Red Alert(NYPD Red #5)(55)

Kylie came running toward me with a large pair of bolt cutters in her hand.

“If you’re thinking about cutting the chain to the briefcase, forget it,” I said. “Segura is watching from somewhere. If you get within a hundred feet of Nathan Hirsch, you’d better be wearing earplugs.”

“Zach, I know, I know, but listen to me. Remember what Howard Malley told us about the code name Interpol gave Flynn Samuels?”

“They call him Sammy Six Digits.”

“Right. He taps a six-digit date into his cell phone to detonate the bomb. Cell phone, Zach. Segura can’t blow up anything without a cell signal, and guess what they have on the ESU truck? A cell jammer.”

“And guess what NYPD can’t use without a warrant?” I said. “If you want to run across the street to the courthouse, maybe you can get one.”

“There’s no time for a goddamn warrant. This is a life-and-death situation.”

“How many thousands of people do you think live and work in this area? What if one of them has a life-and-death situation and can’t call 911 because you jammed the airwaves to save Nathan Hirsch? Kylie, cell jammers are like search warrants. Judges get to make the decision. Not cops.”

“Fine,” she said. “The bomb squad is ten minutes out. Maybe they can do something. How are you doing on your hostage negotiations?”

“I’m persona non grata. Nathan Hirsch doesn’t want my help. All I can do is listen.”

“Hold on to these,” she said, handing me the bolt cutters. “I know what Segura looks like. I’m going to work the crowd and see if I can spot him.”

Kylie took off, and I set the bolt cutters at my feet and put the phone to my ear. Nathan Hirsch had been wrong to tell me to butt out. I may not have been an experienced negotiator, but I wasn’t some random cop jumping on to the phone call. I knew a hell of a lot about Geraldo Segura. I hadn’t been agitating him. I’d been empathizing with him. Saying what I had to say to get him to trust me.

As far as I could tell, Nathan wasn’t doing such a great job of winning Segura over. I thought about unmuting my phone and jumping back into the fray. I’d start off by hitting him with that quote from Abraham Lincoln: “He who represents himself has a fool for a client.”

“And the fifty thousand dollars a year we paid your grandmother,” I heard Hirsch say. “That was my idea. Wells was against it. I remember one year I wrote the check, and he started arguing with me about—”

My phone went dead. I looked up at the crowd, almost every one of whom had a cell phone in their hands. Their phones were dead, too.

Then a bullhorn cut through the air. “Zach. Zach.” It was Kylie. “Do it, Zach. Do it. Do it. Do it.”

I wanted to scream at her. I wanted to lash out and tell her she was the most infuriating, irresponsible, uncontrollable partner a cop could possibly have. And then when I was finally finished ranting, and railing, and venting my spleen, I wanted to have incredible make-up sex with her.

But, of course, I didn’t do any of that.

Instead I grabbed the bolt cutters and raced toward the man chained to a bomb on the courthouse steps.





CHAPTER 52



I sprinted across the empty square. By the time I hit Centre Street the crowd erupted, picking up Kylie’s chant. Do it, Zach. Do it, Zach. Do it, Zach.

Do what? Get myself killed because my partner, who spent a few minutes talking to some guy in a Thai prison, suddenly decided she was an expert on when bombs can go off and when they can’t?

The clamor grew more raucous as the mob egged me on.

And then out of nowhere came the music. Some crazy son of a bitch in the horde of well-wishers had a saxophone, and I heard those stirring opening notes to “Theme from Rocky.”

Dum, dum, da-da-dum, da-da-dum, da-da-dum.

Hero music. But I didn’t feel heroic. I felt like an idiot. Kylie’s words raced through my brain. “Segura can’t blow up anything without a cell signal, and guess what they have on the ESU truck? A cell jammer.”

My gut reaction when she said it was to try to stop her from using the jammer illegally. What I should have said was, “How do you know Segura can’t blow anything up without a cell signal? What if he has a computer rigged with a backup detonator? What if he has a high-powered rifle, and he shoots me for trying to save the man who cost him twenty years of his life?”

But I hadn’t questioned her logic, and now I was putting my ass on the line to save one of the biggest dirtbags on the planet.

Nathan Hirsch sat staring at his dead cell phone, probably wondering if Segura was going to call him back or blow him up. He was a dozen steps up from street level, dead center between two massive Corinthian columns. The towering temple of justice loomed behind him.

I wanted to bound up the stairs two at a time, but as soon as my foot hit the first step, everything seemed to slow down. It was like that recurring dream where you’re running, running, running, but you feel like you’re barely moving.

Maybe it was the jet lag. Maybe it was the abject fear fucking with my head, but it seemed to take a lifetime for my foot to touch the second step.

Someone had found a way to amp up the sound of the sax, and with the music blaring and the crowd chanting, I made it to the third step. And the fourth.

Days later, I would watch some of the many videos of my climb up those courthouse steps. On film it only took seconds, but in real life my entire world was in slow motion.