Kill Me If You Can

I called my father. It was midday in Colorado. My mother picked up.

I spent five minutes answering all her excited questions about my trip to Paris.

“It sounds so romantic,” she said. “I wish your father would take me.”

“I’ll tell him,” I said. “Is he around?”

“He’s in his workshop with his harem,” she said, using her favorite expression for Dad’s gun collection. “I’ll buzz him on the intercom and tell him to pick up.”

I could picture my father in his shop with a gun-cleaning kit and a bottle of Hoppe’s solvent, carefully going through the same ritual he taught me, and his father taught him. “A clean gun is a mean gun,” he always said.

It’s a philosophy I had lived by. At least so far.

“Hey, boy,” Dad said, answering the phone. “How you doing?”

I told him the whole story, from the night I found the diamonds to the last phone call from Chukov — everything I hadn’t told him when I called from Milan. As usual, he listened without saying a word.

When I was done, he simply said, “Anything I can do?”

I gave him all the information he’d need to get the money out of the Dutch bank. Then I told him how to divide it. “Half gets split up evenly among Adam, Zach, Ty, and Katherine. The other half goes to you and Mom.”

He laughed.

“What’s so funny?” I said.

“I’ll never see a penny of that money,” he said.

“Why do you say that?”

“Because if anything happens to you, your mom will kill me faster’n look at me,” he said. “So listen up, and listen good, boy. You’re gonna get through this. You’re gonna get through this because you know that not only is your life and Katherine’s life on the line, but so’s your old man’s. Ooooo-rah.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I love you, Dad.”

“Love you, too, boy.”

Chapter 84

AT 5:30 ZACH called in. This was it.

“Two guys showed up fifteen minutes ago. Early twenties, dark suits, dark turtlenecks, gold jewelry, Russian accents. They scoped out the drop zone.”

“They’re probably trying to figure out choke points,” I said.

“Choke points would require some military intelligence,” Zach said. “These guys are thugs, not tacticians. They’re counting cops and checking out security cameras. It’s like they’re planning to stick up a Seven-Eleven.”

“I’m insulted,” I said. “They still don’t seem to think I’m even a threat.”

“Try not to take it personally,” Zach said. “As far as they know, you’re some fey art student. They’re worried about the cops.”

“So am I,” I said. “What else did you get?”

“I can give you the three spots where Chukov is going to position his men.”

“How’d you get close enough to hear that?” I asked.

“Matt, I didn’t have to get close. These idiots were broadcasting. They were pointing there, there, and there.”

Adam leaned into the speakerphone. “Tell us where, where, and where.”

I had sketched a map of the main concourse while I was wolfing down my rib eye at Michael Jordan’s. Zach rattled off three locations, and Adam marked them on the map.

“Where are they now?” I asked.

“The Oyster Bar, getting primed for the showdown with a few vodkas. Do you want me to follow them when they leave?”

Zach is tough and confident. Sometimes too confident, sometimes too tough. Even if he could follow Chukov’s men without getting caught, I didn’t want him to even think about rescuing Katherine on his own.

“No,” I said. “Let’s just stick to the plan. Did you find a good spot for the rabbit?”

“Best place is across the street from the Vanderbilt Avenue entrance,” Zach said. “I counted half a dozen uniforms who circulate between the main concourse and the lower level. When they’re not on patrol, they cluster upstairs near the Vanderbilt door on the north balcony. One rabbit ought to take care of most of the cops.”

“What about K-nine?” I asked.

“Oh, they got dogs. I haven’t seen any so far, but I chatted up the counter guy at Starbucks, and he told me there are cops with bomb-sniffing dogs who patrol the main concourse randomly. Seems like another reason why the rabbit is better outside the terminal.”

“Good job,” I said. “Call us if anything pops. Otherwise we’ll meet you at nineteen hundred hours.”

I hung up.

The feeling I had in the pit of my stomach was all too familiar. Pre-combat butterflies. Anyone who tells you it doesn’t happen to him is lying to you. Or to himself.

“It sounds like we took out Chukov’s best men, and he called in a bunch of amateurs,” Adam said.

“I think that works against us,” I said. “Amateurs tend to panic and go trigger happy. I don’t want civilian casualties.”

“Matt’s right,” Ty said. “We signed up for this. The people who’ll be walking through Grand Central tonight didn’t. Katherine didn’t. Our job is to make sure none of them gets hurt.”

“Oh, they won’t get hurt,” Adam said, “but when those T-four-seventy-ones go off, they’ll wish they’d never gotten out of bed this morning.”

“You only have a narrow window before the Russians shake off the T-four-seventy-ones and start shooting,” I said. “As soon as Katherine is out of the field of fire, take them out. Every one of them. Fast.”

“Don’t worry, Matt,” Ty said. “We’re gonna kill the bastards who took Katherine, and we’re gonna bring her home safe.”

We had gone into battle before. But this time, I swore to myself, would be different. No matter what the outcome, this battle would be my last.

Chapter 85

BY 7 P.M., the four of us were in Position Alpha.

We had three hours to wait for Chukov to arrive, which in our line of work we could do standing on one leg with a full bladder. Waiting in complete silence, barely breathing for hours, even days, at a stretch is what we’re trained to do.

Ty was on East 43rd outside the entrance to the Lexington Avenue subway. Adam was on 42nd, covering the south side of the terminal. Zach was at 45th and Vanderbilt with the rabbit.

I was inside, my hand clutching the medical bag, my eyes scanning the commuters who poured out of the MetLife Building to take the escalator down to the main concourse.

The four of us were fitted with the same wireless communication system the Secret Service uses. Micro earbuds, transmitter necklaces under our collars, and invisible microphones in our lapels. The protocol was for each of us to check in with an update every quarter hour.

Ten o’clock came and went. Ten fifteen. Ten thirty. Ten forty-five. No sign of Chukov.

At eleven o’clock, Adam was the first to check in.