Driving Heat (43 page)

Backhouse wasn’t the only one grappling for a solution during freefall. Her bravado was only pissing everyone off at a time when she needed to keep them talking. As a cop who had
experience in hostage negotiations, Heat knew that the longer this played out, the better the odds they had to survive it. So, Nikki shifted her approach, not merely stalling to prolong the agony,
calmed the conversation, and tried to forge a sympathetic connection.

“Let’s all take a step back and look at what’s happening here, OK?” she began. “Wilton, I think we all feel like this is a knot we’ve got to untie, right? You
said yourself that you’re trying to ad-lib your way out. We all know you’re a smart guy, but if you admitted it, I’m guessing every step you’re taking feels like
you’re only pulling the knot tighter. Look around at this moment. Is this working for you?” She took it as a hopeful sign that he actually did survey the tableau. He scanned the two
people before him, bound and bleeding, then his volatile accomplice, a problem to be dealt with later; then he looked down at the Mossberg shotgun in his gloved hands. He came back to stare at her,
and she urged, “Come on, let’s figure a way out of this. Let me help.” Nikki saw in his eyes a hint of the weary dog-chasing-its-tail regret she had witnessed in so many perps
caught in a situation gone south. They were a long way from done, but that small opening could be the first step to a resolution.

But then he shook the moment off. “There may not exactly be a proven metric for this but, no, I think this has a shot.”

“Fuck yeah!” said Maloney.

All Nikki could say to herself was “Fuck.”

“We’ll have to see.” Backhouse spread his arms wide to frame the vast crash hall. “I came up with doing this here for a couple of reasons. First was just panic,
I’ll admit that. I couldn’t have bodies or residue of same at my rental in Queens. But this place…” He surveyed the space again, this time with too much attention on that car on
the launch mechanism. “This could be a win-win.”

“That, I’m not getting,” said Heat.

“It won’t be your problem. But since you wonder,” he wiggled the fingers of his blue gloves. “I was never here tonight. I’m going to tie your crash to Tangier
Swift.”

Rook asked, “How?” Then he braced for another shoulder blow that didn’t come.

“Not sure. For now, I’m thinking that drone back at my place is somehow going to turn up hidden on Swift’s yacht. Or maybe in his car.”

Maloney’s face lit up. “I can make that happen.” Nikki tried to mask her disdain for the ex-cop who could probably do a TED Talk on how to salt crime scenes with phony
evidence.

“Seems viable,” said the professor, more to himself than anyone else. “And if it doesn’t nail Swift, I tried.” He shrugged. “You improvise, you get solutions.
It’s the power of instinct.”

Backhouse left them to wait in Maloney’s charge while he dashed off to the control booth. From the sure moves he made up there, Heat could tell he had observed or even supervised test
launches before. Certainly, at least one—Fred Lobbrecht’s earlier in the week. Backhouse left the booth and knelt behind the car at a cream-colored steel patch bay that had an octopus
of cables running from it, then down through holes in the floor, accessing the hydraulic propulsion system in the basement. After he had connected several leads and snapped four toggles in
succession, he stood. The forensic engineer spoke matter-of-factly, but his voice echoed across the immaculate white floor of the hangar. “Locked and loaded,” he said.

The muzzle of a gun, either her own 9mm or the Smith & Wesson M&P
Compact .40 Heat saw in Timothy Maloney’s shoulder
rig, poked hard enough into her back to make a bruise. “You heard him. Let’s get this done.” Beside her, Rook stumbled forward from the rough shove he got as encouragement.

The twenty yards to the gold car gleaming under the industrial overheads felt like a gallows walk during which time had stilled. Even the reverberation of their footfalls in the cavernous hall
seemed to be dampened, and all Nikki could hear was the liquid whoosh of her own blood rhythmically marking the cadence of her fear.

She tried to not let it freeze her thinking. Every second between then and launch needed to be a focused, primal hunt for opportunity. Worrying about Rook, wondering if it would hurt, or
envisioning Lobbrecht’s brain spatter would only distract her. Heat willed herself to be an animal. To be ruthless and survive.

“In,” said Maloney. When Nikki stiffened her body to resist, making herself more difficult to move, Maloney swept a leg against the back of her knees and tripped her. She hit the
deck hard, landing on her shoulder with the air knocked out of her. He holstered and yanked her up by the handcuffs, then manhandled her into the driver’s seat, grunting a string of
curses.

