The Sixth Man (37 page)

She turned off the power box and spoke into her own mic. “Sean, three down, but they’ve called in reinforcements. What’s your status?”

“Coming up on Columbus Circle. Where are you?”

“Somewhere behind you. Once you get to the circle, get in a cab and go.”

“And you?”

“I’ll meet you at the train station like we planned.”

“Michelle, I’m not leaving you out here—”

“Sean, don’t play the gentleman. We don’t have time. See you in twenty.”

Then she heard the click of the hammer on the gun being pulled back. And then another. One at four o’clock, the other at seven. One foot away, max. They had screwed up with their tactical positioning. Too close to her. Way too close.

Michelle closed her eyes, framed it out in her head.

Four o’clock target was to her right, her natural path of movement. Pivot on left foot, bend her torso downward in the same direction, as her right leg delivered a side kick to the man’s right knee, effectively crushing it. Then reverse her pivot, duck, roll, while the man is going down, flailing, screaming over his ruined limb and unwittingly providing cover for her against the other shooter. Gun out, one-handed shot, pistol held sideways, aiming between the gap of her human shield at the other man, who would have instinctively moved to his left as his partner crumpled in the
same direction from Michelle’s strike. No body armor, so torso shot to incapacitate, then one to the head for the kill. Elbow to the neck of four o’clock, who would get to live, and she’d sprint on to Columbus Circle.

It was all doable. Fifty-fifty, maybe sixty-forty her way if she hit all her marks at the exact right moment.

Calculation was complete, except for one variable. Sean would be safe by now. Had to be. Safer than she was in any event. She opened her eyes.

Before she could move, however, the pistols fired.

S
EAN HEARD THE SHOTS
and turned back toward the park and away from the cabstand at Columbus Circle. Panicked, he spoke into his mic. “Michelle? Michelle, are you okay?”

No answer.

“Michelle!”

Silence.

Sean turned to run back into Central Park.

People seized him.

“What the—” He grabbed his gun.

There were two men.

“Move, move,” one said into his ear.

“Who the hell are—”

“Kelly Paul,” the second man hissed into his ear. “Now move.”

“But my partner—”

“No time. Move.”

They hustled him back into the park through another entrance.

A minute later he was pushed under a blanket on the floor of one of the horse carriages that was making a slow meander through the park. The two men disappeared and the driver, wearing a shabby, old-fashioned top hat and long black rain slicker, flicked his whip and the horse increased its pace.

When Sean started to pull the blanket down, the driver said, “Keep it on, mate. Not out of the woods yet.”

That was when Sean felt a body next to him. He gripped a leg and then a hand and then what felt like a breast.

“Wow, your timing really sucks.”

“Michelle?”

He maneuvered the blanket around until he could just make her out in the dark.

“What the hell happened back there?” he asked.

“Tight spot. Probably wasn’t going to make it, but turns out we had some reinforcements in Central Park too.”

“It’s Kelly Paul.”

“Figured, yeah.”

The horse clip-clopped through the park and back out onto the street.

“So much for a fast getaway,” said Michelle.

The driver heard this and said, “Sometimes slow is best. The other side just hightailed it after a decoy we sent out. You can come up for air now.”

They both slid up in the seat and pulled the blanket down at the same time.

The driver turned sideways and looked at them. “Cut it close.”

“Yes we did,” Sean agreed. “So you know Kelly Paul? How?”

“Not going there.”

“That’s a big favor you just did us.”

“You’re lucky she’s on your side.”

“What about the guys in the park? The shots?”

“Your friend here disabled three of them. Bones busted, all out cold. The shots you heard were the pistols of two others going off right when we hit them. Apparently they had orders to take your lady out. Their shots missed, obviously, though not by much. Our equipment didn’t. They’ll live. The scene will be cleansed. The police report will never be filed. Never happened. Officially.”

“Lot of weight behind them,” said Michelle.

“Obviously.” The man turned back around.

Sean said, “So Kelly had planned for this?”

“She plans for everything. She said you two were the tip of the spear. But a spear also has a handle.” He tipped his hat. “We’re the handle.”

“Thanks,” said Michelle. “We owe you.”

Over his shoulder the driver said, “You two ever took the full carriage ride?”

“No,” said Sean. “And I don’t think we have time to do it now.”

“We’ll take a rain check, though,” said Michelle quickly, snatching a glance at Sean.

The driver slowed the carriage near an intersection.

“Straight down that street. There’s a car waiting, red four-door Toyota. Bloke at the wheel is named Charlie.”

Michelle shook his hand. “Thanks again. I’d be dead right now if it weren’t for you guys.”

“We’d all be dead if it weren’t for some guys,” said the driver. “Just stay alive so we didn’t waste the effort.”

They stepped down from the carriage, walked off in the gloomy rain, found the car, and were soon on their way to Penn Station.

They retrieved Michelle’s Land Cruiser from a nearby garage, gassed it up, and were on their way north before midnight. Michelle had changed the license plates on her SUV, replacing them with a pair of sterilized ones, just in case.

As they left Manhattan behind them, Sean reached out his hand and gripped Michelle’s arm. “Like the guy said, we cut it close. Way too close.”

