Kill Me If You Can

Down the track, the headlights of the Bronx-bound subway were bearing down on us fast. The whistle screamed.

I bet the motorman screamed, too. He of all people would know that no matter how hard he applied his brakes, he wouldn’t be able to stop in time.

I heard the squeal of metal on metal as the train’s wheels skidded along the track.

Chukov and I had been engaged in a battle to the death. In a matter of seconds, the battle would be over.

Chapter 93

CHUKOV AND I had our hands wrapped around the gun. The way we were going, there could only be one winner: the number 6 train.

I knew I was out of time. So I let go of the gun. I threw my good shoulder back and drove my right elbow into his left eye. I think I heard bone crack as I drilled down into the socket. Then I jumped up. Kicked the gun out of his hand. Planted the other foot on his throat.

Katherine leaned over the platform. She peered down the tunnel at the oncoming train. “Matthew,” she yelled, “get off the tracks now!”

I looked into the darkness. The train’s headlights, which had been pin dots only seconds ago, were brighter and looming larger.

Chukov struggled to get up, but I had weight and leverage on my side.

“Matthew, please — he’s not worth it,” she begged. “Please, please run.”

I couldn’t. If I took my foot off Chukov’s throat, he’d still have enough time to vault the platform. I had to finish this.

And then I remembered. I pictured Chukov sitting in the steam room with the bronchodilator on his lap. Chukov the asthmatic.

I lifted my foot off his throat and slammed it down on his chest. The compression was more than his lungs could take. He began gasping for air.

I reached down and scooped up a fistful of the black dirt and subway soot that lay between the ties. And just as Chukov inhaled deeply, struggling to breathe, I flung it in his face.

He sucked it all in.

I grabbed another handful of the powdery filth and threw it at his nose and mouth. He was now in a full- blown asthma attack — choking, spitting, screaming half-gurgled Russian. His eyes bulged with fear.

I leaned in close to his face. “What’s the matter, Vadim? You look like you’ve seen a Ghost.”

Chukov’s eyes grew even wider as the truth sank in and he realized whom he had been up against all along.

I took one final look into the face of evil and drove both fists into his failing lungs.

“Do svidaniya, modderfocker,” I said.

I started to run. Chukov didn’t follow.

“Matthew, hurry!” Katherine yelled. “The train is coming.”

As if I needed a reminder.

The whistle screamed and screamed and screamed. I turned as best as I could. I could see sparks flying off the wheels as they scraped the metal rails. I could even make out the outline of the motorman in the front cab. I could only imagine the sheer horror in his eyes.

The front of the station was maybe five hundred feet away. I’d never make it. I couldn’t get out of this. I was going to die.

Chapter 94

I RAN FOR my life anyway.

Katherine ran right alongside me on the platform.

“Take my hand,” she screamed down. “I’ll pull you up, Matthew.”

“No,” I shouted. “I’d pull you down.”

“I don’t care,” she said.

Her words rushed over me, and if they were the last ones I’d ever hear, I’d die happy.

Well, maybe not happy, but a little more at peace with the world.

“I’m sorry for everything,” I yelled, hoping she could still hear me over the roar of the number 6 train. “I love you.” And then I broke into a sprint — or as much of a sprint as I could muster with multiple fractures and heavy blood loss.

Grand Central is a four-track subway station. Two single tracks on each side and a double set of tracks in the middle. If I had been on the center set of tracks, I could have stood between them and let the train pass me. But the outer track is a death trap — a platform on one side and a wall on the other. The only possible escape was a service door set in the wall.

I could see one twenty feet ahead.

I looked back. The train had just entered the station — sparks flying, whistle blowing — and now I could see the motorman’s face: absolute panic when he saw one man lying on the tracks and another running toward the tunnel.

And then I heard the thump.

If Chukov had any air left in his lungs, he might have screamed when the train hit him. But he didn’t. All I heard was a flat, dull whoomp, like a tennis racket slapping a mattress. It was unmistakable. Chukov was dead.

I reached the service door that was tucked into the wall below the platform. I pulled the handle. Locked!

Another hundred feet still lay between me and safety.

The train was slowing down. Maybe I could outrun it after all.

And then my foot caught a railroad tie, and I fell face-first into the bed of debris and muck between the tracks.

It was over. I took comfort in knowing that the most evil son of a bitch in the world was dead and the most wonderful woman in the world was alive and safe, which was what I had set out to do.

Mission accomplished.

The squeal of the brakes was deafening now. Even an art student knows a little physics.

The train couldn’t stop in time.

Inertia wins.

I lose and die on the train tracks.

Chapter 95

ZACH HEARD THE crying before he reached the platform. He raced down the stairs. It was Katherine. She