Collateral Damage (29 page)

—

Jasmine turned into the street and spotted the black SUV immediately. She took the 9mm silenced pistol from her handbag and shoved it between her legs. Habib would shortly be behind her.

She coasted to a stop inches from the SUV’s blackened windows, rolled her own window down, and yelled, “Excuse me!” Nothing happened. It must be very thick, armored glass, she thought. She reached out the window and rapped very hard on it with her ring. A moment later, the window slid halfway down.

“Yes?” a wary voice asked.

“Excuse me, could you direct me—” Then she took the silenced 9mm from between her legs and shot them both in the head.

—

Junior Detective Sean Leary turned back into the block, a sandwich on the seat beside him, and saw twin flashes emanating from between the black CIA SUV and a white car pulled up close to it, but heard nothing. “Gunshots fired,” he said aloud to himself. “Silencer.” He accelerated and rammed the white car from behind, shoving it down the street. He saw its brake lights come on, and a woman was suddenly running toward him, a gun in her hand. He was digging at his waist for his own weapon as she reached his car, holding out the silenced pistol.

Then, as she fired, his own car was rammed from behind, shoving him forward into the Toyota for a second time. Leary opened his door and rolled into the street, in a prone firing position. He felt something strike him hard in the back, and he put his head down and began firing wildly in her general direction.

—

“Well, Dino?” Stone asked.

Dino’s mouth was working, but nothing was coming out.

Then they heard an unmistakable sound: a gunshot, followed by five more.

“Thirty-eight,” Viv said.

One second after the final gunshot, Stone’s security system went off, and loudly.

“They’re shooting at the house,” Stone said as they all scrambled out of the banquette.

Stone ran through the lower level of the house from the kitchen, through his exercise room to his office, then down the hall toward the front door. He ducked into Joan’s office and retrieved her .45 from her desk drawer, and as he did, Dino blew past him in the hallway, weapon in hand, and out the office door into the street. Stone followed on his heels, just ahead of Viv and Holly, who were also armed.

—

Habib grabbed Jasmine’s arm. “We’ve got to go!” he yelled. He half dragged her to the car and shoved her into the passenger side, then ran around the car. As he opened the driver’s door he saw people spilling out of the house behind him, and they were armed. The engine was still running, and he floored the car. He was just feeling lucky that it was still running when he had to slam on brakes to stop from running into a truck stopped in front of him. He leaned on the horn.

“White car, down the block!” Holly yelled, then ran in that direction, followed closely by Viv.

But Dino wasn’t looking at the car, he was looking through a window of the van with the damaged front end, stopped in the middle of the street. He tried to open both doors: locked. He banged on the glass with the butt of his pistol, to no avail. He looked to his left and saw Leary, lying on his belly, with blood on his back, then he turned toward Stone, who was standing beside him. “Get something to break this glass!” he yelled.

“Who do you think is in there?” Stone yelled back.

“Nobody. It’s gotta be a bomb!”

Stone turned and ran up the front steps and into the house.

Dino went to Leary. “Kid, talk to me!”

“I’m okay, I think,” Leary said, struggling to a knee.

“Stay right there!” Dino jumped through the open car door, one knee on the driver’s seat, and reached across to open the glove compartment. He began grabbing stuff and throwing it onto the floor, until he found what he was looking for.

—

Habib gave up blowing the horn, stepped out of the car with one foot and aimed his gun at the truck driver, who was coming toward him. “Get that truck out of here, or I’ll kill you,” Habib yelled, firing a shot into a nearby car for emphasis. The man ran for his truck, and it began to roll toward Second Avenue.

Holly ran toward the white car and waved for Viv to take the passenger side, but when they were nearly there, the car shot forward, mounted the curb and began bulldozing its way toward Second Avenue.

Dino got back to the van just after Stone broke the rear window with a golf club. “Get outta the way!” he yelled at Stone, then he reached inside for the door lock. The seats had been removed from the rear of the van, and there was a large object on the floor, hidden by a raincoat thrown over it. He snatched away the coat and found a neat cube of gray bricks with a cell phone taped to the stack. “Oh, shit,” he said. “Get back!”

Stone looked inside and reached for the cell phone, but Dino shoved him out of the way and onto his ass in the street. “It’s gonna be booby-trapped!” he yelled. He held up the black object in his hand and pressed a button. A green light came on, and Dino set it on top of the pile of explosives. “Stay away from it!” he yelled at Stone, who was getting to his feet.

Dino ran back to Leary and dug the handheld radio out of the man’s inside coat pocket. “Just relax, Leary,” he said. “Help is on the way.” Dino took a deep breath and hoped for the best. He pressed the button on the side of the radio and said, “Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! This is Lieutenant Dino Bacchetti, code red, code red!” He gave the address. “I’ve got a very large bomb in a van and an officer down. I need ambulances and the bomb squad. Code red on Second Avenue in the Forties!”

Stone ran up to him. “We’ve got to get out of here, Dino!” he said.

“It’s too late to run,” Dino replied.

—

Habib was knocking down garbage cans and scattering pedestrians.

“I’m going to blow it!” Jasmine yelled.

“Not yet! You’ll kill us, too!” He made it to Second Avenue and turned right.

—

Holly and Viv were running as hard as they could toward the car when it turned onto Second Avenue and started to move faster. Then, suddenly, the car stopped, as did all the traffic on Second Avenue. She looked down the street and saw red traffic lights as far as the eye could see. “We’ve got to kill both those people now!” she yelled at Viv. They both stopped running. “I’ll take the driver!” Holly raised her weapon and fired two shots. The rear window of the Toyota turned white, and she started running toward the driver’s door, her weapon held ready in front of her.

