Kill Me if You Can - James Patterson [76]
I screamed into my wireless for Zach, opened my eyes, and saw him running toward me.
“You’re safe, you’re safe,” I yelled at Katherine as I passed her over to Zach. “Zach, don’t let her out of your sight. Go, go, go!”
Chapter 89
ZACH PUT HIS arm around Katherine and half dragged, half carried her toward the stairway to the north balcony, our designated safe zone.
The rest of us had six incensed Russians to deal with. Like everyone around them, they were still stunned, unable to fight back.
First, Grigor. He was flailing, still blinded, trying to get his bearings. I gave him a vicious chop to the larynx with the blade of my hand. The blow drove quantities of blood into his lungs. He dropped to his knees, gasping for air and coughing up thick red puddles. I grabbed his jaw with one hand, put my other hand behind his neck, and twisted. Hard. Harder than I would if I were trying to get a stuck lug nut off a wheel.
Even over the screams echoing through the cavernous train station, with its high ceilings, I was close enough to hear the wet pop, and I let him fall to the floor.
“Tango down,” I told my team.
A volley of gunfire reverberated through Grand Central. It was coming from above. Adam and Ty had raced up the stairs into Michael Jordan’s Steak House. They’d taken positions on the north balcony.
One of Chukov’s young punks had parked himself under the New Haven line departures board. He was still dazed from the flash grenade when Adam fired. The man’s chest tore open like a pumpkin that’s been hurled off a rooftop. His shirt turned red and he dropped in a heap.
“Tango three is on the west balcony,” I said.
Ty came back. “I don’t see him.”
“He hit the ground when the grenades went off. He’s hiding behind the marble balustrades.”
Ty kept talking. “Chickenshit bastard is socked in good. I can see a sliver of his punk ass between the sixth and seventh column.”
The balustrades were only inches apart, and Ty was at least two hundred feet away. Hitting the target would be like driving a golf ball through a chain-link fence.
“Do you have a shot?” I asked.
“No…”
Then there was a loud crack.
“But I took one, anyway,” he added. “Tango three is down.”
I watched as a trail of blood flowed through the marble balustrades on the west balcony and dripped to the floor below.
“Nice work,” Adam said.
The place was sheer bedlam. I had used flash grenades in combat and seen the effect it had on the enemy. But this was a hundred times worse. The people around us had no training. Many of them were suddenly blind, deaf, or both. It was temporary, but they didn’t know that. And now bullets were flying, too.
Random screams filled the air. People calling out to God. People cursing out the unseen enemy. People proclaiming their love for parents, spouses, and children they thought they would never see again. I could smell the fear.
In the midst of all the insanity, the Russians were reeling and unable to find a target. Ty and Adam had excellent vantage points, but they had to be careful not to shoot innocent bystanders helplessly stumbling through the mob.
One of Chukov’s men who still didn’t have his vision completely back began firing wildly up toward Adam and Ty, riddling the marble railing, shattering glassware, and popping the overhead lights.
“We’ve got a loose cannon down there,” Adam yelled.
Ty stood away from his cover. Just for a second. One of the Russians spotted him and fired. The round caught Ty square in the chest. He went down hard, and I moaned.
“Son of a bitch, that smarts,” he said, pulling his six foot six frame off the floor. He tapped the body armor that had stopped the bullet. “God bless you, Mr. Kevlar.”
He got back in position and opened fire on the shooter. Not just one shot, three—a double tap to the chest, one through the forehead. A perfect Mozambique Drill.
“Tango four is down and out,” I said. “Talk about overkill—”
“Yeah, well, that’s what happens to people who piss me off.”
“You