I broke into another run when I heard screams and then gunfire at the back of the store, in the far right-hand corner. When I got there, I saw the Nigerian raking gunfire over the butcher and fish counters.
I fired my Glock—emptied it at the figure so fast I thought maybe I’d forgotten to fully load the fifteen-round magazine. I reloaded and trained it on the Nigerian as I walked over.
He was down on his back wheezing as he lay in the refrigerated meat case. The hoodie had come down now, and I could see for the first time that it was a woman.
I couldn’t believe it.
A tall, regal black woman. Smooth, dark skin shining with sweat and blood from the bullet wound in her jaw. She was still alive. She looked at me, dazed. Then she seemed to notice that the small AK-47 was still in her lap.
“Don’t do it!” I said. “Don’t!”
But she wouldn’t listen.
She went for the gun, and I shot her twice more as the gun in her hand fell over the rim of the meat case and clattered to the worn linoleum.
“Mike! Mike!” said Emily at my back when I knelt in front of the woman a minute or so later. “Mike, are you okay? Are you hit?”
“No,” I said. “What happened out there? Did we get them?”
“We got them, all right. Our intel was FUBAR. There were twenty of them, Mike. They all fought to the death. They’re all dead.”
“Did we lose anyone?”
“No, thank God. An agent was shot in the calf, but he’s going to be fine. Are you sure you’re okay?”
I nodded, sweat pouring off my chin and cheeks. I shook my head at the Nigerian woman’s brains on the glass of the meat case, her blood on the plastic-wrapped packages of sausages and drumsticks.
I stood there searching her face, her expression, her eyes for something—anything—that might explain any of this.
But even after another minute, I didn’t see a damn thing.
Chapter 53
Apprehensive, angry, and still very much stunned numb, I peeled myself away from the incredible Queens crime scene at a little past one in the afternoon. I looked out at the rubble and the pockmarked, bullet-scarred brick walls as I put the unmarked into drive.
“Welcome to Beirut, Queens,” I said to myself as I peeled out around a just-arriving news van.
I decided to head home.
First I showered, then I threw my clothes into the wash, since they were making the apartment smell like a firing range. As the machine filled with water, I poured myself a stiff measure of Wild Turkey and cracked open a bottle of Bud and sat on the couch in the blessedly silent apartment.
Probably not what four out of five doctors would recommend at quarter to two in the afternoon, but it actually did the trick. My hands stopped shaking, and I was momentarily able to get the image of the dead Nigerian woman’s brains out of my mind.
I was well into my next round of Irish therapy when the phone rang. It was Chief Fabretti. I sipped bourbon and listened idly as he chewed my ass about the raid. I wasn’t completely sober, but somewhere in there I caught the implication that he thought I might have been responsible for all the deaths.
I decided to hang up on him and shut off my phone.
“There. Much better,” I said as I poured another drink.
I was busy making dinner when Seamus came in around two thirty. Corned beef was on the menu tonight. Being an Irishman from New York, I of course did it the Jewish way, deep-sixing the cabbage and replacing it with rye bread—heavy on the caraway seeds—and mustard to make huge Carnegie Deli–style sandwiches.
I wasn’t really in the mood for eating, but it was Chrissy’s favorite dinner. After what I’d seen today, I wanted to make my baby happy for some strange reason.
“Corned beef? Is it Saint Paddy’s Day again?” Seamus said when he peeked into the pot.
“’Tis,” I answered as I poured a measure of Wild Turkey into a tumbler for him. “And lucky you: you’re just in time for the parade.”
He took a sip and smiled and rolled his eyes. He looked good. Still kicking, which was good, because I loved the old man.