He shoved the door, and the slam thundered to the rafters. She massaged the skin where the metal edges of the handcuffs had cut at her wrists. The pain gave birth to a new tactic. Flailing, for
sure, but she’d try anything. Her side window was down, and she said, “You
are
an idiot. No wonder you washed out.”

“Hey, I’m not the one who’s gonna be a bug on a windshield.”

Heat had one last desperate idea and worked it. She licked away a clot of blood on her upper lip and said, “It’s like I was telling you, he’s setting you up. Jeez, Tim, you
were a grade-three detective, and you can’t see what he’s done?”

“Tim, let it go,” said Backhouse. “Load him, and let’s do this.”

It’s in the job description of a paranoid person to be oversuspicious that someone is gaming him. Nikki exploited that—by gaming him. “Yeah, let it go.”

Her dismissal troubled him.

“OK, what.”

“Never mind.” She gave him a wink. “You’ll find out.”

Heat had gotten into Maloney’s head. His gaze darted to Backhouse, then to her.

“Want me to paint it for you?” she said.

Backhouse cleared his throat. “Now would be good.”

Nikki inclined her head toward her arms secured behind her. “Were you wearing those gloves when you cuffed us? No. So when CSU works this scene, whose fingerprints and DNA are going to be
on these? Yours. I told you he was setting you up.”

“She’s right,” said Rook. “You don’t think they’re going to go all out for a dead captain?”

“We’ll fish them out after,” said Backhouse. “Let’s move.”

Nikki smelled an opening and continued to press. “There’s a fun job. And what if you can’t find them?”

“Or find all the pieces,” added Rook for good measure. “All it’s going to take is a partial, and they’ve got you.”

Maloney turned to Backhouse. “I’m taking their cuffs off.”

“Are you nuts? We should be out of here by now.”

“See?” said Heat. “They’re not his fingerprints.”

“I’m not asking, I’m telling.” Maloney handed Nikki’s Sig Sauer to Backhouse. “Just keep it on her.” Then he fished out his cuff key and opened
Heat’s door. She didn’t wait for an invitation. Nikki twisted her back toward him, and he unlocked one cuff, then the other, and took them off. He stepped back quickly and slammed the
door again. “Chill, Wilton. Under control.”

He yanked Rook around to the other side. When Rook started to resist, Maloney jerked his wounded arm to bring him under control and stuffed him in the passenger seat. Rook presented his
handcuffs, but Maloney’s gloves were clumsy and he dropped the key on the floor. While he bent to retrieve it, Rook whispered to Nikki, “Smart move. What’s your plan?”

“Hands free. Beyond that…?” She shrugged.

Rook’s eyes worked back and forth in urgent thought. Then he said, “Stand by.”

The subcompact rocked to one side as Maloney put a knee on the threshold. “Hold still,” he said. Rook’s right shackle popped free, but instead of waiting for the left to be
unlocked, he whipped that arm into the center of the car out of Maloney’s reach. “Fucking asshole,” he muttered. “Gimme that cuff.” And he stretched across Rook to
grab his arm.

Heat sprang at him with both hands. With one, she jerked his thumb back toward his wrist, and with the other, clawed for his shoulder holster. But it was wedged underneath his left arm, which
was trapped between him and Rook’s chest. Nikki pushed with all her might, trying to break his thumb. Maloney yowled in pain, but his nitrile glove kept slipping and she couldn’t get
enough purchase to match his strength. “Get his gun!” she shouted. “The holster!”

“I’m trying!” Rook’s left arm was trapped under Maloney’s body. Rook pushed against him to make a gap wide enough to reach the Smith & Wesson. The bullet wound
in his right shoulder weakened his leverage, though, and when he did manage to pry open a space, Maloney forced himself back against Rook, closing it.

“Shoot her!” called Maloney. “Fucking shoot her!”

Backhouse fired. But in his frenzy, he fired wild. Nikki heard the 9mm slug sizzle past and slam into the dashboard in front of Rook. “Get closer, dickhead!”

Nikki caught movement to her right as Backhouse stepped up to the window to position himself for a point-blank shot. She let go of Maloney’s thumb, unlatched the door, and shoved it into
Backhouse. The Sig went off as it flew from his hands, landing with a clatter somewhere across the crash hall floor. Backhouse landed on the deck, too. She saw him looking over at his shotgun
across the room and started out after him. But Maloney snagged her from behind and drew her in, trying to clamp a chokehold on her.

