It all happened quickly. Another latch popped. Both went on high alert. Then a lightning bolt must have made a direct hit near them. The brightest light and loudest concussion split the air, blinding and disorienting them. By reflex, their hands went to defensive mode, covering eyes and ears after Zarek Braun tossed out the stun grenade.
His angle of opportunity had been poor, tossing from a side portal. The flash bang didn’t get high enough to detonate on the roof, but exploded yards away in the little square. Still near enough, though, to get the effect he needed. A three-count after the fireworks, the driver hit the gas and then the brakes. Heat and Rook, disoriented and no longer holding on, flew off the back, landing in the water.
Ifs count a lot. If Braun had made a better throw, they’d both be paralyzed in pain. If Heat had been looking to the right at the time of the flash, she might have been totally blinded. If that square hadn’t been waist-deep in water, she might have broken something. The ifs were with Heat, and she would take every one of them.
Trying to blink the halos away, she hoisted Rook to his feet and drew him to the side of the van that shielded him from Zarek Braun. She knew he would be out there ready to finish the job. Listening, buying time to clear her eyes and ears, she tried to go to the Zen place, to calm herself.
Screw that.
Heat’s rage dealt the play. With her Sig Sauer in one hand and her Beretta Jetfire in the other, Nikki burst around the rear of the truck with both guns blazing. The passenger door gaped open and she made out the silhouette of Zarek Braun splashing for cover behind a planter wall. She spun in a crouch at the open door and called freeze just as the driver swung his Glock at her. Heat fired one shot at him and his head jerked backward into the mist of blood decorating the window behind him.
Rounds from the G36 slapped the water beside her legs. Nikki hoisted herself up into the BearCat and pulled the armored door closed and heard pops like hailstones dance on it. She got on her knees and leaned across the driver’s body to open the other door. She called for Rook to get in, but he was already hauling out the corpse and doing just that.
“Can you see?”
“Well enough,” he said. Then he hit the gas, gunning it straight for Zarek Braun. But the front end smashed into the planter wall he was taking cover behind and the BearCat lurched to a stop. “Maybe not so well, after all.”
Heat pointed. “He’s running that way. Go, go, go.”
Rook found reverse, backed clear of the planter, and chunked the transmission into drive to follow the fleeing killer. But, in his blurriness, he rammed the planter again. By the time the vehicle got back on track, they thought they had lost Braun. Then, up Water Street, they saw muzzle flashes. Rook accelerated toward them, drawing close just as Braun kicked an NYPD harbor unit patrolman out of the Boston Whaler he’d been patrolling the streets in, and took off with the outboard at top speed.
“Rook. Stop.”
“I can catch him.”
“Just wait.” She hopped out and ran to the officer, who was down. In a draw between saving the life of a brother-in-arms or capturing a killer, she would take her chances on finding the killer later.
“Officer, I’m on the force. You’re safe. Where are you hit?” She bent and rolled the man over faceup in the water. He had a clean shot to the temple. Even though she knew he was dead, she felt for a pulse. Rook helped her carry him to the truck and they resumed their pursuit.
Heat said, “He can’t have more than a block on us. Two maybe.”
“Detective?”
“Yeah?”
“That was the right thing to do.”
She kept her face to the window searching for signs. “Someday, that could be me.” And then she added. “But not today.”
“Got him!”
“Where?”
“See how the counter-wake is slapping the walls of that drugstore?”
Rook stopped and backed up. Heat shined the side spotlight down the alley. In the distance, she made out an indistinguishable form.
“Not sure.” Nikki’s mind raced, running maps and odds through her head. “Pier Eleven’s down the block. He might be making a run for the river. Let’s go, let’s go.”
Rook tore off after the outboard, whose churn they could by then make out like a pale apparition in their headlights. The tide had reached its peak, and the water grew deeper as they got closer to the East River. The truck, which had performed like a champ, began to labor. “Come on, baby, come on,” said Rook. “How close?”
“Almost to South Street, almost there.” But then the machine lost its match with Nature. The engine died. Heat opened her door and stood on the running board, shielding her eyes from the storm, trying to follow the beam into the swirling night.
The outboard had reached Pier Eleven, and was slowing to a stop. That bastard was less than a hundred yards away. She indicated the dead officer to Rook and said, “Use his radio to call another ten-thirteen.” And then Heat grabbed something from the floor of the truck and left.
SEVENTEEN
pindrift pelted Nikki’s face, filling her mouth with a brackish taste. The howl of Sandy’s fury isolated her from any sound other than the wind and spray lashing violently at her ears. Though she ran as hard as she could, the tide measured thigh-deep in that neighborhood. Still lower than it had been farther downtown, but fighting the ferocious wave chop coming right off the East River made Heat feel like the trailing contestant on Wipeout. Underneath the FDR, she caught five seconds of shelter, adjusted the sling of the backpack, and sloshed on.
A tiny, shallow-draft Boston Whaler was not engineered for super-storms. Ahead of her on Pier Eleven, Heat saw its bow lift in a gust, turning its flat bottom into a wing that caught air and pointed the craft skyward before it flipped back upside down and then pinwheeled directly at her. She ducked behind the metal generator unit at the head of the pier and watched it sail overhead and crash into a concrete support of the highway overpass behind her.
When she came out from behind the machinery, Nikki spotted Zarek Braun recovering from his capsize. He saw her, too, as he hauled himself up from the churning water that covered the pier. Just when Heat thought she had him bottlenecked on that wharf, he turned and kicked a massive wake of his own, running to her left. Was he foolish enough to try to swim for it?
No. He was heading for the gangplank to Slip A, one of the docks where the water taxis come and go. No taxi tonight. But she did see a boat tied to the heaving berth — a twenty-four-foot Zodiac military pro Responder. A man on board caught a glimpse of Zarek Braun waving a circle in the air and fired up the twin Mercury 150s on its transom.
The floating dock took a swell, and Braun toppled facedown on his first step off the gangplank onto the lurching platform. Nikki reached the top of the gangplank, braced on the metal railing and called a freeze that got carried away unheard in the whirlwind. Zarek Braun rebounded from his fall and pivoted toward her with his assault rifle. She fired one round that went astray when the dock pitched, moving him sideways and down. He got on one knee and replied with a flaming burst from the G36 that sent Heat diving behind a soda vending machine.
His aim was off, too. All his rounds went high.
Heat made a rapid peek around the corner just as another surge knocked Braun off-balance. This time, he lost hold of his assault rifle. It slid away from him in the radical pitch and came to a stop against the safety fencing at the far end of the dock. Seizing the moment, Nikki sprung to her feet and started down the heaving gangplank toward him. But she lost her footing in a sea roll, too. Heat landed on her knees, gripping the banister with her left hand and clinging to her Sig Sauer with her right.