Kill Me If You Can (20 page)

“Matt, I’m really sorry,”
Zach said, and my friend looked incredibly sad. “I should’ve—”

I held up my hand. “No apologies. You couldn’t have seen this coming. I should have, though. Oh, man. Katherine is Chukov’s negotiating tool. He’ll trade her for the diamonds.”

Almost on cue, my cell rang. It was Katherine.

“Where are you?” I said.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’m in a car. A man grabbed me.”

“Bitch!” It was Chukov’s voice. “Give me the phone.”

I could hear Katherine crying as Chukov grabbed the phone and screamed at me. “Bannon, can you hear what’s happening to your girlfriend?”

“Let her go,” I said. “This is between you and me.”

“
You
and me?” he bellowed. “I don’t even know who the fuck
you
are. But I’ll bet you know who I am. I’m Chukov, the man whose diamonds you stole, and I want them back!”

“Okay, okay, just don’t hurt her.”

“I haven’t hurt her. Not yet. Right now she’s in the front seat of my car, stretched out nice and comfortable with her head in my lap.”

“You touch her, and I swear to God, I will hunt you down and there’ll be nothing left of your lap but a bloody stump.”

“Tough guy,” Chukov said. “You’re not just some art student, are you, Mr. Bannon?”

“I would be if you assholes would leave me alone. I want my girlfriend back.”

“And I want my diamonds,” Chukov said.

“I have them right here,” I lied. “I’ll trade you. You can have your goddamn diamonds—just give Katherine back to me. Untouched. Unharmed.”

“Now you’re getting smart,” Chukov said. “There’s a self-storage warehouse under the Williamsburg Bridge—”

“No. I’ll bring the diamonds to the exact same place where I found them,” I said. “The main concourse of Grand Central.”

“Too crowded,” Chukov said.

“I like a crowd,” I said. “It’s safer. We’ll do it after rush hour. Ten p.m. It’ll be quiet, but there’ll still be people around. If we both behave, this can be a civilized exchange. Nobody gets hurt; everybody’s happy.”

“I’m happy right now, Mr. Bannon,” Chukov said. “You know, your girlfriend has a beautiful ass.” I heard a smack and Katherine screamed.

Chukov belched out a sickening laugh. “Ten o’clock, Bannon.”

I had set
the grand finale exchange with Chukov for the main concourse—center stage at Grand Central Terminal.

Chukov wasn’t too happy about it, but he agreed. He probably believed that Matthew Bannon the art student would feel safer surrounded by people walking through the terminal.

But the reality was that Matthew Bannon the Ghost had picked the spot because it offered the best field of fire.

Adam and Zach were already scoping out the building when Ty and I arrived. Then we worked together to map out the best possible combat plan.

Ever since the night I threw those smoke grenades and turned Grand Central into total pandemonium, security had been beefed up. This meant that four strapping ex-Marines standing in the middle of the main concourse on a recon mission would definitely attract cops.

So we opted for aerial surveillance. A table for four at Michael Jordan’s Steak House on the north balcony of the terminal, overlooking the rendezvous spot. It was an excellent vantage point. Plus, we were all starving.

We ordered, then sat there and quietly studied the traffic patterns below. When you’re standing in the middle of the terminal, it seems like people are crisscrossing the concourse without rhyme or reason. But from twenty feet up, the perspective changes, and they begin to look more like a colony of ants, each one racing about with purpose.

Very few people come to Grand Central to stroll through it aimlessly. Everyone is on a mission—headed for a stairwell, a train, a Starbucks, an exit. If the concourse floor were a giant lawn instead of a vast expanse of polished marble, you’d be able to see where the steady stream of travelers had trampled the grass and created distinct pathways.

“Right down there,” I said, pointing at an area where almost no one had walked for fifteen minutes. “That looks like the smartest place to make the exchange.”

Adam nodded slowly. “The
exchange,
” he said, a sardonic little smile crossing his lips. “Which exchange are we talking about? The one where Chukov trades us Katherine for the diamonds, or the exchange of bullets that will start flying as soon as he realizes that he just gave up his ace in the hole for a bagful of worthless glass?”

I couldn’t show up completely empty-handed, could I? So in the afternoon, we had found a theatrical prop shop on Twelfth Avenue that sells loose rhinestones for twenty-five dollars a gross. Zelvas’s medical bag was now filled to the brim with them.

“How long do you think it will take Chukov to realize he’s been played?” Ty asked, digging into a bowl of Louisiana Crawfish Chowder. The rest of us were chowing down on the only thing you go to a steak house for: meat.

