Killer Instinct (Instinct #2)(4)

Like everyone else, I felt the initial shock up and down my spine. Then came an even greater jolt, straight through the heart.

Tracy had told me in the morning that he was planning to take Annabelle to the Disney Store—right in the middle of Times Square. Our adopted daughter from South Africa was only a little over a year old, and yet she was somehow totally smitten with the place. The music, the colors, the characters she didn’t even know the names of yet. It all made her smile from ear to ear. She loved that Disney Store more than her binkie, bubble baths, or the monkeys at the Central Park Zoo.

At eighty miles an hour, I started to cry.

Weaving in and out of traffic, riding like a maniac, I could feel the anger in me taking over. My time in London, my years with the CIA. All of it had been dedicated to fighting a war that could never be won, only contained. Terrorism isn’t merely a tactic of the enemy; it’s the root of their ideology. They believe in destruction. They want death. And there are no innocent victims. Not to them.

Only to us.

A half hour into the ride, I gave up on trying to call Tracy. A half hour after that, I saw the flashing cherries of patrol cars at the entrance to the Henry Hudson Bridge. Lined up grill to bumper, the cruisers were barricading all three southbound lanes. No one was getting in.

No one was able to make a call either, I was told. At least not on their cells.

“All the carriers were forced to shut down their networks,” said the second cop I approached after getting off my bike.

The first cop had all but ignored me. He was too busy directing traffic in what had become a three-point-turn festival with all the southbound cars that had been heading into the city needing to do a one-eighty. Making those turns even tighter were the piles of torn-up pavement from some recent jackhammering. For once can there be a bridge into Manhattan that isn’t under construction?

“They’re saying the terrorists used cell phones to detonate the bombs,” the second cop explained. “For all we know there might be more to come.”

“I need to get into the city,” I said. “How do I do it?”

He looked at me as if I were deaf. Did I not just hear him? “You don’t,” he said. “No one gets in.”

No, you don’t understand, officer. I need. To get. Into the city!

I stared at him for a few seconds, hoping he might recognize me. It had been less than a year since I’d had my fifteen minutes of fame by helping to rid Manhattan of a serial killer named the Dealer. In the process, I had gained a couple of nicknames myself, including Dr. Death. For a while I was getting stopped on the street at least once a day. Hey, aren’t you that guy …? Now it was maybe once a month.

All glory is fleeting, said General George Patton.

So much for staring at the cop. He didn’t recognize me. I could’ve tried to refresh his memory or begun pleading my case, telling him about Tracy and Annabelle, but there was no point. He had his orders. The guy was merely doing his job. Besides, I’d already made up my mind on what I would do.

Time was wasting.





CHAPTER 4


I WALKED quickly back to my bike. Running would’ve been too obvious. The helmet went on, and the license plate got ripped off and stuffed inside my jacket.

I flipped on the petcock, checked the kill switch, turned the key, squeezed the clutch, and started her up. One quick zig to the left, a sharp zag to the right, and I had the clear path I needed. Now I just needed the speed.

Jamming the throttle, I was redlining again within seconds.

The first cop didn’t know what the hell was happening as I blew by him. The second cop, the one I had spoken to, knew exactly what I was about to do but couldn’t do anything about it. He looked at me in utter disbelief before turning to the pile of torn up pavement about ten feet in front of the cruisers blocking my way.

One man’s rubble is another man’s ramp.

I hit the pile hard, pulling up on my handgrips even harder. There would be no style points. It was ugly. Steve McQueen made it look so easy on the same bike in The Great Escape.

My back tire barely cleared the hood of the first cruiser, and I could hear my axle practically snapping as the front tire slammed the pavement. I nearly wiped out—I should’ve wiped out—but somehow I kept my balance.

There was no need to look over my shoulder as I raced onto the deserted lower deck of the bridge heading into Manhattan. Those two cops weren’t going anywhere. I was already too far gone. At most, they were radioing ahead to wherever the roadblock was for the northbound traffic, but that would only be to cover their collective ass instead of catching mine.

At the first exit, I peeled off the parkway onto Dyckman Street and into the Upper West Side. Tracy, Annabelle, and I called the neighborhood home. All along, I couldn’t stop thinking the unthinkable, that the two most important people in my life—the two I could never imagine living without—were suddenly gone. Christ, this can’t be happening.

The rest of the ride was a blur as I shot between all the traffic while completely ignoring red lights. In the distance I could hear a slew of ambulances, each one louder than the next, and all of them echoing in my head. It was the soundtrack of a living nightmare.

Finally I reached the front of our apartment building, ditching my bike in the middle of the sidewalk. I sprinted into the lobby and straight for the elevator with no intention of stopping until I saw the doorman, Bobby, sitting on an upholstered bench along the wall. He was completely engrossed in his cell phone. I could tell he was watching news coverage of the bombings.