and unmuted my cell phone. “This is as far as I go, Chukov,” I said.
I put the phone down, unlatched the medical bag, tipped it forward, scooped up a fistful of rhinestones, and let them trickle through my fingers and run back into the bag.
A smile spread across his jowly mug, and I knew that the worthless glass had passed for the real thing. I closed the bag and picked up the phone.
“You wanted to see them?” I said. “You’ve seen them. Now send one of your men over here with Katherine and he can have the diamonds.”
Chukov hesitated.
“Don’t take too long,” I said. “There’s a cop on the west balcony who is starting to get interested in this little tableau, and I think we all should get out of here before he decides to ask embarrassing questions.”
Chukov looked up at the cop who was standing on the balcony. He turned to one of his men: a big, burly, stoop-shouldered Eastern European.
“Grigor,” he said. That was all I understood. The rest was in Russian.
Chukov let go of Katherine’s arm. Grigor stepped in, gently tapped her shoulder, and said, “We go. Please.”
They walked toward me and stopped less than two feet away. I could feel the fear coming off Katherine’s body.
“Take the bag,” I said to Grigor. “Take it back to Chukov and get the hell out of our lives.”
I waited for him to bend down and pick it up. He didn’t. Instead, he nudged it into position with his foot, then kicked it hard. It skittered across the floor and stopped directly at Chukov’s feet.
It would take Chukov less than ten seconds to open the bag and realize the diamonds were fake. Grigor stood silently, one hand on his gun, the other on Katherine.
I tilted my head down toward my lapel.
“Release the rabbit,” I said.
Chapter 88
THE BEST WAY to get a greyhound to race around a track is to give him a mechanical rabbit to chase.
Our rabbit was an olive-drab rucksack packed with smoke grenades like the ones I had thrown the night I found the diamonds. As soon as Zach pushed the remote detonator, it exploded outside the prestigious Yale Club at 50 Vanderbilt Avenue, across the street from the terminal.
Our mission was to create chaos outside Grand Central before all hell broke loose inside.
It worked like gangbusters.
The explosion was not much more than noise and smoke, but the earsplitting boom was enough to cause a coronary a block away, and the billowing acrid cloud of smoke could have blanketed a football field.
The blast was far enough away that down on the main concourse it sounded like a muffled car backfiring. Those who heard it waved it off — a classic case of This is New York. I have my own problems. That noise ain’t one of them.
Not so with the cops at the door. For them, standing around hour after hour, day after day, night after night, this was a holy shit moment. The shoe they had been waiting to hear drop.
And despite the fact that the streets of New York are the sole jurisdiction of the NYPD, the MTA state cops bolted out the door like a pack of greyhounds from the starting gate, racing to nail the exploding rabbit.
Katherine heard it, too. If she could be any more petrified than she already was, the noise pushed her to the edge. After her body twitched from being startled, fresh tears made tracks over the ones already dried on her dirty cheeks. I desperately wanted to wrap my arms around her and apologize for the pain and suffering I had caused, and vow to spend the rest of my life making amends for it. But all I could do now was make that promise to myself. I turned my attention back to Chukov.
The noise didn’t faze him. He was too busy opening the bag. He reached in and grabbed a handful of the glittering stones. A second later his head snapped around and he screamed at me. The words were in Russian, but I needed no translation. It was the cry of a man who had just come up with a fistful of worthless glass.
“Light it up,” I yelled into the wireless.
Chukov flung the rhinestones to the floor and went for his gun. I reached for Katherine and screamed, “Close your eyes! Cover your ears!” as I shielded her with my body.
She was too dumbfounded to follow through with my instructions. I pressed her face to my chest, covered her ears with my arm, and braced myself.
Unlike the benign smoke grenades that had drawn the cops onto the street, the ALST471 magnum ultra-flash grenade produces a brilliant flash, a deafening concussive blast, and a shower of white-hot sparks. It’s the military’s nonlethal version of shock and awe — developed as a stun device for a variety of tactical operations, including hostage rescue. Launch one into a crowd and it leaves everyone temporarily blind, deaf, and totally disoriented. Adam and Ty launched two.
The flash grenades hit their marks and rocked the place. Even with my eyes closed and my ears covered, the white light and the thunderous noise were like a lightning strike.
The shrieks and cries of the throng who were caught by surprise bounced off the marble walls and echoed from the domed ceiling.
I screamed into my wireless for Zach, opened my eyes, and saw him running toward me.
“You’re safe, you’re safe,” I yelled at Katherine as I passed her over to Zach. “Zach, don’t let her out of your sight. Go, go, go!”