“They look like the real thing from a distance,” I said. “That’ll help me get close to Katherine, but I guarantee that Chukov will know they’re bogus as soon as he gets his hands on them.”

“And I guarantee you that as soon as he does that,” Adam said, “he and his squad of Russian goons will start shooting up Grand Central Terminal.”

That was our biggest challenge—collateral damage. You do your best to minimize it, but sometimes it’s unavoidable. Innocent people getting killed is part of the reality of war. As dangerous as this operation was, it was complicated by the potential for civilian casualties once the bullets started flying. And knowing how desperate Chukov was, that seemed inevitable.

I would be wearing a vest. But some weary advertising executive trudging out of the Graybar Building toward Track 17 hoping to catch the 10:14 to Larchmont wouldn’t have the benefit of Kevlar.

And neither would Katherine.

We left Zach
behind to patrol the area in and around Grand Central and call us if he saw any sign of Chukov’s men arriving early and taking up positions. The rest of us took the subway back to the Fortress.

There was only one thing more intimidating than facing Chukov and his Russian triggermen. That was facing my father.

He knew what I did to earn a living. Hell, he had gotten me into the business. I think he naturally expected that I would be as good—and as lucky—as he had been.

But this time was different. Going into Grand Central to trade diamonds for my kidnapped girlfriend was a suicide mission. And the fact that I didn’t even have the diamonds made it all the more impossible.

If somebody had tried to hire me to do it, I’d have said no thanks and walked away—I don’t care how much they would have paid me. But this wasn’t about money. This was about Katherine’s life. I didn’t care if I took a bullet. I just had to save her.

I called my father. It was midday in Colorado. My mother picked up.

I spent five minutes answering all her excited questions about my trip to Paris.

“It sounds so romantic,” she said. “I wish your father would take me.”

“I’ll tell him,” I said. “Is he around?”

“He’s in his workshop with his harem,” she said, using her favorite expression for Dad’s gun collection. “I’ll buzz him on the intercom and tell him to pick up.”

I could picture my father in his shop with a gun-cleaning kit and a bottle of Hoppe’s solvent, carefully going through the same ritual he taught me, and his father taught him. “A clean gun is a mean gun,” he always said.

It’s a philosophy I had lived by. At least so far.

“Hey, boy,” Dad said, answering the phone. “How you doing?”

I told him the whole story, from the night I found the diamonds to the last phone call from Chukov—everything I hadn’t told him when I called from Milan. As usual, he listened without saying a word.

When I was done, he simply said, “Anything I can do?”

I gave him all the information he’d need to get the money out of the Dutch bank. Then I told him how to divide it. “Half gets split up evenly among Adam, Zach, Ty, and Katherine. The other half goes to you and Mom.”

He laughed.

“What’s so funny?” I said.

“I’ll never see a penny of that money,” he said.

“Why do you say that?”

“Because if anything happens to you, your mom will kill me faster’n look at me,” he said. “So listen up, and listen good, boy. You’re gonna get through this. You’re gonna get through this because you know that not only is your life and Katherine’s life on the line, but so’s your old man’s.
Ooooo-rah.
”

“Thanks,” I said. “I love you, Dad.”

“Love you, too, boy.”

At 5:30 Zach
called in.
This was it.

“Two guys showed up fifteen minutes ago. Early twenties, dark suits, dark turtlenecks, gold jewelry, Russian accents. They scoped out the drop zone.”

“They’re probably trying to figure out choke points,” I said.

“Choke points would require some military intelligence,” Zach said. “These guys are thugs, not tacticians. They’re counting cops and checking out security cameras. It’s like they’re planning to stick up a Seven-Eleven.”

“I’m insulted,” I said. “They still don’t seem to think I’m even a threat.”

“Try not to take it personally,” Zach said. “As far as they know, you’re some fey art student. They’re worried about the cops.”

“So am I,” I said. “What else did you get?”

“I can give you the three spots where Chukov is going to position his men.”

“How’d you get close enough to hear that?” I asked.

“Matt, I didn’t have to get close. These idiots were broadcasting. They were pointing
there, there, and there.
”

Adam leaned into the speakerphone. “Tell us where, where, and where.”

I had sketched a map of the main concourse while I was wolfing down my rib eye at Michael Jordan’s. Zach rattled off three locations, and Adam marked them on the map.

“Where are they now?” I asked.

“The Oyster Bar, getting primed for the showdown with a few vodkas. Do you want me to follow them when they leave?”

Zach is tough and confident. Sometimes too confident, sometimes too tough. Even if he could follow Chukov’s men without getting caught, I didn’t want him to even think about rescuing Katherine on his own.

