had her face buried in Ty’s shoulder and was sobbing uncontrollably.
“Ty, am I glad you found Katherine,” Zach said. “Matt would kick my ass if I let anything happen to her. Let’s round everybody up and get the hell out of here.”
“Zach…” Ty hesitated.
“What?” Zach snapped back. “What’s going on?”
“Matt’s dead,” Katherine said.
“Matt and Chukov went head-to-head down on the tracks,” Ty said. “The train took them both out.”
The last three cars of the number 6 train were still inside the tunnel. The doors to the train remained closed. A handful of passengers were pressed against the front window wondering why the motorman was on the ground, his back against a steel column, his legs stretched out in front of him. A transit cop was kneeling beside him.
“Oh, God,” the motorman said, breathing hard. “Oh, God, I can’t believe it.”
“Try to stay calm, Mr. Perez,” the cop said, putting her hand on his arm. “The paramedics are on the way.”
“Paramedics?” he said. “For what? They’re both dead.”
“For you,” she said. “They’ll be here for you. Try to calm down.”
“I had green lights all the way from Thirty-fourth,” Perez said, “so we were moving. But legal. A hundred percent legal.”
Katherine let out a mournful wail.
The cop turned sharply and looked at her. “I’m trying to get a statement here. Can somebody please—”
“Hey!” Ty snapped at the cop.
“Hey, I’m sorry,” she said, “but we got a situation here.”
She turned back to the motorman. “Did they fall, did they jump, what happened?”
“I don’t know. They were already there when I saw them. One guy was on the track and couldn’t get up. It looked like maybe the other guy was helping him. I hit the brakes as soon as I saw them, but the man on the tracks was too close to the rear of the station. He never had a chance.”
He closed his eyes and buried his head in his hands.
“And the second guy?” the cop said.
“He started running. The train had slowed down to four miles an hour. He could have made it, but he fell. It wasn’t my fault.”
Five cops came bounding down the stairs. One was a sergeant.
“Sarge,” the cop said. “We have two civilians under the train. The motorman is in shock. I told the conductor to keep the doors closed until I can get someone here for crowd control.”
“Any witnesses?” the sergeant said.
“That woman,” she said, pointing at Katherine.
By now a dozen passengers had moved forward to the front car. One started pounding on the window and yelling, “Let us off. Let us off.” The others immediately picked it up.
“Keep her on ice,” the sergeant said. “Let me deal with the passengers first.”
“I’ll wait with her,” Adam said and put his arm around Katherine.
“We have to get you out of here,” he said in a whisper. “
“I can’t,” she whimpered. “Matthew’s still down there. His body’s there.”
“Katherine, you don’t want to see him,” Zach said.
“He’s gone,” Adam said. “We can’t do anything for the captain. He wanted us to keep you safe. That’s what we’re going to do.”
He tried to move Katherine toward the stairs.
But she dropped to her knees. “Matthew. I love you so much. I love you,” she said, sobbing. “And I forgive you.”
A faint voice came from under the train. “If you can find someone who can get this train off me, you can tell me in person. I love you, too.”
Chapter 96
I WAS LYING right under the second car, maybe twenty feet from Katherine. I had managed to fall flat into the track bed. Forty-odd tons of the 6 train had passed over me before it finally came to a stop.
I don’t know how long I was unconscious. Between losing blood and whacking my head when I fell, I was out of it for a while probably. But when I came to and heard Katherine saying she loved me and forgave me, I had another reason to get out of there.
Up on the platform, I could hear Katherine crying and my guys laughing and screaming and then orders from someone in charge.
“Don’t move,” the voice said.
“Don’t worry,” I responded. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Matt!” It was Adam. “You okay?”
“No,” I said. “You know how disgusting it is on these tracks? I’ll probably die from being facedown in subway grunge.”
I heard Ty next. “At least we know his sense of humor is still awful.”
It took half an hour before the power to the third rail was turned off so the fire department guys could pull me out. EMTs laid me on a stretcher on the platform. I looked up, and the next person I saw was Katherine. “Nice shot with that trash can,” I said.
She knelt down and pressed against my filthy, foul-smelling, bloody body. She kissed my face a dozen times before the EMT guys pried her off.
“Ma’am, we’ve got to get him to the hospital. You can ride with us.”
Four firefighters and two EMTs lifted the stretcher, and we headed for the stairs.
“Wait. I have to talk to him.
It was the motorman. He came forward and stood over me. His face was ashen; he was crying. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t see you till it was too late. I’m so sorry.”
I was the one who should have apologized. It was I who had left Chukov gasping for air on the tracks and made this poor man feel like an executioner.
“Don’t apologize,” I said. “That guy on the tracks — he was evil. He tried to kill this beautiful woman, Katherine. He was on the tracks trying to kill me. You saved both of us. Thank you.”
He nodded, but his expression didn’t change, and I knew his life would never be the same.
He was a killer now, too.
Chapter 97
THEY TOOK ME to Bellevue Hospital, where the ER docs removed the bullet from my shoulder, gave me a blood transfusion, and told me that my broken nose and three cracked ribs would heal on their own in about six weeks.
Then they pumped me full of painkillers and let me sleep. Katherine slept in the chair in my room, and my three buddies spent the night in the hospital, taking turns standing guard at the door.
At four in the afternoon, I had my first visitors. Detectives Steve Garber and Nathan Watt, NYPD.
“We’re trying to piece together what happened last night,” Watt said. “Do you mind if I ask you both a few