Chapter 89
ZACH PUT HIS arm around Katherine and half dragged, half carried her toward the stairway to the north balcony, our designated safe zone.
The rest of us had six incensed Russians to deal with. Like everyone around them, they were still stunned, unable to fight back.
First, Grigor. He was flailing, still blinded, trying to get his bearings. I gave him a vicious chop to the larynx with the blade of my hand. The blow drove quantities of blood into his lungs. He dropped to his knees, gasping for air and coughing up thick red puddles. I grabbed his jaw with one h
and, put my other hand behind his neck, and twisted. Hard. Harder than I would if I were trying to get a stuck lug nut off a wheel.
Even over the screams echoing through the cavernous train station, with its high ceilings, I was close enough to hear the wet pop, and I let him fall to the floor.
“Tango down,” I told my team.
A volley of gunfire reverberated through Grand Central. It was coming from above. Adam and Ty had raced up the stairs into Michael Jordan’s Steak House. They’d taken positions on the north balcony.
One of Chukov’s young punks had parked himself under the New Haven line departures board. He was still dazed from the flash grenade when Adam fired. The man’s chest tore open like a pumpkin that’s been hurled off a rooftop. His shirt turned red and he dropped in a heap.
“Tango three is on the west balcony,” I said.
Ty came back. “I don’t see him.”
“He hit the ground when the grenades went off. He’s hiding behind the marble balustrades.”
Ty kept talking. “Chickenshit bastard is socked in good. I can see a sliver of his punk ass between the sixth and seventh column.”
The balustrades were only inches apart, and Ty was at least two hundred feet away. Hitting the target would be like driving a golf ball through a chain-link fence.
“Do you have a shot?” I asked.
“No…”
Then there was a loud crack.
“But I took one, anyway,” he added. “Tango three is down.”
I watched as a trail of blood flowed through the marble balustrades on the west balcony and dripped to the floor below.
“Nice work,” Adam said.
The place was sheer bedlam. I had used flash grenades in combat and seen the effect it had on the enemy. But this was a hundred times worse. The people around us had no training. Many of them were suddenly blind, deaf, or both. It was temporary, but they didn’t know that. And now bullets were flying, too.
Random screams filled the air. People calling out to God. People cursing out the unseen enemy. People proclaiming their love for parents, spouses, and children they thought they would never see again. I could smell the fear.
In the midst of all the insanity, the Russians were reeling and unable to find a target. Ty and Adam had excellent vantage points, but they had to be careful not to shoot innocent bystanders helplessly stumbling through the mob.
One of Chukov’s men who still didn’t have his vision completely back began firing wildly up toward Adam and Ty, riddling the marble railing, shattering glassware, and popping the overhead lights.
“We’ve got a loose cannon down there,” Adam yelled.
Ty stood away from his cover. Just for a second. One of the Russians spotted him and fired. The round caught Ty square in the chest. He went down hard, and I moaned.
“Son of a bitch, that smarts,” he said, pulling his six foot six frame off the floor. He tapped the body armor that had stopped the bullet. “God bless you, Mr. Kevlar.”
He got back in position and opened fire on the shooter. Not just one shot, three—a double tap to the chest, one through the forehead. A perfect Mozambique Drill.
“Tango four is down and out,” I said. “Talk about overkill—”
“Yeah, well, that’s what happens to people who piss me off.”
“You okay?” I asked.
“Fine. Vest is a little torn up.”
“For the record,” I said, “there’s no Mr. Kevlar. You should be thanking Mr. DuPont.”
“Noted,” Ty said.
There were two shooters left. Chukov and his number two. They were coming out of their daze, and Chukov, his gun now in his hand, screamed, “Shoot the bitch! Kill her!”
Then Chukov turned his gun on me. I dived as bullets chewed up chunks of marble behind me. I rolled and pulled my own gun. The Russian going after Katherine was already thirty feet away from her, moving fast. I had one shot. Maybe. I drew a quick bead, exhaled, squeezed the trigger lightly. The bullet drilled straight through the back of his neck. He pitched forward, driving his face into the marble staircase.
“Matt, behind you!”
I spun around and Chukov’s first bullet caught me in the chest. The second one ripped a hole in my left shoulder. The pain was immediate and excruciating. I hit the floor hard. Truth was, I’d never been shot before.
Chapter 90
EVEN OVER THE mayhem, I could hear Katherine scream when I got shot. Then I heard Adam’s voice in my earpiece. “Junkyard Six is down.”
That was me. I hadn’t been Junkyard Six since we left Iraq, but in the heat of battle, Adam reverted to familiar territory.
