The Quickie - James Patterson [38]
Then a shotgun was jacked.
Click-clack.
“Only thing you’re going to need, you cop-killing piece of shit,” I heard Mike say, “is an undertaker.”
No! I remember thinking. Dear God, Mike. What are you doing? No!
I spun onto my stomach, struggled to stand, my mouth gaping to shout at Mike.
“Cop killer?” I heard Ordonez say with confusion in his voice.
Then the shotgun exploded one last time.
Chapter 55
I MUST HAVE PASSED OUT for a little while, because the next thing I heard were the cries of somebody asking, “Where the fuck are you?” The words were coming out of Mike’s radio, which lay beside my head. Mike was on the subway car floor, cradling me in his lap.
“You’re going to be all right, Lauren,” Mike said. He had a smile on his face, and there were tears in his eyes. “Your head got nicked. Flesh wound. Honest to God. You’re going to be fine.”
“I’m not dying?” I asked Mike.
“Nope. Not on my watch.”
Through the open door between cars, I could see a hand sticking out of a sea of shattered glass. Blood was flecked on a white sleeve.
“What about Victor?” I said. “You . . .”
Mike put a finger to my lips.
“Fired on him after he shot at me. You remember what happened, partner?”
I winced. I couldn’t believe it. Somehow I’d gotten from my normal life to here.
“That’s the way it happened. He shot and then I shot,” Mike repeated. “That way and no other way.”
I nodded, looked away from Mike. “I hear you. I got it, Mike.”
“They’re here,” a frantic voice called from somewhere outside the subway car. “They’re in here.”
“My dad was killed on a train just like this one,” Mike said in a tired voice. “Just like this one.”
Outside came the chop-chop of an approaching helicopter, then the sound of barking dogs.
“He used to take me and my brother fishing out on City Island,” Mike went on. “My little brother was so hyper he flipped the boat on us one time. I thought my dad was going to drown him, but instead he just laughed. That’s how he was. How I’ll always remember him. With us hugging his big neck as he laughed like hell, swimming us ashore.”
An awful sound ripped from the back of Mike’s throat. Thirty, forty years’ worth of grief.
“I always knew something like this would happen,” he said. “Sooner or later.”
I patted my partner on the elbow.
Then EMTs and cops and DEA agents all came flooding into the shot-up train car.
Chapter 56
I DEFINITELY WASN’T DYING TODAY. It turned out I didn’t need stitches, so the EMTs cleaned my wound, applied pressure to stop the bleeding from my cheek and left ear, and fixed me up with a small bandage. I sat on the edge of the ambulance, watching the fuss and thinking that I easily could have been killed in this train yard.
Trahan had finally called the Emergency Service Unit, the NYPD’s SWAT guys, and a wagon circle of their diesel trucks surrounded the train yard’s wheelhouse. There were K-9 units, aviation hovering, a platoon of detectives and uniforms. After Mike saw me go down, he’d called in a 10-13, “cop in dire need,” and it seemed everyone on the force, except maybe the harbor patrol, had responded.
Lieutenant Keane hopped down from the train car where Victor Ordonez was still lying and came over.
“You did real good,” he said. “The serial number on the gun beside our dearly departed friend in there matches. It was Scott’s. Just like we thought. The Ordonezes took him out.”
I shook my head and genuinely couldn’t believe what had happened. In a weird way, it had actually worked out better than I could have hoped, or dreamed. Everything was going to be okay now. Despite the stalling, the omissions, the lies.
“Any sign of Mark, the pilot brother?” I asked.
“None so far,” my boss said. “But don’t worry, he’ll turn up.”
“Where’s Mike?” I asked.
My boss rolled his eyes.
“IAB. Rat squad practically got here before the ESU. You’d think you getting hit might make a difference to them. Those shit-shoveling assholes think you shot yourself and dumped the gun maybe.”
I kept my breathing normal, but only through intense concentration.
Meanwhile, my boss rubbed