The spray hit my eyes like a thousand tiny needles, the sting nearly knocking me to the ground. It was mace. Military grade. The kind that could stop a grizzly dead in its tracks, never mind a person.
My helmet and phone hit the ground as I reached up to my eyes. Again, pure reflex. I was all but blind, blinking furiously to try to keep seeing—if only for a split second at a time. The Glock holstered above my ankle was useless.
That’s when he raised his right hand.
I could just make out the movement. The grip. The steel. The suppressor attached to the end of the barrel. Pffft!
The muffled sound pierced the air with barely a wake. Once, then twice. He’d shot my back tire followed by the front. It was all happening frame by frame, like clicking through one of those old View-Masters. My mind was desperately trying to fill in what my eyes couldn’t see.
He could’ve killed me if he’d wanted to. He didn’t want to. All he was looking for was a captive audience. He had it.
“Is the girl okay?” he asked.
Is the girl okay? You just maced me, my eyes are burning like hell, and you want an update on Elizabeth?
The mere question told me plenty, though. He truly had been trying to help her with the tip about Gorgin and his house up in Pelham.
“She’s okay,” I said.
Two words were pretty much all I could manage. I was bent over in agony, out of breath from the pain. Fine by him. He was there to talk, not listen.
“You don’t know me, and the mayor doesn’t know me. Do you understand? I see everything, Dr. Reinhart, and you clearly don’t. Not any longer. Not these days.”
He obviously knew who I was and what I used to be. He just wasn’t giving me enough credit for it.
All I needed to do was muster three more words.
“Look behind you,” I said.
CHAPTER 55
I WISHED I could’ve seen his face. Hell, I wished I could’ve seen anything.
But I saw enough.
Eli had turned to find the business end of a SIG P226 pointing straight at him. The man doing the pointing was only a set of eyes beneath a John Deere cap, the rest of his face covered by a red bandana. Old school. Like the Old West. Or, more likely, the best he could manage given such short notice. Either way, it worked.
Eli didn’t need instructions. He knew the drill. He laid down what looked to be a Remington R1 Tactical, given the raised sights to accommodate the suppressor. He then spread his arms slightly away from his body. No monkey business.
“About time you showed up,” I said to my cavalry of one. I immediately regretted it. Josiah Maxwell Reinhart suffered sarcasm even less than fools.
“That’s a damn funny way of saying thank you,” he snapped back.
“I could’ve done without the mace, that’s all,” I said. Slowly, I was getting my vision back. If only the pain would go away. “And how did you know he wasn’t going to kill me?”
“Who maces someone before they shoot him?”
Decent point, Dad. Still, “There’s always a first time.”
I walked over and frisked Eli. He had no other weapon. In fact, he had nothing else on him except a pack of Marlboros and a money clip stuffed with hundreds inside his blazer. No credit cards. No ID of any kind.
As soon as I scooped up his gun, my father lowered his. I could tell the old man was exhausted, although he’d never let on. He’d left Concord, New Hampshire, immediately after I called around midnight, arriving in his old, beat-up Jeep Commando at about four thirty in the morning.
“So now what?” he asked. I couldn’t blame him for wanting to keep the show moving. He’d been up all night.
“Now I talk to our friend Eli here,” I said. “It is Eli, right?”
I wasn’t expecting him to answer. What was I going to do, shoot him if he didn’t cooperate? We both knew that wasn’t going to happen.
No, I needed another form of leverage. Fast, too. The sun was beginning to peek over the building tops. Our dimly lit alley was turning into broad daylight. Last I checked, New York still wasn’t an open carry state.
Eli raised a hand, although not to ask a question. He was motioning to the breast pocket inside his blazer. “I’m going to smoke.”
That settled why Elizabeth couldn’t originally peg his accent. His voice was so gravelly in person it sounded as if he’d been born with a cigarette in his hand.
The hell you are, I was about to say. He was no longer in charge.
Turns out I wasn’t either.
“Jesus Christ,” said my father. “Is that you, Elijah?”
My father lowered his bandana. Eli—make that, Elijah—lowered his sunglasses. They both smiled.
“It’s me,” said Elijah.
“I thought you were retired,” said my father.
“Yeah, and I thought you were dead, Eagle.”
CHAPTER 56
HE CALLED my father by his old code name, the Eagle. They obviously had history. A somewhat complicated one, I was about to learn.
My father casually walked over to Elijah. The way the two were still smiling I thought they were going to hug.
Nope.
The very second my father was within range he delivered a roundhouse punch to Elijah’s gut. I mean, hard. I could literally hear the wind getting knocked out of the guy.
“That’s for macing my son,” said my father.
Elijah was now bent over and gasping for air, but I figured not for long. He was bound to retaliate, and I was ready to jump in between the two to make sure he didn’t. Instead, Elijah didn’t do anything. Not in terms of fighting back. He simply waited to catch his breath, straightened out his spine, and gave my father a slight nod as if to say he knew he’d had that coming.
When he proceeded to reach into his blazer, I figured he was finally having that cigarette. Nope again. Out came his money clip.