While she clawed at his forearm, trying to break the powerful lock he had on her, she watched Backhouse stumble to his feet. Satisfied that all three were fully engaged in the car, he bypassed
his shotgun and darted out of sight in the direction of the control booth.

A klaxon sounded a triple alarm and the lights of the crash hall came up to full brightness. Backhouse had started the launch sequence.

Gasping, trying to butt Maloney with the back of her head and failing, Heat hollered, “Rook, get out! Get out now!”

“I can’t, he’s got me pinned!” Rook started punching Maloney’s back, but with his weak wounded arm, he might as well have been pounding a bag of cement.

The prerecorded voice of a woman who sounded a lot like Siri echoed throughout the hangar. “Caution: Stand clear. Stay behind yellow lines. Commencing test launch sequence.” Another
sharp klaxon sounded, and the announcer continued, “Launching in thirty seconds.”

Heat twisted, kicked, and struggled, but couldn’t break the armlock around her neck. “Maloney,” she gasped, “we need to get out.”

His response was to drag her deeper into the car as he tried to crawl back out over Rook.

“Launching in twenty seconds,” said the dispassionate voice.

Maloney’s movement gave Rook an opening to move just a bit. Despite the searing pain in his shoulder, he worked his right hand down into his side coat pocket and fumbled with something
inside.

“Launching in fifteen seconds.”

“Rook, get yourself out! Please!”

“Launching in ten seconds.”

Rook’s hand came up from his pocket, clutching his Hemingway Montblanc in his fist—with the cap off—its radiant new nib exposed. He plunged the sharp point into Maloney’s
ear. Immediately, his entire body recoiled and he screamed in agony, pulling the hand that was applying pressure to the chokehold on Heat away to grab at the fountain pen embedded in his
eardrum.

“Launching in five seconds.”

The instant Maloney’s grip slackened on Heat, she rolled out of the driver’s side just as Rook rolled out the other door. Inside the car, blood pouring down the side of his face onto
the seat, Maloney stared at her with the pleading eyes of the doomed. She didn’t hesitate. Nikki reached out both hands. He took them and she pulled to drag him free.

“Launch.”

A high-pitched whirr filled the room, then the catapult fired with a shrill hydraulic wail.

The car exploded off the catapult, zooming instantly to seventy-five miles per hour with Maloney stuck inside. His pathetic knowing stare on departure, as he left his empty blue gloves in her
hands, would haunt Nikki’s nightmares for the rest of her life.

She spared herself watching the impact. His screams followed by the thunderclap of the collision told her all she need to know.

Rook, ass planted on the deck, struggled to his feet. “You can’t have too many of these,” he said, and tossed her the Smith & Wesson .40 that he had stripped off Maloney
during his bailout.

Nikki checked the chamber indicator, saw brass, and ran to the control booth. She braced flat to the wall outside the door and called for Backhouse. Then she saw that the Mossberg was gone. A
door slam reverberated from the far end of the hangar.

She told Rook to call 911, scooped her Sig Sauer from the floor on her way past, then sprinted to the exit. Instead of stepping out, she kicked the door open. A blast from the shotgun peppered
the steel where she would have been standing. She rolled out, prone, ready to fire before he could rack another shell, but all she heard was two feet pounding across asphalt into the night.

The exit Backhouse used was on the opposite side of the hangar from the door they had come in through, so Nikki’s run took her around one corner, then another, before she got to the front
of the building. From behind the parked eighteen-wheeler they had used for cover, she heard a car door slam, then saw headlights as Backhouse fired up the Police Interceptor.

Even riding an adrenaline rush, Heat knew her limits. In her weakened state from blood loss and the death struggle with Maloney, her legs had labored just to bring her this far around the
building. Nikki calculated the distance to her Taurus and smelled a getaway. So, as the car backed out of its hiding place between the big rig and the wall, she didn’t even try to go after
it. She cut the shorter distance across the parking lot to get ahead of it.

If Maloney had been half the cop he thought himself to be, he would have backed into the space for a rapid nose-first exit. But he wasn’t and he hadn’t. Now, forced to inch out of
the narrow slot in reverse, Backhouse lost time and Nikki bought precious seconds in her desperate race to head him off.