AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Friday, 2:30 a.m.
Mike’s building was a five-story red brick circa 1970 smack dab in the middle of the West Village. Unlike the rest of Manhattan, there were always lights and action in the Village. Nicholas liked the look of the place. “Nice. Very New York.”
Mike waited for a taxi to pass, then turned onto the garage ramp. “They remodeled and converted to condos in the nineties. When I was looking for a place, this one had two major plusses—its own three-level parking beneath the building, and a doorman. Well, three if you count the local restaurants. See The White Horse Tavern across the street? Excellent food, and talk about history.”
She pulled her card out of her wallet, slid it into the garage reader, and the iron gates opened inward. She drove down one level and pulled into her assigned spot. “Here we are.”
Nicholas stepped out of the car, yawned, then stopped cold. The hair went up on the back of his neck. The garage was very dark, and very quiet, a graveyard of cars, all hunkered down, silent, so much silence. It was the middle of the night, so of course it was filled with shadows—no, something was wrong. He’d learned the hard way never to ignore the occasional punches of intuition, the premonitions that something bad was out there, ready to come at him. He remained perfectly still and listened. He heard Mike talking, but he didn’t pay any attention; he was concentrating on any sound that wasn’t right.
Nothing.
Mike climbed out of the driver’s side, spotted him standing still as a stone beside his door. “What’s wrong?” Her hand was already on her Glock.
But he didn’t move. There, he heard something. Breathing, carefully modulated breaths.
He motioned her to the front of the car, then stopped again, listened. There, he heard it again, this time not only breathing, harsh and low, but the sound of footsteps sliding over concrete.
A man launched himself from the darkness, swinging a tire iron toward Nicholas’s head. He jumped back, but not fast enough. The tire iron caught him on the shoulder, and the force of the blow sent him stumbling to the concrete. Better his shoulder than his head, was all he could think. His shoulder was on fire, but it didn’t matter. He lurched to his feet to see another shadow, also male, tall, fit, lean back on the heel of his left foot and kick out with his right, smooth and high and beautifully timed.
Before he could warn her, the man’s foot hit Mike square in the head. She went down with a small cry and didn’t move.
Adrenaline pulsed through him as the first man came at him again, swinging the tire iron. Nicholas ducked, blocked the tire iron with his forearm, and sent his fist with all his strength into the man’s throat.
He dropped the tire iron, grabbed his neck, and went down to his knees, wheezing, trying to breathe. Nicholas had only an instant before the second man, the one he’d mentally dubbed the kicker, was on him, whipping around to take him down with a to the head, as he had Mike.
Nicholas didn’t hesitate. He rammed his head into the man’s face, sending him back, his arms windmilling to keep his balance.
A gun fired, barely missing his head. Great, this was all they needed. No more silent attack, now it was all-out war.
Nicholas pulled Mike behind her Crown Vic, leaned over her, and said in her face, “Wake up, come on, wake up!” He shook her shoulder as three more shots rang out.
“Stop it, I’m together.” Mike pulled herself onto her hands and knees as more shots rang out. She pulled out her phone, called for backup. Her Glock was in her right hand, and her left reached for the gun at her ankle. She slapped her backup Glock 27 subcompact into Nicholas’s hand.
They fired, crouched side by side, the Crown Vic their only shield.
Their attackers shot off thirty-two rounds, fast and hard. An MP5, Mike knew. Bullets spiderwebbed the Crown Vic’s windshield, smashed the windows, struck the columns, sending jagged concrete shards in all directions. Nicholas saw a streak of blood snaking down Mike’s neck.
A moment of stark silence, then the slap of another clip jacking into place. The second man, the idiot, started firing again, but many of his shots went wild, ricocheting off other cars, smashing glass, wreaking havoc. In the confined space, the noise was deafening.
A bullet narrowly missed Nicholas’s head, shattered into the concrete pillar behind him.
Too close. Who the hell were these guys? “Where are the cops?”
“Any second now, they’re out of the Seventh and usually really fast.” Nicholas remembered Esposito and his Nikes. He fell forward onto his belly and shot under a parked car halfway down a row at the idiot’s legs. He yelped, jumped up, and cursed. Then he moved fast, crouching behind the rear tire of an SUV.
He didn’t know where the kicker was, but he was clearly the one in charge of this attack. Had he left the idiot behind? Or was he circling around?
More bullets struck the Crown Vic, this time shattering the windshield. Then, suddenly, the firing stopped.
Nicholas touched his hand to Mike’s arm. She stopped shooting.
Dead silence. He’d hit the idiot in the foot, so he couldn’t be lying dead behind that SUV.
Mike shouted, “We’re federal agents. Hear those sirens? You’re surrounded. Put down your weapons now!”
Silence. Was that talking he heard? Low, agitated? It was hard to hear anything over their own heavy breathing. He knew to his gut both men were still hiding in the dark, probably trying to decide what to do.
A half-dozen bullets pinged off Mike’s car from the left, opposite from where Nicholas believed the kicker was crouching.
