brakes.
Sarah was quaking; he had no time to pull off her bindings, they had to escape and find Cole.
“Drop with me and roll! Keep your body loose!”
He pulled her close to go but she froze, eyes bulging. One of the captors had her foot and was reaching for the knife. Jeff moved back, delivered several kicks to his head, prying Sarah from his hold.
Gripping one of her hands and squeezing his arm around her waist, they inched out the rear and were hanging over the bumper.
The unmarked police unit was a few car lengths directly behind them, siren wailing, lights wigwagging, when the second captor and the man in charge pounced on Sarah, engaging Jeff in a life-and-death tug of war.
Jeff crushed her bound hand in his. Sarah groaned, Jeff lost his grip. The men pulled her back into the van. The force sent him farther over the bumper.
He was faceup, his back arching, his hair brushing against the asphalt, which passed under him with the speed of a power grinder.
One captor had Jeff’s leg and was dragging him back into the van. Jeff held on to the door, writhed and kicked himself free and over the edge.
He fell from the van and hit the speeding street, not feeling his skin tearing as he rolled and bounced in a dizzying whirlwind of buildings, sky, pavement and traffic. Then came the flashes of emergency lights, the thud and squeal of brakes and burning rubber as the unmarked Ford swerved and stopped within inches of hitting him.
Jeff was on his stomach and conscious as Detectives Finnie and Maynard rushed to his aid.
“We need an ambulance!” Maynard shouted to a uniformed patrol officer who was running to the scene. “Get someone on traffic control!”
“Damn, we lost them,” Finnie said.
On the street as blood webbed into his eye, Jeff saw the van doors close, saw it weave neatly around a large rig.
His heart hammered against the pavement.
He watched the van disappear into New York traffic and was overcome with defeat.
26
Jeff Griffin’s scalp was still prickling as he stared at the ceiling from his hospital bed at Bellevue.
He’d never lost consciousness.
He recalled the ambulance
Now they were waiting for the attending physician to sign off.
Jeff lay there, his eyes fixed on nothing. The back of his head was numb. Adrenaline was still rippling through him; his ears were ringing and his face was pounding from the blood rush of his futile battle to rescue Sarah.
He was so close.
He’d touched her, held her and then he’d lost her again.
His eyes stung, his body shook, just as the door opened and the doctor, a balding man about Jeff’s age, came in with a nurse.
“Hello, Mr. Griffin,” the doctor said, picking up his digital chart while the nurse removed the ice pack from the back of Jeff’s head so the doctor could check the small laceration.
“The swelling is not too bad,” the doctor said. “It seems you don’t have a concussion and the X-rays indicate no broken bones. Let’s give you the once-over.”
The doctor leaned forward and shined a penlight in Jeff’s eyes. He had minty breath. The nurse took Jeff’s temperature and vitals. The doctor put on his stethoscope and listened to Jeff’s breathing. Then he assessed his neck, chest, abdomen and compressed Jeff’s pelvis.
“Aside from some scrapes and bruises, you’re in good shape. Your adrenaline was going full tilt. You were in ‘fight mode.’ You’re lucky-”
Jeff shot anger at the doctor, who was aware, because of police and news reports, that Jeff’s wife and son had been stolen by murderers.
The doctor adjusted his tone.
“Jeff, under the circumstances it could’ve been worse.”
“Did they find my wife and son?”
“We don’t know but two detectives have been waiting to talk to you.”
“Send them in.”
The nurse rolled the tray and IV stand aside and a moment later Cordelli and Brewer were standing at his bed.
“They tell us they’re going to discharge you,” Cordelli said.
“Did you find Sarah? It was a GMC Savana, 2010.”
“No,” Cordelli said. “We’re checking all surveillance cameras we can and our people in the car behind you may have gotten a few photos.”
“And that helps, how?”
“Jeff,” Cordelli said, “we asked you to hold off for us to set up.”
“You took a stupid risk,” Brewer said.
“I got closer to them than you guys! Christ!”
Jeff cupped his hands to his face, feeling the raw sting of cuts, scrapes and helplessness.
“Where does that leave us now?” Brewer said. “You should’ve let us handle it. This hero crap only works in the movies.”
“You think I was trying to be a hero, Brewer? That what you think?”
“Hey!” Cordelli tried to dial down the tension. “This won’t get us anywhere, let’s get to work.”
Cordelli set a digital recorder on the bed and opened his notebook.
“Tell us how many people were in the van, what they looked like, what they said, how they said it. Accents, tattoos, weapons, what you saw in the van. Everything.”
Jeff gave them details while they still burned in his mind.
“They said, ‘Very soon we will show the world what it is to suffer-to lose what you love.’”
Brewer and Cordelli exchanged glances at what they characterized as a terrorist threat.
“Did they elaborate, offer any details, like a target, address, location?” Cordelli asked.
Jeff shook his head.
Again and again Cordelli and Brewer went over every aspect of the incident with Jeff.
“We’ll have you talk to a sketch artist to get more, anything that can help,” Cordelli said.
Brewer pressed Jeff on “the small toy airplane.”
“On the call the plane was their priority-what is it?”
“It’s just a toy plane,” Jeff said, describing it.
“Did you give it to them?” Brewer asked.
“No, I hid it.”
“We need it.”
As soon as Jeff was discharged Brewer and Cordelli drove him to the coffee shop on Thirty-first Street. He went to the washroom and retrieved the bag with the toy plane, and empty box for the cell phone.
Brewer put the items in a larger bag and started making calls.