“Are those Dunlop Elites?” he asked, pointing to the tires on my bike.
“They were,” I said.
Elijah peeled off five one-hundred-dollar bills and handed them to me. “That should cover it.”
I took the money. Apparently all debts were settled because, of all things, now my father hugged Elijah, and Elijah hugged him back. What the hell is going on?
There’s always been a weird unspoken code among operatives, no matter which flag they saluted, but this was even beyond weird.
“I take it you guys worked together?” I asked.
“Not really,” said my father.
“Let’s just say we didn’t work against each other,” said Elijah.
That was actually the first thing that sort of made sense in a screwed-up-world kind of way.
“Son, meet the Prophet,” said my father.
And like that, I was shaking the hand of the guy who only minutes earlier had maced me and shot out my tires. I didn’t think twice about it, though. The guy was a legend. Now he was officially real, too. Up until that moment, I’d never been fully convinced he actually existed.
Remember when President George W. Bush was assassinated at the Red Sea Summit in 2003? Of course you don’t. It never happened. It almost did, though. The story goes that the Prophet took out not one but two would-be suicide bombers in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. What made that all the more incredible was that the Prophet was known to be a Mossad agent. He saved not only Bush’s life but also the lives of the leaders of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the Palestinians. Give that a moment to sink in. It was a Who’s Who of Israeli antagonists, if not outright enemies, and this guy saved them all in order to save Israel’s strongest ally. And you wonder why we always have their back?
The Prophet saw coming what no one else had. Hence, his nickname in the intelligence community from that day forward.
Clearly, he hadn’t lost his touch. He knew that someone would be staking out Mayor Deacon. If not Elizabeth, then someone who was working with her. I never saw him coming, but at least I thought enough to bring backup. Who knew they
would know each other?
Do I call him the Prophet? Mr. Prophet?
“I need your help,” I just said instead.
He nodded. “More than you even know. The Mudir is only getting started. It’s all coming.”
“Another attack?”
“Yes, and another after that. A series of them. And if I’m right, the finale will make everything else look like child’s play.”
I wasn’t sure where to begin. What kind of attacks? When? And how do you know? I wanted everything, every last detail. There wasn’t enough he could tell me.
Until I realized something.
There was actually nothing he could tell me. Not here. Not now. I had to let him know I understood that. This wasn’t checkers. It wasn’t even chess. It was classic game theory. Whatever I gained from him could end up costing him dearly in ways I couldn’t even fathom. Sources. Contacts. Cooperating agents. In short, his current livelihood. Or worse, his life. There was a young man out in Pelham named Gorgin who had already paid with his.
It was the Prophet’s move, and it would have to come on his terms.
“How much time do you need?” I asked.
He looked at me and then my father. “He’s smart like you, Eagle,” he said.
“Even smarter,” said my father.
The Prophet let go with a quick smile, as if maybe he had a son of his own. “You’ll see me again,” he said.
He then turned and walked away, out the alley and toward the back of the Excelsior. I watched, along with my father, as he got into the limo. Immediately, it drove off.
Son of a bitch. The mayor wasn’t even at the hotel. He never was.
The Prophet had set the whole thing up.
CHAPTER 57
I STEERED clear of the question while my father and I waited in the alley for the flatbed to arrive and tow my bike. We kept the conversation light, talking mostly about the happenings at Yale and my teaching. My father had pulled the lever for Republicans far more times than any Democrat in his life, but he could never understand the way some people saw fit to mock the so-called Northeast elites in their supposed ivy-covered towers. “Any of those morons would kill to have their kid go to Harvard or Yale,” he would say. He was right.
Finally, in the elevator up to my apartment, I got around to the question. He knew all along it was coming. “Were you there?” I asked.
“Yeah, I was there,” he said. The Red Sea Summit in 2003. “I almost died there, too.”
“What happened?”
“It’s all about what didn’t happen, of course. The assassination of six world leaders including a US president. The intel said that a rogue Israeli agent was about to forever change the Middle East—and the rest of the world—all in a day’s work.”
“Elijah, you mean.”
“Yep. It was a mad scramble trying to find him. All we had was one grainy black-and-white. An outdated photo, no less.”
“So, what happened?”
“I found him. Or, I should say, he found me first. Kind of like what happened to you today. I thought I had him cornered, and the next thing I knew there was a pistol pressed against the back of my head. He told me to close my eyes and count backward from ten. By three, he was gone. An hour later, the two suicide bombers were found dead in their hotel room, all bombs intact. I don’t know how he knew where to find them, but I was sure he was the one who did. He was a rogue agent, all right. The right kind of rogue.”
“You got some seriously bad intel,” I said.
“Let’s just say there was a lot of that in the wake of 9/11.”
We stood in silence for a few moments as I stared at the elevator’s buttons for each floor lighting up, one after another. It dawned on me. There was something my father’s story didn’t explain. “He knew your code name,” I said. “He called you Eagle.”
“Yes, he did.” My father paused as if choosing his next words very carefully. “We met a few years later, this time face-to-face. I even managed to return the favor somewhat.”