“But we’re alive. That’s what counts.”

“Does it?”

She glanced at him as she changed lanes and accelerated. “What do you mean?”

“Can we both really keep doing this until it comes to the point where way too close instead becomes, ‘If she’d just not gone through that other doorway’?”

“We both take risks. It could be you too.”

“You take far more risks than I do.”

“Okay, so what?”

He removed his hand, looked away, and watched the wink of big-city lights in the side mirror until they disappeared from view.

“Okay, so what?” she said again.

“I don’t know where I’m going with this.”

“I think you do know.”

“Okay. If it were just the two of us, you’d be dead.”

“You did the best you could. And the alternative was what? Do nothing?”

“Maybe that would’ve been the smart thing to do.”

“Smart for our safety maybe, not so good for trying to solve the case, which happens to be our job.”

When Sean didn’t say anything she added, “We’re in a dangerous business. I thought we both understood that. It’s like playing in the NFL. Every Sunday you know you’re going to get your ass kicked but you do it anyway.”

“Well, players retire too, before it’s too late.”

“Not many do. At least voluntarily.”

“Well, maybe we should think about it. Seriously think about it.”

“Then what would we do?”

“There’s more to life than this, Michelle.”

“Is this because we slept together?”

“Probably, yes,” he conceded.

“So now we have something to lose?”

“Us, we have us to lose. Maybe you could… you could do something else.”

“Oh, I get it. I’m the girl. Let the big strong guy do the heavy lifting, play the hero while I stay home in pumps and pearls and bake the cookies and pop out the babies.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“In case you missed it, slick, I can take care of myself.”

“I’m not denying that.”

“So if you’re really gung ho on this domestication thing why don’t
you
stay home and play house, and I’ll kick down the doors and shoot the guns?”

“I can’t live my life that way. Always worried that you wouldn’t come home.”

She pulled off at an exit, drove the truck onto the shoulder, slammed the gear shift into park, and faced him.

“Well, how do you think I’d feel if
I
were the one waiting at home?”

“The same as me,” he said quietly.

She nodded. “That’s right. The same as you. At least if we’re out here together, we have each other. We can rely on each other to get us both home every night.”

“And if we both take it in the end? Like what almost happened tonight?”

“I can’t think of any other way I’d want to go out. How about you?”

After a long moment of silence he tapped the steering wheel. “Put it in gear. We’ve got a job to do.”

“So we’re on the same page now?”

“Actually I’m pretty sure we always were.”

T
HE
SUV
HAD SCREECHED
to a halt on Fifth Avenue, the door had opened, two burly men had jumped out, lifted Peter Bunting completely off the pavement, and thrown him into the vehicle before he knew what was happening. The truck had raced off and he’d found himself squished between his two captors. They said nothing in response to his questions. They never even looked at him.

The place they took him to was belowground and heavily secured. It was a location New Yorkers would walk over millions of times a day and never know was even there. The room was dark. Bunting stared up at the man in fear.

James Harkes looked different than he had in past meetings. He was dressed the same; black suit that could barely restrain his muscular physique. But his demeanor was different. It was crystal clear that Bunting was no longer in charge.

If I ever was.

Harkes was. Or rather whomever Harkes was reporting to, and Bunting now had a solid idea of who that was.

“Let’s go over your debrief one more time, Bunting.”

There was no more Mr. Bunting.

“We’ve been over it three times. I’ve told you everything.”

“We’ll go over it until I’m satisfied.”

When Bunting finished Harkes said, “Why did you meet with Sean King?”

“Are you keeping my calendar now?”

Harkes didn’t answer him. He was texting something on his BlackBerry. He looked up when he was finished. “There are certain
people, all of whom would be familiar to you, that are not happy about your recent performance.”

“I was already aware of that,” Bunting shot back. “If that’s all you wanted to tell me, I’d like to go now.”

Harkes rose, went to the wall, and flicked a switch. The wall suddenly became transparent. As Bunting looked closer he saw that it was a one-way mirror. Seated in the brightly lit room was Avery. Bunting could see that he was strapped to a gurney. There was one intravenous cannula going to each of his arms. The young man was convulsed with fear. His head was turned and he seemed to be staring directly at Bunting, but it was apparent he couldn’t see him. With the special glass and the bright lights he would only be able to see his own terrified countenance reflected back. A heart monitor on a stand was next to the gurney with a line running to Avery’s neck.

Bunting shouted, “What the hell is going on?”

“Avery screwed up. King tracked you through him. And you were aware of it but didn’t bother to tell me.”

“I don’t answer to you.”

Harkes moved with astonishing speed. The blow hit Bunting right above the left eye. Harkes’s hand felt like a block of cement. The blood pouring from a gash on his forehead, Bunting fell forward in his chair, feeling sick to his stomach from the violence of the strike.

He struggled to catch his breath. “Look, you bastard, Foster and Quantrell aren’t the only game in town—”

Harkes hammered a fist into Bunting’s right kidney, doubling him over and dropping him to the floor. This time he did throw up. An instant after the vomit left his mouth he was yanked up and thrown back in the chair with such force that he nearly toppled over backward. When his breath returned Bunting said, “What the hell do you want from me?”