Run for Your Life (Michael Bennett 2)

It was the lady cop. She was down on the floor of the train with Swiss cheese for a tummy, yet still trying to line him up in her shaking gun sights. What courage under fire!

“That’s magnificent,” he said to her sincerely. “You should get a medal. I’m really sorry I have to do this.”

He raised the .45 and aimed it at her terrified face.

“I really am,” he said, and pulled the trigger.

Chapter 33

I COULDN’T BELIEVE IT! What the hell was going on in this world? As we were wrapping up the task force meeting, we got word that there’d been not one, but two more shootings in midtown. Preliminary reports said that a civilian and two transit cops had been shot, around Rockefeller Center, by the same assailant.

Our assailant. There wasn’t much doubt about it by now.

Even with my siren cranked, it took me most of forty minutes to get through the gridlock from headquarters to the frantic crime scene at 51st and Lexington.

Right off the top, it was impossible not to notice the NYPD chopper hovering above the Citicorp building. The throb of its rotors seemed to keep time with my heart as I waded through the crowd that was seething around a completely blocked-off 51st Street.

A sergeant let me under the yellow tape beside the 51st Street subway stairs. His serious-as-cancer face told me something I didn’t want to know. The echoing metallic squawk of police radios and sirens seemed to be coming from everywhere at once as I descended into the hot, narrow stairwell.

A train was stopped in the tunnel. There were maybe two dozen cops standing on the platform alongside one of the front cars. Inside it, I saw spent shell casings on the bloodstained floor. I could tell at a glance that several rounds had been fired.

The crowd of cops parted as a team of paramedics wheeled a stretcher out of the

train car. Hats were quickly taken off. A hulking Emergency Service cop next to me blessed himself. When the stretcher neared, I followed his example, shaking my head hard to fight the sudden numbness in my chest.

The victim was the female rookie transit cop. All I knew about her was that her name was Tonya Griffith, and that she was dead. I couldn’t even see her face because of all the blood.

I asked another transit cop about Tonya’s partner, and found out that he was en route to Bellevue.

“Likely?” the big ESU guy inquired. As in, likely to die?

The transit cop didn’t answer. That meant, affirmative.

“Son of a bitch,” the ESU cop said, clenching his fists violently. “Son of a fucking bitch.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Everything had changed from an hour ago. The shooter had killed one, probably two, of our own. The stakes had skyrocketed.

Now it was personal.

Chapter 34

I FOLLOWED THE STRETCHER up to the street as the EMTs carried Tonya Griffith to an ambulance and put her inside. The driver slammed the rear metal doors, climbed in, and hit the roof lights. Then he seemed to think better of it, and turned them off before slowly pulling out into traffic. There was no rush on the way to the morgue.

As I watched the ambulance roll toward the Chrysler Building, I found myself thinking about taking that job at ABC. I’d had enough of shootings and death. At least, that was sure how I felt at that moment.

Detective Terry Lavery came stomping up the stairs behind me.

“Just spoke to the precinct captain, Mike,” he said. “The shooter disappeared. They scoured the area under- and aboveground, stopped buses and taxis on Lex and Fifty-first, but not a trace.”

The ESU cop had said it all. Son of a bitch.

“Witnesses?” I said.

“About a dozen. Mostly they glued themselves to the car walls when the shooting started, but their descriptions match closely. Tall Caucasian male with black hair and dark sunglasses, wearing jeans and a graffiti T. He actually used two guns, a .45 and a .22. One in each hand like Jesse James.”

I shook my head in amazement. One man takes down two trained, armed officers at the same time, with two different guns? Outside of a spaghetti western or a John Woo movie, that didn’t happen. Drawing, aiming, and shooting with just a single weapon while under fire took an incredible level of skill and training.