Killer Instinct

by Patterson, James

  Foxx returned. “He doesn’t know anything, does he?”

  I shook my head. “Nope.”

  “He’s MI6, isn’t he?”

  “How did you know?”

  “I didn’t. But his director just called ours to apologize.” Foxx turned to the agent and promptly made a very special relationship between his fist and the guy’s jaw. “Apology not accepted,” said Foxx, before walking away.

  I followed him back to the Expedition for the drive to Grand Central. On the way, I had a call of my own to make.

  Elizabeth picked up immediately. She’d been waiting on me.

  CHAPTER 110

  “BUCKLE UP, REINHART …”

  It was another car chase. Only now against time.

  Siren blaring, lights flashing, Foxx gunned it back toward midtown. He was driving the wrong way in the breakdown lane, aiming for the next exit south, while sideswiping any cars edging out to get a peek at what was making them late to work. At over a hundred miles an hour, we were easily the most effective PSA on record for Stay in your lane.

  Along the way to Grand Central, we got the next best thing to direct updates from Pritchard. Foxx had a dedicated scanner with the live command channel that Pritchard was using to coordinate FBI, FBI SWAT, NYPD, and his own JTTF field unit. If we were lucky, they’d arrive before the attack. Unlucky? Any other scenario.

  We were lucky. At least, so far. Grand Central was quiet. Well, as quiet as can be for a place that had thousands of rush-hour commuters funneling through it at that very moment.

  Pritchard now had everyone in place. Within twenty minutes of getting the call from Foxx, and after a mad scramble from Penn Station to Grand Central, it was now a waiting game. Those in uniform, mainly snipers, were in the ceiling and other hidden positions. Everyone undercover blended in throughout both concourses.

  “Where the hell do you think you’re going?” asked Foxx after he pulled up next to a hydrant at 42nd and Madison, a block west of Grand Central. I was halfway out to the curb before he’d even cut the engine.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  Only I knew exactly what he meant. The Mudir knew what I looked like. At this point, my image was probably seared into his brain. We couldn’t risk having him see me. It could blow everything.

  “Unless you’ve got a fake mustache and a wig stuffed in your pocket, you’re staying right here,” said Foxx.

  “I can at least get closer.”

  “To do what?”

  Good point. Even more so after he pointed to his scanner. At least I’d be able to hear everything by staying in the car.

  “You win,” I said, though I probably shouldn’t have, at least not so quickly. Since when did I ever acquiesce to Foxx?

  “I’m serious, Reinhart,” he said, swinging his legs out to the street. He turned back to look me square in the eyes before shutting the door behind him. “Stay in the damn car.”

  I pointed to the scanner. “I’ve got the play-by-play right here,” I said. “No reason to go anywhere.”

  Foxx took off down 42nd Street, heading over to Grand Central. For the next ten minutes I sat twiddling my thumbs. It felt like an eternity. Pritchard had called for radio silence as everyone waited to see what the Mudir had planned. There was nothing to listen to. Everything was quiet.

  Too quiet.

  CHAPTER 111

  “SHOTS FIRED!”

  It wasn’t Pritchard’s voice, and by the sound of the actual shots, they weren’t anywhere near him either. But they were definitely coming from somewhere inside the terminal. I could hear the echo.

  “Move!”

  That was Pritchard’s voice for sure, and the second he said it, the echo gave way to a firestorm of shooting and screaming. People were literally running for their lives.

  There was no way I was staying put.

  I bolted out of my seat and sprinted toward the station without any game plan except getting there. Easier said than done.

  Before I could even spot the doors to the station along 42nd Street, I could feel the rumbling beneath my feet. It was like an earthquake, the sidewalk shifting and sliding from the mass exodus. Faster, I told myself. Run faster!

  Reaching the corner across from the station, I saw the pandemonium spilling out into the street. Every face had the same look. The wide eyes, the open mouths. Sheer terror. There was still gunfire behind them. Nothing was over.