“Cover him, cover him!” Adam yelled.
There was a hailstorm of bullets. My guys were laying down suppressive fire at Chukov, forcing him to take cover and stop shooting at me.
I was in pain, but I was grateful. The bullet that Chukov fired at my chest was lodged in my body armor and not in my body. But the force of the concussion had knocked the wind out of me, and I felt like I had a couple of cracked ribs.
The bullet in my shoulder was what the medics casually refer to as a flesh wound. But it’s impossible to be casual when it’s your flesh that’s wounded. I struggled to get up.
“Matt, Matt, are you okay?” Ty said.
“Where’s Katherine?” I yelled.
Zach jumped in. “Shaken but safe. Are you okay?”
“No. And I won’t be okay until we get Chukov.” I stood and looked around. “Where is he?”
“Running up the south ramp,” Adam said. “I don’t have a clean shot from the balcony. Matt, how bad were you hit?”
“Enough to really piss me off. I’m going after him.”
I could see Chukov barreling his way up the ramp through the frenzied crowd toward the 42nd Street exit.
My shoulder was burning as I headed toward the ramp. Chukov looked back and saw me. Then he looked at the bottleneck in front of him. Hundreds of people were screaming in terror as they fought to squeeze through doorways that were designed to handle one person at a time.
Ten more seconds and I’d have him.
There was a second ramp — one that went down into the subway. It was wide open because nobody wanted to go down there. The lessons of 9/11 were still fresh in people’s minds. Grand Central was under attack. Get out of the building. Don’t risk being trapped underground. Only a crazy person would head down there.
The mob kept clawing at the front doors. One crazy person broke off from the pack and raced down the ramp toward the spiderweb of subways below.
Chukov. He had realized he’d never make it out the narrow door.
A second person, bleeding, in pain, and probably just as crazy, followed.
Me.
Chapter 91
THE GRAND CENTRAL subway station is a labyrinth of uptown, downtown, and crosstown options. Along with its sister station under the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Times Square, it is one of the busiest stations in the entire system, so it’s easy to get lost in the subterranean maze, even if you don’t want to.
Chukov definitely wanted to.
By the time I made it down the ramp, he was out of sight.
There were dozens of subway riders who had just gotten off a train and were walking through the passageways oblivious to the chaos going on above them.
I stopped the first man I saw. “Did you see a short, fat guy? He was probably running—”
“Whoa, man,” he said. “You’re bleeding real bad.”
I hadn’t realized what I looked like. “I’m okay,” I said. “Did you see—”
He held his hands up and backed away. “Didn’t see anyone. You better get to a hospital, dude.”
There were half a dozen staircases and at least that many passageways that Chukov could have taken.
I tried to weigh the pluses and minuses using the same logic he would have used. The passageways would eventually lead him to a street exit. But the streets would be clogged with cops re
sponding to the bomb blasts and the gunfire. The stairs would take him to a subway. He could be miles away in minutes. That was the best option.
But which subway? Uptown? Downtown? Local? Express? Flushing line? Times Square shuttle?
I was headed for the downtown staircase when I heard the scream.
A woman came running up the opposite stairwell, shouting, “Run! There’s a man down there with a gun!”
I charged back to the Lexington Avenue uptown and took the steps three at a time.
The platform was deserted. No passengers. No cops. No Chukov. He had just been here, but the screaming woman had sent him running again.
The tracks. Chukov was a madman. Would he be crazy enough to try to escape through the tunnel?
I stepped to the edge of the platform and looked into the semidarkness. There was enough light to navigate the tunnel, and I realized that if he was smart and careful, he could make his way uptown to 51st Street this way.
“Turn around.”
I froze. The madman was behind me. My gun was tucked in my belt. Even without looking, I knew where his gun was — aimed right at my back.
I turned slowly, and there he was, pointing a semiautomatic Marakov PM at my chest.
His eyes were on fire, and I could hear the asthmatic rattle in his lungs as he breathed. I knew what was coming next — the diatribe, the rant, the blistering harangue cataloging every injustice I had inflicted on him, followed by threats of retribution he would bring down on me and everyone connected to me. And then, one last negotiation. He still wanted the diamonds, and even though I had duped him on the exchange, he still believed I had them.
Scream at me all you want, I thought. I need as much time as I can get to figure a way out of this.
But I was wrong. He didn’t utter a word. He just aimed the gun at my heart and squeezed the trigger.
The bullet slammed into the shock plate of my body armor and blew me backward off the platform onto the tracks. The pain was unbearable, but once again the vest under my sweater had saved my life.
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