Kill Me If You Can

And then Katherine’s mischievous gray eyes lit up, and she clicked the lock on the classroom door.

“Take off your pants,” she said.

I’d been had.

She stepped out of her skirt. Very graceful. Nice to watch. “If those pants don’t come off in five seconds, Mr. Bannon, I’m going to have to give you an incomplete,” she said. “By the way, that paper of yours was damn good, but I’ve come to expect even more from you.”

The classroom had a chaise longue that was used for the figure-painting courses, and within seconds Katherine pulled me to it and began caressing, kissing, exploring. Then I was inside her. This was some kind of teacher-student counseling session.

Finally, Katherine put her lips to my ear, taunting me with kisses and little flicks of her tongue.

“Matthew,” she whispered.

“What?”

“A-plus-plus.”

Chapter 4

OKAY, LET ME get back to my story about the unexpected treasure trove that I found in locker #925. It was a night I’ll never forget, of course. And for the other people in Grand Central Terminal, it was probably their worst nightmare.

I wasn’t in New York City on September 11, 2001, but I’ve lived here long enough to understand the citywide paranoia. It could happen again.

New York is, was, and always will be Ground Zero. Code orange is as lax as we get here. I’ve seen tanks parked on Wall Street, bomb-sniffing dogs in public buildings, and convoys of cop cars barreling into neighborhoods as part of the NYPD’s daily anti-terrorism drills.

So, when the post — rush hour lull at Grand Central is shattered by gunshots and followed by two loud explosions, only one thing comes to mind.

Terrorist attack.

In an instant, the collective paranoia was justified. Mass panic ensued.

The screams echoed off the walls of the marble cavern. The first thing I saw was that nobody ducked for cover. Everybody ran — with visions of the crumbling towers replaying in their heads, I’m sure.

And then I couldn’t see a thing. Red smoke filled the building.

I’ve spent a lot of time in war zones, but this was not my responsibility. I wasn’t a first responder.

I ran like the rest of them.

And then I saw it in the smoky haze.

A trail of blood.

Instinctively I followed it. And then I saw him.

He was a big bear of a man, slumped against a bank of lockers in a pool of his own blood — from a gaping wound in his neck.

In all the madness, nobody was paying any attention to him. I knelt at his side.

My knee hit something hard. A gun.

“Get doctor. Stop blood.” He gurgled out the words in a thick Russian accent.

But there was no time for a doctor. No time for anything.

Before I could say a word, his eyes rolled back in his head and he exhaled a strained breath. He was dead.

His dark blue suit and the floor around him glistened with blood. It coated the door of the bottom locker closest to him. As I looked up, I saw a wide swath of red where he had leaned against the upper locker and slid to the ground.

Locker #925 was covered in bloody handprints.

And it was open.

Wide open.

Chapter 5

I COULD THINK of only one reason that a reasonably sane man who was hemorrhaging blood would open a train station locker instead of wildly seeking help. Whatever was inside that locker had to be too valuable to leave behind.

I looked down at the dead Russian. Was it worth it, Comrade?

But then, who was I to judge this poor man for choosing locker #925 over calling 911? If I had half a brain, I’d be running out of Grand Central with all my fellow bomb-scared travelers.

But I wanted to know what was inside that locker. No — I had to know.

I stood up. By now the red smoke was starting to dissipate and I could take in the pandemonium.

People were stampeding toward the exits, fighting and clawing their way out of the station. Some cops were trying to keep them from getting trampled in the doorways.

Other cops were trying to evacuate the people who refused to leave.

A woman with three suitcases was holding her ground in the middle of the station, insisting that she wasn’t going anywhere without her bags.

“Damn it, lady,” a ruddy-faced cop screamed, “you can’t get a redcap during a terrorist attack.”

He grabbed all three bags, and she followed him as he struggled toward an exit.

And then a body came flying through the air and hit the marble floor.

It was a young man, Asian, wearing a busboy’s uniform.

Michael Jordan’s Steak House is a popular restaurant on the balconies overlooking the main concourse. People were pouring out, shoving their way toward the wide marble staircase at the west side of the station. The busboy must have been caught at the far end of the restaurant and opted for the quick way out. It was about a twenty-foot drop. He stood up on his right leg and started hopping toward the exit.

I thought I’d just experienced the most insane day of my life. What I didn’t know then was that after I reached inside that locker, the insanity would only get worse.

I put my hand on the open door and peered in. There was a bag inside. But not just any bag. It was one of those old-timey medical bags that you see in black-and-white movies from back in the days when doctors made house calls.

Maybe the Russian wasn’t so dumb after all. Doctor bags are usually crammed with gauze and tape and about twelve hundred cotton balls.

I opened it carefully and looked inside.

My first thought was Holy shit.

My second thought was This is a bag worth dying for.

Chapter 6

I’D SEEN DIAMONDS before. My mother had one in her engagement ring. My aunt had two in her ears. But