  Like a salmon with a death wish, I made my way against the current. There was no clear path; people were coming at me in droves.

  Finally I reached the doors to the station, immediately cutting sideways to hug the wall. I was still fifty yards from the main concourse, but I could move quicker, free of the stampede. Amid the pounding of feet and continued screams, I didn’t realize right away that the shooting had actually stopped.

  The main concourse was up ahead and to the right, along with the ramp to the lower level. I hadn’t seen any casualties, no lifeless bodies among the crowd, but I couldn’t help the awful thought that everything was about to change when I made the turn. It was all I could see in my mind.

  Maybe that’s why I didn’t spot him at first, even as he walked right past me only twenty feet away.

  That should’ve been the first red flag. Everyone around him was running. He was walking.

  And his face. There was no terror. Instead, an almost eerie calmness.

  Still, to anyone else who might have noticed, he was surely just another commuter. He was wearing a suit and tie. Wing tips. He’d been on his way to work, like everyone else, when suddenly all hell broke loose.

  But he was no commuter. He was the mastermind behind all this.

  “Freeze!” I yelled at the top of my lungs.

  The Mudir stopped. Everyone around him stopped. All heads turned. Then, just as fast, they all saw my gun and ran again, scrambling for cover. Everyone except the Mudir. He simply stared at me. And smiled.

  “Back from the dead. I should’ve known,” he said. “Never trust a woman.”

  I came off the wall, my Glock leading the way. He began to reach inside his suit jacket, his hand sliding across his chest and dipping beneath the lapel.

  “Don’t even think about it!” I barked.

  His hand stopped, his fingers still tucked inside the jacket. He remained smiling, and all I wanted to do was wipe that grin off his face by slamming him headfirst to the ground.

  “Take your hand off the gun and let me see both hands in the air,” I said.

  But there was something he wanted me to see first.

  Something I didn’t see coming.

  CHAPTER 112

  THE MUDIR shifted his dark eyes, his gaze moving behind me. He knew I wouldn’t turn to look, so he did the next best thing to let me know what I was missing. What he was missing.

  I was fixated on that hand still tucked in his jacket, but it was the other hand by his side that caught my eye for a split second, or about as long as it took for him to tuck his fingers into his palm as if he were holding something.

  He was dressed as a commuter.

  I now turned to look. I looked because I knew. He wasn’t reaching for his gun. That hand inside his suit jacket was on a different kind of trigger. He’d been carrying a briefcase. It was sitting in the middle of the corridor, just where he’d placed it before seeing me.

  I whipped my head back around to the Mudir, his smile now even wider. There was no time for me to get off a shot. No time to yell Bomb!

  The explosion knocked me off my feet, the force of the blast throwing me through the air until I landed with a smack on the ground. I was burned and bloodied, but I was still alive. I’d even managed to hold on to my gun.

  Staggering to my feet, I immediately turned to look for him. It was as if he knew the exact range of the blast, and he’d been standing on the edge of it. Now he wasn’t standing anywhere. He was gone.

  I ran back toward the doors, back outside. The sidewalk had cleared. Explosions have a way of doing
that. I turned left. Nothing. I turned right. Nothing. What do they teach children to do before crossing the street?

  I turned to my left again. He seemed to appear out of nowhere. The Mudir was standing ten yards away from me. He was no longer smiling. He was aiming. His suit jacket was pulled back, the empty holster hanging off his shoulder, and his MP-443 was aimed directly at my chest.

  I raised my gun, but I knew I was outdrawn. He had me. All I could see was him squeezing the trigger. It was as if the entire world had collapsed around me. My world. And it was coming crashing down.

  I felt the piercing, sharp pain in my ribs, the air leaving my lungs in an instant. I fell to the pavement, unable to brace my fall. It hurt like hell. My head was spinning, but even more so from the confusion.

  What just happened?

  The answer quickly peeled off me, rolling onto his side to squeeze off two rounds at the Mudir.