I was about to ask how when the elevator opened. My father stepped off first. He promptly turned around and did the thing he always did when he was done talking about a subject. It was a quick slice through the air with his hand. A karate chop to the conversation. No more questions.
I let it be. My father always had his reasons, and there was only so much you could push him. Besides, I was thinking of pulling the same move when we got into the apartment. Where’s my granddaughter? he was surely going to ask.
The concept of Tracy and me was still a work in progress for my father, but he was all in on Annabelle. Completely smitten. In fact, he’d already made two trips down from New Hampshire just to see her. Now he was going to wonder where the hell she was. Maybe I could just chop away all his questions.
I was so consumed with having to explain what happened with Tracy that I barely even glanced at the man in the Mets cap who passed us in the hallway. He could’ve been anybody. I didn’t have a clue who he was. Right up until the moment when I reached the door to my apartment. That’s when I realized.
He’d been sent to kill me.
CHAPTER 58
IT WAS barely there—a smidge, a notch, a sliver above a dog whistle. But I could hear it.
That metallic hum, the sound of the automatic lock on the door having been engaged only seconds before. He’d been inside the apartment. He’d just left.
No, wait. He’s coming back.
I knew it even before I turned my head. I didn’t need to see it. I could feel it. Instinct. Killer instinct.
Once he’d passed the corner leading to the elevator bank, he’d turned around to look. I saw his head peek out as he spotted us in front of my door. He was ten yards off with nothing in his way. He had a clean shot.
But only if I let him take it.
There was no time to even yell Gun! as I reached for mine while all but slamming my father to the ground. I fired once, rolled, then twice—neither with any aim. Just direction. Enough to force this guy back around the corner, if only for a few seconds.
“Silver one,” I said, tossing my key chain to my father. He was now closest to the door. The two other keys, copper colored, were for a storage unit and my office at Yale.
Having a former CIA operative for a dad has its drawbacks, but it sure comes in handy when taking fire. He knew what to do. More importantly, he knew what not to do. As in, try to open the door to my apartment at the wrong time.
We were crouched on the tight pile carpet, spread on either side of the hall with our guns drawn, waiting for the next rounds to come our way. It wasn’t a matter of if, only when. C’mon, bring it …
We kept staring at the corner, waiting for movement. Amateurs always go for speed, trying to outdraw you. This guy wasn’t an amateur.
The first thing we saw was subtle, a hint of blue from the brim of his Mets cap. It was sticking out no more than an inch, about six feet off the ground. He was decoying us. I could practically picture him holding the cap above his head, trying to draw our eyes.
Instead I gave a quick glance to my father, who nodded back. Enough said. My father was no amateur either.
The Mets cap—and only the cap—suddenly came flying out from behind the corner like a clay pigeon, but my eyes stayed focused below it. Sure enough, his hand came whipping around the edge, the barrel of his semiautomatic leading the way only a few feet up from the floor. Nice try, asshole …
We traded shots. My father and I were pinned down, but the guy had no time to square either of us up. He was quick, though. Good reflexes. No sooner did he lunge forward than he immediately pulled back, although not before I nicked him. A small burst of blood splattered against the wall, probably from the meat of his forearm.
Now!
My father sprang to his feet with the key, finding the cylinder on the first try. With a twist and a shove, he threw open the door. All I had to do was follow him in. That’s all I had to do.
Take it away, Robert Burns.
The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.
CHAPTER 59
ALL AT once came a cacophony of sounds I didn’t want to hear. Not then. Not there. What are you doing, Mrs. Jones?
The sliding of the security chain on her door. The snap of the dead bolt. The squeaking of a turning doorknob that probably hadn’t been oiled since the last time the Mets actually won the World Series.
The hallway was about to have company.
Our next-door neighbor, Mrs. Irma Jones, had just submitted her application to the infamous Darwin Awards by hearing gunshots outside her apartment and somehow deciding that the smartest move for survival’s sake was to get a closer look. Then again, she was in her eighties. Who knows what she thought she heard?
She sure didn’t hear me. As soon as her door opened, I tried to tell her to go back inside. I couldn’t yell, though. Yelling would’ve been the same as grabbing a bullhorn to announce to the shooter that I was distracted. In other words, fire away.
After looking down the hall, Irma turned and saw me flat on the ground behind her. She was about to do the one thing worse than peeking her head out. She was about to come all the way out.
“Are you okay, Dylan?” she asked, squinting.
Irma had maybe an inch on Ruth Bader Ginsburg, if that. She was tiny. And she was about to get body-slammed.
I pushed up off the carpet, launching myself toward her like a sprinter out of the blocks. I had one eye on her and the other over her shoulder, and before I could even blink, it went from bad to worse.
There was no decoying us this time. No trickery with the Mets cap. He jumped out from around the corner with a two-handed grip. He had no intention of missing me twice.
Irma screamed.
Irma never saw him. She had her back to him. She was screaming because of the gun I had pointed at her head while charging at her. At least, that’s what it surely looked like to her eyes. Her neighbor, one of those two nice gay men from next door, was about to kill her. That had to be against the co-op board’s rules, right?
Killer Instinct Page 13