Killer Instinct (Instinct #2)(77)

Foxx let that sink in for a moment. The implications. The logistics. The sudden loss of our leverage. “Holy shit.”

“It’s worse than that,” I said, looking at my watch. It was about twenty of eight. The Mudir had told Sadira to be in a white rental car at 46th Street and Third Avenue, right near the station, at 8:30 sharp. “Whatever’s going down, it’s all about to happen in less than an hour.”

Foxx had to make calls. Immediately. But right in front of us was a guy who clearly knew things about Sadira. Did he also know about the attack?

With his cropped blond hair, he looked more like a Hitler youth than a Middle Eastern terrorist, but that hardly meant there was no connection to the Mudir. He could’ve been Russian. He could’ve been anybody. What we couldn’t afford was his being useless. We had to get him talking. Fast.

He’d been staring at me since the moment I came over. His head was cocked, his eyes narrowed to a squint. I knew that look. It meant the same in any country and any language. The guy was sizing me up, trying to figure out if I was baiting him by what I told Foxx. I’m clever, but not that clever, dude …

Foxx reached for his cell while giving me the nod. The plan was to divide and conquer. He’d get the word to Evan Pritchard, who was camped at Penn Station, and I’d go to work on our mystery man here.

As soon as Foxx stepped away, I stared at the EMT, who thankfully was fluent in subtext and knew enough to step away as well. The two cops standing guard would still do their jobs, but their stares made it clear they would neither remember nor repeat anything they were about to hear.

All right, du verdammtes Arschloch, let’s you and I have a chat …

I knelt down, getting eye to eye with him. The key was letting him think he was in control. I’d ask the questions he’d never answer. He’d get into a rhythm. He’d get comfortable. Then, maybe, he’d get sloppy.

I asked him who he was, who he worked for, what he wanted with Sadira. Everything he expected. Then, out of nowhere, something he didn’t.

“Where’d you get the tattoo?”

The beautiful, crazy, unpredictable thing about the human mind is that … well, it has a mind of its own. No matter how much you try to control your own thoughts and actions, there’s simply no accounting for the occasional impulse or reflex.

It was the quickest of glances, a flinch of the eyeballs toward his right forearm. After his body got banged up in the van, his mind had no problem believing there was a tear in his black sweatshirt, exposing his skin.

Only there wasn’t a tear. The sweatshirt was still intact.

I yanked back the sleeve. He went to stop me, but both cops stopped him even faster. On the inside of his forearm, just above the wrist, was a Jerusalem cross. It wasn’t exactly a résumé, but it gave me something to work with. I suddenly had a hunch.

“You a fan of military history? Of course you are,” I said, sounding as if I were back in my classroom. “You probably know that the Prince of Wales got that same tattoo while visiting the Holy Land in the early 1860s. It was right after your great British field marshal Earl Roberts reportedly said that every officer in the British Army should be tattooed with his regimental crest.” I paused to make sure I had his undivided attention. “But you’re more than British Army these days. So for the last time, who are you?”

And for the first time, he spoke. “Who are you?” he asked. But it wasn’t a question. It was the answer to mine.

My hunch had made no sense and all the sense in the world, all at once. Foxx had only just shared the intel on Sadira with his counterparts at Vauxhall Cross, but our strongest of allies had already succumbed to their distrust. Rank nationalism may play well on our own soil, but it’s a shit show overseas.

Foxx’s driver, Briggs, was still alive because the men who took Sadira had no intention of killing him. They were skilled enough to stop him in his tracks without putting him in his grave. It may be a new world with new rules, but MI6 would never be in the business of killing CIA operatives. No matter who was in the White House.

Foxx returned. “He doesn’t know anything, does he?”

I shook my head. “Nope.”

“He’s MI6, isn’t he?”

“How did you know?”

“I didn’t. But his director just called ours to apologize.” Foxx turned to the agent and promptly made a very special relationship between his fist and the guy’s jaw. “Apology not accepted,” said Foxx, before walking away.

I followed him back to the Expedition for the drive to Grand Central. On the way, I had a call of my own to make.

Elizabeth picked up immediately. She’d been waiting on me.





CHAPTER 110


“BUCKLE UP, REINHART …”

It was another car chase. Only now against time.

Siren blaring, lights flashing, Foxx gunned it back toward midtown. He was driving the wrong way in the breakdown lane, aiming for the next exit south, while sideswiping any cars edging out to get a peek at what was making them late to work. At over a hundred miles an hour, we were easily the most effective PSA on record for Stay in your lane.

Along the way to Grand Central, we got the next best thing to direct updates from Pritchard. Foxx had a dedicated scanner with the live command channel that Pritchard was using to coordinate FBI, FBI SWAT, NYPD, and his own JTTF field unit. If we were lucky, they’d arrive before the attack. Unlucky? Any other scenario.