  I hadn’t been shot. I’d been tackled.

  The Prophet. Eli. He’d hit my body like a linebacker, flying through the air and knocking me down in the nick of time.

  I remembered. You’ll see me again, the Prophet had said.

  We both looked down the street at the Mudir running away. He was turning a corner.

  “I think I clipped him,” said Eli. “Don’t know how bad, but—” He stopped and shook his head. “Ah, shit.”

  I looked back at him, following his eyeline down to his side. The hole in his shirt was an inch above the belt, the blood oozing out and spreading across his stomach. He’d taken the bullet for me. If I didn’t stop the bleeding, he was going to die. But I also had to warn Elizabeth.

  If I didn’t, she was going to die, too.

  CHAPTER 113

  THE MUDIR was bleeding badly from his left shoulder, but he knew he would survive. He was sure of it. Martyrs die in an instant or they don’t die at all.

  He’d lost a battle today, but Sun Tzu didn’t write The Art of Battle. This war was far from over. There were more attacks to come. Bigger attacks. Followed by the biggest one imaginable, the day to end all days in this godforsaken city.

  As he continued running, weaving his way through the mayhem around the station, the Mudir looked back to see if he was being chased, but there was no sign of that son of a bitch Reinhart or whoever it was who saved the professor’s life.

  Ha! Some professor. You can put a tweed jacket on a CIA operative, but it will never change who they really are.

  There wasn’t a doubt in the Mudir’s mind as he kept running that he would have his revenge and kill them both. Reinhart and his savior. All in due time.

  What couldn’t wait, the person who had to be taken care of immediately, was the woman who’d betrayed him. How would he solve the problem of Sadira?

  The Mudir knew exactly how.

  Assuming he could find her. After her faking Reinhart’s death, would she still be waiting for him in the white rental car as he instructed? There was a chance. A good chance, even. It all depended on her end game. How long did she want him to think she could be trusted?

  The Mudir hadn’t told her where she’d be taking him directly after the attack, his one errand before leaving the city to lie low, but he had to wonder if she’d somehow found out about his shipment from Viktor Alexandrov. It had finally arrived. Maybe her plan was to get her hands on the package before he did.

  The Mudir could only hope.

  It’s so much easier to kill someone in cold blood when they have the courtesy of being where you want them to be.

  Up ahead, at the corner of 46th Street and Third Avenue, the Mudir spotted a white Ford Taurus. He stopped running, craning his neck to peer through the horde of people that had filled the street.

  Finally a path cleared for a moment, long enough for him to see her waiting behind the wheel. No, arguing behind the wheel. There was a cop standing by her door, angrily gesturing for her to move the car. Pulling down hard on a baseball cap, she was shaking her head vehemently, telling him no.

  It was perfect. She was distracted.

  They usually are before they die.

  CHAPTER 114

  ELIZABETH COULDN’T figure out what to do with her left hand. She kept meticulously adjusting the sideview mirror with it, then the rearview mirror, followed by tugging on the brim of her baseball cap. Lather, rinse, repeat. Over and over she kept doing this, funneling her nervous energy into keeping her left hand busy.

  All the while her right hand sat perfectly still in her lap, her fingers wrapped tightly on the grip of her G19.

  She knew this was a good plan. Dylan didn’t have to sell her on it. She could play the role of Sadira Yavari. She could set the trap.

  As her eyes darted between the mirrors in the white Ford Taurus, keeping a vigilant lookout for the Mudir amid all the pandemonium outside on the street, Elizabeth couldn’t help playing the scene in her head. What she would do when he got into the car. What she would even say.

  He would climb into the back seat, so distracted by the foiled attack and his rushing to reach his getaway car that he wouldn’t even look at Sadira. Drive! he would bark at her.

  That’s when Elizabeth would turn back to him with the G19 in her right hand leading the way. Think again, asshole!