Viv ran for the passenger door, and when she was ten yards away, it opened and a woman rolled out of the car and into the street, ending up on one knee, her hands out, holding a silenced pistol. Viv heard a little whir, and her hair blew back on her left side. She didn’t bother aiming, just started firing, aiming at the center of the woman. She knew she had hit her at least once, but the woman didn’t fall. Instead, with her free hand, she flipped open a cell phone and with a thumb, pressed a button.

“NOOO!” Viv yelled, then emptied her magazine into the crouching figure. Viv hit the street and waited for the explosion.

Nothing happened. Viv lifted her head and looked at the woman she had just shot several times. She was smiling. Viv reached over, grabbed the silencer, and pulled the weapon from her grasp.

Jasmine was trying to say something. Viv leaned closer and listened. “They will all die,” Jasmine whispered.

Viv picked up the cell phone lying near her hand and looked at it. The word “CALLING” was on the screen, then it changed to “CALL FAILED.” She held the phone in front of Jasmine’s face. “Not today, sweetheart,” she said. “Just you.”

Jasmine frowned, then her face relaxed and her pupils dilated.

“The driver is dead,” Holly said from behind her.

Viv placed two fingers on the left side of Jasmine’s throat and felt for a pulse. “So is this one,” she said.

Holly was on the phone.

—

Stone stared at Dino. “What is that thing with the green light?” he asked.

“A couple of weeks ago, Viv and I went to the theater, and there were cell phones ringing all around us, all through the first act. I saw that thing in a catalogue and ordered it. It creates a dead zone big enough to fill a room.”

“It must work, then,” Stone said. Then, as he watched, the green light went out.

Dino picked up the little box, opened the battery compartment, and fiddled with the single AA battery. The light came back on.

The sound of sirens and whoopers filled the air, and suddenly the street was full of flashing lights and men in body armor. Dino held his badge high, so they could see it. “On the job, guys!” he yelled. “Get me a bomb guy over here.”

A moment later, a man in really big armor and a helmet with a plastic shield over his face appeared. “What have we got here?”

“Very large bomb,” Dino said, pointing into the van.

“Holy shit!” the man said.

“That little box with the green light made a dead zone in the car, but you’d better get that thing disconnected before it blows. It’s probably booby-trapped.”

“Get the hell out of here, both of you,” the man said, and Stone and Dino retreated into the house and sat down in Joan’s office. “Where are the girls?” Stone asked.

“They took off after a white car,” Dino said, producing his cell phone and pressing a speed dial button. He turned on the speaker. The call failed.

“It’s your black box,” Stone said.

Dino kept trying.

“Yeah?” Viv said.

“It’s Dino. Where are you and Holly?”

“On Second Avenue. We shot two people in a white Toyota, a man and a woman. I think the woman is Jasmine.”

“God, I hope you’re right,” Dino said.

“She made a call on a cell phone before I could stop her,” Viv said, “but the call failed.”

“Turn off that cell phone,” Dino said. “It’s real important.”

“Holly’s checking out the trunk of the Toyota,” Viv said. “Hang on, we’ve got a laptop!”

“There will be cops all over you in a minute,” Dino said. “I think Holly gets custody of the laptop.”

“She’s already called somebody,” Viv said. “Why are all the lights on Second Avenue red?”

“I called in a code red,” Dino said.

“Good call, Dino. If they’d had a green light, they’d be gone.”

“I’ll tell the commissioner you said so.”

“We’ll come back to Stone’s house as soon as the scene is squared away,” Viv said.

“Hurry,” Dino replied, and hung up.

“Dino,” Stone said, “how much explosive matter was in that van? What’s your guess?”

“I dunno—forty, fifty kilos, maybe.”

Stone heaved a deep sigh. “I’m going to get one of those black boxes,” he said. “Could you use a drink?”

“Is the Pope a mackerel snapper?”

Holly and Viv went through four suitcases in the trunk. “I got an iPhone from the purse on the car seat, but this is just clothes and stuff,” Holly said.

“Except for that laptop,” Viv replied. She looked up and saw a dozen uniforms running up Second Avenue toward them. “You get out of here with the computer and the iPhone,” Viv said. “I’ll deal with the uniforms.”

“Do you still have a badge?”

Viv produced a small shield. “Just my retirement shield, but it’ll work. She held it up and shouted, “On the job, fellas!” as they surrounded the car.

Holly held up her own ID. “CIA!”

Everybody relaxed.

Holly ran the dozen blocks to the Agency building, pacing herself, using her cell phone to call ahead. “I’m inbound on foot,” she said to the duty officer. “I’ve got a hot Mac Air and an iPhone, and we need to lift everything from it, even if it’s coded.”

“We’ve got an NSA lady who’s in town to retrain our tech guys for new software,” the officer said.

“Find her and get her to the building right now,” Holly said. “I’ll be there in six minutes.” She broke the connection and pressed her speed dial button for the police commissioner.

“Holly? Where the hell are you? We got a code red from Dino Bacchetti, and I’ve flooded Turtle Bay and Second Avenue with personnel.”

“Frank, Jasmine is dead, and I have her laptop and cell phone. I’m headed to my office now, and we’ve got an NSA tech in town who can help us with it.”