“No,” I said. “Let’s just stick to the plan. Did you find a good spot for the rabbit?”

“Best place is across the street from the Vanderbilt Avenue entrance,” Zach said. “I counted half a dozen uniforms who circulate between the main concourse and the lower level. When they’re not on patrol, they cluster upstairs near the Vanderbilt door on the north balcony. One rabbit ought to take care of most of the cops.”

“What about K-nine?” I asked.

“Oh, they got dogs. I haven’t seen any so far, but I chatted up the counter guy at Starbucks, and he told me there are cops with bomb-sniffing dogs who patrol the main concourse randomly. Seems like another reason why the rabbit is better outside the terminal.”

“Good job,” I said. “Call us if anything pops. Otherwise we’ll meet you at nineteen hundred hours.”

I hung up.

The feeling I had in the pit of my stomach was all too familiar. Pre-combat butterflies. Anyone who tells you it doesn’t happen to him is lying to you. Or to himself.

“It sounds like we took out Chukov’s best men, and he called in a bunch of amateurs,” Adam said.

“I think that works against us,” I said. “Amateurs tend to panic and go trigger happy. I don’t want civilian casualties.”

“Matt’s right,” Ty said. “We signed up for this. The people who’ll be walking through Grand Central tonight didn’t. Katherine didn’t. Our job is to make sure none of them gets hurt.”

“Oh, they won’t get hurt,” Adam said, “but when those T-four-seventy-ones go off, they’ll wish they’d never gotten out of bed this morning.”

“You only have a narrow window before the Russians shake off the T-four-seventy-ones and start shooting,” I said. “As soon as Katherine is out of the field of fire, take them out. Every one of them. Fast.”

“Don’t worry, Matt,” Ty said. “We’re gonna kill the bastards who took Katherine, and we’re gonna bring her home safe.”

We had gone into battle before. But this time, I swore to myself, would be different. No matter what the outcome, this battle would be my last.

By 7 p.m.,
the four of us were in Position Alpha.

We had three hours to wait for Chukov to arrive, which in our line of work we could do standing on one leg with a full bladder. Waiting in complete silence, barely breathing for hours, even days, at a stretch is what we’re trained to do.

Ty was on East 43rd outside the entrance to the Lexington Avenue subway. Adam was on 42nd, covering the south side of the terminal. Zach was at 45th and Vanderbilt with the rabbit.

I was inside, my hand clutching the medical bag, my eyes scanning the commuters who poured out of the MetLife Building to take the escalator down to the main concourse.

The four of us were fitted with the same wireless communication system the Secret Service uses. Micro earbuds, transmitter necklaces under our collars, and invisible microphones in our lapels. The protocol was for each of us to check in with an update every quarter hour.

Ten o’clock came and went. Ten fifteen. Ten thirty. Ten forty-five. No sign of Chukov.

At eleven o’clock, Adam was the first to check in.

“Cab Forty-two to Dispatch. Our passenger is still MIA. What do you make of it?”

I radioed back. “Dispatch to Forty-two. He’ll be here. He just wants to see me sweat. It isn’t working.”

One of the most critical skills a combat Marine has to hone is patience. I had once sat in a sniper’s nest for seventy-two hours without moving. This assignment was much harder. Knowing that Katherine was in the hands of a sadistic maniac like Chukov made every minute drag and every quarter hour endless.

I paced from one end of the waiting area to the other. The escalator from the MetLife Building whirred quietly. No one had set foot on it for twenty minutes. The traffic in Grand Central had thinned out dramatically. That, at least, was a plus. Fewer people. Less chance of hitting an innocent bystander.

I was ready. My team was ready. But where the hell was Chukov?

Eleven fifteen. Eleven thirty. Eleven forty-five.

At three minutes before midnight, my cell rang. The caller ID said it was coming from Katherine’s phone. I answered. The voice on the other end was ice cold and menacing. It was Vadim Chukov.

“It’s over,” he said.

“Over? Where are you?” I said. “I’ve been standing here in Grand Central with your diamonds since ten o’clock.”

“Shove them up your ass,” he said.

“What are you talking about? We have a deal.”

“The deal is off,” he said. “You lied. You sold the diamonds in Amsterdam.”

“That’s crazy,” I said. “I tried, but I couldn’t. I have them right here in my hand.”

“You want to know what’s in
my
hand, Bannon?” Chukov said. “A seven-inch carbon steel knife, and as soon as my men have finished gangbanging your pretty little girlfriend, I’m going to use it to slit her throat.”

He hung up.

I stood there shaking. Unable to breathe. Sweat pouring off me.