  If everything went according to plan, that’s how it would happen. She was sure of it. Right up until she heard her phone ring. Even before she looked to see that it was Dylan calling, she knew there was a problem.

  “Get out of the car!” he said.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Just do it,” he said. “He knows I’m alive.”

  Dylan didn’t need to connect the dots for her. If the Mudir knew he was alive, he would also know that Sadira couldn’t be trusted.

  The Mudir kills anyone he doesn’t trust.

  “Is he alone?” asked Elizabeth.

  The question threw Dylan. She could tell in his voice, there was no time for a debate. All he wanted to hear was the sound of her getting out of the damn car and away from the Mudir.

  “Yes. He’s alone,” said Dylan. “But—”

  “If I get out of the car, we lose him.”

  “And if you don’t …” He paused, frustrated. “I don’t want to lose you, Lizzie.”

  Dylan never called her that. Not ever. She’d even told him that she didn’t like Lizzie soon after they first met. But right then, in that moment, she really liked the sound of it.

  But not enough to get out of the car.

  “We can’t let this guy get away,” she said, before doing something she’d never done to Dylan. Not ever. She hung up on him.

  Elizabeth checked the mirrors again. Now they really had to be perfect. There could be no blind spots. She needed to see everywhere around the car.

  Oh, crap. You’ve got to be kidding me …

  The cop was standing in front of the car, angrily waving at her to move it along. Yeah, he was just doing his job. Yeah, he needed to free up the street for ambulances and fellow law enforcement. But his timing couldn’t be any worse.

  Every second Elizabeth looked at him was a second she wasn’t watching for the Mudir. Quickly, she flashed the cop her badge. Maybe it was the glare of the morning sun against the windshield. He kept waving at her. Now he was coming over to her window.

  Again, she flashed her badge. Again, it was as if he couldn’t see it. He was motioning for her to roll down her window, but she couldn’t risk it—not if he wanted to look more closely at the badge. If the Mudir caught a glimpse of that, it was game over.

  Elizabeth tugged even tighter on the brim of her cap, shaking her head no while holding her badge in her lap, hoping that he would finally see it. Maybe he did. But by then it was too late.

  She saw him in the rearview mirror. The Mudir was coming toward the car, gun drawn. A moment’s distraction. That’s all it took for him to have the upper hand. The scene in her mind immediately changed. He would kill the cop and then kill her. She could see it so clearly.

  Elizabeth rea
ched for the door, pushing it open as hard as she could to knock the cop out of the line of fire. No sooner had he fallen backward to the pavement than the Mudir’s first shot struck the sideview mirror, exactly where he’d been standing.

  “Stay down!” Elizabeth yelled, as she peeled out of the driver’s seat expecting to see the Mudir still coming right for them.

  Only he wasn’t. He wasn’t anywhere. At least nowhere she could see.

  Crouching as low as she could, she began edging her way along the side of the car. Just as she reached the gas tank, she heard the voice behind her.

  “Drop it!”

  It was the cop. He’d drawn his gun, demanding Elizabeth drop hers. She had no choice. She had to turn back to him, and that’s all it took. Another moment’s distraction. The arm came out from behind the trunk, grabbing her around the neck.

  The Mudir now had his gun to her head.

  CHAPTER 115

  “LIZZIE!” I YELLED.

  But she was gone. She’d hung up on me. Damn it.

  I had the phone wedged between my shoulder and ear as I kneeled on the sidewalk next to Eli, my hands frantically ripping his shirt to get a clear look at where the bullet had entered—and hopefully exited—above his hip.

  No such luck. Sliding my hand around to his back, I couldn’t feel a hole. He would need surgery. If he didn’t bleed out first.

  “The girl,” he said, his voice beginning to falter. “She’s in danger.”

  “Yes.”

  “Go help her.”

  “Not yet,” I said.

  I could hear the sirens only blocks away, the ambulances racing to the scene. All around us people were still running, desperate to get as far away from the station as possible. Could they even hear me?